A kind of ‘brief image’ approach to a solo reeds album. Though clearly present, technique is not front and centre (thankfully). Nor is this a dense skronkfest; though worry not, harsh textures are included. More an elegant dreamlike consciousness of air and space… Feels like it’s coming from a jazz place. Delving well beyond that…
Well, this is quite beguiling… As much as I tend to love the dark and noisy, this is sunlight cast into hidden corners. A cleanly interlocking, organic piano architecture through which soprano-vines curl and insinuate; unhurried sculptures, all curves and sinuosity, occasionally bursting into finely detailed bloom. Journeys without purpose, content to take joy in…
Bluegrass through the avant-garde blender. One of the weirdest ideas I’ve heard this year: a self-described, “intersection of free improvisation, effects-heavy noise music, and American roots music,” that seems bizarrely natural and unforced. The sweet spot on the dial between two neighbouring radio stations, miscegenating sweet bluegrass mandolin and violin-led tunes with contorted electronic drone…
Two new releases featuring saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi… The sax and drums duo is one of the most exacting and potentially most exciting line-ups to be found in jazz, although not for the faint of heart – there is little place to hide. Saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi and percussionist Dylan Fujioka have worked together various times over…
Nick Didkovsky and Tom Marsan are CHORD. To quote the Bandcamp page, it’s two guitars plus, “amp distortion, feedback, tone shaping, and musical artifacts to craft a viscous universe of ecstatic, immersive textures that reward careful, detail-rich listening,” – sounds about right. Focusing on the three albums (simply titled, CHORD, CHORD II, and CHORD III)…
OEM Records has released three live recordings of performances at Arch 1 in London to support the venue during the coronavirus lockdown. All three are worth your time and love, though I fear I may have achieved peak aJazzNoise indulgence in the descriptions below. Ah well, it’s all in a good cause… Pascal Marzan –…
“…to be a weaver with seeing fingers, a builder mindful of light and space”–Khalil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet From the very beginning, KØS show themselves to be three such weavers. The saxophone in the opener, Earth’s Green Carpet, draws continuous strokes across the consciousness. Refreshingly sparse and dry percussion accentuates from a distance….
This review first appeared in Jazz Journal in 2017. Seeking to express the ‘plight’ of artists and culture in modern Italy, this is a bold, complex, astonishing blend of unusual instrumentation and opera choruses. You would think the act of balancing electronically treated guitars and drums plus trombone with the more theatrical operatic flourishes would…
