CD

Joe McPhee / Dominic Duval / Michael Bisio / Raymond Boni

2006

"Port of Saints describes an epic journey whose main character is the saxophone. A guitar acts as the saxophone's alter ego. Two basses supply avuncular guide posts for traveling to an unknowable but certain destination. The journey is rife both with fantasy and human spirit. -Lynn Horton, All About Jazz"

Jaap Blonk & Maja Ratkje

2005

"Maja Ratkje and Jaap Blonk have been performing and recording together since 2001. their first release was a cd of acoustic voice duets (majaap, Kontrans 850)"

Jaap Blonk & Cor Fuhler

2005

"Since 1990 Jaap Blonk and Cor Fuhler have been collaborating in several groups in dutch improvised music, as well as in a pair of experimental radio plays. this is their first available recording as a duo."

Ikue Mori, Satoko Fuji & Natsuki Tamura

2020

""While this is not the first collaboration between Mori, Fujii, and Tamura, Prickly Pear Cactus manages to raise their game to new levels of abstraction even while containing nods toward more conventional notions of musicality. Well done." - Avant Music News"

Made to Break

2013

"If Made to Break’s album “Lacerba” deals with futurism, “Provoke” picks up the thread as to musical structure and philosophical references. Although the music is composed “the material is modular and parts can be combined spontaneously by the various members of the band, so the structure is improvised as well as the solos,” Ken Vandermark said. The three titles of the tracks make up the sentence “Further presentation of the facts” and they are dedicated to influential geniuses of the 20th century – John Cage, Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan."

Paul G. Smyth & Chris Corsano

2016

"We're up to our knees in duo and small group improv discs, so it takes something special to stand out. This one's a genuine keeper. —The Wire"

Kuzu

2020

"As Coltrane drew from jazz, gospel, and Eastern music, Kuzu do too, updating their approach with rock, metal and the tools of free jazz. We hear Rempis' patented rip, tear, crunch sound, but also there is a tranquility about this music not found in most free jazz. - Mark Corroto, All About Jazz"

Barry Guy London Jazz Composers Orchestra feat Irene Schweizer

2009

""After her riveting prelude-like solo, Schweizer applied her pan-stylistic approach to Guy’s challenging, playerempowering score. Though Guy retained the form’s traditional utility as a soloist’s showcase on “Radio Rondo,” he expanded the scope of the rondo’s back and forth to feature Schweizer in several subgroupings – a pummeling quintet passage with Guy, bassist Barre Phillips, and drummers Paul Lytton and Lucas Niggli – as well as encounters with the full force of the 17-piece contingent. A magisterial theme set up the piece’s final tutti blast.”"

Rara Avis

2015

"Here, Ken Vandermark is joined by Italian musicians Stefano Ferrian (tenor saxophone), Simone Quatrana (piano), Luca Pissavini (double bass), and SEC_ (Revox tape recorder, instant sound treatment). This album was recorded live on May 5th, 2013, at the Dragon Club in Poland, and it highlights the superb interplay and improvisational skill of the Rara Avis quintet."

Steam

2000

"With such a diverse number of projects to his name Vandermark’s output can be kind of intimidating. Proper points of ingress into his work are highly subjective and dependent on what side of Vandermark’s multifarious personality you want to explore. Few if any of his releases capture all of his interests, but this one comes close to showing off all of his major traits as a player and it does so in a highly accessible setting."

Joe Morris / Ken Vandermark / Luther Gray

2007

"One moment will have you holding your breath and the next will spur you to relax and slowly let your breath go. These three players never choose the highways when there are other roads to travel; you never know in which direction they’re going to turn. When the trio arrive at its destination, you’ll want to make the journey again: back to the first track. Another listening, another impression of this detailed recording’s nuances."

Red Nation

2017

"Where a collagist would add and subtract in a studio mix, Daisy creates these sounds, amazingly, without overdubs. The scratchy dream-state wobble of "Concord Citizen" floats as lightly as a cloud with ghost voices as musical seasoning. —Mark Corroto, All about Jazz"

Joe McPhee & Paal Nilssen-Love

2013

""Red Sky comes from folk lore of sailorsill and farmers predicting or forecasting weather. I use it here as a metaphor for looking backward and forward at the saem time, remember the past (lest we be doomed to repeat it) but with an eye to the future. [...]" -Joe McPhee, from the liner notes."

Bradford / Gjerstad / Håker Flaten / Nilssen-Love

2009

"Free jazz in the best tradition. And the audience is enthusiastic too. - The Free Jazz Collective"

Tim Daisy

2016

"This music is playfully serious and seriously inspired. It is obsessed with sonic juxtaposition, yet it is highly melodic. It wears its influences openly, yet it is refreshingly new. Born of improvisations, shaped into compositions, Daisy has written pieces that are sturdy, finely crafted morsels of musical experiences that the listener will return to again and again. —Tom Burris, Free Jazz Blog"

Joe McPhee / Michael Bisio / Raymond Boni / Paul Harding

2005

"The gods were smiling, and Joe McPhee, Michael Bisio, Raymond Boni, and Paul Harding were caught in concert in tip-top shape, revealing the power of sensitive, quality blowing. -Steve Loewy, All Music"

Ig Henneman Tentet

1995

""The Tentet lays out a silken, sumptuous ensemble sound, constructed from one composition to the next... which unfold at a leisurely pace into glorious peacock-feathers." –Erik van den Berg, Volkskrant"

Ken Vandermark & Fred Lonberg-Holm

2015

"Fred Lonberg-Holm and Ken Vandermark are like a small band on this album, tight, voluminous, ideally matched, often it seems as if the music was pre-composed (but all of it is freely improvised). The music is like a dance between a songbird (cello) and a belling deer (tenor saxophone), sometimes their energy literally collides. -Martin Schray, Free Jazz Blog"

Fred Lonberg-Holm & Ken Vandermark

2015

"Fred Lonberg-Holm and Ken Vandermark are like a small band on this album, tight, voluminous, ideally matched, often it seems as if the music was pre-composed (but all of it is freely improvised). The music is like a dance between a songbird (cello) and a belling deer (tenor saxophone), sometimes their energy literally collides. -Martin Schray, Free Jazz Blog"

Yannis Kyriakides

2013

"With Resorts & Ruins he returns to his native land (at least in spirit — he has long been based in Amsterdam) for a sound collage rumination on travel and childhood memories. The disc is filled with washes of sound, Turkish pop music and vague spoken instructions, seeming to collide the parallel confusions of memory and being away from home. -Kurt Gottschalk"