“Turner's supportive playing is well matched with Van Hove's probing and voluminous drive, and is perfectly in tune during the introspective moments. Both of which occur amply during the 26 minute opener 'Life Dealers'.
The duo's repartee is in fine order from the get-go. For example, about ten minutes in, moments of light pianistic whimsy meets Turner's crisp percussion and the two instruments begin pushing each other to extremes. 'Shopped', the second track, is a concise seven minutes and begins...

“When I first listened to The Hallowed Plant, I was immediately captivated. It’s a work that grabbed my attention and made immediate, intuitive sense. It seems that that the artists had a similar experience; after all, the band recorded it after having only played together twice previously. Chilean trumpeter Benjamin Vergara (trumpet) traveled to Chicago a few years ago and met Chicago-based musicians Keefe Jackson (reeds), Jim Baker (piano/synthesizer), and Phil Sudderberg (drums). It seems the...

Alex Ward: electric guitar

“’Frames” is the debut solo guitar album from composer/improviser/performing musician Alex Ward. The path leading to the making of this album extended through many years, during which Ward’s approach to the guitar in general and solo playing in particular became solidified. Up until his mid-twenties, Ward was known primarily as a clarinettist and his involvement in improvised music was almost exclusively as a reeds player. During this period Ward was also playing...

Marta Warelis - piano

“A grain of Earth’ is the first solo venture and expression of several years of working with instant compositions and the timbral possibilities of an acoustic piano. This has been wrapped in an idea of realities beyond our perception, and a thought that we are a part of a big organism where everything goes endlessly bigger and smaller in scale of size, time and speed. Everything moves in constantly interfering waves of energy; echoing and reflecting, in ceaseless dance of...

“Every time experimental British saxophonist John Butcher plays in the northwestern part of this continent his trio is made up of two Vancouver-based players: bassist Torsten Muller and drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Listening to the nine pitch-perfect improvisations on this disc demonstrates why this configuration has been maintained since 2007.
The veteran bassist, who is perfectly capable of atonal string-stretching and scrubbed pulsations, is careful to maintain a connective pumping throughout...

“This latest project Battle Pieces combines Wooley's deft touch at extended technique with his composing skills for like players. Recorded live at Anthony Braxton's Tricentric Foundation in 2014, Wooley brings together saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock (Anti-House, Paradoxical Frog, Mary Halvorson Septet), vibraphonist Matt Moran (Claudia Quintet, Slavic Soul Party, Dan Levin), and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier (Erik Friedlander Trio, Herb Robertson Quintet, and duo with Mark Feldman).
The written music and...

Nate Wooley – trumpet
Ingrid Laubrock – saxophones
Sylvie Courvoisior – piano
Matt Moran – vibraphone
“Battle Pieces 4, recorded live at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium in 2018 is the culmination of Wooley’s set of compositions for quartet. The group, after four years of twisting and torturing Wooley’s ever-expanding set of micro-compositions into new and ever-interesting forms, perform an evening length set that moves through the breadth of their collective history as an ensemble.”

“Far too often, the skill and detail informing music such as this is neglected by writers attempting description, no matter how sympathetic, in favor of emotive exposition, essentially stripping the discourse of any freedom the music might offer. There’s no denying that Jack and Ben Wright plumb those psychosocial depths, but they accomplish it in a way that foregrounds something akin to linguistic expression, shoving historical precedent to a hot but distant back burner.
Take, for example, the...