New Electronics 27 October 2015

A cosmic rhythm with each stroke features pianist Viay Iyer and the musician he has described as his “hero, friend and teacher”, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. Vijay has previously played extensively with Wadada in Smith’s Golden Quartet, but the present album is the first documentation of their duo work, produced by Manfred Eicher at New York’s Avatar Studios in October 2015. The centre-piece of the album is the spellbinding title suite, dedicated to Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990), the innovative Indian artist whose improvisatory imagery evokes abstracted rhythms.

For his new recital disc, the acclaimed Finnish guitarist Ismo Eskelinen had the aim of creating a programme that works like a story: ‘a modern guitar album that lends itself to continuous listening from beginning to end’. The pieces that he has selected are united by the fact that, with the exception of Tan Dun, Eskelinen has collaborated closely with all the composers. In the liner notes to the album he expresses his admiration for how intuitively they all understood the essence of the guitar, even though none of them is a guitarist. ‘Everyone has found a unique way to bring his own musical style to the guitar, and each of the composers is clearly recognizable.’

Tim Berne's Snakeoil - Incidentals (2017) {ECM 2579}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 349 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 152 Mb
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© 2017 ECM Records | ECM 2579
Jazz / Modern Composition / Modern Creative / Saxophone

Tim Berne has been described as “a saxophonist and composer of granite conviction” by The New York Times. Incidentals is the fourth album from his spirited Snakeoil band and the second (following on from 2015’s You’ve Been Watching Me) to feature the quintet line-up in which his core group with clarinettist Oscar Noriega, pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer/vibraphonist Ches Smith is augmented by guitarist Ryan Ferreira. The music is characteristically action-packed in the Berne tradition: powerful, dynamic, often fast-moving - yet also very clear in all its teeming detail.

Pianist and composer Christian Wallumrød releases a sequel to the album Pianokammer from 2015.