Fraser / McCowen / Weinberg - Thip (April 23, 2021 Tripticks Tapes)

Thip is the first record of the trio of Henry Fraser, John McCowen, and Sam Weinberg. By the time McCowen moved to Brooklyn in 2017, Fraser and Weinberg had already played together in a number of contexts – duo, a trio with Weasel Walter, Maestro Day, et al. When they met McCowen, both were instantly struck not only by his virtuosity on both contrabass and B flat clarinets, but also his depth and seriousness. 

All three became close personal friends and the trio emerged from that friendship and the shared understanding that had already been forged. Thip was recorded in April of 2019 at Issue Project Room and that space’s eminent and notorious natural reverb is heavily reflected in the document – and dictated some of the aesthetic decisions that were made throughout the album. While there’s a density to the music on Thip, there’s also a kind of elasticity and patient suspension; a confident sense of form and a deliberate unfolding.

1. Ayeda 10:00

2. Arunae 12:38

3. Nur 07:44

4. Thaanps 12:35

5. Sklyse (digi Bonus w/ Joe Moffett) 11:30

Henry Fraser - double bass

John McCowen - Bb and contrabass clarinets

Sam Weinberg - tenor and soprano saxophones

Joe Moffett - trumpet (track 5)

Tracks 1-4 recorded April 2019 at Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, NY

Engineered by Jeremiah Cymerman

Track 5 self-recorded October 2020 in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY

Mastered by Ryan Power at Perfect Pets, Brooklyn, NY

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Brandon Seabrook Trio - Convulsionaries (ASTRAL SPIRITS 2018)

From the idiosyncratic musical mind of guitarist/composer Brandon Seabrook comes his latest album Convulsionaries (Astral Spirits, Fall 2018). In his close to two decades in NYC, Seabrook has garnered international acclaim for his sui generis approach to the electric guitar, one which astounds with tremolo pyrotechnics and an entropic, miasmic sensibility. While those elements are in full effect on Convulsionaries, they’re met with a mature and thorough sense of dynamics, pace, groove, and feeling. Joining Seabrook on this release are the young upright bassist Henry Fraser (Anthony Coleman, The Full Salon) and Daniel Levin (Tony Malaby, Mat Maneri), two revolutionary string players who have been working in various creative ensembles in Brooklyn for years.

Together, the string trio tackle Seabrook’s thorny compositions, which perpetually surprise and unseat the listener throughout the album’s proceedings. Seabrook's imaginative compositions are a study turning a sense of impeding doom into cathartic releases, allowing equal space for improvisation and rigid execution of the complex scores. The ensemble ransacks the history of their respective instruments, bringing light to new timbres and exposing their untapped percussive capabilities.

What we have with Convulsionaries is the sound of three restless virtuosos, making a bold statement, guiding listeners through a gauntlet of emotional spaces with the aid of these structural assemblages, turning impending doom into a deep cathartic release.

Brandon Seabrook, Guitar

Henry Fraser, Bass

Daniel Levin, Cello

All Songs Brandon Seabrook, BMI 

Recorded, Mixed & Mastered by COLIN MARSTON at Menegroth, The Thousand Caves, October 2017

1. Bovicidal 05:28

2. Groping at a Breakthrough 06:34

3. Crux Accumulator 05:06

4. Vulgar Mortals 08:46

5. Qorikancha 06:47

6. Mega Faunatic 09:40

Chris Pitsiokos: CP Unit - The Silver Bullet in the Autumn of Your Years (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

Chris Pitsiokos is indeed what everybody says about him: the most representative face of a new generation of musicians commited to change the New York jazz scene. Or the New York rock scene, because he is positioned somewhere among those genres, also incorporating aspects of contemporary classical music in his compositions and improvisations. Here again, we find him expanding the possibilities of his instrument, the alto saxophone, under the influence of Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics, noise music, and the timbral explorations of Stockhausen. The CP Unit includes a regular companion, Tim Dahl (Child Abuse, Lydia Lunch Retrovirus, Pulverize the Sound) and musicians Sam Lisabeth (Samuel Boat, Guerilla Toss), Henry Fraser (The Full Salon, Brandon Seabrook Trio, Brandon Seabrook’s Die Trommel Fatale), Jason Nazary (Little Women, Bear in Heaven) and Connor Baker (No Name, Michael Foster’s The Ghost). While Pitsiokos is firmly rooted in the melodic vocabularies of his forbears Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman, his structural, harmonic and timbral ideas propel him into the future and beyond. Always included are the personal contributions of his partners, opening himself and the music to their visions. The result is astonishing.

1. Improvisation 8 00:46

2. Dalai Lama's Got that PMA 01:44

3. Once Upon a Time Called Now 07:04

4. Orelius 07:02

5. Improvisation 27 01:00

6. Positional Play 06:06

7. Silver Bullet in the Autumn of Your Years 06:07

8. The Tower 07:03

9. A Knob on the Face of a Man 04:15

10. Arthropod 11:34

Chris Pitsiokos  alto saxophone, wind controller, sampler, analog synthesizer

Sam Lisabeth  guitar

Tim Dahl  electric bass on tracks 4, 6, 9, 10

Henry Fraser  electric bass on tracks 1-3, 5, 7, 8

Jason Nazary  drums and electronics on 4, 6, 9, 10

Connor Baker  drums on 1-3, 5, 7, 8

All music except improvisations composed by Chris Pitsiokos

Recorded at Seizures Palace, Brooklyn, NY, by Jason Lafarge on May 28th and November 6th, 2017 | Mixed and Mastered by Philip White

Produced by Chris Pitsiokos | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Album artwork by anna ekros