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Sarah Bernstein Unearthish: Crazy Lights Shining
by Gareth Thompson
The concept of “free" is linked with jazz more than any other music genre. But “free" to do what, exactly? Free to think what you like, play what you want, express what you must? May as well throw in the freedom to live how you choose. Listening to violinist Sarah Bernstein's music, these questions occur as ...
Skydive Trio: Sun Sparkle
by Gareth Thompson
There are parts of Norway where the sun hardly sets for months on end. It stays bright all night and dawn is never dark. The essence of this strange polar light finds its way into Sun Sparkle, the second album from Norwegian act Skydive Trio. Its predecessor, Sun Moee, also referenced our great burning star, which ...
Ben LaMar Gay: Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun
by Gareth Thompson
Within any given city you might hear birdsong and church bells competing with buskers, car horns and stereos. Within the realm of Ben LaMar Gay's debut album we run a similar gamut of sonic experience. A cornetist and composer from Chicago's South Side, Gay has worked with Jaimie Branch, Makaya McCraven and Joshua Abrams among others. ...
Espen Eriksen Trio With Andy Sheppard: Perfectly Unhappy
by Gareth Thompson
Primo Levi wrote that perfect happiness and perfect unhappiness are both beyond reach. For this he blamed our human condition, which is opposed to everything infinite. Maybe this album's title is also a comment on our hope and despair through life's journey. Not within the realm of Levi's suffering, of course, but in our ...
Radka Toneff: Fairytales
by Gareth Thompson
Norway's best-selling jazz album ever is also a recording laced with tragedy. Only weeks after its 1982 release, singer Radka Toneff was found dead in the Bygdøy woods, near Oslo. She was aged thirty. The verdict was suicide caused by an overdose of sleeping pills. Toneff was born in 1952 and by her ...
Better Than TV: Song From No Man's Land
by Gareth Thompson
The children on this album's cover are shown enjoying a timeless street game. Such kids often play by their own rules--much like adult musicians, as Better Than TV proves here. A collective from Cambridge, UK, the band is led by bassist Sergio Contrino, whose Italian heritage finds an outlet on this eclectic disc. Song ...
Laurence Pike: Distant Early Warning
by Gareth Thompson
Laurence Pike famously studied with jazz piano legend Mike Nock at Sydney's Conservatorium. The master and his apprentice then later worked together, both in concert and in the studio. But whilst the percussionist Pike may be shorn of his guru's input on this album, Nock's imprint is still tangible. Distant Early Warning was conceived ...
Martin Lutz: In Denmark I Was Born
by Gareth Thompson
Two hands, one black and one white, hold aloft a heart-shaped map of the world. It might not be subtle, but the artwork adorning this album speaks volumes for it. Martin Lutz is an eclectic Danish composer with a global outlook and a compassionate ethic. He believes in love, empathy and the power of collective action. ...
Nightports w/Matthew Bourne: Nightports
by Gareth Thompson
The night he was named Perrier Young Jazz Musician 2001, pianist Matthew Bourne gave a performance that rather set out his stall. Using stillness and eruptions in the mode of Ran Blake, with soundtrack samples from Willy Wonka, Bourne played like a man possessed. Since then he's left few tones unturned in the search for new ...
Joy On Fire: Fire With Fire
by Gareth Thompson
Halloween night in 2017 saw jazz-rock legends King Crimson playing Newark, New Jersey. Among the crowd that evening were members of a local band known as Joy On Fire, paying homage to one of their major inspirations. The name might sound gospel-inspired, but Joy On Fire draws from the eye-popping thrills of punk and ...
