Experimental soundscape / electronic netlabel Frozen Elephant has their 13th release out, this time by Stretchandrelax a project of Elise Ladoué and Félicia Atkinson. Not unlike AGF’s experiments with vocal and soundscapes, Stretchandrelax explores micro spaces via “field recordings, beats, spoken words and instrumentation”. Mozart with a mullet’s reworks are done by artists such as Olivia Louvel, Kutumo and Sylvain Chaveau.

Elise Ladoué (France) is a performing artist trained at Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and at l’Ecole de Danse de l’Opéra de Paris. Her work is based on the exploration of the body in motion through its various aspects: classical dance, circus, massage, performance, installation. Félicia Atkinson (Belgium/France) runs various musical projects (Roman Anglais w/ Sylvain Chauveau, Louisville etc.) and expands her artistic works towards writings, drawings, poetry and performances.

Here’s an alternative start to the week, a smorgasbord, no a storm of wild styles by two master musicians, the prolific guitarist Keiji Haino and Ruins drummer Yoshida Tatsuya. Released on Tzadik “Uhrfasudhasdd” is the follow up to New Rap and it’s only for experienced noise/improv heads. Handle with care! It can mess up your monday. Review by Urufixx only in Turkish!

Yoshida Tatsuya ve Keiji Haino bir araya gelirse ortaya nasıl bir müzik çıkar? Cevabı basit ama zor bir soru aslında.. İkisi de Japon yeraltı müzik kültürün efsane isimlerinden. Dahil oldukları grupları, projeleri buraya yazmaya kalksak sığdıramayız. Tzadik Records tarafından çıkarılan albümde 16 parça yer alıyor. Albümü dinlerken hemen hemen tüm tarzlarla karşılaşabilirsiniz. Emprovizasyona yönelik öğeler ağırlıkta hissediliyor. Noise rock, math rock, avant-jazz, experimental, prog-jazz, bazı parçalarda ve geçişlerde ise şaşırtıcı bir şekilde Psychedelic bir müziğe dönüşebiliyor. Kesinlikle dinleyiciyi şaşkına çeviriyorlar. Zaman zaman oldukça gürültülü, bazen sakinleştiren sonra tekrar insanı tepe taklak eden bu albüm Ruins, Boredoms, John Zorn, Mike Patton, Zeni Geva v.b. dinleyicilerine ve deneysel müziğin üst seviyelerine ulaşmak isteyen tüm sıradışı müzik dinleyicilerine tavsiyedir. . Not: Yakında umarım yine bir Yoshida Tatsuya projesi olan Sax Ruins ile burada olmak isterim..

Stupid scientists still haven’t invented the teleporter, and thanks to that I will be missing Jonna Karanka aka the Finnish forest psychfolk/experimentation amazer Kuupuu tonight. The reason being, I’m floored from last night’s Trus’me performance, and the concert is on the other side of the city at Arkaoda, and you know I never go to the other side of the city anyways. Just might break that rule for once, for the upcoming Sir Richard Bishop concert though, once again organized by the amazing Bant team. Still, spent most of the day listening to her new LP on Time-Lag Records which, if my memory serves me right, is more coherent and refined than her previous efforts.

Kuupuu is a bit like a Finnish Grouper, her songs are murky and mysterious, the sounds feel disembodied and otherworldly, her vocals are ghostlike and gauzy, but those Grouper-like sounds are filtered through her Finnish folk filter, having spent time in Avarus, Anaksimandros and a handful of other big time aQ faves. Nearly half the record is made up of hushed intimate lo-fi ballads, muted and muddy and almost underwater sounding, her voice and musical accompaniment bleeding into each other until it’s sometimes almost impossible to tell which is which, but those stretches of bleary eyed balladic drift and muffled shimmery dreamdrone are peppered with chucks of weird soft noise, abstract rhythmic workouts and some strange very Finnish sounding bursts of what-the-fuck chaos: plenty of clattery tribal percussion, detuned guitars, demented music box melodies, field recordings and found sounds, tape manipulation, gongs and bells and birdcalls, looped acoustic guitars, super lo-fi tape recorded voices, swooping backwards melodies, and the occasional jagged shard of feedback or streak of fractured crunch, but somehow Kuupuu manages to tie it all together into something much more cohesive and lovely than you might imagine. Aquarius Records

Image nicked from The Forest Archives

Found some time to process the remaining bookmarks. Here are the rest of the 2009 posts/threads that are worth mentioning. Lots of gems to hunt for!!

+ The Art of Memory Pre 2010 : alio die & aglaia, peter brötzmann/toshinori kondo /massimo pupillo /paal nilssen-love, celer, andrew chalk, elegi, eleh, robert haigh, jon hassell, supersilent and more. great list (The Art of Memory)

+ King Midas Sound’s Best of 2009 Consumed (King Midas Sound)

+ Top 10 of 2009 : Lists by Peanut Butter Wolf, Ma Dukes, Dam-Funk, J.Rocc, Egon & Mayer (Stones Throw)

+ Other Music’s Best of 2009 : Dirty Projectors, Dam-Funk, Cold Cave, The XX, Real Estate, Matthew Halsall.. (Other Music)

+ 14 Tracks Best of 2009: Atom TM, Tapes, Cooly G, Nite Jewel.. (14 Tracks)

+ Free Jazz Top 10: WHO Trio, Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette, Tresspass Trio, Paura, Transit.. (Free Jazz Stef)

+ Headphone Commute’s Upgraded Best of 2009 Lists (Headphone Commute)

+ AMN Best of 2009 : Magma, John Hollenbeck, Carl Maguire.. (Avant Music News)

+ Best of Garage Rock by Mitza Matza of RYM: Meth Teeth, Bassholes, Christmas Island, Dan Melchior, Fontana, Eat Skull (RYM)

+ AccuJazz The Best of 2009 : Alain Toussaint, Steve Lehman Octet, Henry Threadgill, Fly..(AccuJazz)

+ Adgy’s Top 10 albums of 2009 : Ludovico Einaudi, The Flaming Lips, Mono, Soap&Skin (One of God’s Own Prototypes)

+ Destination:Out’s Fave Jazz Jamz of 2009 (Destination:Out)

+ The Silent Ballet : Top 50 Artists of the Decade : 2000-2009 (The Silent Ballet)

+ The Himes 100 : Geoffrey Himes selects for Sonic Boomers. Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Miranda Lambert, Tinariwen, Vijay Iyer Trio.. (Sonic Boomers)

+ AVANT/CHICAGO Best Albums of 2009 : Here we go magic, Fuck Buttons, The Entrance Band..(Flowfeel)

+ The Best of Bleep: Selections by Four Tet, The Field, Thom Yorke (Bleep)

+ Nialler9’s best albums of 2009 (Nialler9)

+ Rose Quartz Top 20 Songs of 2009 (Rose Quartz)

+ Favorite Records 2009: Current93, Eleni Mandell, Sunn O))), Tyondai Braxton (Screen of Distance)

Two albums that I’ve been procrastinating over for a few months, Vijay Iyer’s Historicity and Ben Allison’s Think Free has been topping nearly all the noteworthy jazz lists. I was waiting for something intelligent and inspirational to say about both albums but frankly after all these years I think I’m only valuable as a spotter and not a reviewer, and I can only write on jazz by taking cues from allaboutjazz etc. So it’s about time to end the anxiety of seeing this on my todolist everyday by giving you a few pointers.

Vijay is one of the new superstars of the piano, If you’re into progressive jazz you already know that from his body of work with Steve Lehman, Tyshawn Sorey and Rudresh Mahanthappa. Historicity is the effort of a piano trio with Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums, but it’s not a standard piano jazz album. I’d rather play cheap and call it math jazz or something. One of the densest albums that passed through our speakers this year. The new shape of jazz to come?

All the best jazz groups, and certainly the best piano trios, have managed this trick. They honor the past directly, but they also honor the past by imposing a highly individual personality on classic songs. With Historicity, the Vijay Iyer Trio emerges as another modern jazz trio that has found a fresh vision in an old form. Like Robert Glasper and Jason Moran, to name just two on the current scene, Vijay Iyer is refracting jazz piano in a new way, no longer merely pushing the boundaries of harmonic freedom, but altering the core with genuine changes to the groove. Popmatters

Mondays skronking Mondays. Not much to add.

Off To Sail, To Sail

image by Non Event

UbuWeb has a feature on our favourite (and only ?) lutenist Jozef van Wissem. a master of subtlety and minimalism. Wissem has been on undomondo a couple of times, both as solo and as a duo with James Blackshaw. He’s a very talented and highly intellectual artist as you can see from the quotes down below. His meditative & profound way of expressing feels anachronic in the pop age, where everything is quick/shallow, so I know this isn’t for everybody. Still, give him a try, he might be your saviour.

Ubu features the complete A Priori album from 2008:

And then I received a new album, A Priori, and I immediately played it and heard its stark and repetitive intensity, its stately and glacial march. There is nothing quite like it that I have heard before – it is timeless, breathing deeply and exhaling showers of snow, endless circles, mirrors, spirals, the sea. David Tibet

Selected Tracks from It Is All That Is Made (2009) :

Commissioned by the London National Gallery to make a sound response to a painting in their collection. Van Wissem choose The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein.

and Ex Patris (2009) :

Van Wissem’s influences span the centuries, from Dowland to Deleuze, Tennyson to Sacher-Masoch. He also waxes lyrical about Lacan’s mirror stage theory. “Lacan describes the formation of the ego as a process of identification with one’s own specular image; the mirror leads to tension between the subject and the image. I wanted to find a musical parallel to that. Hence palindromes.” He began experimenting with lute tablature. “I decided to write it backwards so the pieces would be more open-ended, and end unresolved.

Yesterday’s post already mentioned the percussion wiz Cyro Baptista’s upcoming album with his Banquet of the Spirits troupe. It’s no secret Cyro loves huge ensembles that’s why I guess he decided to transfer Banquet of the Spirits from a quartet to a 26-strong ensemble including Rashanim’s Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz (who was formerly on the BotS quartet as well alongside Brian Marsella and Tim Keiper), cellist Erik Friedlander, Ikue Mori and members from his previous Beat/Love the Donkey ensemble Sergio Brandão and Anat Cohen among others. We’re always excited with whatever Cyro touches his hands, he’s been the master of mood & ambience on so many John Zorn albums, it’s safe to say that you can sense his lack on every album that he’s not on.

Here are two songs from his previous albums on Tzadik, Tutuboli is off the previous Banquet of the Spirits, and is a song by Baptista and Naná Vasconcelos. Dansa is off his tribute album to Heitor-Villa Lobos called Vira Luocos.

You can buy everything straight from Tzadik as always.

image by Bruce Dene

Good news! There’s a new Zorn CD out on Tzadik called “O’o” which is named after an extinct Hawaiian bird and is the follow up to The Dreamers. There’s also a new and unplugged Rashanim CD out to quench our thirst after a yearning period of 3 years, and if that’s not enough, there are two new releases by Koby Israelite and Cyro Baptista.

First there’s a new Masada CD, no. 12 on the second Masada book Stolas, which sees the invincible Masada resurrected after 11 years with two new faces pianist Uri Caine and tenor player Joe Lovano, which unfortunately means that Zorn’s not performing once again, apart from a brief part on Rahtiel. However both Lovano and Caine are in top form (as is the rest of the gang unsurprisingly), so you’ll quickly get used to the jazzier and less squeaky playing of Lovano.

“A highly respected traditionalist, Lovano’s inclusion in this Downtown super-group is something of a coup. Interpreting some of Zorn’s most accessible and sublime compositions, Lovano is joined by a quartet of Masada veterans, including trumpeter Dave Douglas, pianist Uri Caine, bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron.” All about Jazz

The second CD is “Alhambra Love Songs“, performed by Rob Burger on piano, Greg Cohen on bass and Ben Perowsky on drums. It’s more in tune with the Filmorks series because of its cinematic nature. Beware, it treads like a b&w movie so it might be more suitable for autumn and heartbreaks. If you feel intimidated by Zorn’s complex and often noisy avantjazz, this is your call.

“Largely operating within the same icy realms of urbane coolness as Scandinavian groups such as the Tord Gustavsen Trio or e.s.t., Zorn injects these pieces with doses of Hassidic melody and his unique chutzpah to prevent their dissolution into mere ether muzak. Burger’s ivories pirouette endlessly, leaving vaporous trails of emotion and suave sophistication in their wake, as Perowsky’s ride cymbal flourishes and snare drum shuffles combine with Cohen’s measured bass runs to provide these tracks with their dexterous spine. Record Collector“

The twitterverse is getting crowded, here are some of our latest finds:

@Western Vinyl label home to Balmorhea, IDM wiz @Richard Devine, Noise maker @Carlos Giffoni, @Okkyung Lee the downtown cello player, Pianist @Vijay Iyer another downtown jazz figure, @Family Vineyard label, Composer @Rhys Chatham, @Drone Magazine, @Ken Vandermark, @Sawako, @Lawrence English, @Important Records, @Goon Magazine, @total vibration (Thor’s Hammer boss), @Hypnotic Brass Band, @Pauline Oliveros, @Pi Recordings, the wonderful jazz/everything blog @destination out, and up and coming jazz drummer @Tyshawn Sorey.

(both via @Richard Devine)

David Toop – Making Sounds from Expression Design on Vimeo.

(via @Lawrence English)

Fisheye Village from sawako on Vimeo.