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Audio premiere for Povratak na Parni Pogon on Monday 24th of May via Music is my sanctury

Video premiere via Clash or Twisted Soul

Airplay - dom servini (soho radio), WYEP Pittsburg (dubmission), WKDU Philadelphia (eavesdrop radio), Jocks & nerds (soho radio), Basic Soul Show, Bondfire Radio NYC + many smaller stations across EU, UK & US

LP review - Mojo, Songlines agreed so far

Key selling points:

Kozmodrum are pioneers of the Croatian nu-jazz scene
Kozmodrum's second albumGravitywon the highest award in Croatia, Porin

Individual members of Kozmodrum as well as Kozmodrum as a collective are acclaimed musicians in the Balkans and have won numerous prestigious awards for their work

Their music is like a DJ set played live - as all the music is played live with 'traditional' instruments by the Kozmodrum ensemble


numerous great reviews, but not many in English - we're looking to introduce the band to UK audiences with this release -- this is one review in english for their album Gravity:https://exclaim.ca/music/article/kozmodrum-gravity
Our PR for this 3rd album by Kozmodrum is done by Francesco Soragna (Jus Like Music) with specific focus on UK market.
BIO:

Kozmodrumhave been pioneering a new approach to electronic music in Croatia, often described by the band as Organic Dance Music. Techno, House and Dub styles intertwine through a continuous set, played by a live band on guitars, drums and keyboards.Simultaneously, the tradition of jazz ensemble performance is stitched into the architecture of music itself.

Kozmodrum have released 2 albums, 'Na Tragu Satelita' in 2016, and 'Gravity' the following year, receiving a Porin Award for the latter (the Croatian Grammy). Individual band members also received numerous awards for their accomplishments and are considered by many to be pioneers in the Croatian nu-jazz scene. Kozmodrum's main influences are Tycho and Elektro Guzzi, as well as Jaga Jazzist with whom they performed live. The band have played numerous festivals and concerts, with Kozmodrum's members performing with Hans Joachim Roedelius, noise/art/sound figure Sunao Inami, as well as jazz masters Reggie Washington, Peter Erskine, David Liebman, Alan Broadbent, David Murray and Saskia Laroo.

Onstage, Kozmodrum is a five-piece ensemble that adds a third dimension to their music, written and produced by the band's founder Janko Novoselić. Using the framework of a DJ set, the compositions are made to be played openly, where the beat is 'looped' until a cue is given to make a change or switch to another part. The pieces are often minimalistic to start with, but evolve over the performance into more complex patterns, harmonies and melodies. With constant shifts between the natural and the artificial, organized and improvised, quiet and loud - Kozmodrum create an unforgettable, mantric performance.

Daptone Records is honored to announce the release of Innov Gnawa's full-length, Lila. Formed in NYC, this grammy-nominated group of Moroccan expats has been making waves locally and abroad with their hypnotic live shows. The group is led by Ma'alem Hassan Ben Jaffar, a master musician and spiritual elder of the ensemble who plays a three-stringed african bass known as a guembri. Ben Jaffar is accompanied by a brotherhood of musicians – (Amino Belyamani, Ahmed Jeriouda, Samir Langus and Nawfal Atiq) – all playing the qraqeb, metal castanets that represent the shackles and chains of slaves and also singing chorus responses. Gnawa music is a spiritual tradition rooted in Moroccoʼs ancient history. Often referred to as “Sufi Blues”, Gnawaʼs African influence originated from West African slaves brought to Morocco centuries ago. Not unlike blues music in the American South, Gnawa music is revered throughout Morocco as treasured indigenous soul music.

After seeing a performance at a mutual friend's party, producer and local Gnawa enthusiast, Bosco Mann, invited Innov Gnawa to come record some tracks at The Daptone House of Soul. The invitation was accepted and over a five-hour session, the group tracked an entire albumsʼ worth of material - all in one take. The session tracked that evening is what we humbly offer up to you, the beloved Daptone Family. Lila, literally meaning "night" is a traditional ceremony in which the Ma'alem and his qraqeb ensemble dedicate an evening of healing through music. This all-night rhythm fest is a spiritual ritual which cleanses the body, mind, and spirit. We invite you to immerse yourself in Lila. Experience Freedom, Liberation and the power of healing through music. The spirit of Gnawa is people. Experience the freedom, liberation, and power of healing through music. You are not alive if this music doesn't move you.

Tape

Pauline Oliveros' Tara's Room has long been a favorite in the Imprec office and it's a great honor to be able to release it on LP for the very first time. Tara's Room was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing. Originally released on cassette in 1987 following the 1986 release of "Sounding / Way" with Guy Klucevsek which is also available on LP via Imprec.

"Both pieces are intended to aid the listener in times of spiritual change, but are just fine for 'everyday' use as well. Highly recommended." Charles S. Russell, Ear Magazine

This LP features two long sides of infinite depth and sensitivity. Oliveros performs these pieces using a Just Intonation accordion and her Expanded Instrument System in order to bend both time and pitch.

Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer and humanitarian is an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she has explored sound - forging new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she has created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it, and eludes many who try to write about it. Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros' commitment to interaction with the moment is unchanged. She can make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble.

"On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." John Rockwell

"Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music." John Cage

Time and troubles seem to melt away during the fifteen enrapturing minutes of “Idle Moments,” the opening track of Grant Green’s sublime 1963 album of the same name. As the piece unhurriedly unfurls all the unique colours of the ensemble present themselves with Green’s soulful guitar joined by Duke Pearson’s elegant piano, Bobby Hutcherson’s crystalline vibraphone, Bob Cranshaw’s reassuring upright bass, Al Harewood’s subtle drums, and Joe Henderson’s magnificent tenor saxophone. The pace quickens for the rest of this tremendous set including the nimble Green original “Jean de Fleur,” a bluesy take on John Lewis’ MJQ standard “Django,” and a driving performance of Pearson’s original “Nomad.” This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

in winter 2016, taumel and the ensemble adapter met for several improvisational sessions to develop an evening of music in which the contrasts and boundaries between composition and improvisation, freedom and determination, chaos and structure were to blur or collide. the sessions focused on the development of a specific, sound-gestural musical language. in a way, each musician developed kind of a character on his instrument and its own specific soundgesture. we recorded these sessions and used them as a basis for "in pieces". "in pieces" consists of the remixes of these sessions, as well as additional studio material produced by taumel. "in pieces" can be understood as a sureal sound poem, an abstract sound story that wanders through the most different states - from greatest happiness to frenzy and madness. in the 2 mutating sound fields, the associative story revolves around the theme of linguistic inalienability and thus also around the theme of 'chaos and order'. this ambiguity, the attempt at beauty and its overturning into destruction and failure. attempts at writing, attempts at speaking, stammering, stuttering, screaming, constriction, drifting away, humming... in the mutation of states, heterogeneous sound events meet or are mixed to a new kind of soundmash between song, voices, melody, harmony, instruments, noise, beats, riffs, words, electronics and alienation. the action of the instrumentalists (the instrument playing) is on the same level as any other sound producing action or vocal expression as well as any electronic sound production and is always meant gesturally, performatively, as action, as acoustic dance. "volume one" is the first part of a musical context planned as a two-part work (in pieces - volume two). in two sound parts (side a, side b) "in pieces - volume one" is not a song cycle like our other series, e.g. TRAUM, but rather a musical 2-act, later altogether 4-act. here the overall form of the musical series is not divided into albums and songs, but into albums and their a+b sides, like act 1, 2, 3 and 4. perhaps, therefore, "in pieces" can also be heard as an acoustic theater, or as a radio play without words, or as a soundtrack without a film, or as a film without a picture, or simply as an order of changing sound events . "off the record" in "off the record" taumel meets other musicians and develops albums in collaboration. here different forms of musical interaction can be tried out. in this case of "in pieces" the collaboration with the ensemble adapter consisted in these sessions, which form the basic framework and skeleton for the whole album.

Birgit Minichmayr captures the imagination and holds centre-stage on
‘As An Unperfect Actor: Nine Sonnets by William Shakespeare’. This
won’t come as a surprise to people in the German-speaking world,
where the Austrian actor is well-known from countless appearances on
TV and a substantial filmography. Perhaps equally unsurprising is the
deep experience she can bring to Shakespeare: as an ensemble
member of the Burgtheater company in Vienna, she has repeatedly lived
out the searingly dramatic lives of the Bard’s characters, notably the
daemonic anger of Lady Macbeth, the sadness of Ophelia and even the
uncomfortable truths of the Fool in King Lear.
What might be more of a surprise, however, is the exhilarating musicality
she shows on this, her first complete album as a vocalist. One could
have predicted the crystal clarity, meaning and intent in her words - the
desolation in her voice in “the very birds are mute... the leaves look pale”
in Sonnet 97, for example. And yet there is more, much more, not least
Minichmayr’s uncannily instinct to find artful and felicitous ways to shape
musical phrases.
Composer/ pianist Bernd Lhotzky has provided a wonderful array of
musical contexts. As Minichmayr says: “He got so deep into the meaning
of each sonnet, his music made it different every time. And we talked a
lot about the colour, the meaning of each poem.” The opening track, ‘My
Mistress’ Eyes (Sonnet 130)’ is a masterfully deft piece of gender-fluid
irony. In the poem, a man is describing possibly the ugliest woman he
has ever seen - while also declaring that she is the one he loves.
Lhotzky gives us an acerbic version in that most male-led of dances, the
tango, complete with bandoneon, in which the words are sung by... a
woman. Minichmayr then gives a masterclass in how to end a song as
she hits, holds and nails the words “false compare” with triumphant
fearlessness.
Throughout the course of the album, we are magically transported to
new musical and emotional places. As Minichmayr says: “Through
singing, through just doing it, I was able to find deep love, or deep
sadness. I was really touched by it.”
One of the secrets to this album’s success is Lhotzky’s wish to find
melodies which have a certain ease and straightforwardness about
them. He says that he approaches all music - whether he is listening to it
or writing it - with one simple and direct question: “What story is this
telling me?” Lhotzky is known for his work in the field of early jazz, but
the range here is far broader, with allusions to such examples of fine
songwriting as Brassens, Robert Plant and James Taylor.
LP pressed on 140g black vinyl.

As the grandson of the late trumpeter Doc Cheatham, and former student of legendary jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, trumpeter Theo Croker is an artist steeped in jazz tradition and he is rapidly becoming one of the hottest jazz artists of this era.

Croker's own music reveals a love of organic funk, soul, and groove-oriented hip-hop. Helping to raise Croker's musical vibrations is his ensemble, featuring saxophonist Anthony Ware, keyboardist Michael King, guitarist Ben Eunson, bassist Eric Wheeler, and drummer Kassa Overall. Also adding color to the proceedings are guitarist Femi Temowo and saxophonist Irwin Hall. Dee Dee Bridgewater appears on the classic tune 'Love From The Sun'. Croker proves he's got deep ideas about life, spirituality, and how music connects us all. It's an ebullient, groove-conscious message perhaps best expressed on the bass-heavy 'It's Gonna Be Alright.' Trading the song's title phrase back and forth like old friends high-fiving on the street, you can hear Croker and his band smiling.

The latest entry in the ongoing series of exciting collaborations sees the Turkish free form ensemble KONSTRUKT live on stage with THURSTON MOORE.

# 5 in the continuing series of KONSTRUKT collaborations on KARL is a live document of the concert by the Turkish freeform group with THURSTON MOORE. KONSTRUKT, the Istanbul based free jazz / freeform group founded and led by UMUT ÇAĞLAR and KORHAN FUTACI, are known for their openness to and interest in collaborations – and regularly meet up and perform with new partners that range from JOE McPHEE, WILLIAM PARKER, AKIRA SAKATA, MARSHALL ALLEN, EVAN PARKER, ALEXANDER HAWKINS, KEN VANDERMARK or OTOMO YOSHIHIDE. This latest release sees the quartet join forces with one of the indie rock icons: THURSTON MOORE, who besides his decade-long main band SONIC YOUTH always found time and inspiration for solo projects and collaborations of different kinds.

"Turkish Belly", recorded live at SalonIKSV in Istanbul in february last year, is as adventurous and daring as one will expect from such a pairing and a highly rewarding experience for the fans of KONSTRUKT and those of MOORE alike.

[a] 01: Yapayalnız (Gezerler Sokaklarda) [Live] [feat. Thurston Moore]
[b] 02: Sis (Live) [feat. Thurston Moore]
[c] 03: Kurtadam, Pt. I (Live) [feat. Thurston Moore]
[d] 04: Kurtadam, Pt. II (Live) [feat. Thurston Moore]
[e] 05: Zor (Live) [feat. Thurston Moore]
[f] 06: Uğultular (Live) [feat. Thurston Moore]

Only Up is the second Breeze album by producer and artist Josh Korody
(Nailbiter, Beliefs).
Enlisting a whirlwind of performances from Tess Parks, Cadence Weapon and
an array of the Toronto music scene, including members of Orville Peck, Tallies,
Vallens, Zoon, Sauna, Fake Palms, Rapport, Praises, Civic TV, Moon King, Blonde
Elvis, For Jane, Ducks Ltd, TOPS and Broken Social Scene. Only Up sees Korody
digging through and channelling three decades of anthemic British bands.
From the angular guitars of late 70”s post-punk (Gang Of Four, Wire), to the
lush gloom of 80’s electro-pop (Tears for Fears, OMD), with the dance floor
psychedelia of the Manchester sound (Primal Scream, Happy Mondays), and
through the late ‘90s and early 2000s post-punk / new wave revivalists.
When originally tasked with making this album, Korody and his long time music collaborator Kyle Connolly (Orville Peck, The Seams) quickly threw down
ideas in a session, however with Connolly embarking on a world tour, and with
Korody’s demanding schedule at his Candle Recording Studio, the project sat
unattended.
Somehow, by the time of the album’s delivery deadline, Korody not only orchestrated a creative ensemble of friends and collaborators, he wrote, recorded and mixed the entirety of the album in two weeks without a single regret
or compromise.
“It was the best way I could have done it. A strict deadline to make decisions,
move on and focus on things that matter the most. Every decision was made in
that headspace. The ease of technology to endlessly tweak with, it sometimes
can end up destroying records until there is no soul in it, no happy accidents
and it’s completely sterile. You can have a well produced record without going
down that dark rabbit hole.” Only Up is out via Hand Drawn Dracula.

Ubiquity Records presents a limited repressing of "Awakeining" by the legendary Pharaohs which is highly sought after and has been out of print for several years. Awakening was originally released in 1971 and re-issued by Luv n’Haight in 1996 and quickly became a must-have for collectors of spiritual, deep, Afro-centric Jazz. "The legend of The Pharaohs starts at Crane Junior College on the West side of Chicago. Under the tutelage of James Mack a student band is formed- The Jazzmen- which in 1962 wins the best band category at Chicago's annual Harvest Moon Festival which translated into the early members finding success at Chess Records as studio musicians. After a while these musicians moved over to the South Side to the fledgling Affro Arts Theater where they joined the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, under the leadership of Phil Cohran and where they eventually merged after Cohran left to teach at Malcolm X Junior College. It was this version of the band: Louis Satterfield, Charles Handy, “Big” Willie Woods (Trombone), Oye Bisi (African drums), Shango Njoko Adefumi (African Drums), Black Herman Waterford (Quinto drum, alto sax), Don Myrick (saxes), Yehudah Ben Israel (guitar, vocals), Alious Watkins (trap drums, tuba), Derf Reklaw Raheem (percussion, flute), Aaron Dodd (Tuba); that in 197I recorded “The Awakening”. By 1972 when “In The Basement” was recorded the unit had expanded to include Derrick Morris (trap drums), Warren Bingham (guitar), Rahm Lee (trumpet) and Sue Conway (Vocal).

For RE:WARM 006 we present a collection of music from one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets, Dr Robert Blackman. “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” is a collection of five tracks from three musical masterpieces he put out between 1983-1985 on his own ‘Riverwinds’ imprint. A practising chiropractor by day with his own holistic health centre in San Francisco, these songs became his love, passion and focus. Together with Michael Pluznick, a very accomplished percussionist they painstakingly put together an ensemble of musicians to bring the tracks to life. The melting pot for this body of work was Hyde Street Studios which still today is based in deepest San Francisco and has seen names such as Neil Young, Earth Wind & Fire and John Waters to name a few grace its studio space. Singers and musicians alike came together from all over the world to bring Robert’s vision to reality. This included an Australian didgeridoo player, an electric violin and piano player from Paraguay as well as singers and a choir from the surrounding local churches. Together through Dr Robert Blackman’s eyes they created a fabulous sound of twisted disco punk funk like no other that still sounds relevant today as it did back in the eighties. The energy and the stories are clear to hear throughout the five tracks which make up “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” of Dr. Robert Blackman 1983-1985. Artwork was key to the releases and the “Peace Is Alive” painting incorporated on the label of the release appeared in TIME magazine in 1984 when Dr Robert Blackman was treating combat vets, suffering from PTSD and this was the name of the job fair for veterans he set up. To promote the album at the time Dr Robert Blackman flew up over San Francisco in a single engine prop airplane loaded with 50,000 leaflets

‘Part I’ is the debut LP from Indigo, the moniker and ongoing project of Melbourne-based composer and arranger, Nick Roder.

The first release in what will be an ongoing three-part series, Part I features nine tracks for bass guitar and tenor saxophone. Part II, an exploration of a slightly larger, more sonically diverse musical world will feature string quartet and voice. Finally, Part III will collaborate with choreographer Siobhan McKenna, who alongside Nick will develop a percussive movement work that seamlessly intertwines with the musical work.

“My aim is to create music that is sonically and musically atypical whilst still belonging to an accessible contemporary scene. Each project, album or ‘part’ will set out to explore a single ensemble or group of instruments. In the case of Part I, that ensemble is hollow body bass guitar and tenor saxophone. “ - Indigo (Nick Roder)

The Indigo project itself was inspired by Saxophone & Bass Guitar by Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, which prompted Nick to write an album of music for the same type of ensemble. Having only just purchased a bass guitar for a different project, the instrument was still very new to him.

“I was curious to see what I would write with my self-imposed rule of not being able to overdub material, and further, how my limitations as a relatively green bass guitarist would influence the writing of the material. A strong focus on harmonic movement and melodic material was where I eventually found my happy place.”

The result is a phenomenal debut. Burrowing into the space between it’s sparse instrumentation and dulcet tones, Part I is the realisation of a minimalist and concise vision of what a symbiotic relationship between two instruments can yield.

About Indigo
Indigo is the moniker and ongoing project of Melbourne-based composer and arranger, Nick Roder. The Indigo project was conceptualised in 2020 and focuses on deep sonic exploration of little-heard ensembles in a contemporary space.

Since 2018, Nick has been composing soundtracks for video games including The Invisible Hand, Roadwarden, N1NE: Splintered Mind, This Dead Winter and Miska. Nick has also played in art-rock ensemble, Tulalah, exploring sonic textures, combining contemporary jazz/rock with chamber sounds. The modular ensemble released The Flood (Equinox Recordings, 2015) and The Question (Independent, 2017).

After the exploration of snowy mountains of Alpestres, released on Hands in the Dark in 2018, French composer Matthias Puech ventures into new territories, sketching a cartography of the invisible where the journey, in chiaroscuro, is announced as a rite of passage. A Geography of Absence, as introspective as unpredictable, immerses the listener into a unique sensory whirlwind where organic matter becomes almost palpable. A researcher in theoretical computer science and an engineer at GRM, Matthias Puech constructs a dialog between synthetic music and field recording, capturing sounds that surround him and creating his own sonic language with the help of synthesizers he designs and develops; notably the Oscillator Ensemble and the Tapographic Delay, made by the American company 4ms.

Composed during a moment marked by ordeal and mourning, A Geography of Absence retraces an inner journey where the physicality of sound leads the listener into an initiatory tunnel filled with apparitions, ghosts, visions. With sound oscillations as a navigational map, we progress, step by step, through the meanders of an unknown world, dazzled by the prospect of a new synthetic horizon, an electronic biotope teeming with life and incarnations. Playing with time, space and matter in an approach similar to that of musique concrète, Matthias Puech combines ambient and noise, floating sounds and electroacoustic experimentations, thus shaking up our listening perspective, which finds itself walking through a parallel universe, strata after strata, sequence after sequence.

The trip begins with “Hollow”, as if on board a night train travelling at full speed through ghost towns. Or is it a spaceship? Removed from their original habitat, sounds – picked up during walks or moduled by synths – are free to be interpreted differently by everyone, according to the memories that shape us. Granular and metallic, this first piece takes us to an elsewhere in orbit. "Work Song" is built around the pulsation of the void, of space, where strange creatures and liquid emanations abound. We become fetus, cocoon coiled in the placenta, heart beating to the rhythm of the gooey choreography of the human body. "Chrysalis" awakens the racket that lies dormant in us, when the skin changes, when the transition takes place. One seems to recognize certain sounds stemming from nature but they could also be mirages, imitating reality to render the barely perceptible engulfing. “Tunnel Vision” brings out a herd of haunted bells, slowly swelling in a pastoral maelstrom, ending in a deafening buzz. Further on, the chirping of an animatronic bird mixes with the hooting of an owl: "A Faint Beacon" invokes a nocturnal vigil that mixes the crackling of a fire and icy gusts of wind blowing everything away. Like an epic, sucking the listener into the breach of a black hole in the center of the Milky Way, it's up to "Homeostasis" to conclude in the high spheres and contemplative vapors, where the balance of dawn announces a rebirth.

A Geography of Absence is a meticulous and sensitive piece that constructs a delicate symphony of extremes, between introspection and desire for the unknown. Accompanied by the ink work of the artist Léa Neuville, whose folds of prints sketch this imaginary atlas, Matthias Puech becomes a narrator of mental adventures. And succeeds once again in transcending reality to dig a path to the unspeakable.

Available on CD and 180gram heavyweight gatefold LP.
Noura Mint Seymali hails from a Moorish musical dynasty in Mauritania, born into a prominent family of griot and choosing from an early age to embrace the artform that is its lifeblood. Yet traditional pedigree has proven but a stepping-stone for the work Noura and her band have embarked upon in recent years, simultaneously popularizing and reimagining Moorish music on the global stage, taking her family's legacy to new heights as arguably Mauritania's most widely exported musical act of all time.
Arbina is Noura Mint Seymali's second international release. Delving deeper into the wellspring of Moorish roots, as is after all the tried and true way of the griot, the album strengthens her core sound, applying a cohesive aesthetic approach to the reinterpretation of Moorish tradition in contemporary context. The band is heard here in full relief, soaring vocals and guitar at the forefront, the mesmerizing sparkle of the ardine, elemental bass lines and propulsive rhythms swirling together to conjure a 360 degree vibe. Arbina refines a sound that the band has gradually intensified over years of touring, aiming to posit a new genre from Mauritania, distinct unto itself, music of the "Azawan."

Supported by guitarist, husband and fellow griot, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, Seymali's tempestuous voice is answered with electrified counterpoint, his quarter-tone rich guitar phraseology flashing out lightning bolt ideas. Heir to the same music culture as Noura, Jeiche intimates the tidinit's (Moorish lute) leading role under the wedding khaima with the gusto of a rock guitar hero. Bassist Ousmane Touré, who has innovated a singular style of Moorish low-end groove over the course of many years, can be heard on this album with greater force and vigor than ever before. Drummer/producer Matthew Tinari drives the ensemble forward with the agility and precision need to make the beats cut.
Many of the songs on Arbina call out to the divine, asking for grace and protection. "Arbina" is a name for God. The album carries a message about reaching beyond oneself to an infinite spiritual source, while learning to take the finite human actions to necessary to affect reality on earth. The concept of sëbeu, or that which a human can do to take positive action on their destiny, is animated throughout.

Lyrically, the Moorish griot tradition is complex and associative. Poetry is held in a continuum between author and audience in which a singer may draw on disparate sources, selecting individual lines here or there for musicality to form a lyrical patchwork expressing larger ideas via association. A griot may relate her own thoughts and poetry, sing poetry written for and about her by a third party, and transmit lines from one party addressing another in the course of a single song. With this ever-fluid narrative voice, stories are told.

The first release in what will be an ongoing three-part series, Part I features nine tracks for bass guitar and tenor saxophone. Part II, an exploration of a slightly larger, more sonically diverse musical world will feature string quartet and voice. Finally, Part III will collaborate with choreographer Siobhan McKenna, who alongside Nick will develop a percussive movement work that seamlessly intertwines with the musical work.

“My aim is to create music that is sonically and musically atypical whilst still belonging to an accessible contemporary scene. Each project, album or ‘part’ will set out to explore a single ensemble or group of instruments. In the case of Part I, that ensemble is hollow body bass guitar and tenor saxophone. “ - Indigo (Nick Roder)

The Indigo project itself was inspired by Saxophone & Bass Guitar by Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, which prompted Nick to write an album of music for the same type of ensemble. Having only just purchased a bass guitar for a different project, the instrument was still very new to him.

“I was curious to see what I would write with my self-imposed rule of not being able to overdub material, and further, how my limitations as a relatively green bass guitarist would influence the writing of the material. A strong focus on harmonic movement and melodic material was where I eventually found my happy place.”

The result is a phenomenal debut. Burrowing into the space between it’s sparse instrumentation and dulcet tones, Part I is the realisation of a minimalist and concise vision of what a symbiotic relationship between two instruments can yield.

About Indigo
Indigo is the moniker and ongoing project of Melbourne-based composer and arranger, Nick Roder. The Indigo project was conceptualised in 2020 and focuses on deep sonic exploration of little-heard ensembles in a contemporary space.

Since 2018, Nick has been composing soundtracks for video games including The Invisible Hand, Roadwarden, N1NE: Splintered Mind, This Dead Winter and Miska. Nick has also played in art-rock ensemble, Tulalah, exploring sonic textures, combining contemporary jazz/rock with chamber sounds. The modular ensemble released The Flood (Equinox Recordings, 2015) and The Question (Independent, 2017).

Having already unearthed three collections of archival ‘70s recordings by Catherine Christer Hennix, Blank Forms continues their annual illumination of the visionary Swedish composer’s music by turning to more recent work with this first-time vinyl edition of Hennix’s “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis,” a 2014 piece first released as a CD in 2016 (Important Records).

The double album captures the April 22, 2014 premiere of Hennix’s composition by by the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, her expanded just intonation ensemble, featuring a brass section of Amir ElSaffar, Paul Schwingenschlögl, Hilary Jeffery, Elena Kakaliagou, and Robin Hayward; live electronics by Stefan Tiedje and Marcus Pal; and voice by Amirtha Kidambi, Imam Ahmet Muhsin Tüzer, and Hennix herself. Intended to reveal the blues’ origins in the eastern musical traditions of raga and makam, “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis” has its roots in Hennix’s 2013 realization of an “Illuminatory Sound Environment,” a concept developed in 1978 by anti-artist Henry Flynt on the basis of Hennix’s own “The Electric Harpsichord.”

As Hennix explains in Other Matters, Blank Forms’ 2019 collection of her writings:

“Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis presents fragments of ‘raga-like’ frequency constellations following distinct cycles and permuting their order, creating a simultaneity of ‘multi-universes.’ When two such ‘universes’ come in proximity of each other and begin unfolding simultaneously along distinct cycles, there is a kaleidoscopic exfoliation of frequencies as one universe is becoming two, but not separated—the effect of cosmosis is entrained, binding two or more frequency universes into proximity where their modal properties interact and blend, creating in the process entirely new microtonal constellations in an omnidirectional simultaneous cosmic order with phenomenologically ‘transfinite’ Poincaré cycles (cyclic returns to initial conditions).”

As with Hennix’s best work, the organic unfolding of this quivering drone belies a precision that opens onto the infinitesimal. Upon its mesmerizing ebb and flow, the vocalists incant a devotional poem written in Arabic by Hennix and featuring quotations from the Quran. Also reproduced on the album’s gatefold jacket, Hennix’s reduction of the sacred text to its most elegant formulation invites the contemplator to bring their inner knowledge to the composition for use as a prompt for meditation. Yet the piece offers depth to even the most secular listener willing to immerse themselves in music brimming with such serene intensity.

Catherine Christer Hennix (b. 1948) started her creative life playing drums with her older brother Peter, growing up in Sweden where she heard jazz luminaries, such as John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Archie Shepp, and Cecil Taylor perform from 1960 to 1967. Directly after high school, Hennix went to work at Stockholm’s pioneering Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), where she developed early tape music, incorporating computer generated speech done at the Royal Technological University (KTH), where she was an undergraduate student. After traveling to New York In 1968, she met artists Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles who invited her to stay at the Something Else Press Town House where she had the opportunity to meet, among others, composers John Cage, James Tenney, and Phil Corner. During the following years she developed fruitful collaborative relationships with many composers in the burgeoning American avant-garde, including, most significantly, Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. Young introduced Hennix to Hindustani raga master Pandit Pran Nath and she would later study intensively under him as his first European disciple. While Hennix continued to make music performing alongside Arthur Russell, Marc Johnson, Henry Flynt, and Arthur Rhames, she also served as a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at SUNY New Paltz and as a visiting Professor of Logic (at Marvin Minsky’s invitation) at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In recent years Hennix has led the just-intonation ensemble the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which has featured musicians Amelia Cuni, Amirtha Kidambi, Chiyoku Szlavnics, Hilary Jeffrey, Amir El-Saffar, Benjamin Duboc and Rozemarie Heggen. She currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey pursuing studies in classical Arabic and Turkish makam.

The furious double LP "AL AZRAQAYN" documents KARKHANA (with members of KONSTRUKT, THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA, LAND OF KUSH, PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET, "A" TRIO) at their very best and intense: live on stage.

Consisting of seven of the most adventurous and innovative artists from the Middle Eastern experimental scene (and a veteran jazz percussionist from Chicago), KARKHANA are surely among the most unique and interesting ensembles around. When MAURICE LOUCA (THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA), SAM SHALABI (LAND OF KUSH, THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA), UMUT ÇAĞLAR (KONSTRUKT), MAZEN KERBAJ ("A" TRIO, JOHNNY KAFTA ANTI-VEGETARIAN ORCHESTRA), MICHAEL ZERANG (PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET), SHARIF SEHNAOUI ("A" TRIO, ORCHESTRA OMAR) and TONY ELIEH (ORCHESTRA OMAR, JOHNNY KAFTA ANTI-VEGETARIAN ORCHESTRA ) come together to perform and / or record, the result is as diverse as their individual musical backgrounds. The septet's sound is neither retro nor avantgarde, not folklore nor jazz or rock – it's an astonishing blend of all these different styles and elements where seductive oriental melodies can intensify and turn into a psychedelic freak-out, fuelled by reeds, guitars and electronics, only to re-start again from quiet sounds till the ensemble seeks catharsis in a collective improv outburst! Defying simple categorization, and in lack of proper terms for the intense experience of KARKHANA's music (as well as the member's other projects mentioned before), someone labelled it "free Middle Eastern music".

And it's not surprising that these skilled musicians are at their best live on stage – as documented on this live recording from a furious, highly energetic concert at Bimhuis / Amsterdam!

Certain Sound Records are pleased to announce the release of the brand-new album from Montener The Menace – Anyone Home?

Anyone Home is the hotly anticipated follow-up to “I Have a Hidden Hobby” and is comprised of 14 superb tracks featuring an ensemble of legendary figures from both the US and UK Hip Hop scenes with appearances by Masta Ace, Rah Digga, Craig G, Keith Murray, Edo.G, Micall Parknsun, Cracker John, AG & Guilty Simpson to name just a few.

Production is handled by such heavyweights as Domingo, Roccwell, Keynotez and all cuts are provided by the legendary JabbaThaKut.

The album campaign was launched with the release of 3 excellent singles – High Noon, The Struggle and Take it Back all of which were met with extremely positive reviews from blogs and magazines alike, in addition to this acclaim the tracks have received airplay on a global scale via stations such as Shade45 and Itch FM.

Montener showcases his massive progression as an artist since his previous release with great confidence while still maintaining his trademark sense of humour that fans have come to love and adore. He demonstrates great diversity throughout by being able to touch on some difficult subjects such as suicide and mental health and parenthood as well as his more traditional upbeat content.

“Its gonna make a great impact on the scene, just what we need, when we need it most.” – Skinnyman

For more than five decades, John McLaughlin has deployed his peerless guitar technique, compositional gifts, and imagination in service of a deeply personal higher calling, forging a vast legacy unmatched in improvised music. Now as the world reels from the toll of the ongoing viral-induced global lockdown, McLaughlin reflects on both the perils and potential of this challenging moment with ‘Liberation Time’. Characterised by both joy and reflection, ‘Liberation Time’ finds McLaughlin harnessing his frustrations and redirecting that energy. “The result,” he explains in a candid liner note, “was an explosion of music in my mind.”. Unusual for McLaughlin’s recent projects, ‘Liberation Time’ is not the work of one fixed ensemble. With physical proximity no longer a prerequisite, McLaughlin drew upon decades of experience as a bandleader to select musicians best suited to each composition. “That is a choice that can only be made correctly if you know how the musicians play,” he explains. “Not just how well they play technically, but how they play intuitively. Only then can you make the right decisions.” “As the Spirit Sings” introduces the album by contrasting churning rhythmic tension (stoked by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Sam Burgess) with McLaughlin’s soaring guitar figure - all underpinned by Gary Husband’s subtle,expansive piano. Knotty post-bop figures form the basis of “Right Here, Right Now, Right On,” one of the most jazz-inflected performances McLaughlin has laid down in some time, featuring Nicolas Viccaro (drums), Jerome Regard (bass), Julian Siegel (tenor saxophone), and Oz Ezzeldin (piano). It is impossible to ignore the profound brotherhood that exists between the members of 4th Dimension - McLaughlin’s current ensemble, which includes Husband along with Etienne Mbappe (bass) and Ranjit Barot (drums). They are featured on the soulful “Lockdown Blues,” a playful refraction examination of blues tropes first released last summer to benefit the Jazz Foundation of America.

Born in Naples, educated in New York and now residing in Paris, drummer Francesco Ciniglio combines spotless drumming facility with substantial compositional flair, and has the capacity to move, reflect and express through his music. An in-demand sideman, Ciniglio has collaborated with Wynton Marsalis, Shai Maestro, Aaron Parks, Dayna Stephens, Seamus Blake and Tony Tixier. Following his debut solo release (‘Wood’, with Parks and Joe Sanders), Ciniglio returns as leader for his Whirlwind debut, ‘The Locomotive Suite’, a set of compositions for sextet that combine a personal metaphor of resilience with snapshots of his formative familial influences. Barcelona-based Raynald Colom (trumpet), fellow Paris emigr e Matt Chalk (alto) and Matteo Pastorino (bass clarinet) take the frontline duties, with Frenchman Alexis Valet on vibraphone and rising star Felix Moseholm on double bass. The suite is a collection of substantial, knotty harmonies, rhythmic shifts and spacious textures. But it also experiments internally, with chordal horn textures giving bass and vibraphone more melodic freedom. The unusual scoring is inspired by the soundworlds of Pat Metheny and Ben van Gelder, bridging the gap between music for large ensemble and harmonically focused trio music. Or, as Ciniglio puts it, it’s all about “finding an ensemble that’s not too big or small.” “This album is all about movement - getting a train here, marching there,” summarises Ciniglio. But it also reflects on people and places, and on the personal growth that helps make ‘The Locomotive’ Suite a significant compositional statement.