Jazz

by [email protected] (Stef Gijssels) on May 22, 2026 at 4:00 am

By Stef Gijssels On May 22nd, 1959, Ornette Coleman recorded "Lonely Woman", after 67 years still one of the most beautiful pieces ever composed, with its conflicting sentiments of sadness, darkness and hope. I am close to having collected 200 versions of it by various musicians and in a huge variety of styles, and happy to get to know even more.  Today, the tune itself is not the subject, but the many albums on which female horn-players (sax and trumpet) give a solitary performance, also in a variety of styles. We received some of these albums, and this made me search for other recent work by female saxophonists. It's quite a list, and one worth mentioning. I guess that solo albums by male horn-players will be for another occasion.  Amelia Ya'el - Voices 1 (Signbearer, 2026) When I first heard this brief album, I was struck by its raw yet delicate polyphonic sound. Through circular breathing on the baritone saxophone, Amelia Ya’El manages to express tension and tenderness, rhythm and lyricism, all at once. What surprised me even more was discovering that this is not only her debut album, but also an entirely solo performance. Ya’El stresses that the music is fully acoustic and free of overdubs, underlining how important it is to her that the listener recognises the sheer virtuosity of her playing. The four short compositions/improvisations each have their own specific character and recognisable sonic signature. "Mechanics of Anger", the first track is indeed brutal, direct, with no restraints, yet excellent. "Song of Peace" is built on a repetitive phrase, as the backbone for her improvisation, oscillating between joy and agony, and it's hard to believe that the total sound is just generated by one single instrument.  “No Evil But Ignorance” is equally intricate in its solo voice, unfolding through broad, sweeping passages that at times seem almost to sing. Its sheer force even made me laugh in disbelief — the piece is absolutely ferocious. “Beneath The Waves” closes the brief album with another recurring motif, its hypnotic repetition recalling Philip Glass. That pattern forms the backbone of the improvisation: there are moments of slight hesitation, perhaps, but the music continues to flow — singing, surging, and shouting. Chicagoan Amelia Ya’El is unquestionably one of the standout newcomers of the year, and she deserves full credit for releasing a solo debut that is so pure and uncompromising. This album serves as her artistic calling card: physical, virtuosic, expressive, and deeply sensitive. A real treat.  Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Caroline Kraabel - Translation Trials (Self-Released, 2025) American saxophonist Caroline Kraabel found her artistic home in the UK’s free improvisation scene, where she has long been an active and influential presence, including as one of the leaders of the London Improvisers Orchestra. On this solo album, she offers twelve improvisations recorded at home during the summer of last year, capturing both the intimacy and spontaneity of her approach to improvised music. As she writes in the liner notes: "As documents, these pieces may present what occurred with less lacking than is the case on many audio recordings of improvised music, because there was relatively little extra-sonic content to be missed: just me, alone in my body in a room with my saxophone." And that is precisely the impression that emerges: an artist 'playing' with her instrument in the truest sense — experimenting, exploring, delighting in discovery, allowing herself to be surprised, and enjoying the interaction. She sings through the horn, conjures multiphonics, and answers to nothing beyond the ideas in her mind, the brass in her hands, and the physical intensity of the encounter between the two. In this sense "Translation Trials" is a very personal album, a translation of the artist's being into sound, it is pure, and a for it's a privilege to be witness of this process. Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Adia Vanheerentals - Taking Place (Relative Pitch, 2025) Adia Vanheerentals is a young Belgian saxophonist - although a little older than the picture on the cover - and one of the country's newcomers in improvised music. This is her sophomore solo album, after "Here Are 5 Reasons To Meditate" from 2024. Credit also to the "Relative Pitch" team, who invited her to release this album on their label, just like they asked several other female musicians to do the same, including the already reviewed and highly recommended "Holy Trinity" by clarinetist Laura Altman.  Vanheerentals is active in various ensembles, including participating in some Fire! Orchestra shows earlier this year. She started playing saxophone at the age of 9, and switched later to jazz, having a degree from the conservatory of Antwerp. She says in an interview: "My real influence is Steve Lacy, from a very early age. I prefer to play the soprano saxophone myself, and Lacy opened up a whole new world for me, ranging from traditional jazz and classical to free jazz, and especially Thelonious Monk and modern jazz. I find Ingrid Laubrock impressive on both the soprano and tenor saxophones. She gave a masterclass at the conservatoire and writes original compositions in which she attempts to approach standard jazz in a different way" (with thanks to Jazz'Halo for the quote). For this album she chose several external environments to act as the background for her improvisation: a chicken coop, a resonating silo, flowing water (rain?), cars on the street, ... It's fun to hear, especially when the chickens get all excited, as they should be. Her music has a striking directness, placing greater emphasis on lyricism and tone than on timbral experimentation or sonic exploration. In that sense, it feels very much in the tradition of Steve Lacy — marked by a clarity, purity, and understated simplicity that define her sound. As a special gift, here is a video of the artist spending playing on Tram 10 in Antwerp at the beginning of last year. Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Katie Porter - Conversation No. 1 - Collecting Rocks from the Places We've Been (Relative Pitch, 2025)  Another album in the Relative Pitch series, is this album by bass clarinetist Katie Porter. In essence it's actually a duo album, in the sense that one bass clarinet line has been pre-recorded and serves as the background or foundation for the further expansion of her sound, which is exceptionally strong, and juxtaposing the high-pitched with the deep-toned, usually fluctuating around a tonal center, resulting in very long stretched notes, welcoming and slow, repetitive and well-paced.  She describes her music as an open invitation for others to join, like a a sonic landscape in which other 'rocks' can be added.  Her music has its own aesthetic, one that requires close listening, and that offers a unique, rewarding and hypnotic listening experience. Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Berlinde Deman - Plank 9 (Relative Pitch, 2025)  We've met Belgian tuba-player Berlinde Deman before, on Dave Douglas's "Secular Psalms" from 2022.  On this album, her main instrument is the 'serpent', one that we only knew from French musician Michel Godard, and his collaboration with Lebanese oud-player Rabih Abou-Khalil. Deman started playing tuba at the age of eight, and is classically trained. In an interview with Jazz'Hallo she explains her fascination for the serpent: "My serpent sound is melancholic, full of character and very dark. The serpent naturally has a warm tone. People sometimes associate the sound with a womb or with deep roots. Melancholy is also a pitfall; it’s easy to evoke that feeling with the serpent. Three notes and everyone is moved. For me, the challenge lies in making the sound dangerous. I do that with effects pedals." (with thanks to Jazz'Hallo).  Her music is melancholy, and not in a cheap way. Her sound is deep, often sustained with the use of pedals, giving a level of resonance or depth, further increased by electronic effects that multiply the voices, and add layers of sound. This is not jazz, often more ambient music, quietly moving waves of sound, sensitive and rich. My preference goes to those tracks on which the serpent has its simplest and original acoustic sound, as on the beginning of "Three Trees", which offers a higher level of authenticity and musicianship.  Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Camila Nebbia – Rastro O Vacío (Self-Released, 2025) My search for female solo saxophone albums inevitably brought me to the Argentinian artist Camila Nebbia, who delivers seventeen mostly brief but vividly varied tenor explorations: sharp, agile, expressive, playful, direct, sensitive, brutal, blues-inflected, and consistently charged with energy and intensity. Some of the longer pieces, such as “El color de un río desconocido” and “Algo que solía conocer que ya no puedo identificar o recordar,” are multi-layered and heavily post-produced, with overlapping saxophone lines unfolding into slow-moving sonic textures before descending into bursts of chaos and noise toward the album’s conclusion. As a result, the record seems to present two distinct identities, which somewhat undermines the coherence of the listening experience. Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Alexandra Grimal - Interspaces (Self-Released, 2025) One of France's top saxophonists is without a doubt Alexandra Grimal, a musician with a strong personal sound and voice, whose albums we reviewed and appreciated before on this blog.  This album is very short - a little longer than 14 minutes - and only available digitally. Interested readers can also check out the video of her performance in the art gallery where the exhibition took place. As a kind of joke at the entrance, there is a copy of Gustave Courbet's (in)famous painting "L'Origine Du Monde" (1966), on which the names of all famous painters of the previous century are presented with female first names.  The music itself is quiet, intimate, fragile and sensitive. Her soprano cautiously thrills the air, touching it, sensing it, appreciating it, in the same mode as the paintings on the wall, light touches of colourful poetry in a white and empty space.  Short, but excellent.  Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Anna Piosik - In The Absence of Gods (4DaRecord, 2026) Anna Piosik is a Polish trumpeter, singer and ceramics artist living in Portugal. She is a member of the all female group Lantana, and also collaborated with Ernesto Rodrigues and with the Variable Geometry Orchestra.  She explains the title of her first solo album: "Without really meaning to, I think it reflects my sadness about the state of the world today. It was during the recording sessions. João Madeira said something to me at one point that really stuck with me; he said: “Let it flow and play as if no one were listening”. It sounds like a cliché, but somehow I thought: “Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing all this time in Alfafar (where she lives in Portugal)”. Just me and my goats in the woods, in the absence of my “gods” — my idols, my musician friends and collaborators."  She is her own self on this album, playing without an audience, except for the occasional dog or goat bells, or the orchestra of crickets on the last track, intimate and close, expressing her deepest feelings, stripped from all influences, preconceived notions, expectations and other distractions that create barriers between the self and the sound.  Yet however personal and intimate, her heart belongs also to the entire world. "And then, when we were working on the album and it came to choosing a name, the title really resonated with the state of the world. As if we were living in times when nothing matters anymore — neither ethics nor morality." (with thanks to Jazz.pt) The overall mood is undeniably melancholic and sad, yet she brings an authentic voice and a refreshing sound—shaped not by a pursuit of perfection of sound, but by a search for emotional depth, that can also offer moments of wonder and surprise, of pain and joy, of struggling and hope. We hope to hear much more from her.  Listen and download from Bandcamp.  Signe Emmeluth - Lonely Woman (Self-Released, 2025) ... and we end our list with Danish saxophonist Signe Emmuth, most appropriately giving a solo sax performance of "Lonely Woman" (with thanks to Jeff Sackmann for the tip!). She was recently reviewed by us for "With Love", "The Hyperboreal Trio", "Everything that shines, everything that hurts", "Banshee", "Bonanza of Doom", "Nonsense", and these were only released in the last few years.  The single track can be listened to and downloaded from Bandcamp.   Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 21, 2026 at 4:00 am

By Ferruccio Martinotti First transitive property of the Free: if A plays with B and B plays with C, A will play with C. From which the second follows: if you liked A, you will like C. The empirical observation of the above, today starts from SML, a quintet composed of bassist Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu synth, Booker Stardrum drums and Gregory Uhlmann guitar. International Anthem's debut album, Small Medium Large, released in 2024, was recorded at ETA in L.A., a venue Jeff Parker used for his quartet, which included Butterss and Uhlmann, on “Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy”. Its pyrotechnical synthetic grooves, ranging from Miles's On the Corner or Get up with it infectious pimp jazz, the polyrhythms of Fela Kuti and the greasy funk of Parliament/Funkadelic, guaranteed free fall, joyful listening. From there, Booker Stardrum's new solo album (his fourth, following 2015's Dance And, 2018's Temporary Etc.; and 2021's Crater), released on We Jazz Records, is a short but lateral step.  Who is Booker, besides being SML's drummer? His official bio describes him as a composer, drummer, and producer, involved in numerous impro/experimental and pop projects, film scores and sound design, through collaborations that include Lisel, Photay, Horse Lords, Wendy Eisenberg, Amirtha Kidambi, Ben Vida, Will Epstein, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Chris Williams, Patrick Shiroishi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, and Nels Cline. Our Man, supported by faithful collaborators Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Chris Williams, Lester St. Louis, Logan Hone and Michael Coleman, began mapping out the new album during a stint in the Catskill Mountains in 2022, sketching out recordings of insects and birds and homemade mallet instruments.  So, a field recording album? Not exactly, since those are reworked through MIDI controllers, samples, and loops. An electronic music album, then? Not only that, acoustic sequences are interpolated into the electro textures, as if to maintain a solid connection (human first, rather than analog) with that farm where it all began, in the quiet of a late summer on the Catskills. Jon Hassell-esque ambient, perhaps? It's a fuel element of an engine that shifts down two gears and hits the gas before going too narcoleptic, just as the sonic iterations hark back to the supreme Necks, but when the synapses connect there, here's an immediate shift in direction.  Regarding "Third Nature," the album's fourth track, Booker's words are a sort of programmatic declaration for the entire project: "It gets its name from a concept in social ecology, that humans are part of nature even though there have been different philosophies that separate humans from nature. First nature is the natural world, second nature is human development and social ecologists remind us that we are of nature, and then the question is, how can we do a better job, exist, be of nature, and affect nature in a cohabitual way?" Obviously the theme is gigantic and of capital importance, and unfortunately, this album, nor any other album, can’t provide us with the answers. But it is precisely in its minimalism that Close-up On The Outside finds its raison d'être, like those small mechanical devices made of gears and springs that in themselves have no specific function but that you would remain enchanted by looking at for an indefinite time. Its compositions, carved from the dense layering of instruments and manipulated samples with a pantonal harmonic sense and an intuitive approach to rhythm, won't change the music's axis of rotation by a single degree (how many albums do that..?), but they will allow you to spend 33 minutes of irresistible bliss. To play with the oxymoron: a dispensable, necessary listening.     Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 20, 2026 at 8:41 pm

Photo by Peter Gannushkin By Martin Schray “I don't make music, I am music.“ A typical Gunter Hampel quote about Gunter Hampel. “I don’t compose songs that have been done a thousand times before. I really am like Mozart or Beethoven. My compositions are original, they come about like my children,“ he once said. “When I was in New York in the 1970s, I was the center of things because I was the one who came from Europe and who brought a breath of fresh air.“ Modesty has never been his thing, however, his musical work and the appreciation he has received for it prove him right. Gunter Hampel was born in Göttingen/Germany on August 31, 1937. In 1953, he already had his first own combo. He studied architecture and became a professional jazz musician in 1958, trying to integrate European influences such as 12-tone music into American jazz. In the 1960s, therefore, he worked with European musicians like John McLaughlin, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Manfred Schoof and Willem Breuker, and then more and more with American soloists, especially Marion Brown, Jeanne Lee and Anthony Braxton. With the album The 8th of July(Birth Records, 1969), which included Braxton, Breuker and Lee as well as Arjen Gorter on bass and Steve McCall on drums, he succeeded in finding a convincing synthesis of European and American free jazz for the first time. In the early 1970s, Hampel founded the Galaxie Dream Band in New York, which lasted for almost 30 years. In addition to himself, the central players in this formation were his wife, the jazz singer and composer Jeanne Lee, and the clarinetist Perry Robinson. Furthermore, he repeatedly gave solo and duo concerts (especially with Marion Brown and with Jeanne Lee). But Hampel has also always transcended the limitations of improvised music and turned to completely different projects, such as the alternative music ensemble The Cocoon, which was founded in the environment of the avant-garde band Kastrierte Philosophen. Later came a collaboration with Jazzkantine, a very commercial jazz/hip-hop project that was actually very successful in the mainstream, for their first two albums. His forays into more commercial territory also include writing film music, as well as music for the 1996 play Sid and Nancy by German actor Ben Becker. At the other end of his musical spectrum, he repeatedly devoted himself to new classical music, participating in the performance of compositions by Hans Werner Henze and Krzysztof Penderecki. All in all, Hampel conducted several different large formations, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and much more. In order to be able to publish all this appropriately, he ran his own label Birth Records. From 1972 to 1981 he released 16 albums by the Galaxie Dream Band alone. All of them are really good, if I had to pick two I’d go for Celebrations (Birth, 1974) and All the Things You Could Be If Charles Mingus Was Your Daddy (Birth, 1981). A must have is the above-mentioned The 8th of July, as well as my personal favorite Cosmic Dancer (Birth, 1975), again with Robinson and Lee plus Steve McCall on drums. Enfant Terrible (Birth, 1975) - nomen est omen - is another great one, actually a Galaxie Dream Band recording, it was just not released under that moniker. Apart from the free jazz albums, I can wholeheartedly recommend the two Cocoon records, especially While the Recording Engineer Sleeps (first released in 1989, re-released on Staubgold, 2015). Hampel was a multi-instrumentalist, he played the flute, saxophone and piano, but especially as a vibraphonist and bass clarinetist he had great merits. He created enormous sound fields, did not let anything dictate him musically throughout his life and always tried to penetrate new musical worlds. Now this great free spirit and stubborn man (in a positive sense) has passed away. May he rest in peace. Watch a performance of the Galaxie Dream band from 1972 (in excellent quality) and you’ll get the magic of the ensemble:  Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 20, 2026 at 4:00 am

By Kenneth Blanchard Swiss native Sylvie Courvoisier has not escaped notice. She began her recording career in the 1994 and moved to New York four years later. Since then, judging by her faculty page at the New School College of Performing Arts, she has had no difficulties finding either work or fame. Courvoisier received numerous awards including the United States Artist Fellow (2020); the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists (2018); Swiss Music Prize (2018); Switzerland SUISA’s Jazz Prize (2017); and Switzerland's Grand Prix de la Fondation Vaudoise de la Culture (2010). She received commissions to compose new works from The Shifting Foundation (2019) and the Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works (2016). This recording documents two performances in Germany during a 2025 European tour. The trio features the superb bass of Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen on drums and “Wollesonics.” The latter are instruments invented by Wollesen. You can see some of these fascinating creations at this link: https://www.15questions.net/interview/kenny-wollesen-about-drumming/page-1/ . Éclats presents a series of compositions built around fairly simple lines. Courvoisier’s piano work ranges from heroic to sparkling. The pieces are coherent and, in many places, dramatic, or even romantic. “Requiem d’un songe” comes closest to telling a story, albeit in a variety of traditional accents. It reminds me of the compositional strategies (though not the sound) of Thelonius Monk. “Imprint Double” begins with a thumping drive that would make a good soundtrack for a stagecoach scene in a Western. This action is broken periodically by short conversations between the piano and whoever is riding shotgun at the time. This gives way to a pensive conversation with enough space to let each instrument precisely define each moment. Then we are back to riding across the uneven landscape. “Big Steps Toward Silence” is a lovely piece that might be the place to start if you want to appreciate what each member of the trio brings to the stagebut the percussion creates a soft mood just as effectively as the piano. For much of the recording, I am never sure where the drums leave off and the Wollesonics begin. “Free Hoops,” however, begins with a very aromatic rattle that doesn’t sound like it comes from any drum kit I am familiar with. This is a fine album. It makes for excellent background texture whether you are driving or washing the dishes. It also richly rewards careful attention. If it meets your approval, you might check out the Trio’s studio album D’Agala. Both recordings are available from Bandcamp or Amazon Music. Éclats - Live in Europe by SYLVIE COURVOISIER TRIO with Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen  Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 19, 2026 at 4:00 am

  By Sammy Stein  A gayageum is a traditional Korean plucked zither with 12, 18, 21, or 25 strings. Historically made from paulownia wood, the instrument produces a soft, delicate, resonant sound, the range of tone enhanced by having movable bridges. Do Yeon Kim is an internationally recognised gayageum player who has been key to bringing this instrument into contemporary music. Being a plucked string instrument with a wooden body, it has percussive overtones that make it versatile and able to blend with percussion or stringed instruments. On Wellspring (Tao Forms), Kim teams with Mat Maneri on viola, Tyshawn Sorey on drums, and Henry Fraser on bass, and the result is a crazily magical seven tracks, four composed by Kim and three group compositions. The opening track, ‘The Beats of Distant Thunder,’ is a creative blending of sound with plucked strings, flowing lines, and percussive distractions that create a flow of energy from one musician to another. The breath-like ebb and flow, along with a rise and fall in dynamics, make for a piece brimming with interest. It feels like almost the perfect free playing match, as each musician takes explorative themes, sees where they go, and passes the concepts deftly to the rest. Sorey’s percussion is monumental on this track, and the gayageum reveals a huge range of sounds. ‘Walking In The Dream’ is an enchanting blend of sung and spoken vocals and sonorous, gutsy bass lines. It is a track that brings in essences of Crass at times, with the shouted, meaningful vocals. On ‘Whispers Among Dawn,’ Kim changes her 25-string gayageum for a 12-string one, and the sound is distinctly more open. The interaction with the bass is mesmeric. On ‘Sun Shower,’ Kim is back to her 25-string gayageum for a beautiful number with interaction between viola and gayageum that becomes hard to differentiate at times. Halfway through, Kim unleashes madcap vocals that align perfectly with the multi-layered textures of the instruments. The sheer depth of the controlled noise of the final third until it fades is worth listening to at full volume. On ‘Diffraction,’ Kim switches to the 12-string gayageum again, for a dynamic, interactive track, followed by ‘Linear System’, which is so laden with sound, it sounds like many instruments; it is hard to believe just one is involved. It gets denser, and more layers seem to evolve until everyone quietens and the vocals of Kim gently, almost tentatively, rise from the near silence. The music builds again, then, with a cymbal crash and a bass, it is gone, yet not quite. It moves into the final track, ‘Calculus for Our Souls,’ which is the most atmospheric track of the album, with Kim's vocals singing, shouting, calling over the instruments, with Maneri’s viola adding its own lines underneath before the drum and bass introduce even more layers to this extraordinary music. This is one heck of an album, with something for everyone, from free jazz lovers to punk vocal style and hints of classical in the string lines. It is mesmeric and different, yet there is also a familiarity – the sense of musicians coming together and creating free jazz that does just what this kind of music does – connects and communicates. Kim says of the album that she was asking the question: How could she embody the world through her music to create a powerful and lasting impression on the listener? Question answered: This album does exactly that. It is an expression of primal force, encapsulated by musicians who understand what Kim needed and wanted. The dynamics are beautiful, the communication sound, and the music captivating. Wellspring by DoYeon Kim Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 18, 2026 at 4:00 am

By Eyal Hareuveni Israeli tenor sax player and composer Albert Beger took his time before responding to the Israeli collective trauma of October 7, 2023. His eighteenth album, Astral Visit, begins with the simply titled piece, “October 7”. This piece processes the trauma of endless loss, pain, and grief into a most compassionate, spiritual statement. You can sense the whole emotional turmoil in the charged performance of Beger Quartet - the intense piano solo of Milton Michaeli, the propulsive drive of double bass player Asaf Shchori and drummer Nitzan Birnbaum, and Beger himself, who channels the lament into a powerful, deeply emotional, and life-affirming plea, celebrating life over apocalyptic, death-seeking vision. Astral Visit is Beger’s eighteenth album and his most spiritual album to date. Its title immediately evokes the spiritual music of John and Alice Coltrane, but Beger has his own vision. The second piece is called “C major,” and it is a playful, fast, and acrobatic rhythmic piece that flirts with Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics and highlights Beger's profound camaraderie with his longtime comrades Michaleli and Shchori, as well as the new drummer Birnbaum. The following title piece begins with the sound of exotic bells before cementing Beger’s deep connection to the astral meditations of the Coltrane's, but, surprisingly, Beger thinks of this simple piece as his own perfect melody, just like Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”. He beautifully articulates the melodic theme with a commanding, soulful sax solo. “Nobody Dies” was composed before Oct. 7 but relates to the horrors of this day. This piece rides on a hypnotic pulse, and Beger chants a quote from the Indian Vedantas and the mystical Jewish Kabbalah, “They say nobody ever dies, therefore nobody ever born”. Michaeli is the main soloist, transforming Beger’s opening, concise solo and the rhythmic pattern into a magnificent, astral tour de force, before Beger takes the lead again and brings this piece into a cathartic, liberating climax. The album ends with the ballad “Healing Song”, which was written during the COVID-19 pandemic and laments Beger’s departed friends, but, obviously, became more and more relevant. It is a gentle song, shining with its optimistic light. A beautiful conclusion for a great album.  Full playlist here.  Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 17, 2026 at 4:00 am

By Vangel Nonevski  In recent years, Macedonian experimental violinist, composer, and electronic sound architect Gligor Kondovski has been systematically expanding the semantic field of the violin – treating it less as a stable instrument and more as a volatile site of transformation. Much like on Floating Steps , where the violin functioned as a narrative trigger within an electroacoustic imaginary theater, Kondovski’s three new releases form a loosely connected cycle of defamiliarized musical situations: studio intimacy, ensemble architecture and live improvisational exposure. What unites them is not genre allegiance but a persistent effort to redefine context itself – to place sound inside carefully constructed yet deliberately unstable frameworks. Rather than presenting stylistic variations, these albums function as three different dramaturgical environments in which Kondovski tests how composition, electronics and improvisation can co-exist without settling into habitual roles. Gligor Kondovski & Vladan Drobicki – Inward (PMGJazz, 2025) Inward unfolds as a subtle and introspective exchange between electronics and acoustic improvisation. Kondovski shapes the album’s core material through abstract electronic textures, understated soundscapes and sparse compositional cues that define the emotional and spatial contours of each piece. Rather than functioning as a backdrop, these electronic elements actively determine the music’s internal logic, setting conditions to which the acoustic voice must respond. Vladan Drobicki, a trombonist with over thirty years of experience across numerous improvising ensembles, approaches this environment with remarkable restraint. His playing avoids assertive statements in favor of gentle, exploratory gestures that trace the edges of Kondovski’s electronic constructions. Long tones, subtle shifts in timbre and carefully measured silences allow the trombone to move in close dialogue with the electronics: following rather than leading, responding rather than shaping. The result is music that unfolds gradually, emphasizing atmosphere, pacing and attention to detail. Inward is less concerned with dramatic development than with the careful articulation of space and the quiet tension between prepared material and spontaneous response. Inward by Gligor Kondovski, Vladan Drobicki Skrit – Sunday Connection (PMGJazz, 2025) With Sunday Connection, Kondovski presents his quartet Skrit, joined by Filip Metodiev on electric guitar, Andrea Mircheska on double bass and Dario Cievski on drums. Here, the focus shifts decisively toward composition and ensemble balance. Kondovski’s writing provides clear structural frameworks that guide the music without constraining it, allowing individual voices to emerge while maintaining a strong sense of collective direction. Metodiev’s guitar plays a crucial role in shaping the quartet’s sound. His tone is restrained and finely controlled, favoring clarity and nuance over overt expressionism. Rather than dominating the texture, the guitar weaves itself into the ensemble, offering melodic fragments and harmonic shading that subtly reframe the music’s internal relationships. The rhythm section operates with notable precision and sensitivity. Mircheska and Cievski avoid conventional timekeeping roles, instead focusing on dynamic control, textural variation and measured propulsion. Their contributions are essential to the album’s overall coherence, ensuring that the music’s structural clarity remains intact even as it opens itself to improvisational flexibility. Sunday Connection by Skrit Gligor Kondovski | Konstantin Hadzi Kocev | Martin Georgievski – Neo-Noir (AKSIOMA, 2025)* Neo-Noir stands apart as the only live recording among the three and documents a rare trio configuration of violin, piano and electronics. Performed with minimal prior preparation, the concert captures Kondovski leading a group where the absence of predetermined form becomes a defining creative resource. In this setting, Kondovski’s violin acts as a catalyst rather than a focal point, initiating shifts in direction, provoking responses, or withdrawing entirely to allow space for interaction between piano and electronics. Konstantin Hadzi Kocev’s piano work moves fluidly between sparse gestures and dense, percussive clusters, while Martin Georgievski’s electronic interventions fracture and recontextualize the acoustic dialogue in real time. The music develops through accumulation, interruption and reorientation, shaped by the immediacy of the performance and the trio’s responsiveness to the moment. Neo-Noir emphasizes process over resolution, offering a document of collective listening and rapid decision-making under live conditions.*Disclosure: the review for this final album 'Neo-Noir' is Nonevski's take on the album. He is the executive producer for AKSIOMA (the publisher of the album). Neo-Noir by Gligor Kondovski | Konstantin Hadzi Kocev | Martin Georgievski * * * Taken together, these three albums present Gligor Kondovski not simply as a violinist operating within experimental jazz, but as an artist persistently questioning how and where music happens. Whether through abstract electronics, ensemble composition or live improvisation, Kondovski continues to treat sound as an unfinished object – open to reconfiguration, misalignment and recontextualization. Much like Floating Steps, these works do not seek to resolve meaning but to invite attentive listening within constrained yet imaginative frameworks. They remind us that the most compelling improvised music often emerges not from excess, but from the careful cultivation of uncertainty.  --- Vangel Nonevski was born in 1977 in Belgrade. He completed his undergraduate, MA and PhD studies at the Institute of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, where he discovered a somewhat twisted modus of listening to and writing about music. So far, he has published three books on remix and hip-hop music and culture. Hip-hop is the main reason he fell in love with “Great Black Music”, as the musicians in the AACM famously called it. Since 2012, he has been engaged as a professor at three universities, where he tries not to present himself as a know-it-all. He is the father of a lovely and happy child – Luka.  Negotiating Control and Openness: Three Albums by Gligor Kondovski also appeared on the Macedonian music site Mono-ton.   Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 16, 2026 at 4:00 am

By Brian Earley   A single string vibrates into one deep, sustained note. The note flickers, almost pulses around its tonal center, the way a Tibetan singing bowl circles one ever changing tone.    This is how “Sheep Water,” the fourth song on Tunnel Vision, by Brian Marsella and Sae Hashimoto, opens.   After nearly forty seconds of this single string emanation, four high-pitched notes seemingly glow into existence out of the opening sustain. Soon, a quiet clatter– air passing through different length reeds? –a metal spatula clacking along a turning bicycle tire?- stutters its way forward.   The string is from the low register of the inside of Brian Marsella’s piano, bowed with a shoe lace or some object that must resemble one. The glowing notes and bicycle tire? The vibraphone of Sae Hashimoto, played first with nearly complete resonance and almost no attack at all, and then hit with direct percussion, as her sticks clank over the outer face of the instrument’s metal resonating tubes.   It feels like floating through a dark but weightless corridor.   “Blurry-eyed and dizzy,” like the feeling of tunnel vision, is how Hashimoto explains the way she felt while working late into the night with Marsella on this new mesmerizing album. I could spend the entire review on “Sheep Water” alone, so wonderful it is, as it floats freely through atonal rubato before collecting itself some four and a half minutes into Hashimoto’s composition with an impressionistic alternating piano line and a hushed conversation between the two instrumentalists.    While much of the music on Tunnel Vision is chamber music tranquil, the work is filled with ambitious and off-centered percussive rhythms. Listen, for instance, to Marsella’s composition “S.O.S. (Mayday! Mayday!).” The rhythms here splatter like paint thrown unpredictably at a wall, opening with three splashes from the piano in mid, high and low registers, followed by three hits on the vibraphone bars, the first patiently held out, the final two playfully rushed offstage as the duo embark on a six minute adventure that is as exploratory as it is fun.   Much of this lovely album exists either in the dreamtime realm of rubato ballad melodic lines that quietly insist on remaining unresolved (“Seeing Behind the Bald Cypress Tree,” for example) or whimsical percussive play (check out “The Centrifugal Force That Keeps Us Intact” for this side of the record). The work is also visually evocative, and I am so thankful the Bandcamp page includes a video of the two musicians working their way through Hashimoto’s title piece with Brian using a piano that is partly prepared to stop its strings’ resonation dead flat, while Sae fires out impossibly accurate off balance rhythms. And balancing out the rhythms of life is central to this recording in unexpected ways as well. The album notes on Bandcamp tell listeners this: Sae’s 34-week pregnant belly made it difficult for her to stand for extended periods of time, and the vibraphone was further away than usual. However, feeling her son kick throughout the session, she knew he could hear and feel the vibrations of the music.   How cool–how beautiful–is that?!?   Tunnel Vision is a wonderful album filled with compositional ambition and avant-garde experimentation. It too is very beautiful, and I highly recommend checking it out.  Tunnel Vision by Brian Marsella & Sae Hashimoto  Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 15, 2026 at 4:00 am

By Charlie Watkins Quartet feels like a good old-fashioned free jazz album, in the best sense. Start to finish it is imbued with that 60s viscerality, creative and raw, moving ever-forwards with driving force. The improvisations are fresh, the group cohesion strong, and the identity sure. The three members of the group are free jazz veterans – Darin Gray on bass, Janne Tuomi on drums, and Alan Wilkinson on alto sax, bass clarinet and occasionally vocals – so perhaps it is no surprise that they have produced such a strong debut outing as a trio. But even so, it feels like the second they entered the studio, something must have clicked: this sounds like a group who have been playing together for years. I must admit that I spent the first few tracks of this album wondering whether I was missing something obvious. Where was the fourth member of this ‘quartet’? The album notes reveal that Jone Takamäki was meant to be joining the trio for the live date and recording but was then unable to, sadly passing away later the same year. Takamäki is still listed as the fourth member, and the album feels like an ode to his boundless creativity and range of expression. Fierce one moment, reflective the next, it is everything Takamäki would have wanted. The huge variety on this relatively concise recording is its great strength. The first track is powerful, the second meditative, the third sparse (but fierce). Each subsequent track has something that makes it distinctive; the tracks could hardly be more different, and yet it feels completely cohesive as a statement of what this group can do. It is an album that demonstrates faithfulness to the free jazz tradition – even as it stretches it in different directions – and as such feels like an ode to the music itself. Wilkinson is, of course, a force to be reckoned with. There are some incredibly guttural moments of bass clarinet, and the last couple of tracks, when he starts to use his vocals, are the highlight of an already impressive album. But the three musicians together achieve that holy grail of psychic connection where they seem able to turn corners and move the music on with almost simultaneous decision making, and Gray and Tuomi never fail to match Wilkinson’s energy, bringing distinctive . This record isn’t going to change the world, but I don’t think it can be criticised for that: it was never what it set out to do. It is reminder that originality does not always need to be the bar by which music is judged; instead, as Hatka demonstrate, we are allowed to enjoy it just for being really good. Quartet by Hatka Subscrib […]

by [email protected] (Paul Acquaro) on May 14, 2026 at 4:00 am

  By Sammy Stein Wallis Bird is an Irish musician residing in Berlin. She has released six studio albums, including ‘Architect’ in 2014, and Home in 2016. She performed at the Eurosonic Festival in 2012, when Ireland was the Spotlight Country, and has worked with numerous musicians on various projects. Luise Volkmann is a German jazz and improvisation musician and composer. She has played with Devin Gray, Satoko Fujii, Xu Fengxia, Moritz Sembritzki, and Natsuki Tamura, among others. As a bandleader, she founded small bands such as Konglomerat and also large ensembles in Germany and France. Her newest large ensemble is Ete Large, featuring herself and a dozen musicians. Ete Large, under the direction of Volkmann, has released an EP featuring two beautifully contrasting tracks, featuring Wallis’s vocals, pragmatically titled Ete Large and Wallis Bird. Volkmann is delighted to have worked with Wallis and calls it a beautiful cooperation. The first track on the EP is ‘Chorale, my quiet Pal’. It is an atmospheric, gentle number, featuring Wallis’s superb vocals, which are wonderfully suited to this music. She transitions from beautifully pitched melody to keening, emotive phrasing, and the backing of deep brass and woodwinds adds atmosphere and nuance to the vocal lines. The second track is a complete contrast. ‘Their Quotes and How They Twist Them,’ and Wallis shines here with beautifully told stories about living with people and having to listen to them as they talk about different things, twisting what is said. The ensemble orchestration is creative and supportive, enhancing the beauty of the lyrics and harmony of the vocals. If you want to know more about Ete Large, the links below are highly recommended. Two contrasting tracks of superb quality.  Été Large and Wallis Bird by Luise Volkmann's Été Large feat. Wallis BirdThe Pre-Save: https://listen.music-hub.com/ITJzz0 Bandcamp: https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/music Wallis EP : https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/album/t-large-and-wallis-bird Subscrib […]