Jazz Articles about Andi Pupato

About Andi Pupato

Liner Notes

Fractal Sextet: Sky Full Of Hope

by Mike Jacobs
February 21, 2025

Calling Stephan Thelen's music an extension of the Swiss Minimalist movement may have once seemed appropriate. However, in the years since his band Sonar and Fractal Guitar projects have come to the fore, that characterization has increasingly become inadequate. Proximity, influence, and linkages exist but Thelen's copious activities in the last decade show such a deepening of his root concepts coupled with an embrace of the new, the notion is virtually moot. One of the projects that most ...

Album Review

Fractal Sextet: Fractal Sextet

Read "Fractal Sextet" reviewed by Mike Jacobs

by Mike Jacobs
March 23, 2023

In the over two-decade-old “movement" that's come to be known as Swiss Minimalism, guitarist Stephan Thelen has pushed himself to the fore, both with his group SONAR and in solo projects. In recent years, he's been astonishingly prolific (releasing five albums from 2021-2022 alone). With recent group work in Sonar being expanded to include guitarist David Torn, his Fractal Guitar album series (Moonjune, 2019, 2021, 2022) garnering critical acclaim, live albums, Bill Laswell remixes, and his World Dialogue (Rare Noise, ...

Liner Notes

Stephan Thelen: Fractal Sextet

by Mark Sullivan
February 17, 2023

Swiss composer/guitarist Stephan Thelen's two Fractal Guitar albums were largely multi-tracked affairs, involving considerable file sharing. The idea of organizing a band to perform the music live may have been inevitable. The resulting Fractal Sextet is an international project consisting of guitarist Jon Durant (USA), keyboard player and composer Fabio Anile (Italy), bassist Colin Edwin (UK), drummer Yogev Gabay (Israel), percussionist Andi Pupato (Switzerland), and Thelen on guitar and programming.The original plan was to get at least the ...

Album Review

Stephan Thelen: Fractal Guitar 3

Read "Fractal Guitar 3" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
January 12, 2023

Guitarist/composer Stephan Thelen presents the third installment of his Fractal Guitar series. Like the previous albums, the emphasis is on multiple guitars, layered in kaleidoscopic arrangements based on his compositions and guitar playing, but significantly colored by the contributions of his collaborators. This edition was also influenced by the other albums that he was working on simultaneously: Transneptunian Planets with J. Peter Schwalm, Eivind Aarset, Tim Harries and Manuel Pasquinelli (RareNoiseRecords, 2022); Fractal Sextet with Jon Durant, Fabio Anile, Colin ...

Album Review

Mata Atlantica: Retiro e Ritmo

Read "Retiro e Ritmo" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
January 10, 2023

Retiro e Ritmo is a love letter to Mata Atlântica, the coastal rain forest of Brazil, and a call to help preserve and protect this beautiful habitat. The music supports that goal not by quoting or referencing Brazilian music directly, but by building a complex musical ecosystem that evokes it, obliquely creating a sense of place. The album is the brainchild of co-producer Mathias Derer, motivated by a 2017 Brazilian visit. Although he does not perform, he composed ...

Album Review

Mata Atlantica: Retiro e Ritmo

Read "Retiro e Ritmo" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
November 19, 2022

The coastal rainforest of Brazil, otherwise known as Mata Atlantica, and “its beauty and vivacity" are the inspiration for Retiro e Ritmo. It is an album frontloaded with a varied cast of characters from hither and yon. Maybe that casting is behind a project seeking to draw worldwide attention to the ongoing shit-storm that includes not only the Amazon but the whole planet. Retiro e Ritmo is deceptive, calling attention to a source of worldwide calamity all the ...

Album Review

Andreas Vollenweider: Slow Flow & Dancer

Read "Slow Flow & Dancer" reviewed by Robin B James

by Robin B James
October 28, 2022

Instrumental music featuring the harps of Andreas Vollenweider, who plays his instruments traditionally, meaning in the classical style, and he plays in a jazzy way, and he plays in a new age style, and here for several tracks he rocks with an African beat. Remember, Vollenweider created the electro-acoustic harp in 1975, which changed everything. This album is a combination of two concepts. The first theme is Slow Flow, featuring a sparkling orchestra/band with the harp, an orchestra ...