Feed the Animals is the fourth album by Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis), released on Illegal Art in 2008. It is composed almost entirely of samples taken from other artists' songs, plus minor original instrumentation by Girl Talk. Gillis has stated that the album was created as one long piece of music and then subsequently broken into individual songs.
Soulstorm is a remarkable joint venture between gifted saxophonist Ivo Perelman, and two of the most distinguished string players around, cellist Daniel Levin and double bassist Torbjorn Zetterberg. Taking its title from a book by Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, Soulstorm confirms the universality of jazz as a language for all nations in the global age. This is a transnational trio in every aspect of the music heard in this double album – the musicians converse fluently with one another, but each with his own accent and dialect.
Elliott Sharp is one of New York downtown scene's more notorious affiliates, primarily heralded for his avant-garde guitar work, spanning jazz improvisation, jazz-rock, and blues-rock. He's also an accomplished reedman, evidenced on Quintet and previous ventures into the free-jazz space. Sharp once again aligns with like- minded New York-based artists, some of whom are leaders, and busy session artists.
Bassist Eric Revis is a heavyweight in more than one respect. He is doing the improbable in a remarkable way, thereby ignoring collectively imposed and maintained demarcations at work. Armed with his physically very present, raw and vibrant bass sound he beats his track into the realms of freely improvised music. He made his debut as a leader in 2012 with Parallax, on the authoritative Lisboan Clean Feed label, with a dream team of Jason Moran, Ken Vandermark and Nasheet Waits. His 2013 follow-up was an even more surprising trio with pianist Kris Davis and many peoples' favorite drummer, Andrew Cyrille.
Bigmouth – a project of bassist Chris Lightcap – apparently is inspired by stretched-out, two-toned, tail-finned, white-wall-tired cars of the mid-'50s, in reference to the cover art on Deluxe. The music is ultra-modern from a compositional standpoint, only hinting at neo-bop while pushing the creative improvised harmonic envelope. Lightcap's expertise on the bass is second to none, as he pushes and prods his way through these original works with an absolutely stellar band of drummer Gerald Cleaver, electric keyboardist Craig Taborn, tenor saxophonists Tony Malaby and Chris Cheek, and on three tracks alto saxophonist Andrew D'Angelo. While some allusions to the vintage autos are reflected in the titles, Lightcap's vision is of the future, a heady mix of heart and soul embedded in this refreshing new music.