CD

The Vandermark 5

2004

"Seven releases down the road from 1997's Single Piece Flow, Vandermark's flagship quintet continues to serve as a vehicle for his original compositions, which span the range from hard-swinging bop to funk to energy music and the great uncategorizable beyond. The dedicatees on Elements of Style include John Gilmore, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Glenn Gould, and Max Beckmann, to name a few. As might be expected, the connections are not necessarily all that obvious, but not much about what Vandermark does is obvious, anyway."

Rafael Toral / Mars Williams / Tim Daisy

2019

"Chattering, textural free jazz brings to mind a forest of animals slowly coming to life. - J.R. Nelson, Chicago Reader"

Elisabeth Harnik

2019

"Sensual reflection challenges us to transcend the usual patterns of experience and penetrate into new sound realms. With subtle humor, the borders of genre are evoked associatively and expanded. "

Joe Morris & Barre Phillips

2008

""Guitarist (and sometimes bassist) Joe Morris has in “Elm City Duets” a new chapter of his ongoing objective to play with his lifetime heroes: after the meeting with the renowned multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton, resulting in a box with 4 CDs released by the label Clean Feed, here is another duo with a veteran of improvisation: Barre Phillips. And what a wonderful encounter this turned to be! What we have here is a vivacious dialogue between two equals, with precious and incisive arguments by both parts. Your record colection will be incomplete without this!" -Clean Feed"

Spectral (Rempis/Johnston/Ochs)

2018

"There was nowhere to hide during this recording session, every note staring back at its creators with fearless eyes. And the resulting musical tension is palpable, as the band tosses ideas up into the air between them, and sets them spinning off into the ether, each one on their own unique path. "

Ken Vandermark & Paul Lytton

2000

"Vandermark alternates between the more groove based playing that he has made a name for and slightly more abstract and in a "freer" fashion. Lytton runs with these moods through busy work that is attuned to what Vandermark, heard mostly on saxophone, is playing. "

The Ex & Brass Unbound

2013

""33 years into their career, Dutch punks the Ex are more interested in expanding the horizons of their music than in repeating their past. Enormous Door is an acrobatic, ferocious record, a welcome burst of electric noise and squealing horns from a group whose power and flexibility keep growing with time." –Pitchfork"

Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit

2014

Ken Vandermark, Klaus Kugel, Mark Tokar

2017

Large Unit Fendika

2019

"It could be argued that this is the most accessible recording in the Large Unit catalogue, and there is no doubt that this is the first one you can dance to all the way through."

The Quintet

2019

"In the late 1990s, three young musicians in the Oslo jazz scene – Paal Nilssen-Love, Ketil Gutvik and Eivind Opsvik – hooked up with two legends – Carl Magnus “Calle” Neumann and Bjørnar Andresen. The project was named The Quintet and it was the meeting of two generations, with Neumann and Andresen passing the spirit of the 60s on to three musicians who would make their mark in the 2000s."

Tripleplay

2000

John Butcher & Andy Moor

2015

"Experiments with a Leaf is a live recording from October 2013 in Berne, Switzerland, where the duo was playing in a cathedral. The large natural echo in the great space somehow glued the sounds together without the music resorting to a wash of reverberated noise... As a duo, they have no agenda or pre-planned aesthetic: both musicians simply work with their wide and contrasting knowledge of sound and music, and their fine responsiveness to each other and to their surrounding"

Made to Break

2019

"F4 Fake combines fiery free jazz with raw noises and abstract electronics, all accumulating into an interplay, sensual and extreme in its own way, ... that highlights Made to Break in its best."

Sten Sandell Trio

2009

"Released on drummer Paal Nilssen-Love's own PNL label, the trio further consists of Sten Sandell on piano and Johan Berthling on bass. Recorded live in Japan in 2008, the album consists of two tracks: "Face Up", and "Face Down", for twice more than half an hour of quite intense musical explorations. The first track is a high energy work-out, the second starts with counter-rhythmic percussion, full of explosive power and creativity, Berthling joins on bass, first plucked, and when Sandell joins he moves to arco, while the pianist plays some eery chords, gradually driving up the tempo and energy level for again a dense improvisation, that suddenly collapses for some minimalist interaction, with all three musicians exploring the more uncommon aspects of their instruments. In stark contrast to some of the other albums below, the album demonstrates that technical mastery and musical vision make it possible to bring depth and emotional drive even with the most common of all jazz line-ups."

Boneshaker

2019

"This is a very exciting and much welcome blast of old school free jazz energy from a collective group featuring Mars Williams on saxophones, Kent Kessler on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. Each has deep experience on the outer fringes of the jazz scene and they make for a very cohesive and potent unit. "

Chalachew Ashenati & Ililta Band

2013

"Chalachew Ashenafi, the legendary Gondar azmari (1966-2012) did some tours with The Ex in recent years. A traditional player, but also forward, funny and stubborn. These are his last recordings ever. Astonishing strong music."

WLSFW

2018

"This is a recording of the quintet’s 6th May 2016 live performance at the Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon Festival, Austria."

ozemarie Heggen & Terrie Ex

2017

"Two musicians from very different musical backgrounds. Terrie as electric guitarist of The Ex and improviser, and Rozemarie, double bassist, as a performer of contemporary music and improviser. After a shared experience in the Ex Orkest, a further cooperation seemed clear and resulted in this CD. Openness, intuition, intensity, joy are a few of the basic elements which made the special connection that have taken them both to a different level of music-making. Exploring new territory can definitely be heard in their playing. The eleven improvisations on "Fiets" are little stories, experiences you might have while doing a very Dutch thing; making a ride on your bicycle (fiets). Have a good listen!..."

Joe McPhee Trio

2012

"One of the most amazing discoveries is how the band's sound was already well-established from this very first recorded performance, not that they haven't evolved, but the core elements of total freedom, authentic feeling and reverence for tradition are already present. Quiet moments with lots of open space and room for interpretation and excursion by the individual soloists alternate by great moments of energetic explosivity."