Free Jazz
Album Review: Colin Fisher – Suns of the Heart : Spectacular sound sculptures with an internal energy.
“Distinctly gifted musician”, “Canadian mainstay”, “master sonic storyteller” are all quotable snippets which journos have rustled up for multi-instrumentalist and composer Colin Fisher. But as you dig into his sprawling catalogue you begin to realise that for once these aren’t empty words, if anything they’re an understatement. Here is a musician who’s been energising the …
Track/Video: Revered multi-instrumental improviser Colin Fisher previews upcoming new album with the spectacular, guitar sculpted ‘Acts Of Light’.
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Colin Fisher has been energising the Toronto music scene and beyond for around two decades now. A virtuoso guitarist, acclaimed sax player, drummer and more, a brilliant interpretive improviser, a boundary pushing electronic artist, Fisher’s work confounds easy definition. He’s played alongside Jamie Branch, Joe McPhee, Braxton, Laaraji and Frith as well …
Album Review: Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden : a powerful and poetic jazz saga.
Jazz composer, saxophonist and visual-artist Matana Roberts powerful and profound Coin Coin album series has reached its fifth chapter with the release of harrowingly resonant ‘In the Garden’ via Montreal’s Constellation Records. The album continues Roberts’ resolute commitment to a twelve-part song cycle which began in 2011 with ‘Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur …
Album Review: Brin & Dustin Wong – Texture II : An intense connection of micro-beats and shifting loops with a free jazz spirit.
Imagining the outcome of this collaboration is in many ways a bit of a stretch. First there is guitarist Dustin Wong, in the past a key member of the under-valued Ponytail, who rode the first math-rock wave along with Battles, and more recently an explorer of interwoven guitar pieces, often long form, for Thrill Jockey. …
Album Review: Oiro Pena – ‘Puna’ : An intense and essential take on spiritual jazz-tones.
You have to be paying close attention to pick up on the whispers and murmurings from the dynamic Finnish underground scene but when you catch the signals it’s usually something that needs shouting about. That certainly goes for multi-instrumentalist Antti Vauhkonen’s Oiro Pena project which has been beaming messages packed with outsider jazz innovation for …
Track/Video : Saxophonist, composer and jazz chronicler Matana Roberts announces new album ‘In The Garden’, Chapter Five in the visionary Coin Coin series.
Many new releases are anticipated but few have the added importance of Matana Roberts fifth instalment in their Coin Coin series ‘In The Garden’, due via Constellation on 29th September. The jazz composer, saxophonist and multi-disciplinary artist’s significant song cycle began in 2011 with ‘Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres’. This staggeringly visceral …
Album Review: M.Takara & Carla Boregas – Grande Massa D’Agua : exhilarating earth-beats and electro-acoustic energy from the Sao Paulo duo.
You might remember a couple of years ago the first offering from this pair of Sao Paulo experimentalists Linha D’Agua ‘ which sneaked up from the underground and demanded attention with its fluidity, inventiveness and dynamism. This was the sound of sustainable energy, a musical relationship thriving on an intuitive connection with the synth circuitry …
Track: Joy Guidry explores their ‘Inner Child’ in throaty free jazz bassoon ahead of their February long-player
NEW YORK composer, bassoonist and Berlin Prize for Young Artists nominee Joy Guidry is an artist who likes to – nope, is compelled to – dive deep into the music they investigate, be that modern composition, the high flight of free jazz, the expanse of drone, or the articulation of spoken word pieces. The artist …
See: Ted Byrnes takes us back to the primeval beat with the raw percussive expression of ‘Preparation’
HAVING in the past laid down the rhythmic anchor for artists as diverse as Zola Jesus and LA’s experimental hiphop collective clipping, among an absolute host of others, sticksman in demand Ted Byrnes has stepped out, stepped forward and stepped back to the intense, raw roots of the drum for his new album of solo …
Album review: Peace Flag Ensemble – ‘Noteland’: intelligent, warm and melodic jazz improv from Canadian collective
LADIES and gentlemen of the more recherché musical persuasion: introducing a new act to especially intrigue the weird jazzers among you, Peace Flag Ensemble, an experimental collective drawn from various points across the verdant central Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The quintet are set to release their first venture into long-playing recordings this coming Friday, June …