David Behrman

Oneirc avant-jazz-fusion, keening from the spiritual to the arcane and back in almost palindromic form. The players’ decades of combined improv experience is patently obvious. Exquisitely recorded and mixed by Jim O’Rourke, another adventurous side from Oren Ambarchi’s excellent Black Truffle.
The first release from the duo of two important yet often underappreciated musicians, Eiko Ishibashi and Darin Gray. Ishibashi is a singer-songwriter, keyboardist, drummer, and multi-instrumentalist, known in Japan both for her own elaborately conceptual solo albums and for her frequent collaborations with figures such as Jim O’Rourke, Merzbow, and Phew…

After a trilogy of spectacular explorations of relentlessly driving rhythms – Sagittarian Domain (2012), Quixotism (2014) and Hubris (2016) – Simian Angel finds Oren Ambarchi renewing his focus on his singular approach to the electric guitar, returning in part to the spacious canvases of classic releases like Grapes from the Estate while also following his muse down previously unexplored byways.

The latest CD from composer Jay Cloidt features the premiere studio recordings of two ambitious and diverse works for string quartet, Spectral Evidence and eleven windows, performed by the Cypress String Quartet. Spectral Evidence begins with a straightforward performance of the first two minutes of the Mozart quartet (No. 14 in G, K. 387).