The Claudia Quintet is proof positive that the pessimists were wrong: jazz is not dead, despite being embalmed by major labels and confined by some musicians to dead ends. In the works of this sensational NY-based, 'jazz and beyond' ensemble, jazz has broken through its rigid shell and been reborn in shimmering and beautifully alluring new form. It lives and breathes in music that melds influences from classical minimalism, new music composition, and progressive and post-rock with an astonishingly fresh...

“Rich with ambition and empathetic interplay...the Claudia Quintet doesn’t...sound like anybody else. Which is exactly what makes them worth seeking out.” — Los Angeles Times

Led by composer, drummer and three-time Grammy nominee John Hollenbeck, The Claudia Quintet have quietly but firmly and definitively recast jazz into shimmering new shapes inflected by classical minimalism, new music, progressive rock and post-rock. They are one of the most influential stylists...

For their sixth album, What Is the Beautiful?, The Claudia Quintet brings together the acclaimed compositional approach of leader John Hollenbeck with two of the most important male singers in improvised music...

Royal Toast is the long-awaited fifth release by this wonderful and undefinable ensemble. Led by twice Grammy-nominated drummer/composer John Hollenbeck, who The Village Voice called, "...superb, technically ingenious... passionate and serious...

JD Allen - tenor saxophone
Andrew Bishop - bass clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophone
Jeremy Pelt - trumpet
Ben Waltzer - piano
Chris Lightcap - bass
Gerald Cleaver - drums

“On his new recording, Violet Hour Live at Firehouse 12, Cleaver reconvenes this allstar ensemble for a rare performance and live recording at the New Haven, Connecticut venue. Violet Hour was first assembled for Cleaver’s 2008 recording Detroit and features some of the most inspiring instrumentalists t

"Barry Cleveland's Hologramatron is a 21st Century protest record with songs featuring biting, sometimes brutal, commentary on the state of the Western world. It's a musical response to contemporary social, political, and even spiritual realities...

"The instrumental bass and drum duo, Clevis was born in Baltimore nearly 7 years ago, but for the past two they have been pounding their rhythms and pouring their melodies into Los Angeles clubs and bars. Unlike many bass and drum bands, which often...

Excellent, ECM-style album (in a totally good way) with a stellar cast of players:
Alex Cline - drums and percussion
Peggy Lee - cello
Myra Melford - piano and harmonium
Scott Walton - bass
Jeff Gauthier - violin

"*****
"Anchored by two 18-minute pieces and filled with atmospheric resonance and meditative movements, Continuation is not a listening experience that can be rushed, but what a satisfying and varied journey Alex Cline and his four collaborators take you on

"The latest Alex Cline Ensemble endeavor is the first since 1999's Sparks Fly Upward, and is a poetic masterpiece. Back is the haunted, hunted stoned angel voice of Aina Kemanis, with violins provided by Jeff Gauthier, Michael Elizando's bass, G.E...

"Born of a provocative mating of art and music, Dirty Baby is guitarist/composer Nels Cline and poet/producer David Breskin's visionary recontextualization of Ed Ruscha's "censor strip" paintings. This sumptuous double-CD box set includes more than an...

"Nels Cline is a gateway drug in the best of ways. He's known as the guitar player for one of America's best bands, Wilco. His crazy performances, filled with static shrieking and string bending, have led fans to the other side of music. It's a style...

"In this collection of wiggy compositions and freewheeling improvisations, guitarist Nels Cline collaborates with innovative bassist Mark Dresser, famed jazz drummer Billy Mintz and electric harpist Zeena Parkins. Nels...

Three great players, Nels Cline on guitar, Andrea Parkins on accordion and sampler and (the amazing) Tom Rainey on drums. “Rainey was a surprise hero of this year’s FIMAV, a critical one-third of an improvisational encounter with guitarist Nels Cline...

PROMO

Second by this excellent US, indefinable, avant / pop / progressive ensemble. Recommended!

"Cloud Becomes Your Hand are a Brooklyn-based band with a joyous, eclectic sound that recalls avant-prog, cartoon music, psychedelic indie pop, and myriad other styles. The group's tightly wound, unpredictable compositions often include violins, angular guitar riffs, bizarre voices, woodwinds, and bursts of noisy electronics. As fractured and eccentric as their...

"Originally an all-things-not-Panthers outlet for guitarist Kip Ulhorn swapping musical ideas with Simon Wojan (now in King Khan and his Shrines), Cloudland Canyon spent several years interpreting the more structurally-challenged examples of...

Getting a bead on where the colors of sound that make up the nightfall shroud of Requiems der Natur 2002-2004 meet is difficult, but they are working from much the same influence as the musicians of This Heat, bravely challenging musical taboos in...

"The landscape of progressive rock continues to evolve. As the dinosaur bands fade away a new breed of thought provoking artistry has emerged. Bands like Porcupine Tree, Tool, Riverside, and Anathema are not about complexity or grandiose arrangements....

"Apropos Cluster (1990) was released in Coralville, Iowa, in deepest provincial America. Youthful enthusiast Russ Curry (sic) set up the Curious Music label on his own initiative to release this very album. Emboldened by the spirit of the independent...

"Originally released on Sky Records in 1981, Bureau B reissues Cluster's Curiosum -- the sixth duo collaboration between Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Curiosum was to mark a departure to pastures new. Little did they know that this would...

So, so glad to see this classic German title reissued and available again!
This is the first of the 2 albums that the duo of Hans Joachim Roedelius & Didier Moebius recorded for the Brain label. From 1972, it uses primitive synthesizers, electronic junk, guitars, basses, homemade boxes & more to achieve a true and utter masterpiece of early electronic sound. I can not recommend this highly enough!

This is a document of two modestly well recorded shows by Cluster in a very early and later early prime: 1972 and 1977. Don't start here, but essential and quite worthwhile for fans.

The two authorized recordings presented on Konzerte 1972/1977 vividly conjure up the atmosphere, perhaps even the magic, of a Cluster performance back in the day. One took place in 1977 during a science fiction festival in Metz (France). The other dates back to an earlier show in Hamburg's Fabrik venue. Cluster...

In 1994, a few years before the resurgence of interest in all things Krautrock and kling-klang, this album was released in the USA on a tiny label. It marked the beginning of Moebius and Roedelius working together again after a number of years off...