Available August 9, 2019 via Pine Eagle Records
“Heartland American jazz of the very highest order.” Brian Morton, Point of Departure
“Tenor saxophonist Rich Halley’s music occupies the space where freedom and populism come together.” Bill Meyer, DownBeat
“Halley has a big full-throated sound that may recall prime Sonny Rollins.” Kevin Whitehead, Fresh Air, National Public Radio
Dark Star Safari is a newly formed group featuring some of the well recognised and already good friends and artists who frequently collaborated on multiple projects in the past. The band is: Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Eivind Aarset and Samuel Rohrer, who also owns the Arjuna label.
This is not just a bunch of personalities who are already The Gray Eminences in an Electronic Music Universe, but also performers with well established styles. Therefore, there is not a chance that the music comes out sort of familiar.
An opening Aarset’s riff in Child of Folly, for example is very much like him, with the guitar that leads the song in the way a pathfinder does. Loop grows, catches up with a rhythmic pattern, from that point they co – lead, swinging and swapping patterns. Samuel is very good with such things. As a drummer he is more a space giver than taker, which is a rare skill.
Jan Bang’s vocals are sounding very David Sylvian like, but as they all worked with him it should not sound unusual, as they already contributed to David’s sonic world. Lyrics are all by Honoré. I do not recall hearing him sing before, so it is surprising to me. In a blind test I would vote for Sylvian without thinking twice.
The way they do work clearly indicates the creative process made on collaboration, delivering and listening to this after to find out what still can be improved or perhaps explored differently for the sake of creative development and due to it being such a soulful brother-hood things are appearing pretty quick and tracks are sounding like they had been many times worked over to get into their final shapes.
Songs like November Child for example indicate such a quality in a very strong way. You can hear that pace is a result of research there within the structure of the piece. Vocal is leading by the fact it brings the meanings from words hence grabs focus easily, other than that the voice is just another instrument and the vocalisation stays in tune with the electronica. Fine tuning to the pitch is happening in the process and it would be fascinating to see that taking place on the stage.
Another beautiful song, White Rose is cooked with this same recipe, The music just grows around the lyrics in such a natural way that it gives an almost organic feeling to the tissue which in fact is all synthesized.
Reflecting on Your Fathers’ Names, it brings a nice sense of alienation, reached by the process of digging into the true memories. It floats in an open space, but the sense of words is putting the walls in the air for you, breaking the space and forcing memories to come and give rescue. In that respect all those songs, due to the complexity of the lyrics and the way they are served, are coming out like a small psycho-dramas, putting the listener into a bubble, forcing them to slow down, and face reflection.
An excellent and mature recording from the guys who did eat bread from many places and know how to bake it right.
Available on July the 12th via Barefoot Records
Henrik Olsson is a Swedish guitarist and composer based in Copenhagen. He is a member of the improvising collective/record label Barefoot Records and is well established on the danish and international jazz/improvisation scene, where his playing have attracted attention through his own projects Penumbra Ensemble, The Hum, EHM as well as through various ad hoc contexts.
Available July 12, 2019 via Patois Records
“Luke Gillespie … [is] a superior pianist who [is] adept at harmonising and reinventing standards.” – Scott Yanow, LA Jazz Scene
Electronic artist, vocalist, composer and performer Maja S.K. Ratkje is one of the most original figures in the modern performance world to me, scoping from a theatre of voice tradition like one that Meredith Monk had created, as well as from the Norwegian folk music which is incredibly rich. Involved in multiple contemporary projects, she works with dancers, theatre directors and film makers, still miraculously finding time for her incredibly interesting vocal studies and adequate singer carrier.
Here we have an unusual project which varies from all I know from her previous recordings for Rune. As she is notorious for challenge, here we got the music for ballet called Hunger, based on 1890 Knut Hamsun’s novel, autobiographical journey of a young author trying to survive poverty without losing the dignity and focus on his dreams.
The music is performed on a one-off organ made specially to meet the spectacle illustrative criteria and having built in strings, tubes, wind machine, percussion instruments, just to name the few and give the feeling of the complexity it brings, when it comes to the live performance during the entire season. Well worth pointing to display a uniqueness of the act.
An opening Intro called This Wondrous City is as descriptive as only conversion from prose to stage can be. I wish I could see that on the stage as the picture Maja sketches in front of your ears is full of the misery and hope in the same time. Not only the melody as such, but an audible footwork on the instrument adds to the climate of noisy and forbidding street.
The misery and the drama are both hanging in the air and the dark description of the set rapidly stays in the front of your imagination, without trace of need to force it. Her voice, sweet, deep and feminine carries an incredible deposit of humanity, especially when contrasted with a humble, wiggly and slightly out of tune sound of the organs.
Given the semi improvised nature of the accompaniment the pace the music carries must co -create an incredible image with the choreography. Hold live vocal, with every single playtime adds an extra fragility, given the sad subject of the play and the fact that no day is the same, it creates practically a unique quality to the play. I mean a physical struggle with an instrument by that as well, paralleling the fate of the main character created by dancer on the stage and being seen by the audience.
I found this recording deeply addictive and her voice so immersive that I managed to get the book and read it to feed my own imagination with pictures and at the end to support even more the imaginative character of that music with which she wrapped the story. But even for the listener who is completely unaware what he is dealing with this record will put the spell on. SO great it is.
Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund is an interesting personality to say at least. I can’t say I know lots of his work, but certainly recognise him from collaborations with Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Plus/Minus Ensemble, which in both cases gives quite a dispersion.
Here we are getting something utterly different as the music is not improvised and neither it is a contemporary classic repertoire. Instead it is sort of the Caribbean Joint containing all kinds of the exotic sounds. Starting with an orchestral intro titled Ritual 1, it sounds to my ears almost like a part of Zorn’s Latin Boys Goes to Hell gay porn movie soundtrack.
Then before the first shock had gone one jumps into syrupy Hawaiian cocktail of sounds like the sort made in 50-60s Iliadic productions about the Beach Paradise life, full of sun, romance and birds singing in the sky, accompanied by equally picturesque littoral life bubbling in sweet unisons. All that sketched with the deliverable vivid and eye glazing fashion.
The deeper into Paradise the more Lovebird like the song becomes, counterpointed with nice and wavy strings putting the final shivering with due sense of touch into the picture, with grass laying aside much like Dorothy stepping into the Land of Oz.
But bare in mind that Øyvind is a proper Nordic, not the surfing Polynesian, hence the landscape shortly faces a challenge and changes rapidly. With Waking Up Again, the game the picture becomes stormy and distorted. The music is written in a really lovely way with moods changing as it travels through the orchestral rows, building a storm and then realising the tension with long brassy waves, both illustrative and super-sonic in the same time.
The deeper we walk into the island the landscape changes from an idyllic sand dune to wet and lucid humidity of the rain-forest. The plunking pizzicato played by strings are building a real sense of the dripping wet surroundings in this Rainforest Morning.
As one would expect after an intense shower like that with all but windy breeze boiled by an orchestral culmination, next in the front of your eyes, with the raising sounds of flying over the band harp, Rainbow Crystal appears, fully present and with all the colours shining right in front of your eyes,
Coming after Jungle Alarm, with a rhythmic theme build on the percussive patterns imitating damped and distant sound of Tam -Tams nicely brakes the Sun rays and builds some tension.
My favourite piece is the Cave, near the end of the recording, containing an imaginative dialogue between the sax, played by Kjetil Moster and electronic soundscape, created by Jorgen Traeen. With all the over blows and echoes the windy, cold and spacious image of the inside of the cave had been sketched.
Closing, Out of the Jungle, takes Us in a great style back home after a sweet tropical romance with the melody swinging in tears dripping from your girlfriend’ eyes, when the big “THE END” and dropping curtain are both marking the end of the story. It is Joyful music one will be coming back to with a wide smile. I certainly am.
release date: 12.06.2019
Boston Favorite and Berklee Professor Yoko Miwa Releases Her Definitive Piano-Trio Album
release date: 07.06.2019
Acclaimed Pianist Fred Hersch to Release Career-Spanning Album with WDR Big Band, Arranged & Conducted by Vince Mendoza
This third LP from Leeds based, now London residing 12-piece formation certainly sounds like their best to date. Since 2015 when they put the band together in Leeds College of Music their star keeps rising and it looks like all those personalities didn’t cross that path by accident. Usually I am not big on Soul in its classic form, with all respect for the performers, I simply need more challenge. Here I am not short of it at all. I remember when I first had heard their Siren Song some 2 years back or so, What was immediately striking was that organic connection to the roots in this mostly white band, led by the young vocalist Nubiya Brandon, easy going girl with a great easiness for transforming her vocal from style to style, from spoken word to rap, from street poetry to euphonic emotional whisper.
Therefore, I took advantage to see that program live on stage when they joined the list during The Love Supreme 2017 festival acts and I must say since that live session they’ve grown on me even more. What came from the stage was an authenticity and the honest joy of jamming together which was addictive, and it spread to the audience like fire. The big top was full and steamy and Nubiya kept the band in order with a gentle hand, but with fistful emotional grip.
This program starts with Tell It To Me Slowly,a funky beat loaded tune, driven with an energy reminding me of Quincy Jones’ bands from 70’s. Good, fast track making your legs moving.
Tittle piece coming after is more percussive, and the rhythm arrangements, braking between the verses are giving it a good drive, nice brass culminations again, are keeping all shining.
Basa Basa coming after is lovely Afro Beat tune driven by K.O. G’s guest appearance in true Malian spirit, with catching choral choruses weaved into the rhythmical tissue. Instrumentally the fusion of electronics and acoustic content blends very well and the trumpet solo over the Congas sounds vivid and sparky. Joined brass effort at the culmination is one of my top picks from that recording.
Another cool Afro- trip is the piece called Addis to London with a guest appearance of the great Ethiopian Music Guru, Mulatu Astatke, the father of the Ethio-jazz. This is my top choice from that recording, wonderfully framed with Drums and Marimbas and murky brass section filling the gaps with a nice repetitive pattern, striking between Drum culminations.
There is spoken word poetry present as well. Tunes like Brother or more Rap in style alike Permission. Something what Nubiya is good with. There is also an Afro spiced Bossa, entitled Borders and credited to Pilo Adami. In one-word lots of twists and swivels which are making that recording equally good for the dance floor and focused listening. With plenty of layers and styles everyone will find something for themselves.
When you are coming across a band which contains two guitarists and the bass clarinet player then you already know that something unusual is happening there. How many times did you find one like that? My answer would be: none. It takes some unusual blend of personalities to happen and this is exactly what we are finding here.
Music which they are presenting is very intimate and immersive. It is not an easy one too and very multi-layered. Listening to this one might think it might be half sketched, half improvised too, as I cannot imagine myself it to be fully scored and always played in exactly the same order. The reason I am saying that is because it is too imaginative, too inviting to enforce some invention. I was listening to it for long before I started to write about it and I remember how it grew on me, how it changed my perception, the more I became familiar with the tunes.
Sonic wise there is a lot of history of the music those youngsters had grown on: From Contemporary classics of the 20th century like Reich, Parch, Bryars through Psychedelic Rock Avantgarde, ala King Crimson or Sigur Ros, to Skúli Sverrisson , Nils Petter Molvær, Christian Fennesz or Arve Henriksen. An impressive list of the unique artistic personalities from the past and present.
It starts with a very melancholic tune And After…, with chord progression bringing Sting to my mind, but it is just a loose thought. It doesn’t reassemble anything in particular and the function of the instruments is so different too. When both guitarists are creating sort of tapestry, the clarinet walks on that gently, with a rich woody tone and sophisticated articulation.
Going to Waterlines, we are crossing the doors like Taxidomoon, for example. Fabian Willmann clarinet there reminds me of Steven Browns world, with its philosophical and theatrical to some degree phrases. Additionally, the soundstage coming from mutual effort of both looped guitars is gothic and dark, but at the same time tender and holding the feeling of the veiled lyricism.
The deeper into the forest the better. It would make no sense to go through the titles here unless someone is expecting me to analyse the arrangements. This is music which breaths, and it gets to you by the mood it holds. Splitting it apart makes no sense to me as my instincts keep telling me that this is not the way it had been composed,
It is all about the intimate communication here. I can’t not see the concept of order it had been recorded with. When I was listening to the tracks in random order, something I often do is verify if the tension is real or if it’s just me. Here it does not matter to me. What happens, is getting into the trance. Once you are there your imagination follows neither the electronic guitars landscape or the clarinettist’s lines. Those sometime are purely descriptive, like a renaissance motif repeated in choral, jumpy intervals, with irregular pace, hence the Jump makes a good title.
Other times, like in Marmuration, the cold brushes of the reed or strings keep flattering your mind stone cold. The way the tension is build and momentum kept, shows the maturity of the band members, which is deeply surprising, given their young age, and related to that – shortage of the life experience, particularly creative suffering which is always vastly responsible for emotional abilities. Nether the less without trying to find a depth of expression there is still a lot to enjoy on the surface and according to my own freshly gained experience that is a good start. Now in phase two, I am starting to submerge and the feeling of wetness on my skin and air travelling up on my face is both, calming and healing.
Love that record, hungry to hear a debut one before and awaiting future ones to come.
