Results for "experimental"

Jay Sanders

Jay Sanders is a guitarist, bassist, composer, producer, and bandleader based in Asheville, N.C. An avid musical explorer with an insatiably curious mind, his music seamlessly fuses jazz, rock, blues, metal, and African influences with years of improvisational study. His compositions range from structured thematic works and soulful grooves to Americana reflections, global soundscapes, and experimental improvisations.

With more than two dozen recordings and performances across 47 U.S. states and six countries, Jay is best known as the longtime bassist for Acoustic Syndicate, widely considered a progenitor of the jam and jamgrass scenes. The North Carolina-bred band has performed at major festivals including Bonnaroo and Farm Aid over their 25-year career. Jay also served as bassist for Americana legends Donna the Buffalo from 2007-2010 and co-leads the avant-garde E.Normus Trio, whose debut Love & Barbiturates earned critical acclaim for its fusion of "jazz-rock, free-jazz and progressive metal-jazz."

Riccardo Cirani

Born: July 20, 1994

Riccardo Cirani makes his appearence in this world on the 20/07/1994 in Monselice (IT). Soon enough something in him became aware of the weakness of his own nature and of the abyss that divide who we are from what we are. Over the years he has found a very direct way to express this tension: through Music.One of the very first instrument he came across at the age of 11 was the guitar and until now it has been his favourite means. A solid practical / ascetic basis was provided by Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft / Guitar Circle, of which he has been part since the 13/01/2014. In this he performed concerts with the "Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists", the "Symphony of Crafty Guitarists" and the "Berlin Guitar Ensemble".

Midnight Channel

Active since: 2022

Midnight Channel (Lethbridge, AB) made a powerful debut with their album “Gemini Sunrise”, hitting #10 on the National Earshot! Jazz Charts, establishing themselves as a rising force in Canada’s jazz scene. Their sound blends the boundary-pushing spirit of 1960s cosmic free jazz with the vibrant energy of modern jazz. Infused with elements of contemporary post-bop, Japanese fusion, and neo-soul grooves, Midnight Channel brings a sound that’s both rooted in tradition yet refreshingly modern—perfect for longtime jazz fans and first-time listeners alike. Their live performances are an explosion of energy, soaring improvisations, and contagious joy, transforming the stage into a sacred space where audiences are held spellbound. 

Carlos S Santistevan

Born: December 4, 1975

Carlos Santistevan is a musician, sounds engineer, conductor, and organizer. Since 2001 he has helped establish an oasis of creative music in the high desert southwest as the director of the High Mayhem Emerging Arts collective based out of Santa Fe, NM. Using an upright bass and electronics he creates soundscapes and spontaneous compositions from the extremes of acoustic and electric music. Early influences of punk rock and free jazz have led him to develop a unique approach to music and improvisation. He is carrying on the Conduction Lexicon developed by Butch Morris in his Folding Space Conduction Ensemble.

Jackson Hillmer

Born: June 16, 1992

Jackson Frye Hillmer is a drummer, songwriter, and educator who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he developed a deep love of music. He began his journey learning the trumpet and eagerly picked up the tuba and drum set soon after to perform with the Redwood High School jazz and symphonic band. He had the opportunity and good fortune to study with John Mattern (Redwood High School), Alan Hall (Cirque Du Soleil), Jeff Masanari (SF Symphony), and Chris Amberger (Janis Joplin, Rahsaan Roland Kirk). As a member in his early jazz groups, he opened for vocalist Kenny Washington, and played frequent local festivals & weekly gigs. Jackson started teaching drum lessons to beginner students when he was in high school and has continued to teach throughout his music career.

Christian Moser

Born: March 28, 1980

Christian Moser is an oudplayer and improviser. His particular interests concern the cultivating of musical mindsets that go beyond the dualism of tradition/presence, being/becoming, immancence/transcendence. In his youth he studied violin. At the age of 18 he started playing the oud and from 2005-2010 he studied Turkish Music at the I.T.Ü. conservatory in Istanbul with Abdi Coskun, Mutlu Torun and Mehmet Bitmez. In 2020 he graduated with a Master of Art in specialized performance / free improvisation. His mentors were Alfred Zimmerlin and Fred Frith. Christian Moser lives and works in Basel, plays in various ensembles throughout Europe, composes music for film and dance.

Dave Fabris

Born: May 9, 1967

The music of guitarist David Fabris has been steeped deeply in an eclectic pool of influences... His new CD, Lettuce Prey (Great Winds/Musea), is music that is supported equally by the three legs of Rock, Jazz and Classical. It has the guts and glory of rock heroes like Jimi Hendrix (whose tune, Angel, is featured as a guitar solo on this CD). It possesses the surprise and intrigue of Jazz improvisation (like Ornette Coleman's Sadness - presented here in a jazz quintet format). Lastly, it exudes the intricacy and depth of contemporary Classical music - Ives, Prokofiev, and Khatchaturian are among the composers presented here. But the intent is for the styles to coalesce...that the heavy guitar bass and drum treatment of Ginastera's String Quartet No. 2, for example, maintains the sublimation of the original while making the listener pump their fist in the air! 



Sharada Shashidhar

Los Angeles-based vocalist, composer, and producer Sharada Shashidhar has a deep awareness of the cosmos. There’s a distinct tug-of-war in her music, an understanding that scanning the heavens to answer existential queries isn’t quite enough; there are internal depths to plumb as well. Shashidhar’s first album, 2020’s Rahu, found her voice billowing out of smoky, post-beat-scene soundscapes, meditating on the collective unconscious and the energy exchange between all living things. Her newest work, Soft Echoes, is a bold step forward, eschewing her previous work’s hip-hop tilt for expansive compositions that blend jazz and Indian classical influences into a swirling, spiritual whole.

Though she has an extensive resume as a collaborator in LA’s experimental jazz scene, notching work with the likes of Carlos Niño, Zeroh, and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Soft Echoes marks Shashidhar’s first outing as a bandleader. Gathering an ensemble that includes Anna Butters on bass, Julian Rodriguez on keys, Devin Daniels on saxophone, and Timothy Angulo on drums, Shashidhar sought to create a band that ostensibly functioned as an extension of herself. Her primary goals in writing these songs were to “let [her] body do what it wanted to do,” to trust her intuition, and “play without judgment.” Through that process, making Soft Echoes became a practice of presence and exploration, a chance to unlearn rigid structures and rediscover the joy of creating for oneself.

Recording took place over three brief, distinct sessions at Altamira Sound in Alhambra, California. Though the full band wasn’t ever present at the same time, Soft Echoes sounds like the work of a group in complete, mind-meld focus. Splashy drums nudge up against skronkingsaxophone on “Canyon Song,” while mushrooming synth tones stack up behind rippling Rhodes piano on “Luckiest.” Shashidhar’s elegant voice is the anchor for each of these tracks, sometimes gracefully stretching between instruments like a lithe dancer’s limbs, other times scattering through psychedelic delay.

She describes the album as having “two poles,” illustrated by the whimsical, buoyant opener “Soft Echoes” and the darker, more anxiety-ridden closer, “New Echoes.” The songs in between may come from different emotional spaces, but “it’s all really reflective,” she explains. The album can play like a loop, with Shashidhar entering a portal “into the endlessness” during “New Echoes,” only to be transported back to the beginning, full of gratitude and pondering “how strange it is to be alive.” On Soft Echoes, Shashidhar leads us on a journey through her mind, traversing its peaks and canyons in search of greater connection. “I want to take people places,” she says, pausing thoughtfully. “I can’t always guarantee that they’re good places, [but] hopefully you’ll feel something.”

Naomi Moon Siegel

Born: August 18, 1984

An award-winning trombonist, improviser, composer, and educator, Naomi Moon Siegel is committed to creating a positive, transformative music culture beyond conventional genre norms. Her original musical vocabulary draws on the richness of a variety of global musical traditions and the sonorities of the natural world.

Siegel has been an innovative performer and recording artist since graduating from Oberlin Conservatory in 2006. She explores the trombone as a vehicle for sonic expression colored by breath, spit, and physicality. As a composer and bandleader, Siegel has released two albums to critical acclaim. Her third album, “Shatter The Glass Sanctuary,” produced by Siegel and Allison Miller, is slated to come out in 2024, inspired by the theme of holding paradox in our troublesome and beautiful world.

Stefano Pisu

Born: August 4, 1974

European drummer, composer, sound designer and producer, deals mainly with Free Jazz, Modal jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz, Post Bop.

His style is characterized on the one side by a highly experimental approach especially as a composer and through unusual everyday electric tools played as musical instruments (demolition hammer, tig welder, ect) and with a component of electronic and noise music, on the other side the approach of a traditional jazz performance, free jazz, hard bop and avant-garde,  as a musician with drums.