Ovary Lodge - Ovary Lodge

British free jazz history, Ovary Lodge was led by pianist Keith Tippett, although he would definitely stress that he was a figurehead-organizer rather than authoritarian boss. This is, after all, a collective that's dedicated to the most extreme form of improvising and abstraction, with no prior discussions allowed over the direction of each new piece. At the time, this was something of a departure for Tippett, but over subsequent decades, such hardcore improvisation has become the foundation of his work.
There's absolutely no compromise with the opening 14 minutes of "Gentle One Says Hello," which certainly makes no attempt at being an easy path inwards to the group's minimalist sonic sphere. It has as much in common with Stockhausen territory as it has with any distant jazz memories, particularly when hearing Julie's high vocal acrobatics. Perry is singing too, up in a similar range. Much is made of drones and lashed cymbals, with the Lodge's chief influence being Far Eastern ritual music (please file under Avant Buddhism...)
The next piece, "Fragment No. 6," is the one with which most bands would have opened the album, a jazzier pulse ensuing, with Miller's walking figures and Keith's rippling up and down the keyboard's entire spread. Julie's sopranino recorder sounds trillingly Chinese, but later, Perry whips out the real deal, with his sheng mouth organ. "Communal Travel" is another extended rumination, at nearly 18 minutes, and has the strongest Oriental sound, with Perry exploring his full spread of gongs.
It's possible to see how this album is very much of its time, and that some cynics might dismiss it as an aimless hippy happening. Even this reviewer, an avowed admirer of this band, and all music Tippettian, had such thoughts flitting past during some stretches, but the Lodge's high level of musicianship, careful listening abilities and philosophical bent, tend to overcome most of these uncertainties.

- By Martin Longley

Personnel:
Keith Tippett: piano, harmonium, recorder, voice, maracas;
Julie Tippetts: voice, er-hu, sopranino recorder;
Harry Miller: bass;
Frank Perry: percussion, voice, hsiao, sheng.

Ovary Lodge - Ovary Lodge (Ogun, 1973)
Ovary Lodge On The Web
Buy The Records at Ogun Records

Manfred Schoof Orchestra - European Echoes

"In the mid-60s, trumpet and cornet player Manfred Schoof was leader one of the most important ensembles German jazz, a quintet with Alexander von Schlippenbach- pianist and composer of many of the group's pieces- saxophonist Gerd Dudek, bassist Buschi Niebergall, and drummer Jacky Liebezeit (later augmented by second drummer Sven-Ake Johansson). In '66, Schlippenbach conceived of the Globe Unity Orchestra as a meeting point for this quintet and the Peter Brötzmann Trio. Three years later, after the quintet had split up, Schoof himself convened a large ensemble for a radio project in Bremen. This orchestra drew its lineup from the increasingly interconnected web of the European free scene, with members of the quintet (Dudek, Niebergall, Schlippenbach), Brötzmann and his new trio with drummer Han Bennink and pianist Fred Van Hove, the constituent members of drummer Pierre Favre's ensembles (including bassists Peter Kowald and Arjen Gorter and pianist Irene Schweizer), their sometime associate Evan Parker and his countrymen Paul Rutherford and Derek Bailey, and fellow trumpeters Enrico Rava and Hugh Steinmetz from Italy and Denmark respectively.
The resulting piece revels in doubled and tripled instruments - how unusual, especially, to have three pianists in a group like this, not to mention three trumpets, three tenors and three bassists. Echoes across Europe (Germany, Holland, England, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Scandanavia), the resounding impact of new jazz and improvised music as it travels from country to country, region to region, scene to scene. A tape of the performance soon became the material for the debut of a new label based in Berlin: Free Music Production. The earliest issue of FMP 0010 sported a psychedelic logo and graphics that would eventually revamped in favor of the tough, bold design aesthetic of Brötzmann. But the seeds for the FMP initiative were sewn here, in this music, very much of-its-era but also strangely appropriate again now, more than 30-years later. European Echoes ringing afresh."

- John Corbett, Chicago, May 2002

Personel:
Enrico Rava-trumpet;
Manfred Schoof-trumpet;
Hugh Steinmetz-trumpet;
Peter Brötzmann-tenor saxophone;
Gerd Dudek-tenor saxophone;
Evan Parker-soprano & tenor saxophone;
Paul Rutherford-trombone;
Derek Bailey-guitar;
Fred Van Hove-piano;
Alexander von Schlippenbach-piano;
Irène Schweizer-piano;
Arjen Gorter-double bass;
Peter Kowald-double bass;
Buschi Niebergall-double bass;
Han Bennink-drums;
Pierre Favre-drums

Manfred Schoof Orchestra - European Echoes (Fmp LP, 1969)
FMP - Free Music Production
Manfred Schoof Website
Buy The Reissue on Atavistic's Unheard Music Series

Vanessa Rossetto -Imperial Brick

Vanessa Rossetto is an American composer, improviser and painter.
“Imperial brick” is part of a trilogy released by Rossetto´s own cd-r label music appreciation , which includes also the albums misafridal and whoreson in the wilderness.

Similarly to the aesthetic pursued on those discs, Rossetto´s work in Imperial Brick is characterized by multiple layers in which she attacks the violin strings in various ways, resulting always in highly dissonant sounds, with various dimensions and tempos. Now and then an expressionist violin drone emerges, opening ground for a mantra of dissonance. But most often her aesthetic is characterized by a dialog of her multiple violin phrases ( in some occasions it’s even seems this is work of larger ensemble other than Rossetto alone).

Although sometimes the there are moments that lack consistence here and there, I have no doubt that Imperial Brick stands as an unquestionable proof of Rossetto as incredibly interesting artist and emerging voice in the field of free improvisation.


- Vanessa Rossetto -Imperial Brick ( music appreciation, 2008)

-SUPPORT THE ARTIST : BUY Imperial Brick DIRECTLY TO Vanessa Rossetto in her own cd-r label music appreciation

- Vanessa Rossetto myspace

Oreledigneur - Oreledigneur LP

Oreledigneur is the duo of Giuseppe Ielasi and Renato Rinaldi. In this by now classic Lp their collaborate with Alessandro Bosetti.

Conceived during the golden age of reductionism, this is electro acoustic music at it´s finest hour.
Sounds of all sources coexist in a tiny micro cosmos: long sustained phrases coming out of weird engines, small objects like glass, wood or stones turned into percussion, contact microphones spread trough every singles inch of surface adding layers of harsh textures.

Oreledigneur is a precious document of an inspiring moment in European improvisation, specially that coming out of Italy, which has been in recent years one of the most interesting and well informed schools of free improv and electro acoustic music.


Personnel: Giuseppe Ielasi , Renato Rinaldi, Alessandro Bosetti


- Oreledigneur - Oreledigneur LP (Fringes/Fusetron, 1999)

-out of stock. GET IT DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTIST

Jazzkammer & Howard Stelzer - Tommorow No One Will Be Safe

Improvised music is usually more enlightening live than on record; the mechanisms behind the madness often illuminate the sounds without demystifying them. It's kind of a reverse Wizard of Oz effect: Paying attention to the people behind the aural curtain makes their creations even more magical-- or at least trickier than the sounds alone might suggest.
Given their intriguing methods, it's hard not to think of recordings by Stelzer and Jazzkammer as half-experiences, like a TV show with the sound turned off. But their records are really starting points-- calling cards for the audiovisual experience each offers in concert. Tomorrow No One Will Be Safe, taken from a 2004 Jazzkammer/Stelzer American jaunt, certainly contains enough interesting sonic matter to tide anyone over until either act's next tour.
The first cut, "Requiem for Officer Bobby Barker", is by Jazzkammer alone. It begins nearly silent, with small, creaking sounds that evoke the minimalism of AMM. As the pair gradually distribute metallic clangs, morse-code-like blips, and filtered static, their swelling mix becomes like a wordless shortwave radio conversation. That the piece ends with a noisy maelstrom might be predictable, but it's the way Jazzkammer gets there-- building noise through patient, organic construction-- that's the surprise.
Stelzer follows with a stranger solo piece, "Last Night at BLD". His sounds don't build so much as they randomly fire, shooting all over the place without any obvious interest in meshing or melding. Springy twangs, warping scratches, and the sound of tape rolling over playheads all create a cartoon soundtrack without the music. Close your eyes and you can almost see the ACME products exploding in time to Stelzer's picturesque noise.
Most compelling is the collaborative, album-ending title track. Stelzer's tape warps chime in immediately, tempered by Jazzkammer's low guitar rumbles and electronic slashes. Loops of noise provide rhythm here and there, but the main attraction is the connective tissue that the three use to string their noises into arcs. Jump around the track and you'll swear all these different sounds couldn't possibly fit together, but somehow Stelzer and Jazzkammer make it all stick through simple listening and response. Whatever the shortcomings of improvised noise on record, releases like this are the only chance most people will get to hear these two Norwegian noise hounds meld minds with a Massachusetts tape addict. As such, Tomorrow No One Will Be Safe is a pretty valuable document.

- Marc Masters

Jazzkammer Website
Lasse Marhaug Website
Howard Stelzer Website
Tronics & Parec Label

lionel marchetti and seijiro murayama- hatali atsalei (l'echange des yeux)

In a post-everything world , where ideologies and religion have failed to succeed, it’s art obligation to fill the “spiritual” side of the human being.
In this scenario what’s the meaning and position of music?
Hatali Atseli (L'Echange des Yuex) doesn´t answer this question – but it was never it´s intention too. However one can´t deny there´s a a mystic quality to this music, something that aims to the transcendental, something atemporal, something profoundly human .

Hatali Atseli (L'Echange des Yuex) is the result of an collaboration between concrete composer Lionel Marchetti and percussionist Seijiro Murayama.
Highly evocative, Hatali Atseli (L'Echange des Yuex) has strongly visual backbone, filled of obscureness and demency . The music sounds like an ancient ritual of odd proportions: sounds of human and animal sacrifices are heard in the distance, rain and screams are echoes through space, all elements of nature are evoked and conduct us trough the multiples layers of heavy drones and industrial percussion.

From this record there is no way out, only a long way in .


- SUPPORT THE ARTISTS. BUY THE RECORD AT Intransitive Recordings

Fabio Orsi & Valerio Cosi - We Could For Hours

"We Could For Hours" is instability. It represents the will to open the gates of unknown. It is the dark, whispered sounds and hidden truths. Chaos. And now here it starts, everything takes form, sensations rise, objects acquire colours, distorted vision but still a vision of reality. Everything dances and follows the rhythm of music, an unknown tribal dance. Silence. Sounds follow themselves but always hidden in a veil of mistery, words are mute, everything is listening attentively to the enchanting melody of nature. Mind, free from human limits, goes straight towards a long journey and meets the supernatural and then sinks into the knowledge oblivion. Everything is nothing. Nothing is the time. Time becomes memory and memory brings us to happy thoughts that rise first, then fall in the end. Hallucinations. The precariousness feeling is overwhelming us, tollings of a clock without hands are molesting our ears and they scan the slow and endless flowing of life. Too late to be back. There's no possibility. We have to live desolate countrysides burnt by an August sun. Lysergic vision. Void.


Fabio Orsi & Valerio Cosi - We Could For Hours (2008, A Silent Place)
A Silent Place Records
Valerio Cosi
Fabio Orsi

John Shiurba - 5X5 1.2=a

Guitarist and composer John Shiurba hasn´t got nothing of what is supposed to be a“jazz guitarist” . His approach to guitar playing is unique and has a wide range of influences other than jazz. That is clearly obvious when we look at his past and we drew his connection to the fields of improvisation, modern composition and noise.

Here in 5X5 1.2=a he's joined by Morgan Guberman (contrabass) , Greg Kelley (trumpet), Gino Robair (percussion) and master Anthony Braxton (Eb and F alto and Eb sopranino saxophones), which makes this quintet almost like an all start ensemble of the U.S free spirit improvisers players.

The pieces are improvisations built around a notated 5 part structure by John Shiurba. The music itself is a mixture of U.S free jazz with some 70s-style european free improv. It´s full angular phrases derived from the most adventurous jazz, and there´s an extreme attention to texture micro-sounds. The logic it´s totaly non-linear and the rhythms are shift without any warning .

A must have for any jazz/improv fan.


- John Shiurba - 5X5 1.2=a (Unlimited Sedition/Rastascan, 2007)

- buy the record at Rastascan records
- John Shiurba myspace

Lothar Ohlmeier & Isambard Khroustaliov - Nowhere

Nowhere, by Isambard Khroustaliov (aka Sam Britton of the band Icarus) and bass clarinettist and saxophonist Lothar Ohlmeier, is a good example of a tendency that has emerged in the last few years of how live electronics and acoustic instruments can be combined effectively and with interesting results in the field of improvisation.

Presented has the result of three years of collaboration and experiments in various contexts Nowhere is remarkable by the way the two players draw cohesive dialogue from sources that apparently are quite different from each other. Lothar Ohlmeier is the one who brings the most clear “jazzy motifs” to the music (often with some really inspired phrases), but it would be wrong to say that the work of Isambard Khroustaliov is merely the use of electronics in the context of improvisation.
Improvisation is the result of real time decisions made by players, who use a “data base” of previously learned techniques and licks within a new context. Therefore, even thought the players use different mediums, the process of improvising is quite similar, and that’s what matters the most here as there’s genuine communication and mutual interest of each player by the lyricism of the other.

Crucial release.


- Listen free to the whole album at the duo lastfm

- Support the artists. Buy Nowhere cd version or mp3 version at 256 kbps from the artists label Not Applicable

-Not Applicable label

Burning Star Core - Challenger

Burning Star Core’s Challenger strikes me as an exacting homage to the soundscapes of horror films from, oh, about 30 years ago. Although never harsh and in fact often pretty, it is deeply unsettling stuff, a mindfuck for sure. Indeed, the sort of horror film to which the album seems to allude is neither the slaughterfest nor the zombie movie, but the mentally punishing and ultimately unresolved sci-fi psychodrama – The Thing or Solaris, for instance.

I say soundscapes rather than soundtracks because there is, crucially and threading its way through the album, the second-order detail of aged VHS tape causing sustained tones to modulate in and out of tune (especially on the title track and the excellent "Mysteries of the Organ"). No one with more than 10 years of home-viewing experience would fail to recognize the association and, given the horror score’s propensity for drones, such fluctuation is particularly audible. In that case, Challenger is not so much about horror movies as it as about watching them, or remembering having watched them, or remembering having heard oneself watch them.

The notes mention very few production details, but it seems likely that C. Spencer Yeh (BXC’s lone permanent member) edited vocal samples, field recordings, and organ, among other pieces, largely eschewing his primary instrument, the violin. (Oddly, the last track, "Un Coeur de Hiver," borrows its title from a French film about a violinist.) Each song builds methodically, its samples accruing toward a point of dark tension before cutting out abruptly. These are not narratives in any sense.

"Mysteries of the Organ," for example, adds a second, equally melancholy organ at about a minute and a half in, opening the track up to an even fuller grandeur that chugs toward its ending without climax or fulfillment. Like the gooey dehiscence of the dichromatic planet leaking Technicolor slime on the front cover, there is a sense of rupture that runs in only one direction – the entropic, from which there can be no return. This is, of course, how effective horror movies operate. By unleashing something without specifying the extent of its destruction, that destruction envelops the viewer in its infinitude, which is why we can’t sleep at night.

- dusted

Burning Star Core - Challenger (Hospital Productions, 2008)
Burning Star Core Website
Hospital Productions