Home » Search Center » Results: Matthew Wuethrich
Results for "Matthew Wuethrich"
Martina Almgren Quartet: Unden
by Matthew Wuethrich
Swedish drummer Martina Almgren declares that she wants to combine strong rhythms with ”expressive melodies.” On Unden, with a quartet of sensitive musicians, she achieves that goal. She has also been a flutist, and while she plays it here on only one tune, its influence is felt on all twelve of the album’s pieces, most of ...
John Heward Trio: Let Them Pass
by Matthew Wuethrich
Before recording the seven pieces on Let Them Pass, bassist Mike Bisio, drummer John Heward, and mulit-reedsman Joe Giardullo reflected intensely, Philip Egert’s liner notes tell us, “on how their parents and grandparents had immigrated to Canada and the United States...(coming) with little more than a ‘Laissez-passer’ in their pockets.” Liner notes do not often provide ...
Norbert M: _lat_nc_
by Matthew Wuethrich
For close to thirty years, Norbet Möslang has been part of the now defunct electronic duo Voice Crack with Andy Guhl, playing their brand of ”cracked everyday electronics,” and adding his guazy, raggedy textures to such improvising units as Poire_z. That group also featured the drummer, electronics experimenter and for4ears label founder Gunter Muller, who is ...
Helge Lien Trio: Asymmetrics
by Matthew Wuethrich
The ominous cover art and brooding band photo on the cover of the Norwegian Helge Lien trio’s second DIW release, Asymmetrics, promises a stormy affair, but true to the title, the nine tracks surprise and deliver instead a restrained, at times even gentle mood without, however, sacrificing intensity. Pianist Lien, bassist Frode ...
poire_z + Phil Minton: q
by Matthew Wuethrich
More than fifty years on from its birth, electronic music still poses problems for listeners, critics and musicians alike. For listeners, how to relate to it? For critics, how to describe it? For musicians, how to develop it? The quartet known as Poire_z eschews the usual studio tinkering for real-time improvisation, and on q it adds ...
Terje Sundby: Ynde
by Matthew Wuethrich
Maybe it’s time someone called Nordic jazz the West Coast Cool of Europe. The Cool school favored focused lyricism over angular melodies, softly padding swing over propulsive drive, and feathery dynamics over brash volume—all qualities that some of the more overtly “Nordic” jazz shares, while it injects a healthy dose of space and echo to create ...
Rissanen, Trimble, Calderazzo, Savolainen: Nordic Project
by Matthew Wuethrich
Nordic Project emerged from the friendship between Finnish trombonist Antti Rissanen and American bassist Ted Trimble. It was recorded in 2002, during a trip Trimble and drummer Gene Calderazzo made to Finland. With veteran Finnish pianist Jarmo Savolainen, they recorded the album’s eleven original compositions in single takes. The pieces, therefore, emit a bubbling freshness and ...
Finland's Fringe Music on Forgotten Formats: A Survey of Independent Releases
by Matthew Wuethrich
In its march to the digital future the sound recording industry has left for dead a variety of formats. The mainstream recording industry long ago abandoned the 7” vinyl single, the 45 rpm, and the cassette. But when the mainstream abandons one technology as obsolete, the underground waits to claim it as a possibility. As the ...
Rodent: Beautiful Monster
by Matthew Wuethrich
Designer Örn Ólason's bedraggled, somewhat sinister cartoon rats adorning the cover of the pan-Nordic quartet Rodent’s debut Beautiful Monster perfectly reflect the group’s ten original, witty compositions. Cartoon characters like Wiley E. Coytoe have long been noted for their flexible ability to weather lethal accidents, and Rodent posses that same elasticity. While attending the Danish Rytmisk ...
Kiila: Silm
by Matthew Wuethrich
Critics have applied the term “folk" so liberally to so much modern music that its meaning has been dimmed. Musically, it often describes music based on simple scales, cyclical melodies and ragged, dancing rhythms. Culturally, it describes a tradition, or interpretation of one, specific to an area or people. If this is so, are not most ...
