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Various Artists: Live at the M/Darbnīca Vol.1
by Vitalijus Gailius
In 2017 a boom happened in Latvian and Baltic jazz history with the coming of Jersika Records, an independent jazz and improvised music record label. Since then, the Riga-based label has been delivering top-notch music records each year. Focusing mainly on Latvian musicians and bands with occasionally occurring exceptions such as Estonia-based American trumpeter Jason Hunter or Lithuanian saxophone virtuoso Liudas Mockūnas. Jersika Records has become a warm place for Baltic jazz. In 2023, Jersika Records released its ...
read moreVestard Shimkus / Endless Roar: Acclivity
by Vitalijus Gailius
Endless Roar is one of the most vivid bands in the recent Latvian improvised music scene. Formed in 2014 the trio, saxophonist Arvydas Kazlauskas, double bassist Stanislav Yudin and drummer Jachin Pousson, ventured through various genres (e.g. ambient, electroacoustic, rock etc.) before diving into free improvisation. In 2021 Endless Roar met up with internationally acclaimed classical pianist Vestard Shimkus. Eventually, the collaboration between Endless Road and Shimkus was documented with the album Acclivity (Jersika Records, 2022), recorded at the legendary ...
read moreAtis Andersons Organ Trio: Organic City
by Mark Corroto
With Hammond organ trios in the 21st century, everything old is new again, except in Latvia where Atis Andersons presents the very first Latvian Hammond organ trio recording in that country's history. Kudos to Andersons, guitarist Āris Ozols, and drummer Andris Buiķis, because Organic City fits perfectly into the traditions of soul, funk, and rock. Their music stretches back to recordings by Jack McDuff and George Benson, Jimmy Smith and Grant Green, Charles Earland and Melvin Sparks, and is as ...
read moreLupa: Koki // Sketches of Trees
by Vitalijus Gailius
Lupa is a Latvian four-piece band. Their music fluctuates between funk, soul, electronic and jazz. In 2019 Lupa released their warmly welcomed debut album, Sequences and Consequences (Jersika Records, 2019). Koki // Sketches of Trees is the follow-up. The album features eleven tracks with a heavy electronic influence. The band follows its debut aesthetic direction but with a more energetic, even slightly aggressive, attitude. While the use of keyboards and synths gives the Koki // Sketches of Trees ...
read moreTen Ka: Sonic Geometry - Structures, Patterns And Forms
by Vitalijus Gailius
Ten Ka means “fire of the sky" in Japanese. It's the project of composer and multi-instrumentalist Deniss Pashkevich, who is one of the leading figures on the Latvian jazz scene. Some see him purely as part of the John Coltrane tradition but this is not the whole story. While Pashkevich definitely is an adherent of Coltrane's spirituality, nevertheless he goes to different directions, expressing his own ideas within acoustic and electronic soundscapes. Here Pashkevich focuses on ...
read moreTen Ka: Sonic Geometry: Structures, Patterns And Forms
by Mark Corroto
Latvian saxophonist and composer Deniss Paškevičs normally has his feet firmly planted in the jazz domain. He has recorded excellent covers of hard bop classics and even reinterpreted John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965). But he also has the inclination to explore different sounds from funk to folk, free improvisation, reggae, and modal musics. With Sonic Geometry: Structures, Patterns And Forms he takes on the nom de plume Ten Ka, in Japanese 天火, “meaning “fire from the sky." Here ...
read moreLiudas Mockūnas / Arvydas Kazlauskas: Purvs
by Mark Corroto
If you need evidence that the very first musicians, our evolutionary ancestors, made sounds to imitate nature, Purvs may be the proof. The Latvian and Lithuanian saxophonists Arvydas Kazlauskas and Liudas Mockūnas made two recordings, one in an open air Latvian bog marsh which makes up the first LP of this release and the second LP in an amphitheater made of peat, called Saulgrieži (summer solstice), by the Latvian artist Janis Gutans-Grass. Mockūnas may be the better known ...
read moreLiudas Mockūnas & Arvydas Kazlauskas: Purvs
by Vitalijus Gailius
Purvs is a collaboration between two outstanding Lithuanian saxophone players, Liudas Mockūnas and Arvydas Kazlauskas. Despite being friends for a long time they have never played together before. The album was made in two parts. The first recording took place in the autumnal splendour of Latvian marshland, the second in an ampitheatre made of peat, named Saulgrieži (Solstice) and created by Latvian artist Janis Gutans-Grass. Two remarkable places to make a record, which is also special in that ...
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