Playlist: June 19, 2009

Playlist for Friday, June 19, 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.

….. Whoa, that new Steve Lehman Octet album is a kick. More about that later.

….. Played about 20 minutes of Tina Marsh‘s music, as promised. Didn’t have time for the full 20-minute “Milky Way Dreaming,” unfortunately.

….. Bloom Project is, in this case, the duo of Rent Romus (sax) and Thollem McDonas (piano). They explore some nice spaces well beyond jazz, but in a style that sticks to traditional playing as opposed to the heavy electronics Romus has been using lately. The contrast is interesting (and probably worth a writeup sometime).

….. Pink Saliva is a trio of Montreal-area improvisers, documented on one of a few 3-inch CDs we’ve gotten from Majuma. It’s mostly lo-fi cacophany — I mean that in a good way — but the third track, played here, gets a little closer to jazz.

….. Andy Haas (sax) and Don Fiorino (guitar) are improvisers who craft a unique sound, one with heavy doses of world music and a subtext that I’m guessing comes from a lot of classic-rock listening during formative years. They’ve got two very different CDs in rotation with us right now. Hanuman Sextet can be traced back to psychedelia experiments with Indian music, but it’s also got healthy doses of jazz horns, lots of steel guitar (not your usual improv instrument), and some more down-to-earth grooving than you normally get from the psych crowd.

….. Radio I-Ching, also featuring Haas and Fiorino, goes in a tougher direction: Heavy drums powering fleet sax lines and often crunching guitar, a heavy dose of rock sound applied to a jazz-jam concept. The lighter tracks add swirls of world-music exotica, a tough-to-place mix of African, Cuban, and Asian styles. “Judgement Day” is like a late-night party in a Cuban jazz club, and “Topsy” is a bebop gyroscope out of control. But I’m particularly taken with their version of “Misterioso,” which is a raging blur of guitar and drums, dark and flitting, with the soprano sax suddenly piping in with the melody line.

….. Pop alert: The new St. Vincent is really good, richly produced, and packed with nooks and crannies of sound (strings! extra guitar!) that make for a great pop-record experience. As good as Annie Clarke’s first album was, this is miles ahead. Flotilla is an indie-pop quartet with a harp player (and yes, she gets a solo, on at least one track!) They’ve got a deliciously icy sound that reminds me of Call and Response’s Winds Take No Shape album.

Album titles link into KZSU’s Zookeeper database; the icon means there’s a review or description there as well. Little links that say things like “more here” go to previous entries in this blog.

Artist	Track		Album/Label
Lehman, Steve Octet	Dub		Travail, Transformation, And Flow Pi Recordings
Lehman, Steve Octet	Echoes		Travail, Transformation, And Flow Pi Recordings
Black, Jim/Alas No Axis (more here)	Inkionos		Houseplant Winter & Winter
St. Vincent	Save Me From What I Want		Actor 4AD
Bad Plus, The	Fém (Etude No. 8)		For All I Care Heads Up International
Bloom Project	Shines		Sudden Aurora Edgetone Records
Iyer, Vijay	Age Of Everything		Tragicomic Sunnyside Communications
Flotilla	Three Mile Jog		Disaster Poetry Mapl
Melford, Myra / Trio M	For Bradford		Big Picture Cryptogramophone
Galper, Hal (noted here)	Constellation		Art-Work Origin Records
Shipp, Matthew	Quivering With Speed		Piano Vortex Thirsty Ear Communication
	— (4:00 p.m.) —
Dorf, The	Track 7		Dorf, The Leo Records
Marsh, Tina and CO2	Dervish		Worldwide Creop Muse
Marsh, Tina/Bob Rodriguez Trio (see here)	Riddles		Out of Time Creop Muse
Fully Celebrated, The	Conotocarius		Drunk On The Blood Of The Holy Ones Aum Fidelity
Pink Saliva	9:04		Danse Avec Robert Duncan Majmua Music
Sete, Bola	Nao E Bem Assim		Windspell Samba Moon Records
	— (5:00 p.m.) —
Hanuman Sextet	On A Slippery Slope		9 Meals From Anarchy Resonantmusic
Gutbucket (see here)	Lucy Ferment?		A Modest Proposal Cuneiform Records
Hexlove	Charachtar Frisebee		Muisic From The Film Es Noonar Covencha Majmua Music
Radio I-Ching	Misterioso		No Wave Au Go Go Resonantmusic
Carrier, Francois & Michel Lambert	Clouds		Nada Creative Sources Recordings
Bloom, Jane Ira	Cagney		Modern Drama Cbs Records
Leimgruber, Urs and Fritz Haus	Point-Vigule [Part 4]		Duho Unit Records
Caine, Uri	Mr. B.C.		Sphere Music Jmt
Redman, Joshua	Insomnomaniac		Compass Nonesuch Records

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