05 Jan

[ January the 7th release via Pyroclastic Records: Tony Malaby – The Cave of Winds ]

By grzech In All That Jazz / No Comments

release date:07.01.2022 via Pyroclastic Records

[The] tenor and soprano saxophonist Tony Malaby has earned a reputation as one of New York’s stalwart improvisers, through an array of sideman appointments and some rigorously rewarding albums.” – Nate Chinen, New York Times

” Malaby will play inside, outside and all around his saxophone, but never once will it sound out of place with whatever else is happening.” – Paul Acquaro, The Free Jazz Collective

Saxophonist/composer Tony Malaby reconvenes his stunning quartet Sabino with guitarist Ben Monder, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tom Rainey.

17 Nov

[ November the 26th,2021 release via Pyroclastic Records: Sara Schoenbeck – DUOs debut ]

By grzech In All That Jazz / No Comments

release date: 26.11.2021 via Pyroclastic Records

Bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck engages in adventurous dialogues with some of creative music’s most inventive voices on her new self-titled album

“Sara Schoenbeck [is] one of the only bassoon practitioners to truly and successfully fold the instrument’s sound into the realm of chamber jazz.” – Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz

“Schoenbeck demonstrates the full sonic palette of the modern bassoon as a classical instrument that feels at home in many musical arenas.” – Eyal Hareuveni, The Free Jazz Collective

Throughout her career, Sara Schoenbeck has dedicated herself to discovering, exploring and expanding the role of the bassoon in contemporary composition and improvised music. Key to that development has been the relationships she’s forged with her fellow musical innovators. On her new self-titled album, Schoenbeck reconnects with several of her most intrepid collaborators – peers, mentors, inspirations and even family – for an adventurous and captivating set of dialogues.

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22 Oct

[ October the 29th, 2021 release via Pyroclastic Records: Mary Halvorson & Sylvie Courvoisier – Searching for the Disappeared Hour ]

By grzech In All That Jazz / No Comments

release date: 29.10.2021 via Pyroclastic Records

Searching for the Disappeared Hour, due out October 29, 2021 via Pyroclastic Records, finds the two acclaimed artists exploring notions of time through evocative original compositions and thrilling improvisations

“[Courvoisier and Halvorson are] two of New York’s most idiosyncratic and distinctive improvisers… [Their debut recording] Crop Circles is deeply chamber-like in its deft, interactive intimacy.” – Peter Margasak, Downbeat

“This meeting of two of the brightest minds on the edgier side of jazz today produces music that’s astonishing both in its fluency and ceaseless ingenuity.” – S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!

To paraphrase the late Douglas Adams, “Time is an illusion. Pandemic time doubly so.” On their brilliant new duo album, Searching for the Disappeared Hour, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson make up for lost time with an hour’s worth of kaleidoscopic beauty and startling invention.

01 Jun

[ June the 11th, 2021 release via Pyroclastic Records: Ches Smith and We All Break – Path of Seven Colors]

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release date: 11.06.2021 via Pyroclastic Records

The recording and accompanying film showcase the band’s synergistic connection and exhilarating, alchemical mix of musical forms

5-stars. “Haitian traditions inspire the percussionist’s exhilarating hybrid of melodic drums, evocative vocals and fiery improvisation… Smith wanted the resources of traditional vocalists, highly melodic drummers and melody-instrument jazz improvisers to become spontaneously inseparable on this long honed adventure. We All Break have made a tour de force of it.” – John Fordham, The Guardian

4-stars. “Smith brings a jazz sensibility, opening the band to exploration and excavation into the pieces he built from drum patters with new songs written by and traditional tunes woven in by Brevil…The results are inviting and engaging, playing to tradition without being beholden to it.” – Kurt Gottschalk, Stereophile

5 stars. “The pieces are all profoundly original…. simply extraordinary, innovative and important…infinitely beautiful and pure…. a truly rare work that – at these levels of quality – has never really been even imagined before.” – Vic Albani, All About Jazz Italia – Album of the Week

“I’ve been on the scene, and know a lot of people, but projects like this are the kind of thing you live for.” – saxophonist and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón

With its remarkable merging of traditional Haitian Vodou with contemporary jazz and beyond, the groundbreaking album offers eight evolutionary/revolutionary tracks performed by a collaborative octet of world-class musicians. They are drummer/composer Ches Smith, pianist Matt Mitchell, saxophonist Miguel Zenón, bassist Nick Dunston, vocalist Sirene Dantor Rene, and master drummers Daniel Brevil, Markus Schwartz and Fanfan Jean-Guy Rene.

08 Feb

[ February the 12th, 2021 release via Pyroclastic Records – Benoît Delbecq – The Weight of Light ]

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release date: 12.02.2021 via Pyroclastic Records

“Benoît Delbecq is one of the few true improvising piano geniuses of our times. He has steadfastly created his own musical universe of sound, impeccable craft and beauty that is wondrous, resonant and free in the best sense of the word.” — Fred Hersch, pianist and composer

“[Music of] exotic and mysterious qualities” — Bill Shoemaker, JazzTimes

“Delbecq likes to go beyond normal technique. He puts things on and between the piano strings to make it a raw and sensitive percussion machine.”— Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

19 Oct

[ October the 30th, 2020 release via Pyroclastic Records: Junk Magic’s Compass Confusion ]

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release date: 30.10.2020 via Pyroclastic Records

“Listen to the transfixing opening cut, ‘Laser Beaming Hearts,’ and in addition to Taborn’s aesthetic kinship with Detroit techno titan Carl Craig, you’ll be reminded of how many hours these improvisers have devoted, separately and in various configurations, to shifting the balance between abstraction and groove.” – Nate Chinen, WBGO

“Collages of dark and dirty parts, musical cast-offs, so to speak, that have been artfully reattached.” — Patrick Sisson, PopMatters

“More rewards await, rich and replete.” — Phil DiPietro, All About Jazz

For more than a decade, Junk Magic has been honing a collective sound that relies on individual expressions, imagination and subversion. Appearing first as a 2004 album title under pianist-composer Craig Taborn’s name, Junk Magic has transitioned into a sonic identity comprising electronic sound design, production techniques and elements of improvised music.

11 Oct

[ October the 16, 2020 release via Pyroclastic Records: Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain VI ]

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release date: 16.10.2020 via Pyroclastic Records

“Wooley’s investment [is] in the imaginative and emotional side of an experience that’s both physical and not.” — Justin Cober-Lake, PopMatters

“The prettiest, most progressive campfire music ever.” — Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times

Genre-defiant trumpet player and composer Nate Wooley brings together artists from seemingly disparate musical communities with the release of Seven Storey Mountain VI on Pyroclastic Records, the sixth iteration of his ecstatic song-cycle.

01 Oct

[ October the 2nd, 2020 release via Pyroclastic Records: Angelica Sanchez with Marilyn Crispell – How to Turn the Moon ]

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release date: October 2, 2020 on Pyroclastic Records

“Ms. Sanchez improvises with crisp articulation and muscular command. Her chords, both dense and concise, offset free improvisations that reflect careful attention to narrative clarity.” — Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times

For the past two decades, pianist-composer Angelica Sanchez has shocked, bent and blurred lines and perceptions that separate composition from improvisation. How to Turn the Moon, her first release on Pyroclastic Records, offers a momentary culmination of that expression.

01 Sep

[ 11th of September release via Pyroclastic Records: Eric Revis – Slipknots Through A Looking Glass ]

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available September 11 on Pyroclastic Records

The opening track, ‘Baby Renfroe,’ suggests James Brown funk as refracted through a dichroic prism…. It’s a good first taste of the album, in that it conveys a certain in-betweenness: the band sounds tight but open, calm but spring-coiled.” – Nate Chinen, WBGO’s “Take Five”

” A Basist with a strong rhythmic compass and a stout, beefy tone” — The New York Times

Poised to challenge those limited views of Revis’ expression, Slipknots Through a Looking Glass — his eighth solo-led album, and first release on Pyroclastic Records — explores new territory alongside familiar travelers: drummer Chad Taylor, pianist Kris Davis and saxophone masters Darius Jones and Bill McHenry.

01 Jun

[ 12th of June release via Pyroclastic Records: Cory Smythe – Accelerate Every Voice ]

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available June 12 on Pyroclastic Records

“A growing number of musicians have mastered both notated and improvised music, but few have done it with more skill, insight and sensitivity than pianist Cory Smythe.” — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

“Pianist Cory Smythe exploits every textural possibility of the instrument” — Winton Cooke-Wilson, SPIN magazine

Pianist and composer Cory Smythe evokes cyborg choirs and coastal floods on Accelerate Every Voice, his second release for Pyroclastic Records and the follow-up to 2018 album Circulate Susanna. Bringing together five vocalists from the a cappella, new and improvised music scenes, AEV cradles Smythe’s piano in an uncanny valley of voices before submerging it in an undersea expanse.