Friends & Neighbors - The Earth is # (October 2021 Clean Feed Records)

No, Roligheten, Johansson, Grönberg, Strøm and Østvang aren’t newcomers in the Flat Earth Society. They’re stating something much more exciting than a pizza-like world: that the Earth is music, with all its flats and sustains. That music as they love it is the Sixties and Seventies free jazz sound, the one invented by the likes of Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and John Carter. Energetic and melodic free jazz, to be more specific, with simple and suggestive tunes you can sing, as pop or folk songs, but with complex, multi-layered, improvised developments that can go to the extremes of rage and joy. Friends & Neighbors are, as you know by now, a Scandinavian band, but they’re as authentic and hot driven as the real thing, and we only can distinguish them from the music played 50 years ago because they stretch those ideas from the past to the limit and go deeper with the embraced expressionism, in a sort of hyper-realistic approach. Can the metaphor of something be more than that something? Check it for yourself.

1. Halifax 09:02

2. Untitled 06:34

3. Salad Days 02:51

4. The Earth Is # 09:26

5. Father´s Birthday 08:36

6. Sidelinja 03:58

7. Joseph 10:15

André Roligheten - tenor saxophone, flute, bass clarinet and bass saxophone

Thomas Johansson - Trumpet, flugelhorn and percussion

Oscar Grönberg - piano

Jon Rune Strøm - double bass

Tollef Østvang - drums and percussion

Tracks 1 and 6 by Tollef Østvang (TONO/NCB) | Tracks 2 and 4 by Oscar Grönberg (TONO/NCB) | Track 3 by André Roligheten (TONO/NCB) | Tracks 5 and 7 by Jon Rune Strøm (TONO/NCB)

Recorded April 9th, 10th and 111h, 2021 by Dag Erik Johansen at Athletic Sound, Halden, Norway | Mixed by Ingar Hunskaar | Mastered by Fridtjof Lindeman

Produced by Friends & Neighbors | Executive production by Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Photo by Peter Gannushkin

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Pedro Carneiro | Carlos "Zingaro" - Elogio das Sombras (October 2021 Clean Feed Records)

The return of the master violinist Carlos “Zingaro” to the Clean Feed catalogue is something to applaude, as it is the continuation of the label’s attention to the improvising side of the also Portuguese percussionist Pedro Carneiro, one of the top marimba players of contemporary classical music worldwide (performing on a custom made marimba with a damper pedal on this recording!), after the release of his duo with Pedro Melo Alves. The recording of “Elogio das Sombras” dates back from 2012 and such marvel of sounds and musical ideas risked to remain forever inside a drawer. The combination of a marimba and a violin is rare in any context, but we can state with little margin of error that this is the first time ever it happens in the creative jazz/free improvised music field.

Of course, there’s classical resonances all along, because that’s where these incredible musicians come from, but the inventiveness of the improvisations reunited in this opus (with its title translatable as “Eulogy of the Shadows”) have the cutting edge of the most “off-off” free jazz ever played (and what to expect differently from “Zingaro”?). It would be a crime, not to have this at the reach of public ear.

1. ar 03:01

2. inicio 02:07

3. fulgor 02:23

4. clarão 08:56

5. vestígio 02:59

6. traço 04:31

7. luminescência 05:51

8. luz 06:27

9. penumbra 05:20

10. treva 02:38

11. obscuridade 06:48

Carlos “Zingaro” - violin

Pedro Carneiro - marimba with damper pedal

All music by Pedro Carneiro and Carlos Zíngaro

Recorded by Emídio Buchinho at Auditório Vianna da Motta, Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (ESML), September 11 and 12, 2012 | Curated and edited by Pedro Melo Alves in July 2021 | Mixed by Gérard de Haro | Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at Studio La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, France

Produced by Pedro Carneiro | Executive Production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Photo by Emídio Buchinho | Design by Travassos

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The Rite of Trio - Free Development of Delirium (October 2021 Clean Feed Records)

"Six years after the internationally acclaimed GETTING ALL THE EVIL OF THE PISTON COLLAR!, the uncontested masters of jambacore - André B. Silva, Pedro Melo Alves and Filipe Louro - strike again with a powerful new album in which they give full throttle to their nonsensical, humoristic, ironic, cynical, in-your-face and yes, crazy, musical post-post modernist concept. The music is made of the debris of past avant-gardes, coming from jazz, contemporary classical music, metal, punk and some other frontlines of counter-cultural expression. The result is a delirium of sounds and forms, as the title promises.

It provokes us, as in “You Don’t Mind if We Laugh” and “Ego.Death”; confuses us in “C2H3Cl3O2”, and it makes you believe that there’s still space for something different, uncompromised, committed and new. The Rite of Trio may be playing us around, but the music is damn serious and it will, for sure, affect you in pleasant, though somewhat strange ways. Are you prepared for this sonic assault?"

1. Captive Stagnation of Equilibrium 03:13

2. Open Letters 02:53

3. Mind & Matter 05:47

4. Tear Down Your Dwellings 03:18

5. You Won’t Mind If We Laugh 02:13

6. Images of Control 03:37

7. Ego.Death 06:26

8. Bagel.Death 04:50

9. Put Up New Dwellings 02:17

10. DELKRUM 02:38

11. Closed Letters 03:33

12. C2H3Cl3O2 04:40

13. Free Development of Delirium 04:06

André B. Silva - electric guitar, acoustic guitar

Filipe Louro - doublebass, electric bass, acoustic guitar

Pedro Melo Alves - drums, electronics

All compositions by The Rite of Trio

Recorded and mixed by João Brandão at Arda Recorders, Porto, Portugal on June and July 2021 | Mastered by Miguel Pinheiro Marques at Arda Recorders, Porto, Portugal

Production by The Rite of Trio | Executive production by Pedro Costa | Design by Travassos

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Pedro Melo Alves' Omniae Large Ensemble - Lumina (October 2021 Clean Feed Records)

“We sure are alive”, writes Pedro Melo Alves in the liner notes of “Lumina”. It’s true, the music inside is a survival chant: we made it, after two years of a science fiction-like nightmare. And suddenly, there’s some light. The Portuguese composer and drummer was the winner in 2016 of the Bernardo Sassetti Award with the first version of his Omniae Ensemble concept. At the invitation of the Guimarães Jazz Festival in 2020, during a brief interval between lockdowns, he transformed the original septet to a 23-elements large ensemble, adding electronics, tuba, clarinet, flutes, bassoon, cello, classical guitar, three singers and a maestro (Pedro Carneiro, also known as a percussionist in both the contemporary classical and improvised music fields) to the original mix and writing new, defying and more inclusive, in terms of vocabularies and grammars, scores for it. “How do we even start to look for all that ungraspable light?”, Melo Alves asks. Well, this is how. 

1. Ubi 30:57

2. Phelia 21:00

3. Onírea 22:59

Pedro Carneiro - maestro

Pedro Melo Alves - drums and percussion

José Diogo Martins - piano

Mané Fernandes - electric guitar

Pablo p. Moledo - doublebass

Clara Saleiro - flutes

João Pedro Brandão - flute and alto saxophone

José Soares - alto saxophone

Albert Cirera - tenor and soprano saxophone

Frederic Cardoso - alto and bass clarinet

Álvaro Machado - bassoon

Gileno Santana - trumpet

Xavi Sousa - trombone

Ricardo Pereira - trombone

Fábio Rodrigues - tuba

Luís José Martins - classical guitar

Luís André Ferreira - cello

Alvaro Rosso - doublebass

Mariana Dionísio - voice

Nazaré da Silva - voice

Diogo Ferreira - voice

João Miguel Braga Simões - percussion

João Carlos Pinto - eletronics

All compositions and arrangements by Pedro Melo Alves

Recorded live by João Bessa at Centro Cultural de Vila Flor, Guimarães, on the 22nd of November 2020, Part of Guimarães Jazz 2020, by invitation of Ivo Martins | Edited by Pedro Melo Alves | Mixed and mastered by João Bessa

Produced by António Fernandes | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Photo by Matilde Cunha, art direction and post-production by ELLEONOR

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Sten Sandell | Lisa Ullén - Double Music (October 2021 Clean Feed Records)

This one is for all the piano lovers overthere. If you’re a fan of the Scandinavian scene, you already know that Sten Sandell is one of the main representatives of that rich cauldron of creative jazz in Europe. And if you’re attentive to what’s new and fresh and creative in the jazzosphere, you already heard about the Korean-born, but living in Stockholm, Lisa Ullén, also a pianist. Yes, this is a piano duo, playing “Double Music” as the title states. And that means you have piano sounds coming from everywhere, as if you were in the middle of the ocean and there’s nothing but water around you and sun above.

That’s why the liner notes of the album are… a poem about music as a ship “traveling at the speed of sound through a sea of chords and discord”, on the lookout for “ways of harboring all the harmonics”. Sandell and Ullén sew a fishnet of pure pleasure, letting themselves follow the music where it takes them wave after wave, “finding paths navigable”. And we go with them, unware of the liquid travel, seated at our homes, in Summer bliss.

1. Double Music I 07:50

2. Area with Twenty Fingers 10:09

3. Twenty Fingers 07:57

4. Crossing 06:52

5. All or Nothing 07:31

6. Onyx I 07:27

7. Onyx II 07:23

8. Double Music II 05:07

Sten Sandell piano

Lisa Ullén piano

All music by Sten Sandell and Lisa Ullén | All rights reserved STIM/NCB

Recorded at Musikaliska February 2021 by by Mats Äleklint | Mixed and mastered by Mats Äleklint

Inside photo by Mats Äleklint | Liner notes by Emil Strandberg | Produced by Sten Sandell and Lisa Ullén | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

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Ritual Habitual - Pagan Chant (October 2021 Clean Feed Records)

Portuguese bassist Gonçalo Almeida made Rotterdam as the basis of a busy activity with musicians from different geographic origins and his trio with Riccardo Marogna and Philipp Ernsting is one of the most prolific. The name Ritual Habitual (alliterations included, we can translate it as Usual Ritual) says it all about the purposes at play: to create ritualistic music with the repetition of motives as a method, rooted in the free jazz tradition and updated with electronic manipulations. “Pagan Chant” is presented as a tribute to the masters John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry and Charlie Haden, even if it doesn’t sound as any of them. 

In other words, the band imagine a new kind of pagan, tribal, music with the freedom aesthetics of the “black power” period of jazz history and the 21st century colors of electro-acoustic music, in a kind of retro-futuristic approach which reminds that the present is only a construction, the result of the confluence of what comes from the past and what is beginning to happen.

1. The Womb 15:43

2. Rite of Passage 09:41

3. Psilocybe Cubensis 03:50

4. Pagan Chant 05:05

5. Dionysus Carnival 07:11

6. The Eulogy 07:17

Riccardo Marogna tenor saxophone, bass clarinet & synthesizers

Gonçalo Almeida double bass

Philipp Ernsting drums

All music by Ritual Habitual

Recorded by Edwin Willemen at Sante Boutique Studio, Rotterdam | Mixed by Ritual Habitual at iii Sound Studio, The Hague | Mastered by Giovanni di Domenico, Brussels

Produced by Ritual Habitual | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

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L.U.M.E. (Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble) - Las Californias (October 2021 Clean Feed Records)

Marco Barroso’s LUME (“fire” in English, but in truth the acronym of Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble) comes back with a reformulated alignment of musicians and a new collection of compositions challenging the jazz big band format with a chamber ensemble feeling and lots of funk-rock grooves. The coordinates are the same as before in this third opus, but they come in “Las Californias” both refreshed and matured. It seems a paradox, but as the most Anarchist of proverbs declare: paradoxes are liberating. Time and experience solidify an idea and it’s simultaneously the condition to make something new with old ingredients.

Barroso renews the jazz orchestral patterns introducing classical materials and urban popular flavors on it: that’s what LUME made a difference at the start. Now he also renews his own formulas, taking the resulting music to other destinies, opening its paths from where they seemed to end. Doing that, he manages to create mind puzzling pieces that also invite you to dance, which is an achievement in itself. 

1. Isto 00:06

2. Las Californias 04:50

3. Shroomdinger 06:35

4. AM phantasies I 01:16

5. AM phantasies II 01:22

6. AM phantasies III 02:51

7. AM phantasies IV 02:14

8. AM phantasies V 02:37

9. AM phantasies VI 00:29

10. Dr. Tulp 04:31

11. Bugalu 07:38

12. Cleptofonie Fantastique 08:15

Marco Barroso​ composition, direction, piano

Manuel Luís Cochofel​ flute

Paulo Gaspar​ soprano clarinet

João Pedro Silva​ soprano saxophone

Tomás Marques alto saxophone

Mateja Dolsak tenor saxophone

Elmano Coelho​ baritone saxophone

Sérgio Charrinho, Jéssica Pina, Ricardo Carvalho​ trumpets

Rúben da Luz, Eduardo Lála, Mário Vicente​ trombones

Miguel Amado​ eletric bass

Vicky Marques​ drums

All pieces composed by Marco Barroso

Recording and production: Joaquim Monte, Bernardo Centeno e Francisca River, at Namouche Studios, Lisbon, Portugal | Mixed by Joaquim Monte at Namouche Studios

Mastered Simon Wadsworth at Namouche Studios | Post-production assistance: Fernando Matias | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

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Luís Vicente Trio - Chanting In The Name Of (June 2021 clean feed records)

A Portuguese trumpeter more and more present in the international scene, in such a way that he has more concerts scheduled in other countries than on his own, Luís Vicente never seems to stop: after the success of his partnership with John Dikeman, William Parker and Hamid Drake in “Goes Without Saying, But It’s Got to Be Said”, he turns to national silver (represented here by Gonçalo Almeida and Pedro Melo Alves, both protagonists of their own projects) and signs an album that inspires Drake, the above mentioned master drummer, to write (in the liner notes) that Vicente’s work is a lesson about «keep looking, searching for new possibilities, broadening ones views» and part of «the underlying code of the whole universe», as Sufi mystic Hazrat Iayat Khan put it. Once again applying his never apologetic «sense of freedom», Vicente is back with a powerful album that is a joy to listen to. He may not take any prisoners, but just because he releases them.

1. Anahata 10:33

2. Keep Looking 10:13

3. Chanting in the Name Of 11:54

4. Connecting the Dots 06:00

5. May's Flavour 07:07

Luís Vicente trumpet

Gonçalo Almeida doublebass

Pedro Melo Alves drums and percussion

Recorded on the 9th and 10th of January, 2021 at Soundinnovation Studios, by Fábio Miranda | Mixed by Pedro Melo Alves | Mastered by Marcelo dos Reis

Produced by Luís Vicente | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

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Pedro Carneiro | Pedro Melo Alves - Bad Company (June 2021 clean feed records)

Carneiro and Melo Alves aren’t bad companions to each other, as you’ll soon find out. The title of this recording comes from a story by Japanese writer Yasuoka Shotaro, reminding us how literature influences the creation of good music. Percussionist, conductor and composer, Pedro Carneiro's main activity is in the realm of contemporary classical music, mostly with his huge bass marimba, either playing his own music or compositions by Iannis Xenakis or other 20/21 century radical composers. On the side, he’s very much present in the field of free improvised music, with the likes of Carlos “Zíngaro” and pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro, already known by the Clean Feed listeners as a member of Red Trio. 

Pedro Melo Alves is the new prince charming of the Portuguese jazz scene, as a specially accomplished composer and drummer, with projects like Omniae Ensemble, In Igma (with Mark Dresser), The Rite of Trio and symph. Together, they engendered an opus which has everything of the best percussion music of these present days. This time, made totally in the moment, spontaneously and intuitively, even when it doesn’t seem so. A very welcomed gem.

1. revelry 05:21

2. a touch of self-satisfaction 05:42

3. restlessly in circles 02:27

4. from a starless sky 06:23

5. A secret domain 02:33

6. between retreat and return 02:38

7. a totally unexpected joy 04:22

8. From street to street 06:23

9. gross exaggeration 02:59

10. making a veritable religion 05:11

Pedro Carneiro marimba with quarter tone extension

Pedro Melo Alves prepared drums

Recorded and edited by Pedro Carneiro and Pedro Melo Alves at Orquestra de Câmara Portuguesa (OCP), Algés, Portugal on January 6 and 7, 2021 | Mixed and Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, France

Produced by Pedro Carneiro and Pedro Melo Alves | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Liner photo by Bruno Vicente | Design by Travassos

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Mario Pavone The Tampa Quartet - Isabella (June 2021 clean feed records)

Mario Pavone recorded two albums in the final stages of a cancer that he fought for 17 years, when 2021 was starting: “Blue Vertical” (Out of Your Head Records) and this “Isabella”. Now that Pavone isn’t with us anymore, the second of these two final editions has a special significance: it’s a pungent tribute to his granddaughter Isabella, who died in 2020 when she wasonly 23 years old and whom, he said, «stole my heart since her birth». The feelings involved are deep and they’re reflected in the inner tissue of the music. Pavone had one thing in mind: «My joy will be in re-uniting with her.»

This is the antecipation of that joy turned into music. An autodidact double bassist with very personal techniques (firstly shown to the world when he joined Bill Dixon and Thomas Chapin) and a rich musical mind needing the collaboration of others (Marty Ehrlich and Steven Bernstein in the past) to put it on paper, this time he had trumpeter Dave Ballou as the arranger and accomplice in translating his ideas to a group sound. With his son Michael playing guitar and with friends Mike DiRubbo and Michael Sarin, Pavone created the most beautiful suite about the noblest of all emotions, love, and about how love survives even death.

1. Twardzik 06:45

2. Philosophy Series 06:20

3. Blue Vertical 07:27

4. Isabella 07:05

5. Good Treble 07:43

6. OKWA 05:03

7. 2/3rds Radial 04:59

8. Double Elkna 01:07

Michael Pavone guitar

Mike DiRubbo alto saxophone

Mario Pavone double bass

Michael Sarin drums

All compositions by Mario Pavone (Pavo Publishing/BMI) | All arrangements by Dave Ballou

Recorded on February 28 and March 1 at Springs Theatre, Tampa, Florida | Recorded and mixed by John Stephan | Mastered by David Zuchowski

Produced by Mario Pavone | Executive Producer Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

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Danilo Gallo Dark Dry Tears - A View Through a Slot (June 2021 clean feed records)

Italian jazz is a reality on its own, due to its caustic humor, the folkish way it uses melody, the liking for rhythm patterns, the cinematic perspectives and we could continue to bring arguments to the list. When bassist (every kind of bass, be it double bass, electric bass guitar, acoustic bass guitar, bass balalaika, whatever, with an important exception: baritone guitar) Danilo Gallo is involved you have it in spades: more melodies to listen, more riffs (and be sure “A View Through a Slot” grooves and rocks like hell) and more sarcasm. Take the technical notes: this was (suposedly, of course) recorded in Gronland in 2077, mixed by one Péppino La Piccirella (you’ll have to know Italian to laugh) in Italy and then mixed again in Bogota, Colombia, and mastered by Nonnasonica somewhere in the world. It’s Gallo’s way to say that it really doesn’t matter where or when the music happens. 

Don’t be surprised if some tunes are deconstructed at the final minutes: the musicians involved, including American extraordinaire drummer Jim Black, go crazy very quickly. And there’s something else: a sense for the poetic and the sad that can bring tears to your eyes. In these difficult times this is what you need for a definitive catharsis. Give also a special attention to what the two saxophone players, Mr. Milesi and Mr. Bigoni, do, and to the romantic rock cinematic guitarist Mr. Corti, and stay safe. 

1. Demolition 06:39

2. No Boundaries 05:34

3. Eyes of Twilight 06:48

4. The Tree and the Water 06:39

5. Rubble Dust 08:59

6. I Can’t See You 06:56

7. Gummy Wall 03:27

8. No Boundaries (reprise) 02:00

9. If You Raise a Wall You Get Low 08:18

10. Short Memory 08:07

Danilo Gallo bass, fx

Massimiliano Milesi tenor and soprano saxophones

Francesco Bigoni tenor saxophone, clarinet

Jim Black - drums

feat. Lorenzo Corti guitar

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Luís Lopes Lisbon Berlin Quartet - Sinister Hypnotization (June 2021 clean feed records)

Luis Lopes’ Lisbon Berlin Quartet immediately references the residences of the contributing musicians, Lopes and Rodrigo Pinheiro from Lisbon, Robert Landfermann and Christian Lillinger from Berlin, but there’s more than this that feeds the specific urban relations of this music. To say each is a city with a past, is understatement. If Berlin will loom larger in general histories, from the nightmare of Nazism and the following decades of division, the wall and the refined horrors of the Stasi, Lisbon has a special claim on duplicity, given the half-century reign of the Salazar dictatorship, a fascist regime that preferred relationships with major Western ‘democracies’_ England, America_ which in turn found secret police, torture and oppression easily overlooked for an ally in the war against communism. It was a duplicity that once made Lisbon an espionage hub, a network of spies, lies and conspiracies as much as a city. 

Lopes’ Lisbon Berlin references all of that indirectly, but it’s a contemporary vision—forcefields and fault lines, underground and skyline, alive from road to rail to phone to rail to phone to cloud, all that data congealing in space, messages breaking up into compound futurities.

The band exercises a brilliant fury, parts mirror one another, sounds may be distinct_ there’s definitely something special about Landfermann’s upright bass, often bowed but through pedals and amp creating a hybrid monster of acoustic and electronic genes_but it’s the wild reflective possibilities of all those high-volume sounds, bouncing off studio walls at a pace in which sonic after-images present undreamed of future cities, third-world Metropolises with contemporary social problems wed to future mutations.

Pinheiro, elsewhere master of a certain contemporary classicism, here pursues his own electronic bent, a happy partner and prod to Lopes’ amplified kinetics, while Lillinger, here and elsewhere, exercises a combination of chance and precision that could make him the defining drummer of a generation.

1. Identification 03:38

2. O Andróide que Sonhava Ser Humano 08:17

3. Sinister Hypnotization 13:10

4. Werther's Memories 04:38

5. Berlin Line (Picture of Berlin in Three Movements) 07:45

Luís Lopes electric guitar

Rodrigo Pinheiro fender rhodes

Robert Landfermann double bass (with effects)

Christian Lillinger drums

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Garfo - Garfo (June 2021 Clean Feed Records)

If you were still uncertain about the relevance and the freshness of Portugal’s contributions to the worldwide jazz and improvised music circuits, this is for you: Garfo (Fork in English) is a band formed by four of the youngest generation of musicians active in the city of Lisbon. Lead by saxophonist Bernardo Tinoco, but with all members composing its repertoire, they play a empathic music with mind-puzzling structures and crossed time signatures, with lots of free improvisation to open up the frames. Coming from a family with strong ties with classical and jazz music, Bernardo has a sweet tenor sax sound rather unnusual in these domains.

A former pupil of trumpeter Peter Evans, João Almeida’s sonic constructions give the maximum effect to his minimalist approach: just a few motives are enough to make a blast. Bassist João Fragoso and drummer João Sousa keep the motion with an energy that never dissolves. And that’s it: jazz turned again a music made by twenty-something years old innovators, with urgency but also a very surprising maturity. And they’re conquering the local scene, obliging the older musicians to keep the pace. It’s predictable that a new Portuguese jazz boom will come from this. 

1. Quadrado 04:48

2. Improv. 03:40

3. Terminal 01:45

4. Ciclo 05:47

5. T 04:38

6. Oito 02:37

7. Alderpoint 03:44

8. Piglet 03:13

9. Giraldo 03:52

10. Palavras 05:51

Bernardo Tinoco tenor saxophone

João Almeida trumpet

João Fragoso double bass

João Sousa drums

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Space Quartet - Directions (April 19, 2021 clean feed records)

“Not to interrupt someone who is talking, is giving space. To stand aside and not in the doorway is creating space. To refrain from judging too fast is leaving space. We need space more than ever now. To back off. To slow down. To be quiet. Anything that happens in open space, happens in a more positive way. More vulnerable, hopefully more grounded.”

If you thought that Rafael Toral’s quartet was named after some reference to Sun Ra’s spatial jazz, here is the confirmation that there’s much more at stake than that, even if the many allusions to the Saturn envoy are also true. Space is the valorization of pauses, interstices, a certain measure of expression and narrative, a way to create transparencies and, most of all, a return to a human dimension, aware of its heart beating, its organic, silent thinking/ inner living of bodily functions. It’s in the air surrounding us and inside us.

Since his seminal “Space” (2006), Rafael Toral has been playing with custom electronic instruments paradoxically inadequate for jazz phrasing, but making of them, however, a vehicle for music as free as conceivably possible.

Powerfully propelled by the inventiveness and clarity of double-bassist Hugo Antunes, the cross-boundary, sharp drumming of Nuno Morão and the multi-language intelligence of alto saxophonist Nuno Torres, Toral’s electronic feedbacks are molded by a galaxy of things including noise, rock, ambient and electronic music, inspired by the thinking of “space” pioneers like Bill Dixon or Miles Davis. If, nowadays, there’s plenty of acoustic ensembles playing as if the conventional instruments were electronic, in “Directions” the approach goes inversely. It couldn’t be more defying.

1. Directions 10:37

2. Photonic Radiation 07:57

3. Southern Grooves 12:33

4. Such a hungry yearning burning inside of me 05:05

5. Moonlight through the pines 07:18

Rafael Toral acoustic and electronic feedback, amplifier, direction

Hugo Antunes double bass

Nuno Morão drums and percussion

Nuno Torres saxophone, electronics

All music by Toral, Antunes, Morão, Torres

Recorded at Scratch Built Studio on October 7, 2019 and March 8, 2020 by Nuno Morão on Noise Precision Mobile | Mixed and Mastered at Noise Precision Regada

Produced by Rafael Toral | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Cover design by Travassos

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Courvoisier | Rothenberg | Sartorius - Lockdown (April 19, 2021 clean feed records)

It’s not the first time we can hear Sylvie Courvoisier and Ned Rothenberg playing together. Both of them were included in a trio with Mark Feldman also released by Clean Feed (“In Cahoots”, 2017). That listening made us hope for more. Here it is with another trio, this time with drummer Julian Sartorius as the third contributor. 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. Sometimes it’s difficult to identify when the scores give place to spontaneity and vice-versa: the boundaries are always marked where we least expect, or the lines of separation (union, maybe?) aren’t clearly defined, everything coming in a very natural flux. The musical situations gain several dimensions, sometimes adopting a narrative, almost cinematographic character, and others choosing more textural, impressionistic, procedures, but mainly combining the emanations of those two polarities in different and surprising ways.

Convergence (for instance, the unisons between piano and sax (or bass clarinet, or shakuhachi) and divergence (the meticulous knittings provided by Sartorius are a good exemple) are constantly in equation, opening the possibilities for this endeavour that questions our innerselves and the strangeness of these days.

1. La Cigale 08:45

2. Outlander 12:50

3. Requiem d’un Songe 08:44

4. Deep Rabbit Hole 05:33

5. Quarantina 05:18

6. After Lunch 04:52

7. Popcorn 06:13

8. D’Agala 05:57

Sylvie Courvoisier Piano

Ned Rothenberg Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Shakuhachi

Julian Sartorius Drums, Percussion

Tracks 1,3 and 8 by Sylvie Courvoisier (SUISA/ASCAP) | track 2 by Ned Rothenberg (Thenro Music, ASCAP) | tracks 4,5,6 and 7 by Courvoisier/Rothenberg/Sartorius (SUISA/ASCAP)

Recorded 28-29, October, 2020 at The Zoo Studio, Bern, Switzerland by Wolfgang Zwiauer and Felix Wolf | Edited by Ned Rothenberg and Sylvie Courvoisier | Edited by Ned Rothenberg and Sylvie Courvoisier | Mixed by James Farber at Studio Bb, New York City | Mastered by Scott Hull at Masterdisk, Peekskill, New York

Produced by Sylvie Courvoisier, Ned Rothenberg and Julian Sartorius | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Photo by Sébastian Agnetti | Design by Travassos

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Hearth (Mette Rasmussen / Ada Rave / Susana Santos Silva / Kaja Draksler) - Melt (April 19, 2021 clean feed records)

Hearth is the warmth in our lives, pulsing from the center of what we call home. We could also look at it as a combination of the words Heart and Earth, equating two factors of life in search of plenitude: the human one, and the planet in which we live in. This Heart has the energy of life creation and this Earth is Mother Earth, home for all known living beings. This quartet is formed by four spirited musicians: Susana Santos Silva, Mette Rasmussen, Ada Rave and Kaja Draksler, each one of a different origin, Portugal, Denmark, Argentina and Slovenia. None of them live in the country they were born: Santos Silva’s home is in Stockholm, Rasmussen’s base of work is in Trondheim, Rave is based in Amsterdam and Draksler in Copenhagen.

Yes, improvised music is transnational and, wanted or not, belongs to humanity. It was in the capital of Holland that the four met for the first time. It was in 2016 at the October Meeting, thanks to a program of ad-hoc combinations, that their desire to play together and form a band came into being. Magic happened at that concert, and all the intervenientes decided then and there that it was a project to explore in the future.

The future, an uncertain one in many respects, comes with this “Melt”, a collection of well-thought improvised soundscapes focusing on moods and textures going from the almost inaudible to massive explosions of sounds, with the musical instruments involved – trumpet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone (doubling with clarinet) and piano – being extended by other audible resources, preparations and voices. This is exploratory music at its best, not afraid to enter the unknown, and a refreshing proposal.

1. Fading Icebergs 04:32

2. Tidal Phase 05:47

3. At Daybreak 06:35

4. In Oscillation 05:46

5. Diving Bells 14:05

6. Turbulent Flow 12:48

Susana Santos Silva trumpet

Mette Rasmussen alto saxophone

Ada Rave tenor saxophone, clarinet

Kaja Draksler piano, small instruments, preparations and voices by Hearth

All music by Hearth

Recorded at Portalegre Jazz Festival on May 3 - 5 by João Serigado | Mixed and mastered by João Serigado

Produced by Hearth | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Cover photo by Szymon Gąsiorek | Band photo by Luís Filipe Catarino/4SEE Photographers

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Jonas Cambien Trio - Nature Hath Painted the Body (April 19, 2021 clean feed records)

Belgian-born, Oslo-based pianist Jonas Cambien couldn’t have chosen better partners than Andreas Wildhagen and André Roligheten to perform his cleverly constructed compositions. On its third studio album, his trio shows itself as a tightly interacting ensemble, with a free and playful approach.

Cambiens compositions often start with simple ideas, never saying too much or too little, paving the way for collective improvisations that can go from explosive and wild to intricate and dreamy. In that way, the music displays a wide range of moods and types of energy. From the joyful, Ornette-reminiscent ‘1 000 000 Happy Locusts’, to the introspective, repetitive ‘Bushfire’, to the contemporary sounds on ‘Freeze’ that lead up to the stubborn ostinato on ‘Yoyo Helmut’. Throughout the album, the trio is using a variety of sounds and techniques that make the music sound fresh all the way, and full of surprises.

Like the prepared piano in dialogue with Wildhagens imaginative percussion on ‘The Origins of Tool Use’, the animal-like sounds evoked by Rolighetens bass clarinet on ‘Herrieschoppers’, or the organ on the beautiful, deconstructed ballad Helium. On one track, there is no piano at all, but instead a short soprano sax duet played by Roligheten and Cambien, that serves as an intro to the irresistible, trance-like rhythms on ‘Mantis’.

In Jonas Cambien Trio’s world, nothing is out, nothing is prohibited: the music goes everywhere, including corners you weren’t aware of at the start. Unpolished, yet surprisingly accessible, this is free music many will enjoy.

1. Oersoep 00:33

2. 1 000 000 Happy Locusts 05:24

3. Herrieschoppers 03:31

4. Hypnos 01:50

5. Mantis 03:29

6. The Origins of Tool Use 04:58

7. Bushfire 04:34

8. Freeze 07:39

9. Yoyo Helmut 02:51

10. Tongues 01:22

11. Helium 04:05

André Roligheten soprano and tenor saxophone, bass clarinet

Andreas Wildhagen drums

Jonas Cambien piano (soprano saxophone on track 4, organ on tracks 6, 11)

All compositions by Jonas Cambien | All arrangements by Jonas Cambien, Andreas Wildhagen, André Roligheten

Recorded by Morten Qvenild at Ugla Lyd, Nesodden | Mixed by Morten Qvenild at Ugla Lyd and Johnny Skalleberg at Amper Tone, Oslo | Mastered by Christian Obermayer at Strype Audio, Oslo

Produced by the Jonas Cambien Trio | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

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Dominique Pifarély Quartet - Nocturnes April 19, 2021 clean feed records)

Any new recording by French violinist Dominique Pifarély is good news. Being his quartet with Antonin Rayon,Bruno Chevillon and François Merville his more enduring band, this former companion of the also French reedist Louis Sclavis benefits from the maturity of this project, gained through the years, but also from an attitude of always reinventing itself, going to places that we not explored before. Interesting would be to compare this “Nocturnes” with “Tracé Provisoire”, the album recorded by the Dominique Pifarély Quartet for ECM. If this previous one had the undistinguishable mark of Manfred Eicher’s production, the first evidence of difference when listening to “Nocturnes” is in Sound.

More is to come, even if there’s similar poetic atmospheres and, as a composer (and particularly brilliant at that task), Pifarély continues to put his writing at the service of the collective and of their improvisational work, be it the ensemble or the individual solos. Besides the pleasure these four exceptional instrumentalists give to our ears, the way in which the composed and the improvised intermingles in this collection of pieces is a very strong factor of enthusiasm.

1. Nocturne 1 02:56

2. La nuit ravie (part 1) 02:36

3. La rumeur qui vient (part 1) 08:16

4. La rumeur qui vient (part 2) 05:00

5. Nocturne 2 02:09

6. Nocturne 3 02:20

7. Les ombres (part 1) 07:25

8. Nocturne 4 01:33

9. clean feed - La nuit ravie (part 2) 02:29

10. Ad augusta 05:32

11. Ad augusta 05:34

Dominique Pifarély violin

Antonin Rayon piano

Bruno Chevillon double bass

François Merville drums

All compositions by Dominique Pifarély except 1, 5 by Dominique Pifarély and Antonin Rayon and 6, 8 by Dominique Pifarély and Bruno Chevillon

Recorded on Dec. 5-6-7, 2017 by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier, at Studio La Buissonne (France) Mixed by Gérard de Haro on Sept. 7-8, 2020 | Mastered by Nicolas Baillard, Studio La Buissonne

Produced by Virginie Crouail / Archipels-Cie Dominique Pifarély | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Cover photo by Ricardo Leiria | Photos by Jean-Baptiste Millot

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Innanen | Pasborg | Piromalli - This Is It (April 19, 2021 clean feed records)

This is it, indeed. The instrumentation of this album makes everyone curious. Saxophones (sopranino, alto and baritone) plus Hammond organ plus drums. The gathered names are another factor of special interest: Finnish saxophonist Mikko Innanen, French organist (also pianist) Cédric Piromalli and Danish drummer Stefan Pasborg, all of them coming from the first row of their respective scenes, and all of them with international careers, in collaboration with top musicians like Andrew Cyrille, Han Bennink, Andrew Barker, Joe Fonda, Lou Grassi, William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith (Innanen), Daniel Humair, Paul Lovens, Will Guthrie (Piromalli), John Tchicai, Ellery Eskelin, Tim Berne, Michael Formanek, Tomasz Stanko and Ray Anderson (Pasborg). 

The Hammond is key in the group sound, rooted in the history of this instrument in jazz (listen to the grooves and the solid swing of these compositions: amazing!), but also involving other influences, among them the one provided by progressive rock. The foundations and involvements created by the organ couldn’t be better suited to project the suggestive melodies and complex chord changes played by Innanen, and the intense, almost superhuman drumming of Pasborg. Mixing the past and the future results in this: fantastic music of the present.

1. Mocking Bird 07:09

2. Is This It? 07:03

3. Manic Zigaman 02:51

4. Søhesten 04:49

5. Pharoah Favelassa 04:11

6. Sudden Happiness 05:36

7. Autonomus XXVII A: Gneisenaustraße 113 03:02

8. Riding with Cafarelli 05:02

Mikko Innanen alto, baritone and sopranino saxophones

Cedric Piromalli hammond organ

Stefan Pasborg drums

All compositions by Mikko Innanen except 1 by Cedric Piromalli and 3 by Stefan Pasborg

Recorded Feb. 26-27th 2020 in The Village Recording by Thomas Vang | Mixed and mastered in KarmaCrew by John Fomsgaard

Produced by Innanen, Pasborg and Piromalli | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

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Fredrik Nordström Quintet - Live in Coimbra (2021 Clean Feed Records)

"Inspired in the American jazz of the Sixties, but with a North European perspective of inquestionable modernity, Fredrik Nordström imposed himself already as one of the most powerful and intriguing saxophonists in the tenor variant coming from the Old Continent. His prestige as a performer is extensive to the compositional work he’s developing, such is the richness of ideas in terms of harmony and rhythm presented by his quintet.

With trombonist Mats Äleklint replacing Magnus Broo and his trumpet and Torbjörn Zetterberg ocupying the position of the double bass instead of Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, but keeping Mattias Ståhl (vibraphone) and Fredrik Rundqvist (drums) at their posts, this live CD recorded in Coimbra, Portugal, presents a renewed band with the same objectives defined since the beginning: elasticity of style and afirmative drive. Adding a new voice to the lineage of tenors with robust sound, it’s nevertheless in the Ornette Coleman heritage that we can place Nordström. And that even if “Live in Coimbra” has more connections with the Blue Note catalogue and the Bobby Hutcherson groups in the golden period of this master vibraphonist than with the harmolodic concepts.

The album includes two pieces never recorded before, “Yakiniku” and “Mister Barista”, and a version of a song by none other than the pop singer Björk, “Cocoon”, and it’s a blast, showing this project in the ideal of contexts when the music in question is jazz: a concert. Bravo."

1. Yakiniku 08:01

2. Russian T 05:53

3. No Longer 09:36

4. In Motian 06:01

5. Cocoon 07:28

6. Pizza Girl 12:00

7. Mister Barista 10:01

Fredrik Nordström - tenor saxophone

Mats Äleklint - trombone

Mattias Ståhl - vibraphone

Torbjörn Zetterberg - double bass

Fredrik Rundqvist - drums

All compositions by Fredrik Nordström except "Cocoon" by Björk Guðmundsdóttir/Thomas Knak

Recorded live on November the 5th 2005 at Teatro Académico Gil Vicente in Coimbra, Portugal by Luis Delgado

Mixed and mastered at Bluenord Studio in Stockholm, Sweden by Fredrik Nordström

Produced by Fredrik Nordström

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