New Release Round-up,
Label Round-Up - Intakt Records
Founded in 1986 by Patrik Landolt, Intakt Records is a Zurich-based independent label that specialises in jazz and avant-garde music. With over 350 releases and counting since their inception over three decades ago, the label still enjoys a healthy output of highly curated recordings, as well as a subscription service for dedicated customers; the label prides itself on their quality, even while maintaining a relatively small operation. Some recent picks from Intakt span piano trios, saxophone-led quartets, experimental music for large ensemble and chamber music - here are some of our recent favourites...
British pianist Alexander Hawkins’ recording from early this year, Togetherness Music for Sixteen Musicians, is a somewhat ambitious effort - as many collaborations between classical and jazz musicians tend to be. When you’ve got a group as forward-thinking as the Riot Ensemble, and a guest appearance from the likes of Evan Parker, though, the results are bound to be great. Completed with additional improvised electronics, this culture-clash of a record makes for a fascinating listen.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Last year’s recording by James Brandon Lewis somewhat slipped under our radar here at Presto Jazz, and it’s a real shame that it did. Lewis and his quartet’s debut is complex and beautiful, with fierce improvisations to boot. You’ll find fiery playing as well as slower numbers from Lewis and co. here, and even amongst the overall strong quartet it’s the main man’s tenor sax that roars above the rest.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ingrid Laubrock’s follow-up to her 2018 record Contemporary Chaos Practices (also on Intakt) is an intriguing double album featuring five compositions, each having two recordings. The first CD features the EOS Chamber Orchestra Cologne performing Laubrock’s pieces, while the second features Laubrock herself playing in a trio alongside pianist Cory Smythe and electronic musician Sam Pluta, alongside a larger ensemble of guest performers. The contrast between the larger-sounding works of the first CD and more focussed-in, intimate second CD is one of the more outside-the-box concepts for a record I’ve heard in recent years, and the pieces themselves are already interesting works as is.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Released in mid-February this year, this recording by guitarist Fred Frith and electronic artist Ikue Mori comes across more as a sound-design collage. Inspired by the duo’s love of film music, crackling electronic textures unfold with unpredictable spontaneity and aggression; A Mountain Doesn’t Know It’s Tall is likely the most abstract pick on this list.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Sounding Point serves as virtuoso violinist Mark Feldman’s most recent solo portrait, over twenty-five years after his first studio recording. Diverse and expressive, the record features a selection of original pieces by Feldman, save for Ornette Coleman’s ‘Peace Warriors’ and Sylvie Courvoisier’s ‘As We Are’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Pianist Aki Takase conceptualised Auge with the piano trio in mind, but in her own words “Not the old idea, where the pianist is king, and the bassist and the drummer are just sidemen. We are equal.”; while Takase certainly leads the trio, bassist Christian Weber and drummer Michael Griener don’t pull any punches with their own performances, either. Even amongst the improvised chaos, the trio lock in and pull apart with effortless elasticity.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Alexander von Schlippenbach recorded Slow Pieces for Aki at an artist retreat in Zurich over the course of two days, after having prepared the pieces for about a year. The final product is a selection of short, slow (naturally) solo piano pieces dedicated to Schlippenbach’s wife, fellow pianist and Intakt labelmate Aki Takase. The concise cycle of pieces spans erratic free improvisation to meditative stillness, other reviewers drawing favourable comparisons to Webern and Schoenberg’s shorter works.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Joshua Lee - Jazz Content
