Matt Choboter's Hypnagogia - Anima Revisited (ILK)

Formed in 2020 and based out of Copenhagen, Hypnagogia brings together a gifted cast of international musicians and improvisers including Anders Banke (Alberto Gismonti, Jim Black, Django Bates), Francesco Bigoni (Maria Faust, Benoît Delbecq) and Matias Seibæk (Jeppe Just).

Matt Choboter’s Hypnagogia is releasing its first album “Anima Revisited” for ILK Music on Nov. 26th, 2o21. In July 2021, Hypnagogia released its first video on NPR (National Public Radio U.S.A) Live sessions and later performed to a sold-out crowd at Concert Church for the 2021 Copenhagen International Jazz Festival.

This six-piece post-jazz ensemble might be described as a night of restless sleep, ripe with trance like fantasy and transitional states, between the dream world and wakefulness. Disorientation, ambiguity and illusion are created through a delicate balance of South Indian rhythm, post-romantic melody and kaleidoscopic group sound with continuous and shifting improvisation.

Multi award-winning Canadian pianist/composer, Matt Choboter has recorded and performed with diverse artists like Peter Bruun, Trichy Sankaran, Maria Faust and John Gross. A member of Inner Circle Music (NY), Songlines (CA) and now ILK Music (DK), his music has been described as “post-jazz of a distinctly personalized kind” (Ron Schepper, Textura).

1. Primordial Hinterland 06:03

2. Collapsing Cathedral 02:09

3. Croix des Luzes 01:44

4. Chthonic 02:47

5. The Tea man and the Ruffian 02:59

6. Floodwaters and Swimming Rats 01:33

7. Postcards of Nostalgia 10:50

8. Tarkovskian Portals 04:53

9. Cuneiform and the Walled Garden 06:00

10. Songline 01:10

11. Death by Cut Tongue 01:50

12. Northward on Caribou Highway 05:57

Matt Choboter (CAN) compositions, prepared piano

Francesco Bigoni (ITA) clarinet, tenor saxophone

Anders Banke (DK) bass clarinet

Luca Sguera (ITA) keyboard & sound design

Matias Seibæk (DK) percussion

Jan Kadereit (GER) modified drum kit 

PRE-ORDER

Luca Sguera - CTB, few hypotheses (2021 Auand Records)

"What might have been and what has been

point to one end, which is always present"

(T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets)

"CTB, few hypotheses" is a collaborative project between AKA and several sound/video artists.

Its purpose is to unfold the sonic and visual possibilities that emerge when one piece of art is opened up, reset to its fundemental particles, its crackles being put together from scratch, in different times, spaces and contexts.

At the same time, the project is an attempt to overcome our natural tendency to read one specific meaning in the reality that surrounds us and it is also a treatment for trustfulness.

Several questions led to the project: what is the meaning behind an improvised track? Is a piece of art necessarily owned by the artist itself? Does any new meaning appear when it becomes an object to be seen - and reimagined - from different angles? What does putting together these different perspectives mean?

The improvised track "CTB" was released as a bonus track of our first album and from that time it has been remixed, reworked, reimagined by several musicians active in different music contexts.

The results, mastered by sound master Renato Grieco, were forced to co-exist together in this album and were given a visual substance by Lorenzo Picarazzi, from Red Lights Video (except the video for California Technical Bulletin, made by The B-Roll himself). 

1. Luiz Vinoza - Come Tulipani Bianchi 00:53

2. blackHole unLTD. - Cipher Type Byte 03:30

3. Bienoise - Composite Triple Beat 08:10

4. Alessio Riccio - Cease to Breathe 08:12 video

5. The B-Roll - California Technical Bulletin 07:15 video

6. Giuseppe Pisano - Create This Book 07:16

7. Malstrom - Combat Trauma Bag 03:58 video

8. Lyn (HateLimbs) - Change the Business 03:54

9. Edoardo Bellucci - Color Temperature Blue 07:46

10. Manlio Maresca - Cut-Throat Bitch 04:46

11. Cristiano Bocci - Clear to Build 06:12 video

12. Delta Machina - Central Tape Bus 03:46 video

13. Perfect Cluster - Computerized Tomography Brain 06:36

14. Luca Sguera AKA - CTB 04:48

AKA is (and will always be)

Luca Sguera - piano

Francesco Panconesi - tenor sax

Alessandro Mazzieri - bass/electronics

Carmine Casciello - drums

Pre-order

Luca Sguera - AKA (AUAND RECORDS February 1, 2019)

Francesco Fiorenzani - Silent Water (AUAND RECORDS 2018)

Il chitarrista e compositore Francesco Fiorenzani pubblicherà il suo album d’esordio Silent Water il 12 gennaio per l’etichetta Auand (distribuzione Goodfellas). Fiorenzani è alla guida di un quintetto composto da Achille Succi (sax alto/clarinetto basso), Luca Sguera (pianoforte), Francesco Ponticelli (contrabbasso) e Bernardo Guerra (batteria). 

La scelta dei membri del gruppo è stata motivata dalla loro esperienza e dalle affinità musicali riscontrate con Fiorenzani. Achille Succi vanta una lunga carriera di collaborazioni e lavori brillanti, ma è stata la sua ‘voce’ ineguagliabile a rendersi una costante fonte di ispirazione indispensabile per la trama imbastita da Fiorenzani. L’incontro con Luca Sguera è avvenuto da studenti all’interno della Siena Jazz University. 

E’ un giovane pianista molto promettente, dotato di una sensibilità rara per i timbri e i respiri nella musica che l’hanno reso sapiente nel dialogo con la chitarra. Francesco Ponticelli al contrabbasso, rappresenta per Fiorenzani l’ideale di bassista: background musicale aperto a 360 gradi ed estremamente dotato di solidità strumentale ma soprattutto di immaginazione. Infine Bernardo Guerra alla batteria, anche lui giovane ma ormai lanciato nel panorama jazz italiano, un musicista di sostanza che sempre mette le proprie idee al servizio della musica.

Il progetto nasce nel 2016 e la vittoria del concorso per giovani compositori sponsorizzato dall’U.N.C.L.A. e dal Ministero della Cultura Italiana, ha contribuito alla sua uscita discografica.

Il repertorio è composto esclusivamente da brani originali composti da Fiorenzani, dove emergono le influenze che hanno segnato la sua personalità nell’iniziare questo percorso. Il jazz è certamente il linguaggio a cui le composizioni fanno riferimento, soprattutto nell’intenzione ritmica e nello sviluppo formale del repertorio.

Sono inoltre chiare le influenze provenienti della scena newyorkese dagli anni ’90 ad oggi, dove l’ispirazione arriva dai lavori di artisti come Kurt Rosenwinkel, David Binney e Ambrose Akinmusire.

Il risultato è una musica che trova un’equilibrata sintesi tra melodie orecchiabili ma raffinate e una costruzione sapiente di armonie ad esse legate simmetricamente.

Francesco Fiorenzani guitar

Achille Succi alto sax, bass clarinet

Luca Sguera piano, keyboards

Francesco Ponticelli duoble bass

Bernardo Guerra drums

Camilla Battaglia voice on #6

Produced by Francesco Fiorenzani

Executive Producer: Marco Valente

Recorded at Entropya Studio, Perugia – Italy on May 22-24, 2017

Engineer: Gabriele Ballabio and Stefano Bechini

Cover Photo: Ester Scapini