Sound American
Sound American No. 28 : The Mapping Issue
Sound American
“Sound American Publications announces its twenty-eighth installment: THE MAPPING ISSUE. Guest curated by musician and artist Kyla-Rose Smith of Found Sound Nation, the issue elevates the urgent voices and vital ideas of far-flung musicians and composers, often little known outside of their own native countries. This issue opens our eyes and ears to discovering new possibilities once unchained from our immediate surroundings.”
Tomeka Reid / Kyoko Kitamura / Taylor Ho Bynum / Joe Morris
Geometry of Trees
Relative Pitch Records
“This foursome is resolute in its acceptance of communal responsibility and creation. Vocalist Kyoko Kitamura sings and speaks in wordless flurries matching Taylor Ho Bynum’s brassy exhortations on cornet. Cellist Tomeka Reid and guitarist Joe Morris worry and pluck their respective strings, applying speed and torque in the loosing of spidery cascades of crinkled and crenelated tones. Pitch and timbre differentials are a big part of the interplay with instruments juxtaposed in bursts of activity.”
Luke Stewart
Works for Upright Bass and Amplifier Vol. 1 & 2
Astral Spirits
“A new 2xCD that is a summation of the current solo "Works" catalog from Luke Stewart. Definitely not a "complete" set as there will be much more to come! The double CD compiles the entire Works For Upright Bass Vols 1 & 2 as well as "Works For Pioneer Works" (from his recent split Cassette with Patrick Shiroishi on Profane Illuminations, 2021).”
Sylvie Courvoisier / Ned Rothenberg / Julian Sartorius
Lockdown
Clean Feed
“Without a leader, and enlisting compositions from all the three members, this music reflects the present pandemic context, as the title, “Lockdown”, clearly suggests. There’s a reflexive and introspective approach all along, with exquisite writing serving the collective improvisations and enabling lots of space for each musician to develop his/her own ideas. ”
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson
Searching for the Disappeared Hour
Pyroclastic Records
“"Courvoisier and Halvorson reach across the specifics of their approach to celebrate a mutuality of taste: of melodic shapes, of rhythmic structures, of harmonic color. The most pleasurable moments, though, come not when they’re reaching forward, but when they’re touching back—Courvoisier quoting Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in “Golden Proportion,” Halvorson playing off “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” at the top of “Faceless Smears”—because it reminds us that, however radical their approach, these two are very much part of an ongoing tradition." -J.D Considine, JazzTimes”
Dave Rempis / Joshua Abrams / Avreeayl Ra + Jim Baker
Scylla
Aerophonic Records
“This fourth record by the long-standing improvising ensemble Rempis/Abrams/Ra, and the third featuring now-regular band member Jim Baker, was recorded in a watershed moment for these musicians during a pandemic that had gutted lives across the planet. After 15 months of being closed to the public, the band’s home base Elastic Arts had re-opened for live events. And Rempis decided to relaunch his weekly Thursday-night concert series, a hub of the Chicago scene since 2002, with a performance by this working quartet.”
