Poor Isa + Evan Parker & Ingar Zach - Untitled (Aspen Edities, 2025) *****

 

By Nick Metzger

Incredible music here from the Belgian duo Poor Isa - augmented this time round with Evan Parker on saxophones and Ingar Zach on percussion. This is the third release from the duo who work mainly in banjos and woodblocks following “let’s drink the sea and dance” in 2019 and “Dissolution of the Other” in 2023. It may sound like a meager palette, and it is, but the duo work serious witchcraft with these tools. Their sorcery spans the gamut from knobby twang to scratchy percussive to eerie daxophonian and to some quietly introspective and surprisingly meaty nodules in between. The players are Frederik Leroux and Ruben Machtelinckx , both prolific collaborators and both primarily of the guitar persuasion. Here their surreal avant-folk project (for lack of a better term) is transported to a different plane altogether with the addition of Evan Parker and the prolific Norwegian drummer Ingar Zach . The elements they bring to bear make for a remarkable listening experience, one full of unique soundscapes and novel amalgamations that feel veritable and emotive in their revelations.

The album is split into five very different pieces with Poor Isa providing their broadest recorded stylistic variations thus far. The first track is called “Clearing” and it begins with eerie floating tones that overlap and dance, seemingly exchanging words. The piece is sparse and warm, slowly building a warbly stasis that Parker interrupts with some of his most careful and probing playing to date, each note feeling properly considered and carefully placed so as not to scare away the fish. On “Ply” Parker plays in popping, honking, squawking birdsong against a spare mixture of shifting rhythms and skeletal, chiming folk drawl. There’s a sharp, simple melody played by one of the banjos that recalls the abrupt toll of a grandfather clock, with the patter of preparations and woodblock sounding like clockwork.

Zach provides sparkling percussive elements as accompaniment for a simple and sombre banjo melody on “Untitled 7”. This whole album is steeped in a heady melancholy that is embodied remarkably well on this piece. Its contemplative pacing yields some headspace to the listener and sets up a quickening on the next track. For “Two way” Poor Isa goes full clawhammer over an understated, yet propulsive rhythm from Zach. The chicken scratching rolls like a river without restrain, coursing in alternating melodies and scuffed drumming. Then Parker joins in and the thing becomes truly extraordinary. Some carefully considered language again from the master reedsman, showing just how versatile and acquiescent his playing can be. The final piece makes up a third of the runtime and is called “Hewn”. Parker starts off delicately with bright serpentine passages played at a half, and then full speed, rousing the banjos into wispy, fingerpicked melodies that Zach accents with bells and chimes. The track is a languid exploration of the sounds on tap for this fellowship and closes the album in careful and pensive fashion.

It’s an excellent record and a unique listen that I’ve been hard pressed to find a good contemporary for. All things said it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard this year. It all works so incredibly well that the disparate elements arrive as multiplicity rather than discord, although there’s still plenty of the latter to be had herein. If I have a single complaint it’s the run time which is a lean 29 minutes - however, the damage done in this brief interval is so evident that the gripe is a very minor one. In fact, had any more meat been on the bone the essence may not have come through as richly as it does here. This doesn’t feel pre-conceived at all and has the energetic drive and personal stylistic deviations that are the very signposts of a group completely lost in the magic of their creation - the quartet huddling close to protect the flame. Highly recommended.

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Angles 11 - Tell Them It's The Sound Of Freedom (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

Martin Küchen's Angles Ensemble must for sure be one of Sweden's most appreciated mini-big-band, with a recognisable sound that is truly unique. Sorry, I mean Europe's most appreciated larger ensemble. Every album is one to look out for, and this one does not fall short of the high expectations. 

In three long tracks, the music is as infectious, as exhilarating, as enchanting, as compelling as ever. 

The band members are Johan Berthling on double bass, Alex Zethson on Fender Rhodes, Juno 106, Mattias Ståhl on vibraphone, soprano saxophone, Konrad Agnas, Michaela Antalova and Kjell Nordeson on drums, Susana Santos Silva and Magnus Broo on trumpet, Josefin Runsteen on amplified violin, Eirik Hegdal on baritone and alto saxophones, and Martin Küchen on tenor and soprano saxophones. Fans will immediately notice the triple drums and the double trumpet line, as well as the addition of a violin to the line-up. 

As mentioned on previous reviews of the band, its messages is a political one, comparable to "the people united will never be defeated". It expresses a deep sense of injustice, drama and sadness about the fate of oppressed people that can be overcome by collaborating, by rallying them together - the real people - in a joint movement to stand up, heads raised and tackle the enemy with the confidence and energy of the collective power, here captured perfectly by its title "Tell Them It's The Sound Of Freedom". This is music that can only be fully appreciated in a live context. This is music that requires a large audience to share with, to become part of it, to be included into its total sound. 

Even if the music is avant-garde, its roots go very deep into the communal music of village bands and funeral bands. Its sweeping themes, the brilliant arrangements and the powerful soloing are all here again in full force, in full energetic power. This is music that can only be fully appreciated in a live context. This is music that requires a large audience to share with, to become part of it, to be included into its total sound. A Dutch author of the 19th Century described art as the "most individual expression of the most individual emotion". In the case of Angles, it's almost the exact opposite. It's art as "the most collective expression of the most collective emotion". 

The title song starts the album, slowly, sadly, with a madcap violin to start the soloing, followed by the weeping saxes, before falling back into perfect harmony of the entire orchestra, that leaves some space for the bass. Single instruments, like the vibes or the violin add exquisite touches to the ensemble's slowly progressing theme. The piece is only 11 minutes long, but for me it could go on forever. Incredibly moving. 

"A Night In Schwabistan" pumps up the tempo, starting with some chaotic rehearsal sounds, until the "one, two, three, four" starts the entire band in full power, uptempo like a steamroller in a car rally. The title refers to the region of Swabia in Germany, as it is sometimes called humorously, referring to the middle-eastern countries with names ending in '-stan'. Zethson's keyboard is the instrument that keeps the entire piece together, producing mesmerising rhythmic chords throughout. Again, the arrangements and collective changes in the composition are brilliant and overpowering. 

The final track, “Youngblood Transfusion,” opens with a drum intro that leads into the main theme, woven together by interlacing saxophones. The band eases in gracefully, settling into a beautiful mid-tempo groove. What follows is a sequence of deeply sorrowful solos—first from the saxes, then from the violin—before the piece disintegrates into sparse sonic fragments… only to regroup and surge back with full force, horns united and aimed toward the future in a moment of triumphant energy.

But just as quickly, the music collapses again, yielding to another burst of drumming and clearing the space for Susana Santos Silva’s solo—powerful, though in my view not quite loud enough—calling the full ensemble to rise, join her, and propel a grand finale that is relentless, unstoppable, joyful, and overwhelming.

Another winner.

Everything is great: the compositions, the arrangements, the playing, the freedom, the vision, the lack of perfection that makes it so human and close. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Lao Dan - To Hit a Pressure Point (Relative Pitch, 2025)

By Paul Acquaro

At the Moers festival last spring, woodwindist Lao Dan played a solo show in a hair salon. It was a small storefront in the town's shopping area and it was packed. Eager listeners were arrayed outside on the sidewalk, in the chairs and along the walls, making a bit of space for Dan in the middle of the narrow space. The free jazz musician from Szechuan, China has been slowly making an imprint on the Western free jazz scene over the past few years and last spring in Moers he had no trouble filling the space with his robust sound, whether playing the saxophone or various traditional flutes and woodwind instruments. His approach was one of being fully in - musically and physically, he moved through the small space with purpose and vigor, embodying the sound the he was making. The music on To Hit a Pressure Point, a solo recording from Dan out on the ever bold Relative Pitch label from New York, is a perfect encapsulation of this experience.

The 9 tracks on To Hit a Pressure Point have a flow, to listen to them is an experience, and one that is best done from start to end. Not to say that you cannot enjoy it if you pick a random spot, there is beauty and ruggedness, refinement and rawness at any entry point, but following the whole stream reveals the complete picture. In fact, it is possible to think of it as a stream, running down from a remote mountain top, the winter snow melt adding volume and force. It begins small, a narrow rivulet, and as it flows, it grows fuller and stronger. At times, Dan's physicality is audible, a grunt, a shout, are like rocks in the stream, forcing the water to bubble around them, creating new currents and waves. Other times it pools into tranquil pockets, calm and peaceful, for a moment, before continuing on.

Dan's sonic vocabulary belies a great deal of study, there are elements of classic free jazz as well as Chinese folk music, and something that also was a part of that solo Moers performance: punk. The movement, the sound, the fierce emotion behind his playing is captivating - not always easily accessible, not always easily digested, but like a rugged hike along a mountain stream, worth every mesmerizing moment.

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MOTUSNEU + Steve Swell - War der Clown gar nicht echt? (Boomslang, 2025)

By Paul Acquaro

Drummer Steffen Roth, along with bassist Stephan Deller and saxophonist Bruno Angeloni have been working together in Leipzig since 2022, their first recording Ospedale from 2023 wonderfully captured the group's dynamics and improvisational prowess. For their follow up recording, on a hunch that it would work out, they invited New York trombonist Steve Swell to join them.

 

War der Clown gar nicht echt? ('Was the clown truly not real?') is the culmination of a tour throughout Germany performing as a quartet - Swell is not really a special guest, rather he quickly became an integral part of the group's sound. So, while the clown question remains unanswered, it can be positively said that the connection between the trombone work and Angeloni's fierce woodwind playing is obviously happening. 

 

The music is, simply, fierce and well-connected, a post-modern explosion of sound captured in the studio.  From the opening moments of '7,' the group is already in feisty form. It begins lightly, with the drums and sax creating a sound texture. Then we hear the brass percolating. Strokes of the bass strings intermingled with the other tones as the soup thickens. Pure improvisation and strong listening is happening here as Roth and Deller engage at a particulate level to create a sonic bed for Angeloni and swell's exchanges. Its detail oriented and open to anything.

 

Assuming from the naming of the tracks, simply numbers from 1 to 8, there is an intentionality to mixing up the sequence. Later in the sequence, on track '4', which comes in at place 3, the drums kick things off again with an impressive roll leading to a melee of sax and bass, the latter which goes off on an inspired tangent. Then we hear the trombone sneaking in between the three.

 

There are contemplative moments as well as all hell-breaking-loose ones (the middle of '5' is a little musical volcano) but what is most impressive is how well the working trio quickly became a well oiled (but still plenty squeaky) quartet. War der Clown gar nicht echt? is an album that one should take some time with, let it grow and then decide for yourself what is real or not.

 

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Ches Smith - The Self (Tzadik, 2025)

By Don Phipps

What makes Ches Smith special? Is it his musicality – the trap set as symphony? Is it his incredible multi-instrumental talent (on The Self  he plays drums, vibraphone, timpani, glockenspiel, chimes, tam-tam, and small percussion)? Or is it his ability to use these instruments to craft free form music that conveys complex feelings and thoughts?

The Self  highlights Smith’s abilities to bring it. There’s the ac/dc approach on vibraphone on “The Problem,” which alternates between dreaminess and energy. There’s the funk of “Stems From,” where Smith uses the glockenspiel to create a rotating motif wrapped by syncopated snare and bass drum. Or for those who prefer flashy drumming, there’s the wonderful “In Two” and “Light Spirits,” with cascading snare rolls and cymbals juxtaposed against bass drum pedal syncopation, or the beautiful tom tom beats on “Freely Stated,” where the strokes are hard and fast but the sound produced flows and rolls. And his free form brush work on “Subtly” is not to be missed.

Or check out his use of the vibraphone and chimes on “Vertiginous Question,” which turns ethereal and blends with what almost sounds like electronics at play. Or the fascinating use of the glockenspiel to suggest a clear night of twinkling stars on “Constellation View.” Perhaps the masterpiece of the album is “Empty Individual.” Not only does this composition demonstrate Smith’s endearing musical all over drumming, replete with bass drum pedal work that startles and impresses, but to this he adds the glockenspiel for just a couple of precise notes in the middle of his drumming escapades! The music continues to roll about in a fine rage, with some sudden explosions and incredible cymbal and gong play, elements that slip in an out of the tune like changing lanes on a speedy highway.

The important thing with The Self  is that Smith makes it happen – from trampoline bounces to adventurous safari rhythms (“Get Out There And See”). Finally, one would be remiss not to comment on his use of the bells (or chimes as he refers to it). “Menm Bagay La” illustrates this perfectly, where he recreates the sound of chimes blowing in the breeze.

Smith, who in 2025 has participated on Myra Melford’s excellent Splash, Clone Row where reviewer Aloysius Ventham wrote “I suspect it will be my album of the year”, and John Zorn’s Impromptus, is covering the bases. The Self shows that he continues to develop and expand and it’s exciting to hear his expanding artistry. Enjoy!

 

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The Real McGregor

Ogun Records has just released to YouTube a restored version of a short film called "The Real McGregor" from 1967, documenting Chris McGregor's Blue Notes. Filmed at the height of London’s 1960s jazz scene, the group was newly arrived from Apartheid South Africa and sparking a wave of adventurous music. This rare film captures their only known visual record from that era, set within Ronnie Scott’s legendary Old Place at 39 Gerrard Street. Originally the first Ronnie Scott’s club and later run by John Jack, the basement venue became a round‑the‑clock hub for young British jazz musicians to rehearse, perform, and experiment.

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Taupe - Lemonade Tycoon (Minority Records, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

Experimental trio Taupe comprises saxophonist, composer, and arranger Jamie Stockbridge (Agbeko, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, John Pope Quartet and more), drummer, composer, and improviser Alex Palmer (Logan‘s Close, Blue Giant Orkestar, Pippa Blundell, SMIRK, and more), and guitarist and electronic musician Mike Parr-Burman (Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and a variety of projects including Dome Riders and more).

Taupe has performed at jazz festivals, punk clubs, and venues in the UK and Europe. They have opened for Deerhoof, Melt Banana, and Richard Dawson, and have been featured at the 12 Points! Jazz Festival and selected for Jazz North’s Northern Line. In 2023, they received the PRS International Showcase Fund Award to perform at the Sharpe showcase festival in Slovakia.

Lemonade Tycoon is announced by two sets of repeated blasted phrases, before the rhythm kicks in, and it is this slightly offset beat that pervades the single, creating a slightly off-kilter dynamic that works well at engaging the mind.

The title , Lemonade Tycoon, is a nod to the classic business simulation game of the same name, where players run a lemonade stand and try to make profits, but really, the sound has nothing to do with a game. It is intense and unique, enhanced by a live drum improvisation in the final sequence, captured via a saxophone clip-on mic and routed through saxophonist Jamie Stockbridge’s intricate effects pedal chain, creating a spectral echo. It is here where the lemonade reference makes sense, as it is sparkling and chaotic like shaken lemonade, simultaneously precise and unruly.

If ever a track screamed skronk, it is this one. Beautifully balanced, Taupe work together to create music that encompasses free jazz with punchy, repeated phrasing that works it way into the mind, like a relentless drill. The switches from precise, intricate phrases to turbulent, chaotic lines are seamless.

They describe their music as having ‘wonky charm‘ and that is perfect to describe this joyfully noisesome, beautiful music that gets into your psyche. There is a crazy section where sax and guitar cross swords in rhythmic interpretation that makes for a bonkers conversation, including pulled back timings that add to the sense of controlled chaos of the track. It is a track that starts as one thing and by the end is something different but equally, turbulently glorious.

This single is fun, free, dynamic, and completely beautiful.

Lemonade Tycoon is the single release ahead of Taupe’s third album, waxing | waning, which will be released in March 2026 by the Czech label Minority Records.

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Ivo Perelman and John Butcher - Duologues 4 (IBEJI, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

In 2024, I interviewed saxophonist Ivo Perelman for Free Jazz Collective. He told me he was coming to the UK in October 2025 to record with John Butcher. Perelman described Butcher as ‘a multi-faceted musician with an original, elegant, yet powerful sax voice.’ Butcher has played with John Edwards, the late, great John Russell, Phil Minton, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders, and a host of other musicians. He has great versatility and in-the-moment skills that can turn the atmosphere of a performance. When Perelman commented on collaborating with Butcher, I mused at the time that this would make for an interesting recording, and it has materialised in ‘Duologues 4’. Perelman is on tenor sax, and Butcher on soprano and tenor.

Duologues 4 proves yet again that Perelman makes some inspired choices in collaborators. Teamed with butcher, Perelman is more conversational on this recording – and no wonder. Butcher is one of the most creative saxophone players the UK scene has produced in a long time, and perhaps one who deserves more acclaim. The album is infused with Butcher’s intuitive responses and quiet, solid playing. The opening track is akin to a respectful argument, with both players alternating phrase development and interpreting the other’s take with harmonic dialogue. Perelman and Butcher are one of those combinations that you might hope would happen, and when it did, there was no disappointment. Perelman’s register-flitting and rapidity are exemplary on this track, but Butcher has that ability to slot just the right tone and note into any gaps left by Perelman’s multiple register coverage.

Track two is busy, the speed frenetic, and both players create breathy, singular melodies and develop intricate harmonies as the track evolves, weaving melodies in and out, across and over each other, while making full use of stops and gaps. Butcher shows he is gifted in spontaneity and placement of phrases.

The entire album is a continuum of this conversation that carries on between Butcher and Perelman. It is an album of equality where Perelman often suggests the theme, or introduces an idea, but Butcher responds with creative development or apposite music thoughts that Perelman instinctively follows. At times, Butcher is like a stalking wolf, picking up the trails Perelman sets and ng them before diverging off onto tracks of his own invention. The changes are interesting throughout because they happen with subtlety, almost before you realise it and the thinking of the two masters is also intriguing, such as on track 3 where there is individual melodic phrasing, but by the time four minutes and around twenty second have elapsed, the pair are in delightful, elevated harmony with an intense energy that flows from the music.

There is a calmness to some of the music also, such as the gentler start of track 4, where the musicians are clearly listening to each other, the intensity palpable in the responses, and both, led by Perelman, visit the upper reaches of altissimo.

There is diversity too, such as on track 5, where Perelman introduces a subtle long take on a swung beat, and the slap tongue sections on track 6, coupled with exploration of as many forms as it is possible to fit in a track less than four minutes long. The longest track is track 7, and here both players get the chance – and take it- to be melodic, harmonious and, naturally, introduce some spontaneity (a lot). Butcher is at his best here in the lower register of the tenor and in this track lurks a bit of swing, a touch of classical and a good dose of free playing – wrapped in a colourful coat of intensity. The final track is a glorious, popping escapade, enjoyable for the listener and probably for the players too.

Perelman is familiar to many people as one of the great, inspirational players of our time and he describes Butcher as ‘amazing and responsive’. This is true.

Perelman and Butcher, Butcher and Perelman. Either way, it is a terrific combination.

https://music.amazon.com/artists/B000QJT49I/ivo-perelman 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Douglas R. Ewart, Kyle Hutchins, Seth Andrew Davis, Kevin Cheli – See You in the Past (Mother Brain Records, 2025)

By Nick Ostrum

See You in the Pastis a meeting of generations. On the one side are Kyle Hutchins on saxophones, Seth Andrew Davis on guitar and electronics, and Kevin Cheli on percussion and vibraphone, all three young(er) and associated with various Midwestern scenes. On the other side is Douglas R. Ewart, here on saxophones, flutes, and George Floyd Bunt Staff . Ewart, of course, was an early AACM member and has since become multi-reedist+ legend even after departing Chicago for Minneapolis. This grouping succeeds not only in blending scenes and rough cohorts, but in layering the old (or ancestral or atavistic) and the new (or electronic futurism) convincingly. One need not take such a polarity too literally, of course. Electronics is hardly new to Ewart’s circles. However, here it sounds not like Sun Ra’s Moog or even George Lewis’ experiments, but like a more contemporary – astral prog crossed with ambient and particularist noise making – iteration.

Together, Ewart, Hutchins, Davis, and Cheli harness a large sound, which, even in the quiet moments, occupies considerable space. Ewart’s spirituality and earthiness is a clear thread, but it sounds different in the context of the electronics and long stretches of wall-of-sound production. Most often, Ewart or Hutchins fight through the downpour that Davis and Cheli (and I think Hutchins and Ewart, when on his George Floyd Bunt Staff) conjure. Actually, it is tough to decipher when Ewart or Hutchins steps up and the others scape and scrape the sound from behind. Many passages veer even further from the free jazz stylings one might expect into noise rock and the most abstract moments of the Grateful Dead’s Space/Drums jams. Indeed, See You in the Past is more interested in suspended and extended moments, rather than progressive development. There are exceptions. Future Ghosts, at 7:43 the shortest of the three tracks, is a scorcher. It is a free for all from the beginning and the energy does not ebb until the final moments. Still, the other selections, Echoes of Tomorrow and Sound Seekers, subdue the quartet’s most eruptive impulses. It is in these longer stretches that this group shows what they can really achieve, as they not only find their sound, but probe it, stretch it, and turn it inside out to utterly mesmerizing effect.

See You in the Past is available on Bandcamp as a CD and download: 

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Steve Tintweiss And The Purple Why - Live In Tompkins Square Park 1967 (Inky Dot Media, 2025)

By Nick Ostrum

The first time I heard Steve Tintweiss was in college. I got my first album by Albert Ayler, Nuits de la Fondation Maeght, which captured one of his last performances, and was floored. Then I began flipping through the booklet and found the bassist. I did some quick Google searching and did not find much on him at the time. (This was a couple decades ago, after all.) So, apart from that recording, he would remain just a mysterious part of Ayler’s late band for me until quite recently. As it turns out, Tintweiss performed with everyone from Marzette Watts and Frank Writght to Burton Greene and Byard Lancaster. He just released sparingly.

Live in Tompkins Square Park 1967 captures Tintweiss and one iteration of his Purple Why (Jacques Coursi on trumpet, James DuBoise on trumpet, Perry Robinson on clarinet, Joel Peskin on saxophone, Randy Kaye on drums and piano, and Lawrence Cook on drums) performing the bassist’s compositions in the fabled (but also very real) Tompkins Square Park in 1967.

Live in Tompkins Square Park is very much of its time and in that late Ayler vein, though without the insistent melodicism. Rather, Tintweiss and company are exploring abstraction and dynamic range. Listen to the music box string duo five minutes into News Up/Down for one of softer moments. Then follow the piece through to the full-blast realization of the leitmotif. Or check out the modal lyricism of Space Rocks, a piece that starts with a slow folk march before opening into a collective but mostly contained funerary wail. Or the smokey jazz club romance of To Angel With Love, which is absolutely beautiful. As was common for the 1960s downtown scene, most of these pieces are bookended by short grooves and ditties that decompose into freer interactions that embrace the moment of creation and the probing quest to find the right rhythm or combination of looping horns or textures. Through all the sparring that reeds and winds do, the propulsion comes from the relentless drive of Kaye and Cook paired on percussion, and Tintweiss, himself.

Now to the recording. It is somewhat raw but it works. It works because the tapes are a half-century old and capture the band live and outdoors. For that it sounds great. It also works because the background hums, the imperfections in balance and other infidelities catch the live experience better than a crisp studio production would have. And this music is about that in-person excitement, which one hears in the chatter and genuine participation (singing, cheering, impromptu percussion, applause) of the audience.

Tintweiss will likely always be best known for his brief stint with Ayler. But recordings like this show he had sensibilities and vision that stand on their own.

Live in Tompkins Square Park is a limited release and can be purchased through Tintweiss’s own Inky Dot Media.

 

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