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Peter Evans (Evans / Eldh / Black):
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Duck Baker:
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Francisco Mela and Shinya Lin:
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Novoa / Carter / Mela Trio:
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Philip Jeck:
rpm [2 CDs] (Touch)

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Rasmus Persson / Lee Noyes :
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Elephant9 :
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Moons (Berkson / Cetilia / Porter / Tavolacci):
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Moons' debut album features long-time collaborators Judith Berkson, Laura Cetilia, Katie Porter, and Christine Tavolacci, each contributing a composition blending accordion, voice, cello, clarinets, and flutes, with works exploring memory through tunings, divine visions, impermanent graphic scores, and micro-intervals to create dynamic, shifting sonorities and felt-time improvisation. ... Click to View


Novoa / Carter / Mela Trio:
Vol.1 (577 Records)

Brooklyn-based Eva Novoa's new trio with sax legend Daniel Carter and drummer Francisco Mela debuts with their first volume, featuring compositions inspired by the four elements — earth, wind, fire, and water — and a Cuban piece, blending Novoa's piano, Fender Rhodes, electric harpsichord, and gongs with Carter's sax and Mela's rhythms for vibrant, free-flowing interplay. ... Click to View


Falter Bramnk:
Music for Luminous Background (Sublime Retreat)

A new solo project from French composer and improviser Falter Bramnk, exploring glass and crystal as exclusive sound sources, following his "Glassical Music" series; originally conceived for six Muzzix collective musicians, Bramnk reworked and expanded the compositions featuring glass struck, rubbed, blown, and shaken, on select tracks with contributions from Sam Bodart on Crystal Baschet. ... Click to View


Alfredo Monteiro Costa :
Transient Spaces as Impermanent Lines (Sublime Retreat)

Unfolding as a sonic drift through varied sound atmospheres, Alfredo Costa Monteiro's large sonic canvas creates a narrative akin to a psychogeographical wander that evokes emotional states of disorientation; inspired by found footage techniques in cinema, it serves as a "cinema for the ear," where found sounds stripped of context form an immersive, unpredictable auditory journey. ... Click to View


Colin Sheffield Andrew :
Moments Lost (Sublime Retreat)

Debuting at the Molten Plains Festival 2023, Colin Andrew Sheffield's work blends manipulated samples from vintage soundtrack LPs into an abstract plunderphonic symphony; using layered loops, ambient drones, and vinyl surface noise, creating a haunting sonic collage of deconstructed melodies and textures, fusing past and present in a dream-like exploration of hidden secrets and lost moments. ... Click to View


Johnathan Deasy :
Le Sacre (Sublime Retreat)

Unfolding as a deep listening experience with slowly oscillating sine waves created through SuperCollider, Jonathan Deasy's hour-long drone composition blends digital artistry with warmth, evoking orchestral textures reminiscent of processed cello or trombone with ascending and descending notes, creating a dramatic yet slow-moving, dark and spacious soundscape. ... Click to View


Perturbations:
Asymptotic Series (Evil Clown)

Evil Clown's most recent ensemble led by PEK and Joel Simches focuses on trio configurations to highlight Simches' real-time signal processing; this session features PEK, Michael Caglianone, and John Fugarino on horns, auxiliary percussion, and electronics, delivering dynamic transformations across sonorities under the influence of Simches' manipulations. ... Click to View


Turbulence:
Principles of Complementarity (Evil Clown)

Extending the horn section of the Leap of Faith Orchestra and operating independently with varied ensembles under the name Turbulence when horn players dominate, this session saw a planned 9-member Turbulence Orchestra reduced to seven, blending a large horn section, jazz-leaning bass and diverse percussion, delivering a dynamic set exemplifying Evil Clown's broad improvisational palette. ... Click to View



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  Szilard Mezei Septet 
  100 Tu Hossza  
  (Slam) 


  
   review by Massimo Ricci
  2013-03-27
Szilard Mezei Septet: 100 Tu Hossza (Slam)

Rarely will you find musicians that sound grave — even in the midst of heated improvisation — in the same way as Szilárd Mezei and cohorts do. One greets the Septet as a group of consummate instrumentalists — able to flick all the switches between free jazz, reworking of folk materials and chamber arrangement — who never give a smile the chance of lighting up their faces. Such are the solemnity and total lack of unserviceable divertissement defining the 76 minutes of 100 Tű Hossza (translatable from Hungarian as "Length Of 100 Needles"). The suite was recorded at Cologne's Loft in 2010 and is entirely permeated by a rigorous intensity that might be hard to translate on the basis of an absentminded approach. That strenuousness represents the proof of a spiritual/cerebral engagement seldom observable in comparable settings.

A key attribute of this work is sheltered in the leader's willingness to allot "solo areas" to each member, all of them brilliantly keeping away from commonplaces that could have caused a drop-off in curiosity. Cellist Albert Márkos opens "Elveszett Vizpart" with an impressive blending of hearty intuition and atonality, whereas tubist Kornél Pápista's interventions head off the effortless routes of cartoon-ish humor (often associated with his instrument) to place the kernel of the phrasing halfway through purposeful timbral globosity and babbling unevenness of the "right" type. Particular credit must be granted to the excellent selection of counter-patterns, accent shifts and resilient tenseness by István Csík, a drummer bracketing bouncy propulsion and commendable accuracy without apparent effort.

As always noticeable in his scores, Mezei — whose solitary materializations on the viola comprise symbols of a special natural ability — is well aware of the value of dynamic change, knowledgeably establishing points of (relative) relief when required. The band seems to calm down on cue during brief snippets of the title track, only to leave Bogdan Ranković's reeds rekindle the fire with fiercely classy explorations of the "disruptive stream". When they regroup after the soliloquies, or launch a new exercise in difficult-to-memorize themes ("Metal Cat" is quite toothsome and even enticing in that sense, while the emotionally affecting "Szakadó Szakadó" gathers Dedication Orchestra scents and Eastern flavors), the little man from Vojvodina emerges once again as one of the genuinely great voices of the European scene.



Szilard Mezei Septet: 100 Tu Hossza
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