Home » Search Center » Results: Album Reviews
Results for "Album Reviews"
Sensaround: Heart/Noise
by Karl Ackermann
Sensaround is an electro-acoustic trio of Australian and Scottish lineage, co-led by the familiar names of Alister Spence and Raymond MacDonald and the less recognized Shoeb Ahmed. Heart/Noise is the group's third release following the 2014 Isotropes (hellosQuare recordings). The music defies categorization, combining--as the musicians describe it--"jazz ambience, ghostly dub, and post-punk experiments...." It is ...
Sivan Arbel: Change of Light
by Jerome Wilson
Sivan Arbel is a young singer with an angelic, elastic tone and the ability to write songs that marry contemplative lyrics to surging melodies with impressive power. Most of her songs use a wide range of sound dynamics, beginning softly with just voice and piano but slowly gathering force and instruments for a big, stormy climax ...
Leo Richardson Quartet: Move
by Roger Farbey
The follow-up to Leo Richardson's debut album The Chase (Ubuntu, 2018) reveals that the tenor man is no one-trick pony. These fifty minutes of hard bop further demonstrate that, in addition to being a composer of well-constructed, memorable tunes, Richardson is also rapidly emerging as one of the UK's top saxophonists. At odds with ...
Francesco Diodati Yellow Squeeds: Never the Same
by Vincenzo Roggero
Scrittura ispirata, esecuzione brillante, leadership democratica ma ben presente sono le fondamenta di Never the Same seconda fatica discografica di Francesco Diodati e dei suoi Yellow Squeeds. Elementi indispensabili a sostegno della visione musicale del leader, mondo sonoro alimentato da suggestioni diverse e diversificate, spesso imprevedibili, dove acustico, elettrico ed elettronico incrociano i loro percorsi in ...
Rob Mazurek: Psychotropic Electric Eel Dreams IV
by Karl Ackermann
On Rob Mazurek's Psychotropic Electric Eel Dreams IV, the multi-instrumentalist, composer and visual artist has woven together esoteric and tangible elements on two extended tracks, with their origins in mysteries of the deep. His frequent objective is to musically capture any number of interactions between humans and nature, the spiritual world, and physical foundations. In that ...
Jonathon Crompton: Intuit
by Troy Dostert
Although alto saxophonist Jonathon Crompton released a promising album, Faustian Pact, with sax-guitar-drums trio Kinsmen and Strangers, in 2018, he's still a relatively unsung presence in the jazz scene. However, with Intuit, his debut release as a leader, that should change. With consistently provocative compositions that combine rhythmic subtlety, harmonic complexity and a sophisticated command of ...
Ronny Wiesauer: Monologues
by Geno Thackara
If you are willing to learn, learn from the best. Guitarist Ronny Wiesauer has clearly taken the right lessons from the likes of Egberto Gismonti and Ralph Towner--he is a happily understated player, at home in the worlds of studious classical and informal jazz alike. He has played in different contexts and featured his own pieces ...
Le Rex: Escape of the Fire Ants
by Glenn Astarita
This young charismatic Swiss ensemble surges forward by melding modern sounds with New Orleans-based traditional jazz and hip groove-building pulses and perpetual motion, executed with manifold time signatures and soaring unison choruses. On its fourth album and second for Cuneiform Records, the musicians' sense of purpose transfers into your listening space as you can detect lots ...
Roscoe Mitchell Orchestra: Littlefield Concert Hall Mills College March 19-20, 2018
by Alberto Bazzurro
Roscoe Mitchell è sempre stato uomo di grandi appetiti creativi. Fin da inizio carriera, ormai ben oltre mezzo secolo fa, ha perseguito un'idea del jazz (e della musica in senso lato) molto aperta, innovativa, fortemente personale. Non ha mai disdegnato l'area cosiddetta “contemporanea" (che forse ha praticato meno di quanto avrebbe voluto, essendosi troppo spesso trovato ...
Camilla Battaglia: EMIT: Rotator Tenet
by Angelo Leonardi
Definire Camilla Battaglia una cantante jazz è riduttivo. Certamente l'espressione vocale è il suo tratto saliente ma solo marginalmente si lega al canto jazz tradizionale, perché trova nel panorama contemporaneo gli elementi per costruire la propria identità. Tra le vocalist con cui troviamo affinità possiamo citare Norma Winstone e, per qualche aspetto, Becca ...
