Martin Küchen / Rafal Mazur - Baza (NO BUSINESS RECORDS November 2018)

Martin Küchen - sopranino and alto saxophones 

Rafał Mazur - acoustic bass guitar

1. BAZA 1 23:15

2. BAZA 1 (CONTINUES) 09:04

3. BAZA 2 11:11

All compositions by Martin Küchen (STIM/NCB) and Rafał Mazur 

Tracks on this release are in chronological order of the recording session 

Recorded live on March 6th, 2017 at BAZA Club, Krakow, Poland by Rafał Driewniany 

Mixed by Rafał Driewniany / DTSSTUDIO.PL 

Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios 

Rafał Mazur plays acoustic bass guitar built by Jerzy Wysocki 

Cover - Karol Suchanek, Workers’ Bath-House at Wiegerska Gorka, Ironworks, Poland, 1930s, glass plate photography / Courtesy of the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow 

Design by Marcin Barski

Angles 3 - Parede (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

After concerts and recordings as Angles 10, Angles 9, Angles 8 and Angles 6, here is back the original Angles line-up, Angles 3. It was 2004 and for a gig at the Glenn Miller Cafe it’s mentor and saxophonist, Martin Küchen invited two Scandinavian musicians now living in the United States (respectively, Austin – Texas and San Diego – California), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Kjell Nordeson. “Parede”, the title, is a tribute to the Portuguese town near Lisbon where the album was recorded live, at a venue called SMUP which in few years became the equivalent in this Southern European country to The Stone, Cornelia Street Café and Nublu. Most of the compositions, like Küchen’s classics “Satan in Plain Clothes” and “By Way of Deception”, are the same of those other Angles investments, of course with different arrangements. This version functions as a reduction to the essence of the music conceived by the Swedish musician, resulting in an energetic, even brutal, kind of free bop delivered to the ears as if it is punk or metal, echoes of Sonny Rollins and Albert Ayler mixing with something that could come from… The Melvins.

1. Equality & Death (Mothers, Fathers, Where Are Ye?) 9:16

2. Satan in Plain Clothes 10:11

3. Francisco / By Way of Deception 22:56

4. Don´t Ruin Me / Love, Flee Thy House (In Breslau) 17:29

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten  double bass

Kjell Nordeson  drums and percussion

Martin Küchen  tenor and soprano saxophone

All compostions by Martin Küchen (STIM/NcB), except “San Francisco” by Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten (TONO) and “Satan in Plain Clothes” by Martin Küchen and Leo Küchen (STIM/NcB)

Recorded live at SMUP, Parede, Portugal by Luís Candeias on November 22 to 24th, 2016 | Mixed by Luis Candeias | Mastered by Luis Delgado

Produced by Angles 3 | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Photo by Nuno Moita

The Heat Death - The Glenn Miller Sessions (3 CD) CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018

We didn’t see (or, more exactly, heard) this coming. How could we expect a band like The Heat Death to turn their attention to the music of Glenn Miller? But here it is, once again confirming the notion that everything is possible when coming from the Scandinavian scene. Truth is that this quintet always had an orchestral approach, in the organization of the collective inputs and due to the doubling of instruments, Kjetil Møster playing clarinet besides his tenor saxophone and Martin Küchen turning to the flute when not playing the alto sax, summing up with the presence of a pasting trombone (Mats Aleklint) to unite every part, but what they use to do was miles way from the swing big band Miller’s sound: a free improvised music metamorphing to free jazz, sometimes with African rhythms, reminding us of Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, and sometimes with the repetitive, “motorik” balance of krautrock, not so strange when we think that Can’s drummer, Jaki Liebezeit, was an original member of Alexander von Schllipenbach’s Globe Unity Orchestra. But here it is, introducing a new form to understand the problem with thermodynamic energy known by science as “the heat death”. If there was a compositional factor in the way this group used to improvise, finding structures when there wasn’t one, now they deal with it in a more committed way. Of course, the resulting music has few resemblances to what the Glenn Miller Orchestra continue to do until this day, but the spirit is there, exploring aspects which were implicit, but never fulfilled, with all the respect to the historic figure who conceived it. Prepare yourself to be surprised.

CD 1

Myriads of Space 1 29:05

2 Myriads of Space 2 23:45

3 See Don't Tell 15:13

CD 2

1 Myriads of Space 3 20:54

2 Hear Don't Say 11:15

3 Unservable Jazz Soup 30:51

CD 3

1 Towards the Uncool 31:30

2 A Clandestine Jazz Operation 18:47

3 Myriads of Space 4 15:09

Kjetil Møster  tenor saxophone and clarinet

Martin Küchen  alto saxophone and flute

Mats Aleklint  trombone

Ola Høyer  double bass

Dag Erik Knedal Andersen  drums

All compositions and arrangements by The Heat Death

Recorded by Mats Äleklint | Mixed and mastered by Christian Obermayer

Produced by The Heat Death | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos