Laura Ann Singh – Mean Reds (OOYH, 2025)

By Nick Ostrum

Since launching in 2018, Out of Your Head records has quickly emerged as a cornerstone label of the next wave of free jazzers, especially those circulating around New York. Mean Reds features a few of the label’s mainstays (and founders), Scott Clark on drums and Adam Hopkins on bass, as well as saxophonist John Lilley and trumpeter Bob Miller. More prominent in this session is the quintet’s leader and vocalist, Laura Ann Singh. A vocalist of many styles, she shone brightly on Clark’s 2023 Dawn & Dusk , which was one of her first recorded forays into this the freer musics. Mean Reds is her first headliner.

The first phrases of the opener, River, are a repeated four-note drift on trumpet, and light splatters of string and percussion. Then, Singh matches the now drafty trumpet lines with her proposition, “Maybe our love is a river.” From there, the song – and really the album – unfold into a series of imagist mediations and poetic propositions that link the human condition, nature, technology, and a range of other concerns both pressing and playful. Her lyrical style and delivery veers between the heyday jazz divas and a slightly less gruff Chrissie Hynde. Comparisons with Hannah Marks’ overlooked gem from 2023 Outsider, Outlier, also on OOYH, are also in order in those moments when Singh’s group taps its inner aggression and outrage and spill over into wails, declamations, and other noise.

Take one of the standouts, Monster. It is scorcher, which drags the listener through a storm as Singh repeats the question “Is this the American dream?,” a phrase which morphs in the second verse into “This is my American scream.” This is as much punk rock and raucous Björk as it is jazz. Toward the end, the song clarifies itself as an indictment of our current age of obsessive (and seemingly inescapable) petromodernity, as Singh asserts “The highway is a monster.” Here, of course, the highway is metaphor as well object, doubling as a warning about the suicidal direction the world seems to be veering. The backbeat is an insistent drum and bass staccato pulse that seems to repeat endlessly with just minor embellishments as the band breaks out into full fanfare around Singh’s proclamations.

Monster is just one among the variety Mean Reds presents. For the few punk bangers (Monster, She Said, the playful bedroom indie track Counting), there are smoky ballads that, even when at their most direct, are just distorted enough to sound subversive. As Strange as It Is is a fine example. It embraces Ornette’s harmolodics, if not the system itself then at least the feeling that comes through so powerfully in pieces such as What Reason Could I Give. In that, it soars. One other important note is the band. These guys can tear, but they rarely do. Instead, this album showcases their ability to play an incredible backing band. Never is there tension between musicians elbowing for space or filling the air with too much sound. They are stand-out in those moments when they do break out into bop runs and blares. But, in a sense, they stand out most by holding to the background and laying the solid but unassuming basis on which Singh can realize her vision. And what a colorful (or maybe just many perplexing and divergent shades of red?) and engaging vision it is.

Mean Reds is available as vinyl and download via Bandcamp:

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Zeena Parkins - Lament for the Maker (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)

 By Brian Earley

 

Presence requires intention, wakefulness, and awareness. Listeners give their attention over to music because they love this directed effort, but with serious music, presence is also requisite. Zeena Parkins’s most recent album for Relative Pitch Records, Lament for the Maker , is serious music, and this is no weakness. Parkins leans here into works that are as much about sound as they seem to be about loss.

Sound, physically speaking, involves pitch and frequency. Frequency. That is, it is always arriving, but also always leaving. Always vibrating away until the human body, no matter its intention, its wakefulness, can no longer detect it. It becomes its own lament as it passes out of the range of hearing and journeys from a world of perceived time into an infinite space with no time bound restrictions imposed upon it by human control.

If one did not know the circumstances involved around the making of this recording, one could still perceive the tension here between control and inevitable abandon. Zeena Parkins is the maker of the sound, as she plays her unconventional acoustic harp with electrified extended techniques using metal slides and bass bowing, but the works are a constant duet of harp and noise, in addition to the duet of composer and performer. Indeed, Parkins is listed as composer of only one of the pieces on this collection while three of her colleagues from Mills College, Laetitia Sonami, John Bischoff, and James Fei, “graciously agreed” (Parkins’s words) to honor the closing of the school by submitting compositions for harp and electronics. The institution, famed for its advocacy for gender and trans rights as much as for its innovations in arts and academics, closed in 2022 and, following economic decisions in higher education across the nation, was subsumed by a larger, more profitable entity. The closing of its music department ultimately resulted in Parkins departing, ending her tenure as Darius Milhaud Chair there, her close connections to students, teachers, and friends, and to a way of life she had established for thirteen years.

A representative experience for me here is my listening to “pluck,” composed by Bischoff and listed as the second work on the album. The work opens with traditional acoustic harp plucking. Open mid-range resonances alternate with high pitch tight plucking of strings. Time lingers as much as it attacks and abruptly ends. Shortly after the one minute mark, however, legato electronics rise and fall like a celeste being drained of fluid. After the three minute mark time itself is challenged in lengthy organ-like holdings of single and double tones. And, by eight minutes into the work, the piece feels entirely improvised by Parkins. Except she, of course, is using a score composed by another, and now must navigate a world where maintaining control is as essential as relinquishing that control. There appears to be no time signature, but even if there were, it would only offer a semblance of order placed over a human negotiation of time passing. After seventeen minutes the work ends with plucking, dampened, so that no pitch arises from Parkins’s strings at all. Sound finally has only frequency and disappears out of human perception into silence.

Lament is an intentional word choice. On December 5 of 2025, Parkins wrote on Instagram that her “sad farewell to Mills College is being released today. A heart wrenching one for me.” The album is more acceptance than resignation, however, as it ends with “berlin bedroom: littlefield feb.10.2024,” a time-stamped work that began in 2014 and is “ongoing.” Parkins struggles with “sonic limits…that are impossible to bend by design.” The work starts at 0:01 and concludes at 12:42, and its perceived sound does end along with the sound of human beings applauding, never to be assembled exactly the same again, but the frequencies generated here move outward forever into circumstances beyond even our dreams. 

 

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Ralph Towner (1940 - 2026)

Ralph Towner at Jazzwerkstatt Peitz in 2020

By Paul Acquaro 

 

Saddened to learn about the passing of guitarist Ralph Towner over the weekend. Towner had a truly distinctive and influential voice on the acoustic guitar and in modern jazz. His use of the nylon-string and 12-String guitar was formative in style and always a pleasure to hear on recordings and especially in concert. To steal from my own review of My Foolish Heart (ECM, 2017), Towner's playing was a perfect blend of sophistication and irreverence to genre. Not really jazz, certainly not free jazz, and not classical either, his compositions lived comfortable between and outside of categorization. 

 

Though Towner is probably most well known for his work with the band Oregon, he also had a long and fruitful recording career with ECM. Some of my favorites recordings of his include the two duo recordings with John Abercrombie, Sargasso Sea (1976) and Five Years Later (1982), but even more so, Solstice (1975), his first as a leader of the group with saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Eberhard Weber and drummer Jon Christensen. This recording, and its successor, Sounds and Shadows (1977), exemplify the best of ECM and his own approach, namely spacious, lyrical, and harmonically rich music.

 

Of course, Towner's work is far more complete than these few recordings and are all worth a visit, up to his last release, At First Light from 2023. In addition to his warm, narrative, and harmonically adventurous guitar playing, Towner also played piano, synthesizer, trumpet and French horn. However, it was really on guitar, in which he applied his classical training to create a unique mix of jazz, folk, classical and world music. 

 

Ralph Towner passed away on 18 January 2026 at age 85 in Rome.

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Craig Taborn, Tomeka Reid, Ches Smith - Dream Archives (ECM, 2026)

By Don Phipps

While not adverse to playing inside, Craig Taborn has always been open to stretching out his vocabulary of jazz piano and employing edgy electronics in his creations. Take his work in the Aughts with Tim Berne. In the critically acclaimed Shell Game (Thirsty Ear 2001) and Science Friction (Screwgun 2002) Taborn used piano and electronics to expand the harmonic settings of Berne’s compositions. Later, in the 10s, he brought his ability to form engaging soundscapes to two acclaimed Michael Formanek recordings, The Rub and Spare Change (ECM 2010) and Small Places (ECM 2012).

Even earlier, Taborn worked with AACM alum Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory on the free jazz album Nine to Get Ready (ECM 1999) – his first recording with ECM. In addition to other works with Mitchell, he recorded Conversations IandConversationsII (both released on Wide Hive Records in 2014). Later in the decade there was his wonderful and lauded stream of consciousness collaboration with Kris Davis on Octopus (Pyroclastic Records, 2018). And it would be an oversight not to mention his insightful contribution to Dave Holland’s double album Uncharted Territories (Dare2 Records, 2018), where, in addition to Holland, he improvised with free jazz luminary Evan Parker and gifted drummer Ches Smith.

On Dream Archives (ECM 2026), he joins Tomeka Reid (cello) and Ches Smith (drums, vibraphone, percussion, and electronics) to form lines of transcendent beauty, bluesy abstractions, dynamic flows, and haunting subtleties. Taborn composed four of the tracks, and the remaining two are covers (written by the late greats Geri Allen (“When Kabuya Dances”) and Paul Motian (“Mumbo Jumbo”).

Building on a legacy is always a hurdle. But Taborn is up to the task. Take the early morning harbor setting which opens the first track, “Coordinates For The Absent.” The fog is lifting; boats are heading out to sea. The piano overtones are heard, and Reid adds rapid bowing as Smith generates electronic ditties and taps lightly on the vibraphone. Taborn asserts himself as the piece progresses. His precise wandering attacks, pedal-infused single notes, masterful strikes, and rolling arpeggios generate ethereal atmospherics.

Then there’s the free form “Feeding Maps To The Fire,” where Taborn employs both bluesy and classical idioms. His inquisitive rapid rotation and his gentle chordal abstractions sit atop Smith’s subtle background drumming and Reid’s bowing. Smith then takes the foreground – brushwork and adroit bass pedal, tom tom bounces, and rimshot strikes all provide color to the cycle.

The title cut, “Dream Archives,” has a staggered opening. Smith shines with his inventive vibraphone offerings. There’s a surreal effect – cranking electronic noises and Taborn’s leaky-faucet drip on the piano. The development extends outward to some unknown horizon. Are we in a dark labyrinth facing off against a Minotaur? Reid’s haunting subtleties blend with Taborn’s solo - the musical equivalent of staring into the darkness – the mind playing tricks. And “Enchant,” with its fairy tale opening and Reid’s Bach-ian bowed dissonance, are but preludes to the bright red sun morning piano lines that emerge. The piece ends resolutely – a sequence that feels like flying gracefully across a wide bright blue skyline.

Finally, on “Kabuya,” Taborn and crew craft a fine romp. Smith’s work on the toms and cymbals contribute mightily to the dancing rhythm. And on “Mumbo,” Reid finds just the right notes around Taborn’s pounding precision – like waves striking a rocky shoreline.

If one were to archive one’s dreams, just what would they say? Would they increase one’s perception of what is real or illusion? Would they lead to more self-awareness or confusion? Would they be time-stamped? And how would they be classified, stored, and retrieved? Perhaps Taborn’s efforts on Dream Archives are meant to shed light on these questions - the tuneful subconscious revealed and cataloged. Enjoy!

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Kaja Draksler Octet: In Kyoto (from Bare, Unfolding)

How exciting it was to receive a bit of good news the other week. No, not that all wrong with the world was being dealt with smartly and swiftly, but - almost as good - that Clean Feed records was helping usher in some goodness our way. This goodness, Bare, Unfolding, is new digital and limited release LP (only 180 copies!) from pianist Kaja Draksler, along with vocalists Laura Polence and Björk Níelsdóttir, woodwindist Ada Rave, shakuhachi player Ab Baars, violinist George Dumitriu, bassist Lennart Heyndels and drummer Onno Govaert, will feature among its tracks the suggestive and lithe 'In Kyoto.' Watch the video by Aleksandra Ołda:

Find out more here: https://kajadraksler.bandcamp.com/album/bare-unfolding

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Christoph Erb, Magda Mayas & Gerry Hemingway - Phyla music (Veto, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

In the fragile lightness of the air, sounds drift into one another. They hesitate and whisper, moving in the same direction without weight or intention, slowly discovering each other, slowly intensifying. Like falling snow, they are visible yet fleeting against the vastness of the sky—until the wind stirs and their presence thickens into a storm: harsh, brutal, a relentless howl that takes command, a kind of dark reflection of the intimacy that preceded it. A vortex of sound sweeps everything along, only to unravel again into countless minute, delicate, and hushed tones.

Or perhaps they are small creatures, curling into one another, releasing tiny calls of recognition and belonging, until friction ignites and they turn on each other in anger—only to find, somewhere down the line, peace and understanding once more, and with it a deep and lasting friendship.

It is difficult to say. Perhaps these fragile, compelling sounds are not meant to evoke such spontaneous images of nature at all. Yet the name phyla itself comes from biology, where it denotes a broad category—bringing together animals of different species (as the tiger and the snail on the cover, possibly related to the story with the same name). In this context, it may suggest that the three musicians acknowledge the artists who shaped them, and draw sounds together from multiple angles and perspectives. 

The trio consists of Christoph Erb on tenor and soprano saxophones, Magda Mayas on clavinet, and Gerry Hemingway on drums, voice, and controlled feedback.

The result is impressive. And fascinating. They present two pieces: the first an extended work lasting forty-six minutes, followed by a brief two-minute piece. Unsurprisingly, the longer piece proves more engaging. As on several previous recordings, Mayas has set aside the piano in favour of the clavinet—an instrument whose raw, metallic timbre, not unlike that of an electric guitar, strongly shapes the overall sound of the music. Erb and Hemingway too are in excellent form, the experts of timbral explorations and inventive sonic creativity. The end result is as surprising as is astonishing and captivating. 

This is music meant for focused listening. Within its subtle interplay are unexpected turns and wonderful evolutions. An album you’ll want to revisit time and time again.

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Roscoe Mitchell & Michele Rabbia – in 2 (RogueArt, 2025)

By Guido Montegrandi

In May 2024 Roscoe Mitchell (bass and sopranino saxophones, percussions) and  Michele Rabbia (percussions, electronic) played a series of concert in Italy (here is a fragment of the concert at the Angelica Festival in Bologna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icgq6ojsJIU ) and on the occasion, between May 9th and 11th they recorded this album.

The result is an exploration of sound in its most elemental traits – breath and noise resonances and echoes and silence. There is something quite organic and alarming in the opening piece A day in a Forest as my cat (who is used to a wide range of strange and unusual sounds) was restless and alert for the whole piece, the same atmosphere can be heard in the counterpart piece A night in the Forest, a sort of environmental collection of dripping noises, electronic echoes and deep percussion. It’s a raw sound that emerges from this album and the moments in which Mitchell plays the bass sax (Low answer as an example) seem to dive deep into sonic substance of the world itself. In Two starts as a more traditional free jazz sax piece but then the drumming opens a different horizon with deep drums and subtle cymbals. 

All through the record, the way in which Rabbia uses electronics and percussion perfectly draws a net of connections and disconnections (to quote the liner notes) for the two of them to make their statements, to dialogue or to go astray. Interaction is a powerful example of the way they think about music - every sound matters, every breath and every move are music until it all fades in the last second of Polyndrome (the closing piece).

in 2 is an emotional record, fragmented sounds and broken melodies and rhythmic textures that dissolve into 39 minutes and 06 seconds of good music.

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Tim Berne’s Snakoil - In Lieu Of (2025)

By Charlie Watkins

I have been a massive Tim Berne fan for years now. I’ve seen him play a handful of times and his composition technique has been a big influence on my own. He might be considered an auteur – you instantly know if you’re listening to a Berne album – and yet each of his ensembles manages to present something fresh.

This year Berne has released a couple of archive recordings from his band Snakeoil, with Matt Mitchell on piano (of course), Oscar Noriega on Bb and bass clarinets and Ches Smith on percussion. Both were briefly reviewed last month by Gary Chapin, who hits the nail on the head by describing Snakeoil as ‘knotty’. The complicated lines weave carefully in and out, and the compositions move between the compositional cells that have become so synonymous with his music. The complexity of the compositions gives this music a lot of momentum. The album was recorded at ‘Carnegie Hell’ (sic) in 2012, so it is relatively early Snakeoil material, but these musicians exude nothing but ease with each other.

The first track, Son of Socket, is the longest track at just under 29 minutes. It showcases some excellent interplay between all four musicians, who merge seamlessly between the cells and the improvisations, and about halfway through the intensity reaches a brief peak that is wonderfully furious, before opening up some space out of which another knotty compositional cell suddenly bursts forth. These kind of moments show the telepathic connection this ensemble has developed. But I think the band is at its strongest when it emerges from the improvisational chaos and settles deep into a groove, as it does towards the end of the track, when Smith swings hard whilst the other instrumentalists get their fingers round the difficult figures. Holding together improvisational chaos with avant-garde swing is what makes Snakeoil such an enjoyable group to listen to.

The second track, Spectacle, is the shortest of three tracks, and is the sparsest as well. It features Smith on various percussion instruments and then Noriega and Mitchell in a subtle and intimate duo together. When Berne finally swoops in, with Mitchell and Noriega introducing the next cell underneath, it all magically comes together, in a really special moment on the record.

The amusingly titled Sketches of Pain rounds off the album on a real high. Texturally, it is the most inventive of the three tracks, with Mitchell playing with a force that wasn’t so evident on the first two tracks, and Smith really pushing the band forward with his driving rhythms. There is also a good solo bass clarinet improvisation from Noriega, although he never quite reaches the same extremes that Berne manages across the record. The track has a delicate touch that demonstrates the full scope of Snakeoil’s musical range, and the last few minutes are a touching conclusion to an otherwise raucous record. This album really does manage to show all of Snakeoil, from their most complex and intense to their most sensitive and beautiful.

My only complaint about the record is that the piano sits a little too low in the mix. I was having to strain to hear Mitchell’s playing and the recording felt slightly hollowed out at points as a result. So I would recommend it for Berne fans rather than newcomers to his music; if you want an introduction to Snakeoil, I suggest The Fantastic Mrs 10 (Intakt Records, 2020). But as always with Berne, every subsequent listen of this record provides more and more to get your teeth into, and there really are some fantastic moments of inspiration throughout.

Available from Bandcamp:

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Makoto Kawashima - Arteria (Relative Pitch, 2025)

  

By William Rossi

A continuation of saxophonist Makoto Kawashima's exploratory journey that I loved in his previous solo works Homo Sacer and Zoe, Arteriais an album that requires patience and active participation from the listener. The two new pieces that constitute this record further highlight the importance that Kawashima places on silence and his penchant for meditative build-ups that give equal importance to the quietest of sounds, like the clacking of the keys or the buzzing of the reed and the loudest overtone blares, delivered with his signature theremin-like vibrato and unrelenting force.

There's a real flow to both tracks, they're deliberate and thorough in their development. The unexpected bluesy lines, the slowly and painfully ascending melody on the title track and the emotional bursts of energy feel even sweeter after the listener has been taken on a journey from an almost imperceptible hum to a single note, almost as if to show them how sound itself is created, painstakingly carving catharsis from a stone. 

 

The ability of an unaccompanied improvised performance, on a monophonic instrument no less, to conjure entire worlds the listener can get lost in is testament to how talented Kawashima is and how good his musical instincts are.

Like all great improvised music there's a sense of danger to the material on this record. Each daring leap and each strained altissimo note make me hold my breath. Will he make it? Will the next note even come out? This thrill makes the listener an active party in the music and the very tactile and raw recording, making every inhale, footstep or movement audible, contributes to the illusion of being in the room with Kawashima, turning this solo album into a moment for connection and collaboration in the same way that concerts are. I love music like this.

Available digitally and on CD from Relative Pitch , don't miss out on it. 

 

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Philipp Eden/ Frantz Loriot/Matina Tantanozi – And Raw, Lift My Eyes (Inexhaustible editions, 2025)

 

 

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

The very latest release from Inexhaustible editions is another foray into the gap, the bridge maybe, between improvised sounds that are created in certain environmental surroundings and a certain cinematic atmosphere shaped by their interdisciplinary efforts. By the latter I’m trying to find connections between different audio excursions, more concentrated into “traditional” sound making, and this trio.

Eden plays prepared piano and utilizes several objects, Loriot plays his viola in many different ways, while Tantanozi is more responsible for the acute atmospheres of the CD with her flute and bass flute.

Ranging from the droney, melodic atmosphere of the opening 'Kaiki' (which in another, one of the many, turn in this CD it resolves into a request of the dynamic interplay between the instruments) up to the aggressively, but not in volume, experimental like the second track 'Curiosities,' or the fifth, Still Swirls, the glue that keeps all tracks together is their interplay.

Many times playful, quit a few times aggressive and full of energy, all the tracks in this CD are adventures into the unknown territories that border between experimentation and improvisation. There’s nothing to be said before hand and this CD needs a lot of listening, but if you are eager to find the aforementioned roots of their practice, you shall reap the fruits of another great release from the label. Only two hundred copies are made, so be quick.

Listen here:

@koultouranafigo

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