Source: Clean Feed.
Gordon Grdina / Mat Maneri / Christian Lillinger “Live at the Armoury”
Live at the studio Armoury, Vancouver in 2018, it’s the first time this trio has ever played together. After this they made numerous concerts, even without a record, where they showcased the reason for this one to be a kind of a working band. I saw them live last year at Jazz Festival Ljubljana where it was one of the highlights in an outstanding program…Sei Miguel Unit Core “Road Music”
Sei Miguel’s Unit Core for some years now features Fala Mariam on trombone and Bruno Silva on guitar, besides SM on pocket trumpet. This portable band plays what SM considers his own jazz standards and they do it rigorously as much as one can expect from SM work….Sei Miguel “The Original Drum”
Even if SM doesn’t believe in the “compositional vocation of jazz”, this might be the most ambitious record he ever did featuring his compositions/arrangements. SM collects their rendition of each tune which for him means “the heart of Jazz”….François Houle Genera Sextet “In Memoriam”
In Memoriam of the late Ken Pickering, not only the co-founder of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival but also a supporter of the music and beautiful soul that left us way too soon. This outstanding band features François Houle on clarinet, Marco von Orelli cornet/trumpet, Samuel Blaser trombone, Benoît Delbecq piano, Michael Bates bass, Harris Eisenstadt drums and it’s like a dream come true to me as I been a François fan for decades. Welcome aboard my friend, hope more to come…The Selva “Camarão-Girafa”
The Selva is a string/percussion trio formed in 2016 to explore the intersections between improvisation, electro-acoustic music and what we can call multi-idiomatic music, all strongly influenced by minimal and repetitive strategies. The results are just magnificently original. Ricardo Jacinto, Nuno Morão and Gonçalo Almeida did it again…Abyss Mirrors “Echoisms”
12 figures from 4 different nationalities all united in Lisbon make this turbulent offer a blast to everyone’s ears. Filled with roaring sounds, struggle and commitment to the exploration of timbres and different textures this is a band always close to the abyss in a capital of risk, but with faith that only a strong band like this can survive every challenge. I’m with them…Roots Magic Sextet “Long Old Road”
Augmented to a sextet after their appearance at the Jazz em Agosto festival in 2021, Roots Magic confirm their solid concept added with more colors, timbres and why not saying, even more magic. With more original material compared to previous records, RM continues to explore the early blues and free jazz repertoire now expanded to include renditions to activists such as Toni Morrison, Benjamin Zephanian and Z-Z.Packer. Another hit record for sure!…Mario Costa “Chromosome”
This is the second chapter of Mário Costa as a leader featuring his custom made compositions. After the great “Oxy Patina” released also on Clean Feed some serious years ago, Mario features the great merits of the one and only Benoit Delbecq on piano and synths, and this time with another long term collaborator of his, double bass maestro Bruno Chevillon and trumpet wizard Cuong Vu. This is a hand picked band and the results are just astonishing…André Carvalho “Lost in Translation, vol. II”
Based on untranslatable words that are the heart of a language and a shield to globalization, Carvalho’s compositions are contemplative and intimate yet they produce a somewhat rough album. The choices of beautiful textural timbres can be the center of this working unit of three, André Carvalho on bass, André Matos on guitar and José Soares on saxophone…MOVE “The City”
MOVE is a triangle born in Lisbon by two brazilien born, Yedo Gibson (saxophones), Felipe Zenicula (electric bass) and a portuguese, João Valinho (drums). This is pure raw power of punk/free Jazz urban music and it’s made not to destroy but to construct the impossible. Listen to it and see for yourself. A blast!…ASBJØRN LERHEIM/ ROGER ARNTZEN/ MICHIYO YAGI/ TAMAYA HONDA “CHROME HILL DUO MEETS DŌJŌ: LIVE AT AKETA NO MISE”
Chrome Hill has been an integral part of the lives of Asbjørn Lerheim and Roger Arntzen for over two decades, usually featuring saxophonist Atle Nymo and drummer Torstein Lofthus. This time they went to Japan just the two of them to meet the great Dōjō power duo of Michiyo Yagi electric 21-string koto, electronics and Tamaya Honda on drums. The results transcends the sum of the two parts and besides the twangy cowboy-inflected free jazz of Chrome Hill we got the unclassified electric 21 string koto/drum duo to rock the house down…Luís Lopes “Lisbon Paris, Stereo Noise Solo”
Luís Lopes, best known in the shhpuma´s catalog for his “Love Songs”, now offers us almost the opposite – a Noise Solo recorded in stereo. A two-channel circuit, each powered by a chosen sequence of analogue pedals that attack two Full Tube amplifiers at maximum volume. It´s physical music almost like a trance dance where the body merges completely with the sound. Everything can change in milliseconds into a sinuous and vertiginous path of a swarm of feedback. A loud and powerful poetic chaos…MEDUSA Unit “Umbra, Antumbra & Penumbra”
MEDUSA Unit it´s a project created by the prolific Ricardo Jacinto, that explores the interaction between a small ensemble of strings, trumpets, percussion and electronics with an electroacoustic device connected to resonant objects. Resulting in a rich and special music, with roots in minimalism and spectralism….Luca Sguera “piano, exploded”
In “piano, exploded” Luca Sguera portrays five sound sculptures built on ambient acoustic drones, living pulses, harmonic cascades and microscopic sounds. A rhythmic arrangement of the material, sometimes very loose and subtle, sometimes more evident and pushed up to hyperactive grooves, underlies the whole work. This is a different solo piano record, unique in its kind…
Avant Music News 