adventurous music from secret pockets of the globe
Seattle-based composer and improviser J.C. Combs presents an EP of processed piano recordings, each of the three pieces serving as a sonic reverie between worlds. Check out & download Gazing here.
Combs, who is the founder of the Sound-In new music community (formerly ImprovFriday), has previous recordings available from the Electroshock, Con-V, Cellar Door, and Amaranth labels.
Just Outside has some very nice reviews of Respect and Musica per Nastro here.
Touching Extremes has a thoughtful review of Akiyama/Gburek’s recent Spectropol release.
Check it out here.
Interesting and positive review of Brendan Byrnes’ Micropangaea in the excellent Igloo Magazine.
…and a nice little take on V/A: Whatcom Weird Vol. 1 from Whatcom County’s own What’s Up! Magazine.
Tetuzi Akiyama & Jeff Gburek’s new album of engrossing improvisations is available for streaming and purchase in download and limited edition CDR formats. Check it out below and see the bandcamp page for more details.
Coming this Saturday; download and limited edition CDR.
tetuzi akiyama + jeff gburek: ‘respect’
These recorded improvisations from 2010 are a portrait of an evolving musical relationship between two well-traveled avant musicians. Quiet guitars and electronics interact over a bed of silence, an intimate post-Feldman environment where breathing and room sound permeate the texture. The east/west hybrid interests of both players seem to inform the subtle harmonic framework and the hypnotic flow of events. Jeff Gburek (Poland) recalls that between recorded segments the duo discussed moods/imagery, undetermined but subliminal suggestions. “In the middle of nowhere, the desert…” was an idea for the second track, which sparked Gburek’s “strong associative imagination with the New Mexico desert landscape and my sounds; because much of my sound vocabulary for that instrument set-up was developed while I was living in New Mexico.” Tetuzi Akiyama (Japan) had also been visiting New Mexico a few months before the recording, his slide guitar on that track perhaps redolent of the southwestern US. Overall these four tracks invite the listener into a unified and compelling experience, a meeting of musical presences enabled by patience and a willingness to explore.
1. live video recording of Bill’s “Auscultation Hall” from the Axe compilation:
2. Read a nice quick take on the Axe compilation from The Stash Dauber.
3. Before the year is over we’ll be releasing a beautiful collaboration from Tetuzi Akiyama & Jeff Gburek, as well as a xenharmonic collection from Joel Taylor. Details coming soon!
We’re happy to announces the Halloween release of Whatcom Weird Vol. 1, a compilation of adventurous music from artists in Whatcom County.
This diverse collection features improvisation, electronica, experimental pop, noise, electroacoustic, fusion, ambient and bizarre soundtrack music.
Check out this interesting take on the Chagas/Matthies duo recording [SpecT 13] over at ATTN:Magazine.
Lark [markings] is an album of exploratory duos from woodwind player Paulo Chagas (Portugal) and ‘mosesa 2′ inventor/performer Wilhelm Matthies (USA). Each artist composed a graphic score for multiple recorded interpretations; these tracks are complimented by free improvisations.
The mosesa 2 (shown below) is a one-stringed instrument with variable bows & resonators, providing Matthies with a surprisingly large palette to paint sound with…a good thing given Chagas’ expansive and virtuosic instrumental range. The collaborative result is a playful, violent, warm, haunting, humorous, menacing, and surreal. It’s a musical funhouse. Available as a name-your-price download from the Spectropol Bandcamp site.
spectropol records 