Stone Quartet. Live at Vision Festival. The great French bassist Joëlle Léandre first assembled the Stone Quartet for a single performance in 2006. Heard here four years later, the free improvising quartet includes pianist Marilyn Crispell, violist Mat Maneri, and wind player Roy Campbell, who plays both flute and[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 113

Keith Rowe & John Tilbury. E.E. Tension And Circumstance. In 2004, after a disagreement with collaborator Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe left the core AMM trio, whose other member, John Tilbury, remained with Prévost in AMM. Before then, Tilbury and Rowe had been playing together in various lineups for almost forty years. This duo[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 113

Quatuor Bozzini. À Chacun Sa Miniature. Since 2005 Montreal's Quatuor Bozzini—leading interpreters of new string-quartet music—have hosted the Composer's Kitchen, a workshop for emerging composers, where they hone their craft. In 2011 the ensemble approached previous workshop participants, and harvested thirty-[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 113

Parker, Lee, Evans. The Bleeding Edge. The Bleeding Edge brings together three brilliant acoustic improvisers of different continents and generations in a program of trios and duos: English saxophonist Evan Parker, Korean cellist Okkyung Lee and American trumpeter Peter Evans. There is a special empathy between Parker and Evans,[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 113

Francisco López. Untitled #275. Composer and sound recordist Francisco López operates in an area where music and sound merge. On earlier albums he processed recordings from nature and buildings to arrive at this curious intermediate zone. Although the sources of the sounds are readily recognizable, the overall[...] Read more

Recordings René van Peer Issue 113

Le Quatuor de Jazz Libre du Québec. 1973. Le Quatuor de Jazz Libre du Québec was a free jazz ensemble that internalized the radicalism of the late ’60s and early ’70s into their actions and their music. Formed in 1967, they had by 1970 established an artists’ colony that had an affinity with Quebec[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 113

Lama. Oneiros. Based in Rotterdam, Lama offers an unusual mix of sensibilities, a trio of Portuguese and Canadian musicians that works at the intersections of film noir, cool jazz, electronica, and free improvisation. Gonçalo Almeida plays bass, effects, and loops, and is the principal composer;[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 113

Ion Zoo. Venus Looks Good. Vancouver-based Ion Zoo has released one previous CD, Set Free at the Cellar (on the NOW Orchestra label), a fine live performance that introduced the quartet, which comprises singer Carol Sawyer; Steve Bagnell on reeds, from baritone saxophone to clarinet, as well as percussion; Lisa[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 113

Eleanor Hovda. The Eleanor Hovda Collection. The music of Eleanor Hovda, (1940–2009), reflected her various concerns and interests in dance and movement and, by extension, space and breath. This is evidenced in The Eleanor Hovda Collection, with most of the recorded music stemming from the final twenty years of her career. Her[...] Read more

Recordings René van Peer Issue 113

Craig Hilton & Tomas Phillips. le gout de néant. This beautiful recording is largely sourced from a performance of Craig Hilton playing the guzheng. The first track, Sans Mouvement I, is a relatively untreated sound recording of Hilton bowing the guzheng, with a slight reverb applied—creating a blissfully full sound that envelops the[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 113

Eric Chenaux. Guitar & Voice. Guitar & Voice, Eric Chenaux’s fourth album for Constellation, is arguably his most comprehensively representative recording to date, unselfconsciously connecting disparate parts of his musical personality. In addition to placing his delicate songs into a nakedly intimate and[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 113