This disc strikes me as an ideal introduction to the music of Turkey’s greatest composer. Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s style might be described as “Szymanowski with a primal rhythmic feel.” If you love the composer’s First Violin Concerto then you will find here a very similar exoticism, nocturnal atmosphere, and love of voluptuous textures. The harmonic style is intensely chromatic, but also highly melodic. Like Bartók in his last period, Saygun’s handling of tonality mellowed toward the end of his life, which makes the Cello Concerto more consonant than the Viola Concerto, but both works are absolutely gorgeous and masterpieces of their kind. It’s positively criminal that no one plays these pieces regularly in concert. The performances here are excellent. Tim Hugh is a well-known cellist, and he pours on the tone with all of the rhapsodic abandon that Saygun requires. Mirjam Tschopp also is a superb violist, with a big, beefy tone that never gets swamped by the intricate orchestration. It’s also very rewarding to hear a Turkish orchestra in this music–and to find that it plays beautifully under Howard Griffiths.
When Tim Berne recorded with Snakeoil for ECM in 2012, it marked the debut of a new working band and his first studio album in a decade. With Oscar Noriega on clarinets, pianist Matt Mitchell, and drummer Ches Smith, Berne was able to extend the horizons in his compositions. While conversational intrigue, fiery improvisation, knotty counterpoint, and wildly varying dynamics had long been part of his aesthetic, they found a fluid yet immediate language on 2013's Shadow Man.
The Lion King proved to be one of Elton John's most successful projects – which is quite an achievement for one of the most successful rockers in history. Given its level of popularity, it's only logical that John would reteam with his Lion collaborator Tim Rice…
The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue. Whether taken as warning or promise, No Highs delivers – this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purgatorial and seasick. A jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined.
This story begins with just one sound, originating in the place which Berlin jazz people think of as their living room, the A-Trane. Back in December 2019, the club was host to four leading figures in today’s improvised music scene, who turned this cozy space into their blank canvas, their research lab. In eight sets over four nights, piano phenomenon Michael Wollny, re-inventor of the soprano saxophone Emile Parisien, electric bass icon Tim Lefebvre, and that free spirit of the drum kit Christian Lillinger were given free rein.
Coming 40 years after he first started performing in bands in his native North West of England, Butterfly Mind is the most surprising release yet from Tim Bowness. From the short, sharp shocks of Always The Stranger and Only A Fool to the long-form ambition of the sensuous Dark Nevada Dream, the cinematic Electro-Ballroom of Glitter Fades and the dystopian paranoia of Say Your Goodbyes Parts 1 and 2, Butterfly Mind delivers a thrilling fusion of Art Rock invention, Post-Punk energy and epic soulful ballads. Tim’s seventh solo album features the stellar rhythm section of Richard Jupp (in his first major session since leaving Elbow) and Nick Beggs alongside a spectacular guest list including Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Dave Formula (Magazine), Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator), Martha Goddard (The Hushtones), Gregory Spawton (Big Big Train), Mark Tranmer (The Montgolfier Brothers / GNAC), Saro Cosentino (Franco Battiato), Italian Jazz musician Nicola Alesini, US singer Devon Dunaway (Ganga), Stephen W Tayler (Kate Bush) and, marking his first studio work with Tim for nearly three decades, former No-Man violinist Ben Coleman. Produced by Tim Bowness and Brian Hulse (Plenty), the album was mixed and mastered by Steven Wilson.
Based in Luleå, Sweden, a town roughly 160 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, the Norrbotten Big Band (NBB) is living proof that jazz is truly a universal music with a remarkable ability to transcend geographical boundaries and cultural differences in its diffusion and appeal.
In this unlikely setting, a vast Nordic region where the nomadic Sami people have been tending their reindeer herds for centuries, the NBB - which since 1996 has been under the artistic direction of the imaginative American trumpeter and composer Tim Hagans - has established itself as Sweden’s representative within the ranks of European ensembles like Germany’s WDR Big Band that have adapted the classic American jazz big band tradition of the Swing and Post-War eras…
An expanded and remixed 10th Anniversary version of Tim Bowness and Giancarlo Erra’s 2011 album ‘Warm Winter’ (now issued as ‘Memories Of Machines’, the original project name).
Tim Deluxe went from being just another British DJ/producer to a brand-name hitmaker, releasing one smash single after another during the early 2000s. He also brought much acclaim to Darren Emerson's Underwater Records in the process, with big vocal-driven tracks like "It Just Won't Do" and "Less Talk, More Action." Deluxe started on his road to fame as a club DJ, a pastime he initially pursued while working at a London-based record store during the '90s. He then began producing tracks as well, collaborating with Omar Amidora and Andy Lysandrou in the short-lived group Double 99. The group scored itself a huge hit in 1997 with "RIP Groove," an anthem that got spun everywhere from London to Ibiza and was also compiled on myriad compilations…