21 Oct

[ October the 28th, 2022 release via Pyroclastic Records: Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant – Séances ]

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Séances, out October 28, 2022 via Pyroclastic Records, features Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith, Anna Webber, Carla Kihlstedt, Mariel Roberts and Oscar Noriega navigating chamber-jazz-metal compositions inspired by the bizarre tales of an 18^th-century French religious sect

“ The music [Trio-Convulsant] play is not so much a fusion of styles as it is a collision of styles… If you’ve been following Trevor Dunn‘s widely varied career as a player, you know he’s got a sense of adventure.” – Sean Westergaard, AllMusic.com

“[Trio-Convulsant] hurtles from heavy to weightless and back again so quickly it’s hard to keep up… [pulling] it off with rare style and impressive improvisational rigor.” – Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

18 Jul

[ July the 29th, 2022 release on Pyroclastic: Nate Wooley & Columbia Icefield’s – Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes ]

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Trumpeter/Composer Nate Wooley releases breathtaking second album by his singular quartet Columbia Icefield – Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes, due out July 29, 2022 via Pyroclastic Records, features Mary Halvorson, Susan Alcorn and Ryan Sawyer

“Columbia Icefield [feels like] a mixture of quiet exaltation, wild exaltation, melancholy, fear, curiosity, struggle to keep warm… the prettiest (if most progressive) campfire music ever written.” – Zachary Woolfe, New York Times

“Columbia Icefield, with its long stretches of atmosphere interrupted by jarring dissonances, [is] something weird, haunting, lonely, and endlessly fascinating.” – Michael J. West, JazzTimes

Album Release Concert Monday, July 25 at TV Eye, Brooklyn, NY

05 Jan

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

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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 ]

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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.

22 Oct

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

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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.