2024 World Tour #10 - Germany
Paris
NILS FRAHM
Released 6 December 2024
LEITER
*****
Indeed, the LA Times wrote, “Watching him at work, and hearing the audience react, is a little like watching an athlete at the top of his game.” Expect nothing less from Nils Frahm on "Paris", a vital document of this ingenious, gifted musician’s endless pursuit of fresh perspectives.
Recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris and one and a half years after releasing his magnum opus "Music For Animals"—described by PopMatters as “a musical waterfall of monumental proportions”—Nils Frahm shares a new live album via his LEITER label. In what’s becoming a tradition, it follows 2013’s "Spaces", a Pitchfork Album of the Year taped at shows over the preceding 18 months, and 2020’s "Tripping With Nils Frahm", also released as a film. "Paris", nonetheless, is Frahm’s first live album from a single night, March 21, 2024, and contains ten tracks over a running time of 84 minutes.
Frahm’s performances have always been known for expanding upon his studio recordings, and "Paris" is no exception. Drawing on his substantial catalogue, the German composer and producer reworks tracks from various albums, and also adds the brand new, luxurious and strangely gripping ‘Opera’ to the track list.
If he leaves the stage to the same uproarious jubilation with which he was initially greeted, "Paris" makes it clear why he’s been so in demand. He’s been booked, frequently for multiple nights, at halls around the world, including Sydney’s Opera House, London’s Barbican and LA’s Orpheum Theatre.
Read more ... Bandcamp
SPIN
NIK BARTSCH'S RONiN
Released 29 November 2024
Ronin Rhythm Records
****-
He's not German, (he's Swiss), but Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin have played their own Zurich club Exil for 1,000 Mondays and 20 years - an invaluable live lab for their experiments in minimalist groove (just 25km south of the Switzerland-German border).
(Almost) Every song across their nine albums now is consecutively numbered, like classical opuses or scientific notes towards some unified theory of rhythm. Though the looping repetition recalls the likes of GoGo Penguin, the jagged edge of opener ‘Modul 66’ is abrasively intimate with rock like electric Miles, and Spin seethes with variety inside its theoretical parameters.
‘Modul 14’, a reworked, much loved composition from their 2002 debut Randori, conveys the intensity of those home crowd Mondays, new bassist Jeremias Keller’s pensive twang and Sha’s ominous alto recalling Radiohead’s OK Computer paranoia, till Kaspar Rast’s launch-velocity drums send piano splinters flying as Ronin hit a getaway groove.
Settling back into cruising velocity, the music is still prone to collapse and sudden assault. The Cold War mysterioso of ‘Modul 63’, though, offers suspenseful spy movie piano and the sax’s sour waterfront creep, before both take a cyclic climb to nowhere. ‘Modul 23’ is also eerily sorrowful, sheet-metal synth atmospherics and stately sax preceding a more upbeat, slippery mode. Ronin cheekily tag this unusually restless, raw form of minimalism as Zen funk, making them Swiss monks of mantric meter.
Read more ... Jazzwise
Meadows and Mirrors
PHILIPP SCHEIPEK
HENNING SCHIEPEK, BASTIAN JUTTE
Released 22 November 2024
GLM Music / Fine Music
*****
"Fantastically beautiful"
With bassist Henning Sieverts and drummer Bastian Jütte, guitarist Philipp Schiepek has two absolute masters of their respective fields at his side on his new album - but the focus of "Meadows And Mirrors" is clearly the nylon string guitar, which Schiepek plays throughout the album.
He plays mostly gentle originals, but can also be rhythmically more intense ("December"), and three cover songs, including the famous "You've Got A Friend" by James Taylor and Henry Mancini's equally famous "Moon River", which was sung by the young Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (which won him an Oscar).
All of this exudes an atmospheric breadth that catapults Schiepek into the league of colleagues such as Leo Kottke or Ry Cooder (“A Meeting By The River”), and the pentangle aces Bert Jansch and John Renbourn also spring to mind.
Read more ... Jazz Thing
Fifteen Days
TRICKY, THEIS THAWS, MIKE THEIS
Released 25 October 2024
False Idols
*****
In collaboration with Parisian producer Mike Theis, under the name Theis Thaws, an album of glacial electronics and museful tracks was produced in “Fifteen Days”, featuring guest vocal spots from Rosa Rocca-Serra, Run Red Rambo and Lucy La Dusk.
Tricky (real name Adrian Thaws), is the British music artist, record producer, vocalist and rapper. Born and raised in Bristol, in southwest England, he began his career as an early member of the band Massive Attack. As a producer and a musician, he is noted for a dark, rich and layered sound and a whispering lyrical style. Culturally, Tricky encourages a togetherness of societies, particularly in his musical ensemble of rock and hip hop, high art and pop culture.
Tricky moved to Berlin in 2015 and subsequently to Toulouse.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Do You Remember?
SONIC INTERVENTIONS
Released 22 November 2024
Agogo Records
*****
The album’s eclectic compositions interweave spiritual jazz, highlife, house music, desert blues, Latin music, and hip-hop, incorporating ethno beats and instruments, prayers, and improvisational pieces with seductive grooves that celebrate the ensemble’s cultural diversity.
Berlin-based collective Sonic Interventions is debut album "Do You Remember?" beautifully intertwines spiritual jazz with global roots music influences.
With musicians from five continents, the ensemble captures a transformative mix of sounds that explore themes of cultural memory, healing, and resilience.
The idea for Do You Remember? originated in 2020, amid the solitude of global lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Musicians across Berlin gathered for lively outdoor jam sessions at Tempelhofer Feld, a former airport. These jams were a community-driven, improvisational exchange that evolved into Sonic Interventions. This album channels that energy, integrating spiritual jazz, spoken-word poetry, and rhythmic experimentation.
Read more ... World Music Central
HADSEL
BEIRUT
Released 10 November 2024
Pompeii Records
*****
"Simply put, Hadsel is nothing short of a triumph."
Where 2019’s Gallipoli was somewhat a full-band effort, (bandleader Zack Condon explained) Hadsel is completely a one-man operation. Initially recorded just before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the world, and completed in the midst of said pandemic, Condon had the perfect excuse to get back to what he refers to as a “DIY approach.” Just him, an organ, some drum machines, two large analog synths, and all the time in the world. And what emerged was this. Something so pure, so clear.
The production on this album is just that damn immaculate.
Hadsel is a mood album done oh-so-right.
Condon’s vocals act as merely another melodic instrument on this album, so trying to pick apart the lyrics would be pointless. I know it’s reductive to say “just ignore the lyrics and vibe,” but I can’t give you a better piece of advice. Detach yourself from the current year and the cynicism you rightfully feel. Close your eyes and close off all other unnecessary senses. Let this album speak to you in quiet whispers and cold tears. Like it did for me.
Read more ... Sputnik Music
The Magic of Consistency
MAIK KRAHL
Released 8 November 2024
Challenge Records
*****
The album, which the Cologne resident dedicated to his mentors Till Brönner, Malte Burba and Ryan Carniaux, is multi-layered, clearly structured and brilliantly arranged - in short: unmistakably Krahl.
For some people, everyday life is a burden. Not so for Maik Krahl: The trumpeter, a student of Till Brönner and Ryan Carniaux and one of the great hopes of his jazz generation, tries everything to have a reasonably regular daily routine, if that is even possible for someone in his profession. With The Magic of Consistency, he has now poured this aspiration into music - and in doing so, has shown once again that free soloing works best with a solid foundation.
The Magic of Consistency impressively shows what Maik Krahl means.
The trumpeter has chosen Seamus Blake, with whom he had already worked in Fraction , as his conversation partner – at that time, however, pianist Constantin Krahmer was also on board. Blake, who was a long-time member of the Mingus Big Band as a saxophonist and has worked with John Scofield, Joshua Redman and the Brecker brothers, among others, harmonizes excellently with Krahl's narrative trumpet sound, engages in exchange with him and meets him as an equal.
But it is not only on this level that there is a unique chemistry - the rhythm section (drummer Peter Gall and bassist Julius Peter Nitsch) is also harmonious both in itself and in its interaction with the two melody carriers. The former could be taken for granted, but the latter not.
And then there are the introductions: "For me, it is incredibly important that everyone in the band is equally involved," explains Krahl. "That's why it was part of the concept from the beginning that each of the four of us would announce the others and introduce them to a piece." That is also a constant, at least on this album.
Read more ... Jazz The Tick
dessus oben alto up
ANDREA BELFI, JULES REIDY
Released 8 November 2024
Marionette
****-
The pair (with Marco Anulli manning the desk) have conjured up four expansive pieces where the beautifully recorded percussive clarity of Belfi’s drums threads through a sparkling haze of guitars and electronics.
Dessus oben alto up is the first collaborative recording by Andrea Belfi and Jules Reidy. Hailing from different ends of the globe (Australia and Italy) but both longtime residents of Berlin, Reidy and Belfi’s approaches have much in common, bringing together compositional precision and electroacoustic rigour with improvisation freedom, the immediate gratifications of rhythmic pulse, and an overtly lyrical sensibility.
Working together during a residency at the sound studio of Berlin’s Callie’s, an arts institution housed in a 19th century machine factory,
Read more ... Bandcamp
The Creator Has a Masterplan B
(A Tribute To Pharoah Sanders)
JOHANNES ENDERS
JORIS TEEPE, BILLY HART
Released 1 November 2024
Ammerton
*****
Inspired by Pharoah Sanders' emotional intensity and never derivative, in nine original compositions the musicians build a bridge back to Sanders, formulating their very own interpretation, expanding on it, and making it swing.
This band led by German saxophonist Johannes Enders who, since 2009 has held a professorship in Jazz Saxophone at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig, Germany.
Johannes Enders has found an ideal trio for this. Billy Hart was on drums when Pharoah Sanders recorded his album "Karma" with the legendary "The Creator Has a Master Plan" in New York in 1969, he puts his stamp of authenticity on a music full of bursting swing and groove.
The dexterous and supple bass of Joris Teepe, who in Rashied Ali's band gained first-hand experience with one of the protagonists of the New York's own October revolution in Jazz, intertwines with Hart to form a solid yet flexible base over which Johannes Enders can develop his distinctively imaginative playing, wonderfully fluid yet with many points of controlled friction.
Read more ... Proper Music
Stimmen
EVA KLESSE QUARTETT
(EVGENY RING, PHILIP FRISCKHORN, MARC MUELLBAUER, EVA KLESE)
with
PHILLIP RUMSCH, ZUZA JASINSKA, MICHEAL SCHIEFEL
Released 1 November 2024
eva yellowbird
*****
What does it mean to have a voice? Who can be heard? Who cannot? Why? What does it mean to make your voice heard? Can a voice become too loud and what happens to it then? How can we give voice to a collaborator whose story is in danger of being lost in the turbulence of everyday life or in the flood of images that assail us?
The collective's idea for STIMMEN was born in 2020 during the loneliness of the first COVID-19 lockdown. The starting point for the work was the ensemble's conviction that the physical isolation needed to be resisted internally. In response to the restrictions, the musicians decided to listen to people whose stories seemed more distant than ever and whose voices they felt were in danger of being drowned out by the roar of the present, determined by the pandemic and global political conflicts. The result are 13 new compositions in three chapters, through which the theme of social upheaval is woven like a common thread: stories of living, dreaming, hoping and longing under socialism. Poems and stories by and about Russian feminist freedom fighters, courageously standing up as long as they could. Tales of the oppressively violent discrimination based on gender, skin colour, class or sexuality.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Butter Bei Die Fische
RED HERING
Released 25 October 2024
Deutsche Moon Records
****-
If you really want to construct a relation between music and album title, "Butter bei die Fische" does not exaggerate in promising too much. And this is exactly what Maximilian Hering has provided here in every respect. And how!
Butter bei die Fische” is a northern German saying that literally translates as “Butter with the fish” but means get to the point; he hadn't heard that anywhere on all his paths in life. Hering likes something like that.
Red Hering has existed since 2019. All those involved in the German-Dutch sextet are connected to Arnheim, the capital of the province of Gelderland on the Lower Rhine. Maximilian Hering was born in 1994 and turned 30 in July. He had already received his first little drum kit as a gift in preschool age: the start of a passion. He discovered the world of jazz one day. After having received several young talent awards, studying music was an obvious option. The drummer went to Arnhem in 2015. For his bachelor degree concert in 2019, he put together a six-piece line-up that is almost identical in personnel to the current Red Hering line-up. Sara Bax is the new singer today, even then a fellow student of Hering’s; he also plays in her group. The concert was not only extremely successful, but it also had an impact. The band agreed that it had to continue with the sextet. As a result, Red Hering came into existence.
Read more ... Challenge Records
Folklore
STEFAN SCHOLER TRIO
Released 20 September 2024
Double Moon Records
****-
Beyond all conventions, clichés, and prejudices, almost any music that brings people from different generations and social backgrounds together could be folklore. Why not this one too?
Folklore? One of the last things in Stefan Schöler’s mind would be to use the popular melodies of folk music. Or to adhere to folkloric traditions in another way. To avoid misunderstandings about the album title, the pianist and composer provides an explanation in the liner notes. The term, which is often met with skepticism in Germany, contains an idea for him - a vision.
Stefan Schöler lives in Kleve, on the Lower Rhine bordering the Netherlands. He comes from Kreuztal in Siegerland, Westphalia. He has been playing the piano since the age of 7. He studied jazz at Arnhem in the Netherlands, and he expressly thanked the master pianist Rob van den Broek from the Netherlands, who gave him essential elements on his way, especially the courage to experiment improvisationally. Even greats like John Taylor, Carla Bley and Steve Swallow helped him with some tools for individual advancement. After a stay in Sweden, Schöler returned to his native country. He is especially connected to Cologne; the members of his famous trio, bassist Lukas Keller and drummer Simon Bräumer, are part of the jazz scene there.
For the man from Kleve, music is a way to find himself, "to come to peace with himself", characterized by numerous impressions, thoughts and emotions. Compositions are the starting point for collaborative improvisation. "Trio music is like a conversation in a small circle".
The selection of the album cover is typical Stefan Schöler, just like everything else about this excellent production. The photo by Timo Katz, a visual artist, shows the well-ordered conventionality of a housing estate. "Typically German," Schöler smiled. There is also something mysterious in the recording for him. High above the roofs: a bird in free flight, undisturbed by what it flies over.
Read more ... Challenge Records
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Blickwinkel
(curated by Zappi Diermaier)
FAUST
Released 13 September 2024
Bureau B
*****
An LP of brand new Faust material curated by founder member Werner "Zappi" Diermaier and a team of friends, 'Blinckwinkel' is a dubby, carnivalesque hallucination that snapshots the band in its latest incarnation.
Formed way back in 1971 and dissolved four years later, Faust made music that's genuinely stood the test of time - including the mind-boggling 'Faust Tapes'. But they've been active in some form or another since the '80s. The band disappeared for a spell, and in 1990 and '92, Diermaier got together with founder members Jean-Hervé Péron and Hans Joachim Irmler for a handful of reunion shows. Since then, they've assembled in various iterations, but Diermaier's been a near constant presence. His lineup on 'Blinckwinkel' includes Dirk Dresselhaus (aka Schneider TM), Einstürzende Neubauten members N.U. Unruh and Jochen Arbeit, Sonja Kosche, German guitarist Uwe Bastiansen, Monobeat's Elke Drapatz and Faust founder member Gunther Wüsthoff.
And although the material doesn't have the same eccentric streak as Faust's earliest, most vital run, it's still worth a peep - even just to hear what sounds such an unusual bunch of musicians might produce.
The skeleton is still krautrock, led by Diermaier's signature motorik beats, but the drummer's team of collaborators use that as a jumping off point, decorating his driving thuds with noisy electronics and dubby, hypnotic soundscapes.
Read more ... boomkat
Bangers Only!
JAZZRAUSCH BIGBAND
Released 30 August 2024
ACT
****-
... this music combines the familiar with new discoveries, whatever the listener’s level of familiarity with it might be. ...and has the kind of intensity which is always going to draw listeners right in. Every time.
In the decade since it was founded, the German “Jazzrausch Bigband” has made a habit of combining things which are normally considered to be opposites: techno and jazz; classical and underground electronica; the concert hall and the club; the young and the old. "Bangers Only!" is the definitive hit album, consisting of half newly recorded and produced fan favourites and half fresh "bangers". And it shows that the band has found a way to root this repertoire in its own, thoroughly recognisable sound, one which has become familiar to a large and diverse fan base and which has a way of combining everything into one big, well-rounded whole.
We’re fixed on the three to four minute song form here. So everything is about sticking to the point, or often just getting straight down to it.
Half of the setlist is new, the list of ingredients is typically long for Jazzrausch Bigband: techno, disco and funk beats, thick walls of brass alongside wide, airy surfaces, plus vocals, spoken word and improvisation. Euro-dance borrowings are new - sweet, garish and juicy.
Read more ... ACT
Ilmonique
ACHIM KAUFMANN, KALLE KALIMA
Released 19 July 2024
TYXArt
****-
"The music is a collective meditation on influences from Miles Davis over Morton Feldman to Robert Johnson but all original compositions by Achim and me.
I think this music shows new sides of our musical journey."
Kalle Kalima
During recent years, Laufmann and Kalima had the opportunity to work on original duo music without much pressure from the outside and as a result recorded this program in September 2022.
They build upon their enjoyment of listening to and exploring ensemble music that uses multiple instruments being capable of providing harmonic information, requiring deep listening on various levels - pitch-wise, chord-wise, register-wise, rhythmically and texturally.
The combination of piano and acoustic guitar puts these possibilities and challenges under a magnifying glass. Ideally their sounds blend into each other - one seems like an extension of the other.
The pieces chosen for this duo are song-inspired and largely reflect some modernist compositional tendencies.
For Kaufmann it is "as though Joni Mitchell, Henry Threadgill and Elliott Carter had decided to move to the same neighborhood, at least for a short sojourn, to work on an interactive project".
For Kalima, the project took her "back to teenager years when she says she was overwhelmed by the acoustic work of Ralph Towner, Jimmy Page and Julian Bream".
Read more ... Tyxart
Your Guide To Revolution
MARY OCHER
Released 14 June 2024
Mary Ocher
*****
"Fantastically beautiful"
Like most of her work, "Your Guide…" is a political record and follows the thread first initiated by The West Against The People (2017), which analysed the changing identity of the West. "Your Guide…" is more didactic in its approach. Feature track ‘Sympathize’ in particular speaks of the cynicism intrinsic to politics and the injustice it engenders. The symbolism in the video and lyrics not only point to those who manipulate public opinion about refugees but also acknowledges our complicity in the crisis through our inaction. As much of Europe shifts to the right and culture wars dominate political discourse, ‘Sympathize’ – somewhat perversely – captures the zeitgeist with an infectious disco beat.
As an artist, Ocher’s political perspective leans radically leftward. Her tendency to question authority, nationalism, capitalism, and religious dominance can be traced to her early life growing up in Israel as a Moscow-born émigré of Jewish-Ukrainian descent. Her experience of xenophobia and nationalism in the Israeli school system is recounted in her autobiographical comic MOOP! and mirrored in the album’s penultimate track ‘Museum Of Childhood Terror’.
Rejecting this environment led Ocher to resettle in Berlin in 2007. At the time, the city was cheap, particularly if you lived communally, and these circumstances allowed her to focus on making a living exclusively from music. It’s a seemingly impossible proposition today, and yet Your Guide… comes packaged with an essay explaining how to do just this. In A Guide to Radical Living, Ocher draws from her experience of “living comfortably with just enough” and suggests ways of “resisting the rules by finding ways of survival that are not presented to us as options”, like making the most of grant money or refusing to buy things on credit. The revolution that Ocher proposes is not a militaristic coup but instead a form of cultural reconditioning that prompts us to reassess the roles we play within the capitalist framework.
Read more ... The Quietus
Close Your Eyes
BILL PETRY
Released 24 May 2024
Timezone
****-
You look in vain for complicated improvisations, but you get intimacy and a cornucopia of beauty and elegance.
An album title as a brief instruction on how to listen to the album. Of course, "Close Your Eyes", the debut of the young Berlin trumpeter Bill Petry, can be read that way. The music on the album produced by Till Brönner is one that can be enjoyed wonderfully with your eyes closed. The band leader's buttery-soft, gentle trumpet playing in the dozen well-known songs from pop and jazz. Together with pianist Christian von der Goltz, bassist Olaf Casimir and drummer Tobias Backhaus, Petry shows himself to be a mature, emotional instrumentalist who relies primarily on his trumpet sound and the refinement of the beautiful melodies of the mostly ballad-like pieces.
Brönner raves about his young colleague and predicts a great future for him.
He might not be entirely wrong.
Read more ... JazzThing
Mumbling on the Floor
MAREK JOHNSON, WANJA SLAVIN
Released 19 April 2024
Papercup Records
*****
This creative journey is exciting from the first to the last second, increasingly moving towards pop and electronic realms, even flirting with the Art prefix and occasionally evoking subtle Radiohead memories, but by no means wants to leave the earlier singer/songwriter verve behind.
While Cologne-based David Helm creates jazz magic under his real name, as Marek Johnson he devotes himself to a wide variety of musical realms, often with pop as the common denominator. The first releases were comparatively clearly rooted in the good old singer/songwriter tradition, accompanied by personal touches, but now things are bigger and more adventurous.
"Mumbling On The Floor", the by no means heavy second album, symbolizes the creative and musical opening of Johnson, who now insists on following the song, even if its direction often takes on surprising dimensions.
You can't - and don't want to - escape the beauty of this album. Marek Johnson is searching for and finding his sound, that becomes clear again and again. Accompanied by exciting guests, "Mumbling On The Floor" is increasingly carving out its own niche, mixing easy listening with high standards.
Supporting Helm are Wanja Slavin (on flutes, clarinet, baritone saxophone, synths, percussion, and beats), Shannon Barnett (backing vocals and trombone) and Hanno Stick & Jan Philipp (drums).
What a magical, gripping affair.
Read more ... Beat Blogger
Sun Ark
SUN ARK
Released 16 February 2024
Sun Ark & XJAZZ! Music
*****
Vibey, soulful and genre-bending, Sun Ark weaves together electronic, hip-hop, Brazilian and jazz influences to create a lush, colourful and orchestral sound. Dreamy and complex, Sun Ark founder and songwriter Johannes Mann describes their self-titled debut album as ‘exploring a landscape’; a sonic story with a sunny, springy opening track that bends into a red-hot, experimental arc.
Berlin-based Sun Ark bridges the gap between electronically-produced music and acoustic jazz ensemble playing, with tracks that highlight the skilled musicianship of each of the band’s players.
Mann, Nissen, Widestrand, Stefansson, Wankel and Jäckle have played in venues around the world, from Bahia, Brazil’s Festival de Jazz do Capão to Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, and across a number of local venues, including the Jazzexzess Concert Series, A-Trane and Donau115.
In SUN ARK they join forces to improvise and experiment collectively to create a current sound that aims to have a profound spiritual and emotional Impact.
Read more ... Bandcamp
The Answer
THE JAKOB MANZ PROJECT
Released 26 January 2024
ACT
*****
Grooves and melodies are to be heard here which are clearly influenced by the more soulful and poppier sides of American jazz. But there are also new colours derived from a serious immersion and engagement with music from beyond the western world.
Born in 2001, alto saxophonist Jakob Manz is regarded as a shooting star of the German jazz scene. Manz is known for his impressive technique and his melodically versatile playing.
“Groove jazz, that’s what we grew up with,” says Manz. “Marcus Miller, David Sanborn and the Brecker Brothers - they’re all in our DNA.
But for The Jakob Manz Project’s second album, we also wanted new inspirations which would push us further”. The main catalyst for this was a performance at the Papjazz Festival in Haiti. The band were deeply affected by the country and its music, as well as a first encounter with pianist Meddy Gerville from La Réunion.
So, whereas we can hear Jakob Manz’s breathtaking virtuosity again on “The Answer”, it is always something he puts to the service of the music.
Read more ... ACT Music
DUO
MICHAEL WOLLNY & JOACHIM KUHN
Released 26 January 2024
ACT
*****
It’s a generally rhapsodic meeting of minds, without the solo interludes for both players featured on their earlier record. The overall mood is reflective, with only occasional passages of storming counterpoint.
The pairing here, Michael Wollny and Joachim Kühn, have each made solo piano recordings of. note, as well as an earlier duo session in 2008. They came together again a year ago in Frankfurt to record in concert on two matched Steinways. This CD is the more or less unedited result.
They are of course both comprehensively well-equipped and immensely knowledgeable, and adept at the kind of extemporisation that relies as much on skilled listening as on sound production. There’s little fear of them getting in one another’s way: this recital is mostly an elegantly restrained collaboration.
But the entire encounter is thoroughly absorbing, as the note in the liner indicates – it was easy to edit out the applause, apparently, because the live audience were so deep into the music they took several moments to stir whenever the players paused.
Read more ... UK Jazz News
OPT OUT
OUM SHATT
Released 26 January 2024
WANDA Y.
*****
"Fantastically beautiful"
Building on the minimal-rock style of their 2016 self titled debut album, the critically acclaimed Berlin supergroup OUM SHATT weaves a mystic, at times psychedelic soundscape with meandering guitars, a wild percussive aesthetic, and lead vocalist Jonas Poppe’s evocative, mantra-like baritone.
According to their own statement, the band plays a radically pure and minimal form of rock'n'roll, with Arabic references.” According to Poppe, the name of the band is on the one hand a homage to the grand dame of Egyptian music, Oum Kalthoum , and on the other hand refers to a place in the Tunisian desert. Laut.de compares the sound with that of Franz Ferdinand or the Talking Heads .
OPT OUT is a narrative album, framing story that revolves around two couples who set off into the unknown (Off to St. Pete) and ultimately opt out (Sure Cure) - with an uncertain outcome.
The characters in OPT OUT are in opposition to societal expectations and resist being defined or used by those who wish to see them as representatives, mouthpieces, icons, scapegoats, or as victims.
The cast includes a senator who, with bizarre casualness, deliberately exposes himself as a charlatan (Over the World and Out), a musician, praised by the mainstream for his uniqueness, who declines the opportunities offered to him (Kid Went Awry), an escort engaged in a power-ambiguous relationship with a diplomat (Madame LeSoleil Levant), patient, exploited by her psychiatrist, who feels a sense of satisfaction after a successful protest at his dance party (Love the Way She Stands).
And then there’s God, who shuns the human-imposed labels of power, benevolence, and omniscience, urging humanity instead to embrace playfulness (Play!) etc.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Allgäu Meets India
(Live at Deutsches Jazzfestival Frankfurt 2018)
MATTHIAS SCHRIEFL,
FRANKFURT RADIO BIGBAND
Released 22 January 2024
Jazzwerkstatt
****-
No wonder that the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper spoke of a "kaleidoscopic swirl".
One could write pages about this album. Raised in Maria Rain, located at the edge of the Alps, and based in Cologne, German artist Matthias Schriefl is the jack of all trades of brass instruments. He has packed pretty much everything he could into his project “Allgäu Meets India”. He combines the Frankfurt Radio Big Band (“my favorite big band in this universe”) with his Indian-European ensemble Amithias (from: Amith + Matthias) to create a truly world music orchestra.
We hear gripping, innovative big band charts, Alpine folklore sounds, Indian improvisations on the bansuri (Amith Nadig) or in the syllabic language Konnakol, a percussion battle (four drummers!), sophisticated swing episodes and other surprising inserts, fabulous brass sections and hot jazz solos (for example by Tony Lakatos, Axel Schlosser), also an electric guitar (Martin Scales), plus the extremely versatile vocalist Sarah Buechi and of course the band leader himself with features on four different instruments.
There is a piece that is named after an alpine mountain hut, but is supposed to be a blues and features Indian musicians. Or an elegy for a journalist from Burkina Faso, which is sung in Swiss.
he magnificent recording was made live at the German Jazz Festival 2018.
Read more ... Jazz Thing
Waiting For Zion
A08
Released 17 November 2023
Compost Records
*****
Just like the layers of the cake, enjoyed as a whole, the genre-fluid compositions make for surprising sonic experiences.
The magpie tendencies of the creative duo Dirk Leyers and DJ Nomad (AKA Hans Raabe) have always been their strength and also probably the reason they haven’t become ‘household names’ in the electronic music community despite producing a string of excellent records under the guise of Africaine 808 from the 2010s onwards.
Rebranding themselves as A08 and following ten successful years touring their live music project and remixing artists such as the Tony Allen and Amadou & Mariam amongst many, the duo decided to switch up their sound adding the varied languages of jazz and Caribbean music into their already spicy pot.
On their new album ‘Waiting For Zion’, the pair (and their trusty servant, the Roland 808 drum machine) have produced a killer twelve track record without a dud moment in sight (or sound). Bringing along guests from Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Trinidad and Germany but with the majority of the creating done by themselves, the album moves from twitchy Afro-electro and digi-reggae to brassy tropical-infused jazz and moments of squidgy sunshine RnB, each track dripping in educated quality whilst remaining courageous.
The knitting together of their open-minded and cultured musicality, and exceptional studio production chops make this is a great album which is going to be in my record bag for quite some time.
Read more ... Truth and Lies Music
A Guide To Afrokraut III
DAVID NESSELHAUF
Released 19 May 2023
Legere Recordings
*****
"Afrokraut" is a stylistic expression of Krautrock, primarily associated with Can, and their creative use of time and space in music. "A Guide To Afrokraut III" is David Nesselhauf´s third and last contribution to the dusty shrine of this long forgotten style.
Inspired by the unfinished manuscript ‘History Deletes Itself’ by the late science fiction author Joseph Sabiers, Nesselhauf decided to produce a b-movie soundtrack to the original plot, ignoring the fact that there will likely never be a movie to this music.
In the original script, a virus has infected history, the resulting changes of historical facts leading to an unpredictable present and future for mankind. Every attempt to solve the problem – including time travelling – only worsens the situation. But three planets at the end of the known universe seem to be unaffected by the phenomenon, they become a sanctuary known as ‘Afrokraut III’. Three brothers arrive there to start new lives. They are introduced to The Guide, their mysterious advisor...
The striking parallels to today's uncertainties, a strong feeling of hope and the idea to never stop exploring (come what may) certainly have encouraged the making of this album, which sees a belated release due to the obstacles everyone faces right now.
David Nesselhauf lives in Hamburg/Germany and appears as a bass player/songwriter in bands like Hamburg Spinners, The Drawbars, Diazpora, and Angels Of Libra.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Awake
MIRNE BOGDANOVIC
Released 12 May 2023
Berthold Re
****-
Greg Cohen, the renowned bass player, talks of her: “...sultry tone, expressive phrasing and total musicality… the choice of many musicians ‘in the know’. Comfortable in all walks of musical life, Ms.Bogdanović is guaranteed to please.”
Supported by a wide cast of musicians, Bogdanović’s seductive voice and eloquent compositions give AWAKE, her second album, its compelling dramatic curve. Bogdanović broke up with her boyfriend in 2019. Through her music and lyrics she describes the drama of this and other personal experiences.
At the age of seven, Bogdanović began learning piano in Maribor, Slovenia, where she was born and brought up. Her mother is Slovenian, her father Bosnian. “We had to flee the war when I was two years old,” she recalls. “It affected a lot of things in my life. It was a rough beginning for me. I experienced the war through my parents. We lost everything. They started a company and worked day and night to make it successful. That’s why I have no siblings.”
The track Only Child “is an interplay of music and vocals. The voice here, as in my music generally, is not always up front, but has an instrumental role as part of the band.”
The composer’s inspirations are a “mashed up, mix of different things from classical music to jazz – traditional and modern, singer-songwriter, indie, electronic, soul, neo-soul, r&b, and hip-hop.”
Read more ... Bandcamp
Dark Horse
TOBIAS MEINHART BERLIN PEOPLE
Released 28 April 2023
Sunnyside Communications
*****
The tunes showcase a range of saxophone and guitar lines, complemented by a tight rhythm section comprised of Berlin’s finest young musicians.
Dark Horse is the second album from Tobias Meinhart’s Berlin People. The German saxophonist, based in Brooklyn, has composed a new program for his group featuring renowned guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel.
The album’s central theme is the ambiguity of the phrase “dark horse,” which can refer to someone with a secret talent or an unexpected winner.
All of the compositions on the album contain hidden elements or double meanings, or reveal their true nature only at the end.
After touring the world for two years, playing in countries such as Ecuador, Mexico, and Spain, as well as at the Jarasum Jazzfestival in South Korea, the band decided to capture the group’s energy in a live recording at Berlin’s premier jazz club, A-Trane.
Read more ... Tobias Meinhart
Buoyancy
PABLO HELD, NORMA WINSTONE
Released 14 April 2023
Hopalit Records
****-
The album marks a new chapter in Held’s already well-established career – presenting fresh, thoughtful compositions and arrangements that pleasantly push creative boundaries while remaining true to the pianist’s reputation for narrative story-telling in song and album form.
Buoyancy is celebrated German pianist and composer Pablo Held's 16th release as a leader - with an exciting new band featuring a unique instrumentation, exploring new material as arrangements of classics like John Williams' theme for Star Wars and the Astrid Lindgren / Jan Johannsson composition Pippi Longstockings!
Held is joined by Englishmen Percy Pursglove on trumpet and flügelhorn and Kit Downes on organ, fellow German Leif Berger on drums.
Held shares writing credits with legendary British guest vocalist Norma Winstone on the album's opening track "Underwater Rendezvous".
Read more ... Bandcamp
Wille
VINCENT MEISSNER TRIO
JOSEPH ZEIMETZ, HENRI REICHMANN
Released 24 February 2023
ACT
*****
With "Wille" the Vincent Meissner Trio shows that young, complex, crisp piano trio jazz does not have to come from the USA, England or Scandinavia, like many famous current representatives.
Although their debut album "Bewegtes Feld" (2021) attracted lavish praise at home and abroad, Vincent Meissner’s young acoustic piano trio with bassist Josef Zeimetz and drummer Henri Reichmann scarcely had any chances to perform live, the advent of COVID meant they had little opportunity to explore the richness of their bandleader’s compositions, or indeed to let this material develop properly.
On the new album the trio has become much more closely integrated, their joy in playing is palpable. The trio has developed its interplay, and the way it approaches the pieces is much freer now.
Totally contemporary music, with heart and brain, whether in the form of original compositions or re-constructions of Whitney Houston, Louis Cole or The Beatles.
Read more ... ACT
Moonwalker
NOAH FÜRBRINGER
Released 22 November 2022
Agogo Records
*****
The album’s eclectic compositions interweave spiritual jazz, highlife, house music, desert blues, Latin music, and hip-hop, incorporating ethno beats and instruments, prayers, and improvisational pieces with seductive grooves that celebrate the ensemble’s cultural diversity.
For many music lovers it’s already a known fact that Berlin used to be a techno town, but since a few years it becoming the center for musicians and new bands of the world. Being still extremely cheap compared to other cities and having all the possibilities of new clubs, rooms and music spots the next years will show even more that Berlin is the capital of new music styles that have not much to do with the old techno scene.
One of the great new musicians doing interesting projects is German drummer Noah Fürbringer. A music magazine recently published an article about Noah Fürbringer with the headline: "Shooting Star of the German Drummer Scene - The Young Wild One."
For MoonwaLKER, his first solo album, he has brought together a handful of friends, shows the wide range of his musical abilities and the intense interest in exchange with other musicians. He says: "It was important to me to bring musician friends together for my first solo album and to work on something together. We composed completely independently of any genre and did exactly what we felt like doing. But mostly inspired by modern jazz music. Drumming is like speaking for me. Speaking soft, loud, fast, slow and sometimes also misspeaking.“
Read more ... Bandcamp
Sci-Fi Jazz Directions
ZEITGEIST FREEDOM ENERGY EXCHANGE
Released 9 September 2022
Kyptox
*****
This album epitomizes the Zeitgeist of the time, the crucial meeting point of our organic selves with our technology.
The band around Melbourne born drummer and producer Ziggy Zeitgeist has been based in London for a certain time before moving to Berlin a few year ago. By now Ziggy and his crew has a big following in Berlin - where the new jazz and soul-infected dance scene is growing - many new spaces, clubs, radios and places where the new DJs, musicians and bands things happen.
Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange is a collective that bring together the real UK jazzfunk vibes that have been popularized by Kamaal Williams, Shabaka, Ezra Collective with the energy of Berlin's electronic DJ music. In fact Ziggy Zeitgeist, head of the collective is a big fan of the straight dancefloor driven DJ tools music. His aim is to create a mix of both - the jazz vibes and the tribalistic, electronic energy to create a way of real dancefloor jazz vibes that reflect ta fresh modern touch od what could be a sound for the next years.
The trio continue to hone their unique brand of dance-floor focused 'jazz-rave'. They are mainly live musicians and they love to play at parties. They've been playing underground dance jam in abandoned basements of London, Berlin, and Melbourne for years - and its bog part of their identity as that the magic of live bands: the band needs the direct interaction with the dance floor.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Sentiments We Move
CHARLOTTE GREVE, WOOD RIVER, CANTUS DOMUS, RALF SOCHAZEWSKY
Released 15 October 2021
New Amsterdam
*****
Just like the layers of the cake, enjoyed as a whole, the genre-fluid compositions make for surprising sonic experiences.
Sediments We Move might be alto saxophonist and composer Charlotte Greve’s debut solo album, but she is certainly not a newbie on the jazz scene, whether in her native Germany or her chosen US home town of Brooklyn. Greve has been leading the jazz quartet Lisbeth since its inception in 2009. They have released four albums and won two Jazz ECHOs, the German equivalent to the Grammys.
Since 2014, Greve has also been leading the Brooklyn based four-piece band Wood River that presents jazz-inspired alternative pop-rock.
Additional projects in New York include the alto saxophone quartet Asterids and the trio The Choir Invisible.
Sediments We Move brings together a myriad of influences from Greve’s past and present musical explorations, including long-time collaborators like Wood River and Berlin-based choir Cantus Domus, with whom Greve first collaborated in 2017.
Like different layers of a cake she serves (free) jazz, ambient, metal, noise, rock, and choral music – at times all in one composition.
Sediments We Move is one grand flow of music, which, perhaps, is the only downside to this wealth of musical influences – I do not remember the individual compositions as much as the overall sound. This doesn’t obscure Greve’s incredible talent; her mature compositions are well directed and intentional. She did not get lost in the material; she is in control.
Read more ... The Quietus
Key Elements
KEY ELEMENTS
Released 15 May 2020
Sonar Kollektiv
****-
Even when you listen to it a second, third or fourth time you will discover new nuances and niceties again and again. As is right and proper for really good jazz album.
Key Element‘s initiator, DJ and producer Marian Tone, built up a reputation in the Berlin hip hop, soul and jazz scene over the years (also as a co-founder of Beatkollektiv). With all of his compositions you always feel this heritage and his love and passion for hip hop. But the other two alleys within Key Elements, drummer Waldi and the keyboard or bass player Jim Dunloop make their contribution with compositions and ideas as well. An album which was initially designed to be a mere solo project became an effort of a trio over the years being inherently consistent.
Already the opening track "Mike Needs Sugar" shows the direction this album will take us: To the land of the good groove. It‘s here where the three thoroughbred musicians feel on top of the world obviously and deliver one luscious track after the other. From the cheerful «Morning Boom» to the kinda furtively laid back «Impossible» and the final «Funky Dave», which could be on an Italian soundtrack from the 70‘s every single tone and note from «Key Elements» is great fun.
Read more ... Bandcamp
The Foreign Loomers
MONONOKE
Released 1 November 2019
Mononoke
****-
Mononoke's debut album captures some of their strongest musical and sound ideas that are formed into a virtuously flourishing and forward moving piece of art.
Mononoke describe themselves as "a two-man Band from Berlin made up of Fabian Rösch (drums) and Benjamin Geyer (keyboards). Thy play mostly improvised sets with a mixture of Electronica, Beats, Jazz and Psychedelic".
Coming from a jazz background, their improvised music is influenced by artists such as Radiohead, JamesZoo, Flying Lotus, Mehliana, James Blake, Nicolas Jaar, John Talabot, Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Floating Points, Gaslamp Killers and others…
Based on their YouTube and Soundcloud channels, they have been performing for at least seven years and "The Foreign Loomers" is their debut and only album released so far.
Band member Benjamin Geyer is also active under the moniker benjamin.zimmer and as a member of the group Flying Cakes.
He also contributed to Cologne based sound artist Luise Volkmann's debut album "Rites De Passage" released in April 2023
Read more ... YouTube, Benjamin Geyer
Module
PREPARED
Released 17 January 2024
Compost Records
****-Captivating, hypnotic, and highly energetic. Prepared - a free-spirited Munich-based trio in a chamber music line-up that instinctively awakens dance impulses and guides the listener into a trance-like sound space.
A pianist who hammers, taps and plucks incessantly on the grand piano. A clarinetist who plays more bass than clarinet in the depths of his bass clarinet. And a drummer who, like a good record, goes on and on, constantly spinning the grooves in circles. Three Munich jazz musicians, united in their contrasts. Where one plays Argentinian tango with Quadro Nuevo, the other plays folklore-free folk music with Dreiviertelblut and the third plays German hip-hop with Moop Mama, in their new project Prepared they merge cyclical motifs and cleverly layered patterns in minimalist yet highly virtuoso compositions creating a mesmerizing Gesamtkunstwerk. Its as if Steve Reich, Jonny Greenwood, Nik Bärtsch, and Dawn of Midi had been thrown into a pot.
Read more ... Prepared, Beatport
DJ-KICKS
PEGGY GAU
Released 28 June 2019
IK7 Music
****-
An 18-track listening session that takes you straight into Peggy Gou’s living room where she plays you the formative tunes from her collection. No genre boundaries – she moves across disco, house, techno and electro. No tempo limits – the mix ranges from 90 to 150 BPM. And no age restriction – the earliest tunes on the mix are from 1983.
When Peggy Gou released her debut EP ‘Art of War’ in 2016, she made a list of career goals. One of them was to become the first South Korean DJ to play Berlin’s techno institution Berghain, an objective she achieved only a few months later. Another item on that list was to record an instalment of !K7’s DJ-Kicks series. “It’s the premier class of DJ mixes,” she says. “Some of my favourite selectors have contributed to it.” Now Peggy Gou can tick that off her list too as she proudly presents the 69th edition of the mix series.
The Berliner-by-choice started working on the mix last year. Each month she would DJ in 20 nightclubs all over the world. And yet, the goal for her mix was ambitious: instead of trying to capture the energy of her DJ sets, she aimed to create a portrayal of her own musical journey.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Future Sounds of Krautrock Vol. 3
VARIOUS ARTISTS
COMPILED BY FRED & LUNA
Released 8 December 2024
Compost Records
*****
After the great success of Volumes 1 and 2, Vol. 3 follows on stylistically from its predecessor and - as this is one of the basic ideas of the series - gradually expands the musical spectrum with new krauty elements.
14 modern kraut-electronic tracks (3 of them exclusive and previously unreleased) inspired by Kraftwerk, Can, Neu!, Cluster, Klaus Schulze and many more. Curated and compiled by Compost artist Fred und Luna.
As on Vol. 1 and 2, the collage on the cover was designed exclusively by the fantastic artist Norika Nienstedt from the Kraut metropolis of Düsseldorf.
Rainer Buchmüller aka Fred und Luna sadly passed away in January 2024 after a long illness. He was a kind-hearted person, gifted artist, friend and companion. We mourn him deeply. A few days before his death, Rainer Buchmüller had sent us the track listing for Vol. 3 (and already ideas for Vol. 4), with the request to publish this posthumously, he would be very happy if his fans and all those who will be would receive a “sign of life” from him.
It's not at all easy or basically impossible to describe the term “Kraut” stylistically. Nevertheless, Compost Records and Fred und Luna embark on a journey through time to discover the different elements of German electronic music from the 1970s and 1980s and their impact on the more recent German and global music scene.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Future Sounds of Krautrock Vol. 2
VARIOUS ARTISTS
COMPILED BY FRED & LUNA
Released 1 March 2024
Compost Records
****-
We’ve got awesome feedback, amazing quotes for Future Sounds Of Kraut Vol. 1, very good sales, too, so here is Vol. 2:
17 modern krauty electronic tracks (9 of them exclusive) inspired by Kraftwerk, Can, Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia, Klaus Schulze and many others. Curated and compiled by Compost artist Fred und Luna. The collage on the cover – like on Vol.1 - was exclusively made by the fantastic artist Norika Nienstedt from Kraut metropolis Düsseldorf.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Future Sounds of Krautrock Vol. 1
VARIOUS ARTISTS
COMPILED BY FRED & LUNA
Released 1 September 2023
Compost Records
****-
The first of a series of albums showcasing artists who are taking krautrock forward
16 modern kraut-ish electronic tracks inspired by Kraftwerk, CAN, Neu, Rother, Klaus Schulze etc.
Curated and compiled by Compost artist Fred und Luna.
Their selection (with six exclusive tracks!) shows how well younger artists are revitalizing the Kraut scene.
The better known ones, like Pyrolator, Sankt Otten, I:Cube, anyway.
Watch out for Vol. 2 coming out March 1. The collage on the cover was exclusively made by the fantastic artist Norika Nienstedt from kraut-metropole Düsseldorf.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Compost Deep House Selection Vol. 2
VARIOUS ARTISTS
COMPILED & MIXED BY ART-D-FACT AND RUPERT & MENNERT
Released 13 October 2024
Compost Records
*****
The second edition of the Compost Deep House Selection series is slightly different compared to the well received first edition, which was released in the summer of 2023. Volume 2 contains high quality deep-house tunes with a lot of variety in it.
Polyrhythmic structures and cinematic soundscapes are key parts of this selection and the continuous mix. It took quite some time to create the perfect continuous mix based on the selected tracks. It was a process of months to create the perfect flow. The selection & mix contains a lot of summer vibes/energy and can be played during the whole year. Art-D-Fact and Rupert & Mennert selected world class tunes and remixes from well knows producers/acts like Louie Vega, Fred Everything, Atjazz, Lars Behrenroth, Laroye, Llorca, TJ Kong & Nuno Dos Santos and Roberto Rodriguez to name a few. This edition of the Compost Selection-series means another confirmation of the world class output of the Compost label catalogue.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Compost Deep House Selection Vol. 1
VARIOUS ARTISTS
COMPILED & MIXED BY ART-D-FACT AND RUPERT & MENNERT
Released 4 August 2023
Compost Records
*****
After two decades and more than 500 releases, Compost Records started to bundle some of its finest tunes as Various Artists digital download compilation albums. The variety and full spectrum of Compost’s repertoire has never or rarely been presented in form of a musical genre compilation.
In the early days of the Compost Records journey (mid 90's), the label focussed on a large variety of electronic music styles. The (then) groundbreaking drum & bass genre was one of them. Compost released a limited amount of quality drum & bass tunes between the mid 90's and mid 00's. Fauna Flash was one of the well-known Compost-acts that were initially (mostly) active in the drum & bass territory. Art-D-Fact, Rupert & Mennert have selected the best drum & bass tunes from the Compost catalogue and mixed these together in what we call 'themes'. In this selection the themes we used are: Brazilian drum & bass vibes (which was a 'hype' in the first part of the 00's), intelligent/liquid sounds (like LTJ Bukem) and the jazzy & techn'ish alternative (think of Photek's 90's output). The flow of the continuous mix can be - more and less - devided into these three themes. At the end of the mix we added the top quality highlight Suburban Resident by Ben Mono in the iconic Dharma One remix. Again, this selection and continuous mix has been made with respect and love for the music.
Read more ... Beatport, Bandcamp