NIEUWE NOTEN REVIEWS

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Ben Taffijn’s NIEUWE NOTEN just reviewed our brand-new releases. All four albums are available through our bandcamp store. All reviews are in Dutch.

TRANSITION UNIT – FACE VALUE (cd)
José Lencastre : alto & tenor saxophones
Rodrigo Pinheiro : grand piano
Dirk Serries : archtop guitar

“Het lijkt alsof we aan het begin van ‘Idea Assumption’, de opening van ‘Face Value’ te maken hebben met een contrabas, maar het is toch echt Serries, in de weer met zijn strijkstok. Het begin van een opvallend abstract stuk, zeker in vergelijking met de muziek op ‘Canonical Discource’. Pinheiro strooit zijn noten in het rond, terwijl we Lencastre, nu op tenorsax, de gaten horen vullen. Een weerbarstig stuk deze vrij korte opener. ‘Grasping’ klinkt dan aanvankelijk weer zeer melodieus, met langgerekte bewegingen van Lencastre en goed geplaatste noten van Pinheiro en verderop Serries en bijzonder hoe de abstractie hier verderop zijn intrede doet en die melodie volledig wegdrukt. Ronduit onstuimig gaat het eraan toe in ‘A Western Decorative Pattern’, Lencastre scheurt hier de rust finaal aan flarden met zijn tenorsax, mooie duetten vormend met Pinheiro, terwijl Serries het geheel op stoom houdt. In het duet tussen Pinheiro en Serries, verderop gaat het er rustiger aan toe, maar niet minder abstract. ‘Face Value’ is een zeer spannend stuk, met name door de vrij duistere, minimalistische pianoaanslagen en de gruizige klank van Serries. Uiterst ingetogen klanken aanvankelijk in ‘A Theme of Myth’, wat terloops aandoend. Al snel loopt de spanning echter weer op, met name door de krachtige bewegingen van Lencastre en Pinheiro. We eindigen dit album met ‘The Utopian Dadaist’, een bijna clownesk springerig stuk, met mooie ritmische patronen, in perfecte samenhang.”

TONUS – ANALOG DEVIATION (cd)
Dirk Serries : archtop guitar
Benedict Taylor : viola, broken fiddle
Martina Verhoeven : grand piano

““‘Analog Deviation’ is opgenomen in de studio, bij Serries thuis. Twee stukken bevat het, ‘Inbound’ en ‘Outbound’. Hét kenmerk van Tonus is de aandacht voor ingetogen klanken, iets dat we ook op dit album volop meekrijgen. In eerste instantie horen we de drie in opperste harmonie met fragiele bewegingen van het snarenspel en ja Verhoeven beroert soms een enkele toets. Een wonderlijk klankspel waarin hoegenaamd niets gebeurd, muziek zonder enige vorm van progressie. Iemand krast over een snaar, de ander plukt eraan, iedere keer weer een andere klank. Het kraakt, wringt en sputtert naar hartenlust. Spel dat je dwingt tot geconcentreerd luisteren, om geen nuance te missen. Vrij duistere muziek ook in dat ‘Inbound’, de spaarzame noten die Verhoeven aanslaat zitten vrijwel altijd in het lage register en ook Serries en Taylor zoeken de wat meer donkere klanken. Mooi ook die door Taylor geïnitieerde gelijknamige bewegingen verderop in dit eerste stuk, waarna er toch even iets meer dynamiek in de muziek kruipt, zelfs iets van een gemankeerde ritmiek. ‘Outbound’ begint al even ingetogen, maar bezit direct al wat meer structuur. En in dit deel is de piano sterker aanwezig dan in ‘Inbound’ en is het klankpatroon minder duister. Al kan het hier soms ook goed wringen en knarsen, mede met dank aan Taylor. Als mooi voorbeeld van dat laatste kan die passage rond de twaalfde minuut dienen, ik trek mijn opmerking over “minder duister” direct weer in. En soms, zoals even hierna, lijken we meer met percussie van doen te hebben, dan met de combinatie altviool – gitaar – piano, duidelijke gevolgen van een wederom onorthodoxe instrumentbehandeling. Dan bewegen we ons reeds richting het einde van dit stuk, met een opvallende ritmiek van Verhoeven in het hoog en stroef spel van de beide snaren bezitters.”

LEMADI TRIO – CANONICAL DISCOURSE (cd)
José Lencastre : alto sax
Dirk Serries : archtop guitar
Martina Verhoeven : grand piano

“‘Canonical Discourse’ begint met een patroon, bestaande uit afwisselend lage en hoge noten van Lencastre’s altsax, afgewisseld met spel onder de klep van Verhoeven en wat scherp aangezette accenten van Serries. Geleidelijk loopt het tempo op en klinken op piano ook de eerste klanken van de toetsen. De klank van het trio heeft hier wel iets van een vreemd apparaat dat langzaam op stoom komt. Dan valt het stil, waarna donkere klankwolken door Serries’ studio trekken, gevolg door trillend hoge klanken van Lencastre, voorzien van een flinke dosis weemoed. Verderop gekraak en geritsel – of we door het bos lopen – en een enkele afgestopte pianoaanslag. Fijnzinnigheid ten top. En wanneer Lencastre er verderop meerdere keren doorheen breekt is dat wederom met een diepgravende en krachtige klank. In ‘Tenets of System’ blaast Lencastre een opvallend melodieuze solo, één waarin hij zich een prima verhalenverteller betoont, terwijl Verhoeven en Serries hier zorgen voor onderliggende spanning. Spanning die verderop tot alarmerende hoogte stijgt en de melodie wegdrukt. Opvallend zijn die omtrekkende bewegingen van Serries en Verhoeven in ‘Disjuncture’, abstracte klankuitingen, waarin het toeval overheerst en die een mooie voedingsbodem bieden voor ook hier weer opvallend melodieuze wendingen van Lencastre. Het stuk eindigt met een prachtige, bijzonder introspectieve solo van Lencastre, subtiel begeleid door de twee andere leden van dit trio. Nog subtieler klinkt het laatste stuk, ‘Little Emphasis’, met wederom prachtig saxofoonspel van Lencastre, een harmonieus geheel vormend met de klanken van Serries en Verhoeven, vooral die laatste valt hier op met haar regelmatige patronen in het hoge register.”

MARTINA VERHOEVEN QUINTET – INDICATOR LIGHT (cd)
Gonçalo Almeida : double bass
Onno Govaert : drums
Dirk Serries : archtop guitar
Martina Verhoeven : grand piano
Colin Webster : alto sax

“Mooi dat het enerverende concert dat het Martina Verhoeven Quintet op 12 februari vorig jaar gaf in het Tilburgse Paradox nu ook op Cd verkrijgbaar is. Een soort van vervolg op het optreden dat hetzelfde kwintet gaf tijdens het Roadburn Festival in 2022 en dat later dat jaar onder de titel ‘Driven’ verscheen bij Klanggalerie. Heel uitgebreid stil staan bij dit album doe ik dan ook niet, dat deed ik immers reeds. Maar het is voor mij natuurlijk wel leuk om nu de Cd er is nog eens het verslag bij het concert door te lezen, met de vraag in het achterhoofd: hoe goed heb ik toen geluisterd? Nou, best goed, zo blijkt – en nee, ik heb achteraf niets aangepast. Een inderdaad onstuimig concert, wel wat lijkend op dat van het tentet in Londen, alleen nu met maar één blazer, in plaats van vijf. De enige die wat meer aandacht had mogen krijgen is Verhoeven zelf, die met name in die dynamische passages voor flink wat reuring zorgt. Bij deze rechtgezet.”

HAPPY RELEASE DAY

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HAPPY RELEASE DAY :
TRANSITION UNIT – Face Value cd
TONUS – Analog Deviation cd
LEMADI TRIO – Canonical Discourse cd
MARTINA VERHOEVEN – Indicator Light cd

it’s also your last chance to save some nice money with ordering the 4CD bundle (minimum 12 EUR on domestic orders, 21 EUR for all European shipments to 22 EUR for all overseas orders). Last day for this bundle. Thanks for your support.

newwaveofjazz.bandcamp.com/merch/pre-order-4-new-releases-valid-thru-october-15

THE WIRE

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It’s quite rare, and a fact, that THE WIRE hardly takes the trouble to feature anything of our label and affiliated artists, despite the strong UK connection. But thanks to kindred spirit, and brilliant guitarist/sound explorer, MATTHEW GRIGG two songs (from COLIN WEBSTER’s Textural Studies and DIRK SERRIES’ Solo Acoustic Guitar Improvisations II/III) are now featured on their Adventures In Sound And Music radioshow on Resonance FM. Thank you.

HAPPY RELEASE DAY !

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Super happy to announce four new releases in the A New Wave Of Jazz/Axis series.  Now available as pre-order as a bundle, to coincide with a new Bandcamp Friday. Go here to pre-order the bundle for a very attractive price of only 45 EUR (incl. worldwide postage).

TRANSITION UNIT – FACE VALUE
(cd, A New Wave Of Jazz Axis 2024)

TRANSITION UNIT is the brand-new trio of RODRIGO PINHEIRO (piano), JOSé LENCASTRE (alto and tenor sax) and DIRK SERRIES (archtop guitar).  When Dirk Serries flew to Portugal in 2023 at the invitation of José for a number of concerts in duo, he received an surprise invitation from Rodrigo for a studio session.
Rodrigo Pinheiro is a class act, a fantastic pianist who has earned his place in both classical free jazz and contemporary music with, among others, his magnificent RED TRIO and the collaborations with Rodrigo Amado, Hugo Costa (see also our release of the GARUDA TRIO featuring Rodrigo Pinheiro), etc.
José Lencastre was a logical choice to join Rodrigo and Dirk on this studio session. José Lencastre is a kindred spirit of Rodrigo and also a strong musician, on saxophone, who feels at home in both free jazz and free improvisation.  They both run the PHONOGRAM UNIT label.  TRANSITION UNIT is a trio that musically balances beautifully on the fine line between free improvisation, the more classic free jazz and even chamber music.

Listen the album and pre-order the album here.

TRANSITION UNIT celebrates the release of their debut at jazzclub PlusEtage (Baarle-Nassau, The Netherlands) on December 14th, 2024.  All info and tickets go here.

TONUS – ANALOG DEVIATION
(cd, A New Wave Of Jazz Axis 2024)

Connaisseurs of the label are most likely familiar with TONUS, the minimalist rotating ensemble curated by Dirk Serries.  6 years after TEXTURE POINT (find the album here) the trio configuration of MARTINA VERHOEVEN (piano), BENEDICT TAYLOR(viola) and DIRK SERRIES (archtop guitar) returns with a new album.  This session was performed and recorded at the home studio.  Still playing with the trademark pacing of TONUS, this album definitely takes a dive into more abstract and intense phrases as well – bringing a more musique-concrete and avant-garde feel to the timbre of Analog Deviation.  A must-have for all minimalist / abstract music admirers.

Listen the album and pre-order the album here.

LEMADI TRIO – CANONICAL DISCOURSE
(cd, A New Wave Of Jazz Axis 2024)

This is LEMADI TRIO‘s 2nd album for A New Wave Of Jazz.  The trio consists of JOSÉ LENCASTRE on alto sax, MARTINA VERHOEVEN on piano and DIRK SERRIES on archtop guitar.  On contrary to its debut on which Martina plays the electric Crumar piano, she plays the grand piano here.  Truly a game changer as the timbre is quite different from tis predecessor, with the clear and pristine acoustics at the home ‘Canonical Discourse’ is an album that furthermore expands the communcation between all 3 musicians into world of its own. LEMADI TRIO is definitely setting the bar for a trademark sound of the trio.  A challenge and a treat for the ears.

Listen the album and pre-order the album here.

MARTINA VERHOEVEN QUINTET – INDICATOR LIGHT
(cd, A New Wave Of Jazz Axis 2024)

“Almost a throwback to the glory days of 1970s Free Jazz, Driven’s one lengthy improvisation is played with fire and determination by a pan-European quintet. But with several generations of creative musicians now exploring that style, New Thing excesses have been pared to mature interaction. Consisting of Belgians, pianist Martina Verhoeven and guitarist Dirk Serries, Portuguese bassist Gonçalo Almeida, Dutch drummer Onno Govaert and British alto saxophonist Colin Webster, the five, who are each part of numerous bands, frame the narrative in sections, some of which are prestissimo and pressurized; while others are andante and acquiescent.  More than an historical aberration, Free Jazz improv has become part of the Jazz continuum. Here Martina Verhoeven’s quintet shows how well it can be done.” Jazzword 

Better than Ken Waxman’s thoughts on the quintet’s debut DRIVEN we can’t introduce MARTINA VERHOEVEN‘s quintet here.  After their incredibly powerful passage at the Roadburn Festival in 2022, the quintet played a release show (for this album) at the same venue, jazzclub Paradox in Tilburg (The Netherlands).  The quintet consists of MARTINA VERHOEVEN (grand piano), GONÇALO ALMEIDA(double bass), COLIN WEBSTER (alto sax), DIRK SERRIES (archtop guitar) and ONNO GOVAERT (drums).

Equally powerful as the quintet’s initial live performance but the jazz aspect dripped in a bit more, making the quintet more groovy and thematic.  What a live band !

Listen the album and pre-order the album here.

4 NEW RELEASES

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Tomorrow, October 4th, we’re launching for 4 new releases in our A New Wave Of Jazz/Axis series, to coincide with another bandcamp Friday. From 9am on you’ll be able to pre-order these 4 new albums as a bundle for only 45 EUR (incl. worldwide postage).
We’ll post the link to order tomorrow at 9am. Get ready.

MAGNETAR

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After a succesful ‘name your price’ campaign on Projekt’s bandcamp, DIRK SERRIES & TRÖSTA’s MAGNETAR remains available at a small price for such expansive collection.

EXPOSE REVIEW :
“A magnetar is a neutron star with an incredibly powerful magnetic field, such that as it decays it powers the emission of high energy electromagnetic radiation, and in particular x-rays and gamma rays. No need to worry about that here, this magnetar is completely safe and won’t harm your hearing, vision, or internal cell structure — no danger at all. In fact, being in the vicinity of this Magnetar is a relatively gentle and calming experience, though it is warm, a combination of ambient and melodic elements that cover the listener like a warm blanket on a cold autumn night under the stars. Dirk Serries should be well known to Exposé readers — we interviewed him years ago when he was using the moniker VidnaObmana to release his own work, as well as many collaborations with the likes of Steve Roach, Stratosphere, Asmus Tietchens, PBK and numerous others over a 40-plus year career. Trösta is Belgian saxophonist Nicolas Lefèvre, an outstanding player but relatively unknown, though we did review his 2021 collaboration with Serries titled Island on the Moon. On the ten improvised tracks at hand, Serries provides a heavily effected ambient guitar backdrop to the proceedings, while Trösta provides the melodies on alto sax with a mild amount of studio reverb. The sax is always clearly audible as such, while the same can’t be said for the expansive guitar sweeps, which often sound more like a wall of synthesizers, but the combination that they present together is always graceful, forceful, and melodically striking, though never harsh or abrasive in any way. For those who need categorizations, one might say it’s a mix of floating ambient and melodic jazz working together seamlessly, weaving in and out of a cosmic atmospheric fabric, each track around ten minutes in length, give or take a few minutes, and all together the album comes to well over 100 minutes. While there is definitely too much going on here to make it suitable for slumber, it’s a perfect soundtrack for relaxation and meditation.”

FREEJAZZ BLOG REVIEW :
“Magnetar takes Serries to his formative ambient era, then working under VidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning pseudonyms, in a second duo album with fellow Belgian alto sax and electronics player-sound engineer-producer Trösta (aka Nicolas Lefèvre), following Island on the Moon (Consouling Sounds, 2022). The album was recorded live between 2021 and 2023 at Serries’ favorite Sunny Side Studios in Brussels, operated by Lefèvre. This 102-minute album offers atmospheric and peaceful yet quite melancholic, free improvised dreamscapes and drones of Serries’ expansive, effects-laden guitar lines, resonating with great reverb the subtle melodic phrases of Trösta. A highly immersive listening experience that highlights the close and powerful magnetic fields Serries and Trösta share.”

LAST CALL : DIRK SERRIES & TRÖSTA

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Last call ★ NAME-YOUR-PRICE DOWNLOAD ★

Dirk Serries & Trösta: Magnetar

projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/magnetar

A subtle beauty is created by the graceful brushstrokes of saxophone and the ever-transforming textural surfaces of electric guitar. Trösta’s alto sax sets MAGNETAR apart from others in the ambient genre. Warmly phrased, his serene and graceful melodies are washed in reverb, flowing in long, engulfing passages. Across 102 minutes, Belgians Serries & Trösta (the nom de plume of Nicolas Lefèvre) reveal a solace drenched in the soft timbre of melancholy and light.

GENRES: Ambient, New Age, Drone

VIDNA OBMANA’s DANTE TRILOGY REVIEW

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A late, a bit critical but luckily clever written review of ZOHARUM’s reissue of VIDNA OBMANA’s DANTE TRILOGY. VIDNA OBMANA’s use of Dante Alighieri’s famous poem was not to musicalize this impressive piece of literature but to draw parallels with VIDNA OBMANA’s own creative demons. The album is available here.

“I’ve been tending to pass by a lot of these Vidna Obmana reissues that have been steadily appearing from the Polish Zoharum label, but I must admit this Dante Trilogy (ZOHAR 288-2) set has too much “presence” for me to ignore. A triple digipak with a spine as thick your index finger stares down from your shelf and won’t take no for an answer. Between 2001 and 2004, the Belgian ambient emperor Dirk Serries trading as Vidna Obmana managed to put out the original CDs on the American label Release Entertainment, at the time an imprint more readily associated with avant-garde noise rock and experimental metal.

I suppose there is a subtext running through the entire work that either refers to Dante’s epic poem in an oblique manner or attempts to retell aspects of the story of the descent into the ninth circle of Hades, and there are some helpful printed quotes from the Cantos on the artworks, but I feel all these things are kept on the back burner and remain merely as props or illustrative cues on which the creator can hang his assorted reprocessed experiments, looping beats, and dark ambient tones. To put it another way, this isn’t a “concept” story-telling album like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and certainly the curators at Zoharum evince little interest in the works of Dante, let alone the “infernal” themes – the sound of Obmana is pretty much all they care about. On 2001’s Tremor, there are references to tunnels, descent, and something rather menacing called the “insane brightness”, but these glimpses of the diabolical zone are just that, hazy impressions delivered through the miasma of reprocessed recordings of flutes, pipes, electric guitar, harmonica, and percussion. Matter of fact the rhythms and beats might be the selling point for Tremor for an audience arriving 23 years after the fact, since along with the troubling off-kiltre non-chords and foggy moods, they help the album induce a rather queasy trance-like state akin to delirium. To achieve that mesmerism, it also helps that most of Tremor stays much in the same area – the same pace, the same overall tone; in fine, it doesn’t help to speak of a musical range when there are no conventional notes to speak of, rather an array of layers and textures.

By the time of 2003’s Spore, there might be a subtle turning down another alleyway or corridor of Lucifer’s kingdom, although the aesthetic changes are so indiscernible we’d need new maps of Hell to locate where the shift took place. The same instrumentation was used, including the “Recycling & Abstract Mutations” credit that was printed on the original release. This part of the trilogy contains a shade more violence and hints at the kind of painful flesh-tearing antics that Clive Barker would approve of, which isn’t to suggest this subtle music would have served as a good alternative soundtrack to the Hellraiser movies – although the closing cut, ‘Resonant Gore’ lasts for some 17 minutes and almost manages to propose its own horror movie just by dint of its extreme length. Obmana isn’t using ferocious hammering beats on Spore, but there is an ounce or two more reverb somewhere on these backing rhythms that induces mild panic attacks and nudges the listener closer to that “shamanistic” condition that many American droners were also shooting for around this period. Collectors of this Belgian creator’s work will be glad to note that the original 2002 7-inch version of ‘Isolation Trip’ has been included on this 2nd disc.

Lastly there’s the 2004 release Legacy which originally surfaced in late 2004. This time there’s finally an explicit link to the works of Dante as the opening track is a sung-spoken recit of the Italian bard’s lines delivered by Steve Von Till, speaking as if wrenched from the grave. I had to look him up, but he’s the singer and guitarist from Neurosis, the Californian dark-ambient psych-metal industrial band who also had albums on Release Entertainment and their sister label Relapse. This Legacy one seems the least interesting of the three to my ears – more of the same limp “tribal” rhythms and pulses, and the wispy tone-paintings swirling together in a smoky basket of puff. Is it my imagination, or are there one or two fewer “layers” for this 2004 realisation of the theme? It’s pointless to look for guitar solos or keyboard breaks in this long-form, meandering music, but somehow the separate elements which our man blends together so seamlessly seem to be slowly unravelling at some point, leaving us with a stark canvas of emptiness.

If I’m reading the Zoharum press note correctly, it seems this particular trilogy was about where Dirk Serries reached the end of one of his tethers – they speak of his personal “frustration, disappointment and creative turmoil”, perhaps in the context of his place in the field or genre of ambient music, and sure enough, three years later, he decided to retire the Vidna Obmana project.” The Sound Projector – UK