May Releases On Cuneiform Records
Date: Saturday, May 24 @ 02:05:12 UTC
Topic: Album Release News


For May, Cuneiform Records has the following 8 new releases on offer. (Except as noted, the blurbs all come from Cuneiform}:

Joel Harrison - Mother Stump ($15.00)

"…drags American roots out of the campfire singalong into the solar system." – Village Voice

"Add Joel Harrison to Metheny and Frisell as guitarist/ composers who have created a new blueprint for jazz." - New Orleans Times Picayune

"Joel Harrison may well be the best unknown guitarist in America ... a unique and powerful voice for post modern guitar, a heavy improvisational influence embracing a myriad of styles.... Harrison is a master of pedals, effects and assorted other six string pyrotechnics but he utilizes this electronic aids to enhance the texture and stretch the harmonic base of each tune... The covers are inventive yet authentic while the originals are dynamic and cutting edge.... Joel Harrison and Mother Stump may well be the surprise release for 2014. A genre crushing triumph!" – CriticalJazz

Guitarist/composer Joel Harrison in the past has melded influences from jazz, classical, country, rock, and world music into a individual compositional statement. On Mother Stump, Harrison explores his past growing up in 1960's and 1970's Washington D.C., with its hugely inclusive and wide-ranging music offerings.

Because D.C. is neither a purely Southern nor purely Northern city and, with its mix of long-time residents along with transients from everywhere, traditional and old-time music meets sounds from all over the rest of the country and all over the rest of the world.

"Washington D.C. was quite a segregated place in the 1960s and ’70s, and yet the musicians were inclusive and open in their tastes," Harrison recalls. A plethora of genres were represented around town. One could hear bluegrass, soul, jazz, and funk. Blues was a pervasive force there and there was a strong folk scene, left over from musicians like Jorma Kaukonen and John Fahey, who had moved away from DC not so long ago. Psychedelic rock was still a force, and its progeny, art rock and progressive rock was beginning to blossom.

"It was an amazing time in which to come of age musically. Minds were open, blueprints were being created, invention was everywhere, and yet strong tradition anchored the experimentation. You'd go way beyond the borders, but there was still that tangle of roots that stretched beneath and across the town.

"Unlike a lot of my CDs, the focus here is on my playing and not so much on my writing and arranging. It’s a mixture of jazz, rock, Americana, and soul music, with tunes by Luther Vandross, Buddy Miller, Al Kooper, Leonard Cohen, George Russell, Paul Motian, a traditional spiritual and a couple of my pieces. It’s a nod to my formative years, my roots as a guitarist in Washington D.C., performed on six old guitars and two old amps. It’s a lot of history that I’m trying to make new." – Joel Harrison

This exciting album of blazing guitar Americana jazz features Joel Harrison: guitar, Michael Bates: bass, Jeremy Clemons: drums, Glenn Patscha: Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3, Wurlitzer piano.

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/joel_harrison-john_the_revelator-from-mother_stump

You can order the album here: www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Harrison-Joel-Mother-Stump__Rune-spc-390.aspx

Ideal Bread - Beating The Teens: Songs Of Steve Lacy (2 x CDs $21.00)

"Ideal Bread puts a new shine on music by Steve Lacy..." – The New York Times

"...(one) could use it as a primer for examining the master's catalog." – Jazz Times

"Ideal Bread aren't staid re-creationists; they embrace the fierce originality and rigor of Lacy’s music and remake it in an utterly distinctive way." – Downbeat

With Beating The Teens, Ideal Bread's leader and baritone saxist Josh Sinton, who studied with Steve Lacy during the last years of the soprano sax master's life, decided to radically question and deconstruct the notion of a repertory band. Since the release of their first album in 2007, the group has existed with only two rules:

1.) Ideal Bread would be a band in the traditional sense, with the same members for every album and every show
2.) Ideal Bread would play exclusively the music of iconoclastic saxophonist-composer Steve Lacy.

And with this album, Ideal Bread continue to uphold these rules, but with a change of emphasis. As Sinton puts it, "In the beginning we were a Steve Lacy-repertory band that happened to be composed of four gifted improvisers, but along the way we’ve become a band of four gifted improvisers who happen to play the music of Steve Lacy. And the new album had to reflect that shift."

Acting on this, Sinton set out laying the groundwork for this new work. Using his concept of the musical object as a “flexible container” for the performer’s ideas and personalities, he looked around for a container large enough to hold all the idiosyncrasies and facets of his longtime band-mates Kirk Knuffke (cornet) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums) as well as their newfound member Adam Hopkins (bass). He found what he was looking for in Scratching the Seventies/Dreams, the 3-CD box set that collects all five LPs Steve Lacy recorded for the Saravah label from 1971 – 1977. In these recordings, some of the earliest of Lacy’s compositions and therefore almost embryonic, Sinton found, "There was enough room for us to be ourselves in this music."

Sinton transcribed all the compositions on Scratching The Seventies. But when in the past he would have left off at this point and been content to repeat these transcriptions, in this case he decided he would take the additional step of re-arranging all the pieces. In this he was guided by three considerations:

1.) He would use a compositional device no more than three times; so he would have to find unique ways of structuring the materials.
2.) He would make sure that each member had agency by insuring they had unique contexts for sounding their voices.
3.) Where possible, he would write the drum parts because as Sinton puts it, "Many of my favorite composers (Threadgill, Argue, Iyer, Braxton) can write for drums. It’s about time I learned to do the same."

Following these prescriptions has led to an album that unselfconsciously embraces the sounds of Iggy Pop, musique concrète, Mos Def, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Morphine, 17th-century Baroque and Brooklyn's current creative music scene among many others. "I kept each new arrangement only if I could affirmatively answer the question, ‘Is this who we are?‘" says Sinton. Beating The Teens is a record that could only be made by young improvisers in the 21st century, representing as it does the conflation of sounds and influences that is a trademark of this generation of artists. On it, Ideal Bread adhere to and respect Lacy's unique compositional vision, while giving them an original approach and a new life.

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/ideal_bread-crops-from-beating_the_teens
You can buy the album here: www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Ideal-Bread-Beating-The-Teens-Songs-Of-Steve-Lacy-2-x-CDs__Rune-spc-386-387.aspx

Led Bib - The People In Your Neighborhood ($15.00)

"...their leanest, most rocking effort to date....setting new standards in contemporary, electric jazz" – Jazzwise
"...Led Bib still shocks." – JazzTimes

"The brilliantly rabble-rousing quintet Led Bib celebrate their tenth anniversary in 2014. To mark this milestone, [the band] release The People In Your Neighbourhood... and it's their most assured and very probably their best album to date." – JazzUK

For a radical band that has had to work so hard to become an established force on the UK jazz scene as Led Bib are, they came from very modest beginnings, forming as a master's project by leader, Mark Holub, while he was at college, and continuing now for a full decade with the same personnel:

Mark Holub – drums
Liran Donin – bass
Toby McLaren – electric piano, piano, keyboards
Pete Grogan – alto sax
Chris Williams – alto sax

While the band was started and continues to be led by Holub, all members contribute compositions as well as musical ideas. The decade of work has turned the five individual players into a unique single entity, which is the group. As Mark explains, "Everything that the band has become is thanks to all the member's influences. These days, when someone brings a tune to the band, no matter who brings it, the band needs almost no direction. The band has developed a shared language in such a strong way that we can fairly intrinsically know where the composer wants us to go with the music."

The music here is a continued refinement of the group's "go for it" esthetic, with hooks and riffs making a pleasing framework for the band to hang their improvisations and sounds. While the music is often as "rabble-rousing" as the above quotes would have you believe, the group are not mono-dimensional, and the ensemble is capable of quiet and even of contemplative moods. The group have a signature sound, but that signature sound is composed of varied elements.

The People In Your Neighbourhood is the sixth studio album by the quintet and continues their refinement and further honing of the avant-jazz/euphoric-rock explosions that have gained them worldwide notice!

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/led_bib-new_teles-from-the_people_in_your_neighbourhood
You can buy the album here: www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Led-Bib-The-People-In-Your-Neighbourhood__Rune-spc-378.aspx

Led Bib - The Good Egg (vinyl lp with download card (due to size and weight, this price for the USA only) $27.00, outside the us $35)

"Led Bib may have managed to retain the same line-up since 2004 but there is nothing jaded about this set." – The Arts Desk

"The Vortex was packed for an appearance by Led Bib...unleash[ing] slabs of new material to a standing-room-only club..." – DownBeat

"...a dynamite live show." – Time Out London
"Splattering you against the wall with their broadsides of punk-jazz"– The Guardian

Mercury Prize-nominated, UK electric jazz group Led Bib greet 2014 – their 10th anniversary – with two new releases. Their new studio album is entitled The People In Your Neighbourhood, but in addition to that, the band decided that for their birthday, they wanted to have a chance to spotlight their live sound, where they have won over so many fans.

The Good Egg was recorded at two concerts at London's new-music mecca, The Vortex, in 2013 (one of these gigs was the show noted above by DownBeat!) and finds the band in typically roaring live form.

The Good Egg is a very limited, live, vinyl-only release. Now vinyl fiends and fans can hear for themselves what all the fuss being kicked up over the group's performances all over Europe is all about!

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/led_bib-giant_bean-from-the_good_egg
You can buy the album here (inside US): www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Led-Bib-The-Good-Egg-vinyl-lp-with-download-card-(due-to-size-and-weight-this-price-for-the-USA-only)__Rune-spc-379.aspx

You can buy the album here (outside US): www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Led-Bib-The-Good-Egg-vinyl-lp-with-download-card-(due-to-size-and-weight-this-price-for-outside-the-USA)__Rune-spc-379-E.aspx

Mats/Morgan - [schack tati] ($15.00)

Keyboardist Mats Öberg and drummer Morgan Ågren have worked together for nearly 3/4s of their lives. Both were childhood prodigies who have grown into adults who are considered absolute masters of their instruments and they have continued to work together since meeting over 30 years ago in 1981. The presentation of their music has evolved greatly over these years, from early duo experiments to a Zappa cover band to actually meeting and performing with Frank Zappa and band, to a quintet lineup of their band, to a keyboard/bass/drums trio and now, with their 1st studio release in nearly a decade, they are back to a duo line up.

Their music itself has also greatly changed over the years; for musicians who are both best known for being absolute virtuosos, over the last decade or so, their music has gotten more easily absorbed and even more contemporary, with the duo being greatly influenced by the currents of electronica, and adding that sound to their jazz/rock, complex rock, avant-garde roots.

The dizzying mix of sounds that whirls its way through Schack Tati (with typically wry humor, the title is a pun on the Swedish word for "chess" and one of the duo's favorites, the French filmmaker Jacques Tati) was years in the making. Morgan discloses, "In 2006 I moved to a house in the Swedish archipelago. Our garden had a little house in it, which I rebuilt as a studio. This was a fantastic chance to have a good studio nearby. So I spent endless hours building it up, changing gear, testing a million microphones, preamps, etc. After quite some time, I had a really good studio. It is also the first time that I’ve had access to a studio that close to where I live. During the last four-five years, I also spent a lot of time recording for others.... But all the rest of the time, I spent recording for myself."

The tracks Mats and Morgan toiled over in that rather idyllic setting have an air of endless possibility to them, making possible the disparate stylistic strands of the band's sound to wind together with nary a tangle. From a Terry Riley-plays-Eurodisco stomp to glitchtronica-gone-fusion , languid-then-complex ambient jazz-into-21st century classical, to Zappa-in-a-meat-grinder intensity -- it's hard to envision another set of circumstances under which Schack Tati could have come together.

Yet for all of the album's eclecticism, there's an odd kind of coherence to the whole thing. Morgan light-heartedly observes, "This one is more focused -- my wife says -- but it is. We got a bit older. And our sound got better. Everything got better maybe!" Musical maturation is probably one piece of the puzzle, and the indefinable essence of the archipelago is another. But at the core of what makes Schack Tati tick, you'll find two titanic talents. Morgan is a world-class musician, a "drummer's drummer" who has played with everyone from prog-metal master Devin Townsend to electronic innovator Squarepusher in addition to his achievements under the Mats/Morgan banner. And Mats is a sui generis artist -- he's the only one around who can do what he does, let alone understand how its done, melting genres into each other at will and alternating between fleet-fingered solos and richly atmospheric textures. Ultimately, then, Schack Tati is about friendship, magic, individuality, and a willingness to wander wherever the muse might lead.

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/mats_morgan-rubber_sky-from-schack-tati
You can buy the album here: www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/MatsMorgan-schack-tati__Rune-spc-385.aspx

The Microscopic Septet - Manhattan Moonrise ($15.00)

Voted the #5 jazz group in the 59th annual DownBeat Critic's Poll.

"They're still the finest retro-futurists around." – The Village Voice

"...they remain one of New York's most distinctive and entertaining groups." – All About Jazz New York

"...splendid fun." – JazzTimes

"...equal parts zaniness and braininess..." – The New Yorker

"...The charm of The Micros has always been their joyous, unself-conscious collage of different jazz styles. They are a kind of sleek swing band one moment, a Latin jazz group the next, a group of ‘60s avant-eek-onkers just a moment later. And it’s all played with the kind of zippity zest that keeps things entertaining." – Will Layman

Originally active from 1980-1992 and hugely popular in their native New York City, although they never caught their big break, The Microscopic Septet are regarded as one of the most important and unique bands to come out of the New York scene of the 1980s. They entertained audiences with their combination of swing, energy and humour, as well as with their unique compositions and fine musicianship; DownBeat referred to them as "...one of jazz's tightest units...."

The group reformed with the original personnel in 2006. In 2010, the band released Friday The Thirteenth, their unique tribute to one of their original inspirations, Thelonious Monk, an album that sold very well, was widely reviewed and lauded and propelled them to the top of the jazz cognoscenti's consciousness.

But fine as Friday The Thirteenth was, it was a very atypical release, because the Micros feature two of jazz's finest composers in co-leaders Joel Forrester and Phillip Johnston, both of whom contribute songs that feature "enough great melodies and ideas in each track to make an album" (DownBeat).

Featuring a lineup of a sax quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone) and rhythm section (piano, bass, drums), the Micros have a sound unlike any other ensemble compositionally, ensemble-wise and also in terms of the breadth of their influences.

Manhattan Moonrise is their 3rd release since reforming and their 7th release overall. In the liner notes, Phillip reflects on the band's history and why there is still a Microscopic Septet, and in doing so, I think he reveals a lot of what makes this band so special.

"I think the initial impetus for the band was two-fold. First it was to express our love for the wonderful ensemble-driven jazz tradition exemplified by practitioners as diverse as Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, John Kirby, Raymond Scott, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Second was to bring back the jazz-as-entertainment vibe of bands like those of Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway, while playing music that was resolutely 'modern.'.... ... to me, the value of it speaks to the importance of uniqueness, individuality, quirk. Now every Hollywood movie pays lip service to this hoary ideal, even as corporate diversification and the commodification (and digitization) of every aspect of our lives runs rampant. But who’s your quirky daddy now?

"Does the world need the music of Harry Partch, Raymond Scott, Joseph Spence, Captain Beefheart, Conlon Nancarrow, Van Dyke Parks, Charles Ives? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it does, but it thinks it doesn’t. Maybe most of the world doesn’t know it exists.... But to be part of something like that is not something I’ll give up without some serious thought. And when I came back to it in 2005, I thought this is just too good an opportunity to miss out on. I think I’ll follow it just a little longer and see where it goes."

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/the_microscopic_septet-lets_coolerate_one-from-manhattan_moonrise
You can buy the album here: www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Microscopic-Septet-Manhattan-Moonrise__Rune-spc-370.aspx

Richard Pinhas / Oren Ambarchi - Tikkun (CD + NTSC (all region) DVD $21.00)

"...it’s like the weird, beautiful music you think you only hear in dreams." – Q
“Nearly four decades into a career spent shattering boundaries, the Parisian experimentalist [offers] fractured, distortion-soaked soundtracks.” – Time Out
"On a day when your transmission drops to the asphalt and the humidity's enough to fry brains, Oren Ambarchi's resonating, disembodied guitarisms establish a soothing alternate universe."– Pitchfork Media

Richard Pinhas, the founder of 70s progressive legends Heldon, is one of the most uncompromising artists on the international rock scene, having remained constantly innovative and true to his personal artistic vision for 40 years and some 35 full length releases.

Oren Ambarchi is a guitarist, drummer and sound-artist who has performed and/or recorded with a huge array of artists, including Fennesz, John Zorn, Jim O'Rourke, Otomo Yoshihide, Evan Parker, Merzbow and others. Since 2004, he has worked with the avant-metal band Sunn O))), contributing to many of their releases and side-projects.

Pinhas and Ambarchi first recorded together when Ambarchi contributed to recordings that were eventually tied together with other contributors into Pinhas' 2013's release Desolation Row. Since that time they have been working on ideas, recordings and concert / live collaborations.

The personnel for Tikkun is:
Oren Ambarchi - guitar, loops
Richard Pinhas - guitar, synth guitar, effects
Joe Talia - drums, effects
Masami Akita (Merzbow) - loops, noise, effects
Duncan Pinhas - sequences, effects, noise
Eric Borelva - additional drums

The music on Tikkun, which consists of three very lengthy tracks, comes across as a very tasty cross between the heavy, synth-driven, sequencer beats of classic Heldon and the much more noisier aspects of Pinhas' work over the last decade.

In addition to the studio CD, this set also includes a DVD of a live performance of the duo. It was filmed at Paris' main venue for experimental music, Les Instants Chavires, October 29, 2013.

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/richard_pinhas-oren_ambarchi-washington_dc_t4v1-from-tikkun
You can buy the album here: www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Pinhas-Richard-Oren-Ambarchi-Tikkun-CD-plus-DVD__Rune-spc-388-389.aspx

Richard Pinhas / Yoshida Tatsuya - Welcome In The Void ($15.00)

"...two pioneers of fringe music, with the rapport of the two as the driving force behind this album" -– Something Else!

On Welcome In The Void, Richard Pinhas again pushes sonic and compositional boundaries, this time in a very special collaboration with the legendary Yoshida Tatsuya, "the indisputable master drummer of the Japanese underground."

Yoshida is one of the most important musicians of the Japanese experimental music scene for the last 35 years, spearheading at least a half dozen of that country's most important and best known experimental groups, including Ruins, Koenji Hyakkei and Korekyojinn. Welcome In The Void is the second album in Pinhas' Devolution Trilogy, concerned with mankind's ideological and physical devolution at the hands of our modern socio-politcal world and technology. For the past several years, Pinhas the musician/philosopher has given thought to, in his words, the "Devolution of mankind, civilization, Capitalism's devolution, and mainly devolution of [human/biolgical] faculties related to the rise of machines." He describes Welcome In The Void as "a kind of journey, not more into the being but into the void - the nothingness that is now the 'center' or the absence-of-center of our societies." The first album in Pinhas' Devolution Trilogy was 2013's Desolation Row, a sonic protest against the rise of neoliberalism, the global economic crisis and rising social unrest.

Teaming up for their first duo recording, Pinhas and Tatsuya push each others' creative limits to make something that even for the experimental master Pinhas, is a new experience: a single, 64-minute, all-instrumental track consisting solely of guitar, percussion and electronics. The spontaneity, intensity, and sheer force of the music created by the duo is a marvel of musical give and take. The Pinhas/Tatsuya collaboration is an ongoing one, and the duo has plans to tour and record more material in Japan in the near future.

You can hear a track from the album here: soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/richard_pinhas-yoshida_tatsuya-part_one_intro-from-welcome_in_the_void
You can buy the albumh here: www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Pinhas-Richard-Yoshida-Tatsuya-Welcome-In-The-Void__Rune-spc-391.aspx

NOTE: Wayside offers special pricing for people buying all of these new releases on the label; if you are interested, please see the front of the store and look for the happy piggy bank!

You can buy full-res FLAC, AAC, ALAC and MP3 320 files from us directly via bandcamp and these very high quality downloads also include the artwork. cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com

[Source: Cuneiform Records]







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