Bagatellen Reviews

From Bagatellen:

Two from Low Impedance (Merzbow Veliotis/Grivas)

Nikos Veliotis & Anastasis Grivas – Vertical (loz 013)
Merzbow – Somei (loz 015)
By comparison to other indie labels dealing with open form music, Low Impedance is all about the map in its catalog, with no one release preceded or followed by anything that you’d call “similar”. I suppose the common denominator is a matter […]

“Blue” Gene Tyranny – The Somewhere Songs / The Invention Of Memory

A renowned partner in crime of Robert Ashley, Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop, Carla Bley and then some, “Blue” Gene Tyranny is rarely highlighted as a composer. Perhaps this is due to the deceptively simple façade of a good portion of his music, which hides finesse and attention to detail behind a veil of apparent weightlessness, […]

Xabier Erkizia – Spam Detect (Hamaika)

It’s been far too long a wait for something new from Xabi Erkizia, a musician I intently followed some four to five years ago, around the time I’d been knocked sideways by his Antifrost disc, Entresol. What I’ve since found is that Erkizia is a busy, busy man, still heavily pursuing his own […]

Michael Jefry Stevens Trio – For Andrew

Though in the Sixties the flashier superimpositions and cells of pianist Cecil Taylor got a significant amount of press as the more significant future path of the instrument, there were certainly other approaches to rhythm, tonality and “swing” in free piano music at the time. The equilateral pull of piano, bass and […]