Jazz Articles

Vorwolf: Snake's Eye

by John Eyles
January 15, 2009

Vorwolf is the percussion duo of Michael Vorfield and Christian Wolfarth, hence the composite group name. Snake's Eye consists of seven medium length tracks, none over twelve minutes. The expectations of a percussion duo will be challenged as there are not too many rhythms or breaks here that could be sampled to form the basis of rhythm tracks. The musical dialogue, with the two firing out call-and-response phrases on a range of percussion--the call of “Shave and a haircut" and ...

Burkhard Beins / Lucio Caprece / Rhodri Davies / Toshimaru Nakamura: SLW

by John Eyles
January 14, 2009

From Germany, Argentina, Wales, and Japan, an international super group no less! Just reading the participants' names raises one's hopes about this music and sets the pulse racing. Although this foursome has not recorded together before, through various collaborations too complex to detail here (including Elektro-Akoestisch Ensemble, The Sealed Knot, Q-O2, and the 2008 release on Formed Records Ij,--they are like a complex overlapping Venn Diagram) the participants have enough common history to ensure that they will be using a ...

Toshimaru Nakamura / Lucio Capece: Ij

by John Eyles
January 26, 2008

On paper, “no input mixing board (the output from the board is connected directly to the input, creating an electronic feedback loop) sounds like an unpromising instrument to play; at best very limited, at worst a non-event. Surprisingly, in the hands of its pioneer, Toshimaru Nakamura, it has become a seemingly limitless source of rich sounds which variously display the qualities of pure tone sine waves, white noise, synthesized sound, acoustic feedback and more. Often, it is tempting to describe ...

Mersault: Raymond & Marie

by John Eyles
November 5, 2007

Literary allusions from musicians are always intriguing and lead to speculation about their motives. Although Samuel Beckett and James Joyce are perennial musicians' favorites, Albert Camus is less often cited... although The Cure's “Killing an Arab lives long in the memory. If the group name Mersault could be taken as a reference to Camus, then the title of this album leaves no doubt, as it references two key characters from L'Etranger (1942). So, what conclusions should we draw from that? ...

EKG & Giuseppe Ielasi: Group

by John Eyles
November 27, 2006

Some combinations of “real instruments and electronics starkly highlight extreme contrasts between the two; some uses of electronics produce music that is dehumanising and alienating. At the right time and place, both of these tendencies can be very engaging, if very demanding--however, they are rarely a great deal of fun, nor are they intended to be.

But it's a mistake to judge all combinations of instruments and electronics in this way. Group is an album that counteracts both these tendencies. ...

EKG & Giuseppe Ielasi: Group

by Brad Glanden
October 21, 2006

Group is not an album for city dwellers. The fragile tones emanating from their stereo speakers would likely be overpowered by the din of the industrialized world filtering through their windows, and they would wonder why they paid good money for a CD they can't hear. Recorded live in 2005 and given further treatment in the studio, the five tracks on this collaborative effort from Giuseppe Ielasi and the electroacoustic duo EKG are far too subdued for superficial listening, but ...

Jon Mueller / Jason Khan: Supershells

by John Eyles
July 2, 2006

With no tracks listed--there are two pieces here, total duration 45 minutes--and little information presented beyond the fact that it was recorded in concert in October 2005 in Milwaukee, this release is appealingly minimalist in its design and its packaging. Appropriately enough, it is also appealingly minimalist when it plays.

Largely forsaking overtly expressed rhythm, Jon Mueller and Jason Khan show admirable restraint in their use of percussion, with little evidence of objects being struck--one dramatically placed snare shot is ...