Twin Whales - Watt Doom (ORENDA RECORDS 2018)

On their debut album Watt Doom, the instrumental group Twin Whales synthesizes disparate landscapes, divergent sonic backgrounds, and a shifting musical direction. Think improvisation, think modularity, think inspiration. Formed in 2015, the group has found a voice in music that they refer to as “pure survival mode” – frenetic and complex stuff that allows for unpredictable stylistic shifts and moments of quiet beauty. 

Watt Doom has an accomplished sound, especially considering the entire album was self-produced and recorded on a low budget using the bands rehearsal studio by drummer Caleb Dolister, and later mastered by Sam Minaie at Birdfood Studios, NY. Joining the band for the recording is guest-keyboardist Kevin Lum–who shared a common background with Ty Williams and Caleb Dolister who are both formerly from Reno’s music scene. 

Twin Whales’ members bring a musical sensibility to the group. “It's probably obvious that at least some of us really like Black Sabbath a lot,” Hill notes. “That being said, we've always just let the songs go where they wanted to go, and if we have moments where it sounds like Carlos Santana playing in a Krautrock band with a jazz drummer, we're absolutely, totally fine with that.” 

Over the course Watt Doom’s ten songs, Twin Whales explore a host of musical and tonal dynamics. This can range from the rhythmically complex breakdown in "No College" to the atmospheric, drone-influenced “Science and Sorcery.” The slow build of opener “Everyone in a Womb" makes for a particular showcase for Williams’s chiming guitars, while the subtler melodies heard on “Eggs” demonstrate the band’s more restrained side. 

As for the name of the album, that arose after Hill saw a particularly memorable set from Mike Watt. “When we started out we didn't have names for any of the songs and we'd just call them ‘the pretty juan,’ ‘the doomy juan,’ etc,” he recalls. The latter of those evolved into “Watt Doom,” which eventually gave the album its name. 

It’s a perfect encapsulation of what this band does best: they’re aware of the musical history that informs them but aren’t bound to it, and they’ve found their own way to inform their compositions with plenty of mood and emotion. Whether you’re seeking instrumental virtuosity or a sense of ominous depth, there’s plenty of both to be found in the music of Twin Whales. 

Ty Williams, guitar and compositions

Bradford Hill, bass and compositions

Kevin Lum, keyboards

Caleb Dolister, drums

Production and engineering by Caleb Dolister 

Mastered by Sam Minaie at Bird Food Studio, New York

1. Everyone in a Womb 04:57

2. Limited Vocabulary 03:16

3. No College 03:38

4. Eggs 07:20

5. Happy Yellow 01:46

6. Lower Cunning 05:03

7. Can't Get There from Here 03:26

8. Science and Sorcery 03:56

9. Are We a Good Person 02:57

10. Watt Doom 07:23

Daniel Corral - Polytope (ORENDA RECORDS 2018)

On September 28, 2018, Orenda Records will release Polytope by Los Angeles composer Daniel Corral. Polytope will be available on all major streaming platforms, as a digital download, and on CD. The Los Angeles Exchange (LAX) Festival will present 2 album release shows on October 17 and 19 at the Think Tank Gallery in Los Angeles. 

Polytope is an aural vortex of electronic minimalism and alternate tuning that recalls classic experimental electronic albums like Terry Riley’s Shri Camel, Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, Laurie Spiegel’s The Expanding Universe, or Eliane Radigue’s Trilogie de la Mort. Sequenza 21 praised Polytope as “an extraordinary piece of musical and visual art… that is both accessible and compelling,” SF Gate hailed it as “a mesmerizing visual and musical spectacle,” and The Stranger described it as “gamelan from Pluto—or maybe ’70s Philip Glass as interpreted by Harry Partch on his Cloud-Chamber Bowls.”

“An extraordinary piece of musical and visual art… that is both accessible and compelling.” 

–Sequenza 21 

“A mesmerizing visual and musical spectacle.”

–SF Gate 

“gamelan from Pluto—or maybe ’70s Philip Glass as interpreted by Harry Partch on his Cloud-Chamber Bowls.”

–The Stranger 

Recorded and Produced by Daniel Corral 

Mastered by Daniel Rosenboom 

Design by Eron Rauch 

The live Polytope Ensemble is Erin Barnes, Cory Beers, Daniel Corral, and Andrew Lessman 

1. Red Swells 03:54

2. Square 06:34

3. Red Pulses 03:46

4. Circles 05:31

5. Orange Swells 02:43

6. Arrows 04:06

7. Orange Pulses 02:25

8. Purple Swells 03:14

9. Yellow Pulses 03:05

10. Square 2 05:20

11. Blue Pulses and Green Swells 02:28

12. Green Line 01:59

13. Red Line 05:07

14. Coda 05:21

15. White Swells 04:47

Buckley / Kline Duo - Live at Filament (2018)

Recorded live at Filament at the Vanderelli Room on May 25th, 2018

Josh Kline - Tenor Sax

Tom Buckley - Drums and Cymbals

1. How Can This Be 04:30

2. The Pilgrim 07:25

3. Brane World 05:44

4. B'ak'tun 10:21

5. Steelman 07:27

6. Tribute I 06:25

7. Listen to ME 08:07

Recording by Chris Haas

Mixed and Mastered by Brandon Coleman

Matthew Shipp & Mat Maneri - Conference of the Mat/ts (ROGUEART 2018)

“Control and impulsiveness, at the crossroads of intellect and intuition”

Nearly 20 years after their only other duet album, "Gravitational System", Matt and Mat have felt the need to meet again to share and confront their respective musical experiences. To have matured does not mean that they have lost creativity and spontaneity; on the contrary, they can afford to put themselves in danger to push the music further. Control and impulsiveness, at the crossroads of intellect and intuition. It was really worth the wait for almost 20 years!

Mat Maneri: viola

Matthew Shipp: piano

Conference #1 (5:34)

Conference #2 (3:09)

Conference #3 (6:05)

Conference #4 (2:42)

Conference #5 (4:30)

Conference #6 (6:40)

Conference #7 (7:12)

Conference #8 (3:24)

Conference #9 (4:35)

Conference #10 (5:46)

Conference #11 (4:57)

Conference #12 (1:53)

Conference #13 (3:39)

All compositions by Mat Maneri and Matthew Shipp

Recorded by Jim Clouse on November 13th 2017 at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Mixing and mastering: Jim Clouse

Liner notes: Steve Dalachinsky

Photograph: Luciano Rossetti @Phocus Agency

Cover design: Max Schoendorff

Cover realization: David Bourguignon

Executive producer: Michel Dorbon

Larry Ochs & Gerald Cleaver - Songs of the Wild Cave (ROGUEART 2018)

In 2016, Gerald Cleaver and Larry Ochs are led, with the help of aficionados, to the depths of a cave frequented by men and women in the Paleolithic. Several engravings with mysterious meanings, various paintings saved from the years, signal their passage. This place resonates, not only in the acoustic sense, but in the (pre)historical and spiritual sense as well. As they descend, the air grows heavier, all the more thickened by a palpable past that it becomes poorer in oxygen. 

This place is to be respected and pledged allegiance to. Then comes the time to be adopted by it. They make a few sounds, tentatively at first. Then brief clapping duos. The cave speaks, answers them, they can feel it. A few hours away, in another cave, that they are getting ready to record, for the first time in the world, a free improvisation session in the heart of a prehistoric cave in the southwest of France does not cross their mind.

What Eurydice did they come looking for in this place? The answer, seemingly trite, could fit in a single word: interaction. Let us be clear, however: an unprecedented, unimaginable, and unimagined interaction. As the nerve center of free improvisation, interaction is not limited to the sole sound traces of the dialogue between musicians. Its action thrives on the place of production, the listeners in attendance (or absent, or virtual), takes into account the weather or the ambient sounds…

This place instills, at best inspires. Some more than others, depending on their depth. From this point of view, the Gerald Cleaver-Larry Ochs duo in this cave consists indeed in a dialogue between three entities. First through silence. True silence. Not the artificial, absolute silence, but an inhabited silence, absent-present (magnificently rendered by Vincent Mahey’s remarkable recording). Seven times did the musicians probe its qualities, always with a different result: engraving the silence in its folds, piercing attempts, appearance-disappearance… 

The space of the place also conditions the musicians’ (re)actions. On their sounds, the cave reflects. They answer. It objects or responds. They converge. Thus the situation necessarily leads the musicians to play differently because they hear themselves differently. The density of the past matters as well. Fantasizing the music played in this place charged with millennia of history, attempting to comprehend its multiple manifestations, fuels Gerald Cleaver’ and Larry Ochs’s imagination as a result. Guttural sounds, rhythms that seem shamanic, trance effects, ingenuity found anew in the discovery of sound, etc.: all of them ancestral gestures and attitudes driven by an inaccessible yet immanent past. If a given time, long past, has consequences on musical creation in the moment, the absence of another type of time, that which passes with the tick of the clock, is also in full effect.

It is a well-known experience: for man, to venture in the bowels of the earth entails experiencing time stretching, diluting even. There is therefore no point in projecting oneself towards a precise point in time. If the moment then increases in intensity, the passage of one’s life story in the flow of time loses its tragic. Much like this absence of “final cause”, the tensions generated in Gerald Cleaver’ and Larry Ochs’s improvisations therefore have value for and in themselves, and not with a view to resolving them.

With these two Orpheus, we do not descend to Hell, but ascend to Paradise. Produced outside of the world of the livings, the Eurydice they leave to us are the reflections of their quest: immemorial, timeless. 

Larry Ochs: tenor and sopranino saxophones 

Gerald Cleaver: drums, percussion

1. First Steps 9:05

2. Into The Air 5:16

3. Deeper 9:52

4. Down 5:46

5. Ringing It In 7:07

6. Rooted in Clay 8:59

7. Light From The Shadows 14:35

All pieces co-created by Gerald Cleaver (Gerald Cleaver Music / SESAC) and Larry Ochs (Trobar / ASCAP / admin. BMG)

Recorded by Vincent Mahey (assistant: Morgan Beaulieu) on October 1st 2016 in the southwest of France, in a wild cave in absolute silence and darkness.

Mixing: Vincent Mahey

Mastering: Raphaël Jonin

Liner notes: Ludovic Florin

Photograph: Alban Jacques

Cover design: Max Schoendorff

Cover realization: David Bourguignon

Executive producer: Michel Dorbon

Mary Halvorson & Joe Morris - Traversing Orbits (ROGUEART 2018)

“Two masterful artists who happen to play guitar – their marks on the music far transcend their instruments.”

All recordings, especially those of improvised music, try to freeze the sound of a present moment, but invariably melt into the past and the future, real and imagined. Listening to this album, I can’t help but think of the classic meeting of Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins, where two titans of the same instrument across different generations displayed mutual love and respect through stylistic contrast and playful jousting. Or I create a fiction, of Django Reinhardt and Freddie Green crossing paths in some distant hotel, staying up late one night and pushing each other to new ideas. (I don’t make that allusion lightly – for the abundance of virtuosic extended technique, don’t miss the profound swing of the articulated lines and the chunky chords.) Taylor Ho Bynum, excerpt from the liner notes

Joe Morris: guitar

Mary Halvorson: guitar

Brain Draft (2:33)

Shivering Sunshine (3:50)

Traces of Three (4:11)

Silence Invasion (3:42)

Semaphore (11:44)

Full of Somehow (9:02)

Constant Between (7:29)

In Other Terms (6:14)

Over the Line (5:39)

All compositions by Joe Morris (RITI, ASCAP) and Mary Halvorson (Mary Halvorson, BMI)

Recorded by Aaron Nevezie on April 9th 2018 at The Bunker Studios, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Mixing: Aaron Nevezie

Mastering: Greg DiCrosta, Firehouse 12 Studios, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Liner notes: Taylor Ho Bynum

Photographs: Aaron Nevezie

Cover design: Max Schoendorff

Cover realization: David Bourguignon

Executive producer: Michel Dorbon

Jemeel Moondoc Quartet - The Astral Revelations (ROGUEART 2018)

“Jemeel Moondoc at its best, joined by three of the most brilliant musicians: the perfect album”

Jemeel Moondoc and his bandmates are masters of the terrifying art of communicating how they feel, an art which, of course, takes both great intelligence and great discipline…

A fire burns in Jemeel Moondoc’s music and once it was ignited it keeps spreading; it’s the flame you can also feel in the playing of Matthew Shipp, Hilliard Greene, and Newman Taylor Baker. This quartet’s music is never easy, but it’s always truthful. Ed Hazel, excepts from the liner notes

Jemeel Moondoc: alto saxophone

Matthew Shipp: piano

Hilliard Greene: double bass

Newman Taylor Baker: drums

Cosmic Nickelodeon (17:03)

Blues For Katie (14:41)

Here Now, Gone Now (14:13)

Ornette Gone Bye (7:17)

All compositions by Jemeel Moondoc, Moon-Jem Publishing, ASCAP

Recorded live on February 5th 2016 by Jurre Wieman at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Mixing and editing: Jean-Pierre Bouquet, L’Autre Studio, Vaires-sur-Marne, France

Liner notes: Ed Hazell

Photographs: Bruno Charavet

Cover design: Max Schoendorff

Cover realization: David Bourguignon

Executive producer: Michel Dorbon

Robert Dick & Tiffany Chang - Raise The River (ROGUEART 2018)

“Robert Dick and Tiffany Chang keep the ear moving from beginning to end, a measure of how successfully they avoided redundancy”

Material is the output of freely improvised music, not its input. The deliberate shaping of materials risks, at the very least, giving them a studied feel, and, at worst, rendering them inert. Dick and Chang instead use the materials they generate in one moment as a springboard to the next.  In the process – and improvisation is a process, not a genre – their music surprises. Bill Shoemaker, excerpt from the liner notes

Robert Dick: flute, alto flute, bass flute, bass flute in F, contrabass flute, flute w. Glissando Headjoint®, open hole, little flute in G, piccolo

Tiffany Chang: drums, thumb piano

Thieves (5:23)

Swedge (6:39)

Bricolage (5:42)

Nine Portions (6:56)

Raise The River (8:03 ) Play

This Once (3:28)

Palindromida (6:43)

Pirarucu (8:01)

Recovered Memory (5:42)

All compositions by Robert Dick and Tiffany Chang

Recorded on February 15th 2015 by Peter Karl at Peter Karl Studios, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Mixing and mastering: Peter Karl

Liner notes: Bill Shoemaker

Photograph: De’Lon Grant

Cover design: Max Schoendorff

Cover realization: David Bourguignon

Executive producer: Michel Dorbon

Tim Newhouse Collective - Daily Pages (November 1, 2018)

Daily Pages, my first creative album, is an arbitrary cross-section of my musical obsessions, awkward experiences and my even more awkward personality. Some pieces have accompanying stories, but I never try to force a narrow narrative onto an audience. ‘Daily Pages’ refers to a psychology exercise that involves writing two pages per day of spontaneous and unedited self-reflections. That really sums up what my music is about - just a series of reflections about what happens to me. 

Musically speaking, the music takes from a mixture of jazz, classical, pop, electronica and experimental genres. I like catchy melodies, lots of instruments and lots of detail. 

Live well. I hope experiencing this music contributes to the living. Sincere thanks for indulging.

On this album, the Tim Newhouse Collective is: 

Sam Parry (flute, cor anglais, clarinet)

Matt Smith (trumpet, flugelhorn)

Priscilla Gardner (voice, violin)

James Maley (cello, whistle)

Tim Newhouse (keyboard, melodica, tenor saxophone, flute)

Austin Sailsbury (piano, keyboard)

Kane Shaw (double bass, electric bass)

Jasper Miller (drums, percussion)

Recorded and mixed by Brodie Stewart

Mastered by James Newhouse

Supported by Propel Youth Arts WA and DrugAware

1. Southbank 06:50

2. Shapes of Applause 03:42

3. Daily Pages 05:26

4. External Locust of Identity 07:35

5. I Own Myself 02:49

6. The Hanging City 09:55

7. Breadcrumbs 11:42

8. Tinted Lenses 05:30