Midwest-based experimental hard rock, noise and jazz label New Atlantis Records is announcing a series of new releases available this November. With the help of NAIL Distribution, the label has planned upcoming albums from celebrated New York improv / noise rock trio TOTEM>, the latest offering from the Edward Ricart quartet featuring celebrated British saxophonist Paul Dunmall, and the debut collaborative release from experimental drummer Tatsuya Nakatani with prolific avant-garde guitarist and Ahleuchatistas member Shane Perlowin. See below for more information.
TOTEM> “Voices of Grain”
With Voices of Grain, the New York-based collective improv/noise rock trio TOTEM> have constructed a dazzling follow-up to their 2008 debut for seminal experimental music label ESP-DiSK, Solar Forge. Their ESP-DiSK debut garnered rave reviews around the globe, topping year-end ‘Best Of’ lists at tastemakers The Wire, and Point of Departure, among many others. Voices of Grain makes for an unimpeachable, hearty, coruscating and enthusiastic follow-up, reestablishing this unit as a band operating at its full potential, at the forefront of the Downtown creative jazz community.
While the domain of creative improv often births fleeting collaborations and one-off ensembles, it is always refreshing to witness the lifecycle of a real band blossoming over the course of countless rehearsals and gigs, defying the economic odds and discarding the oft-perceived need for one single leader. TOTEM>’s new offering is absolutely the sum of its very potent parts.
Drummer Andrew Drury supplies a dazzling mix of extended techniques, stirring up waves of raucous energy, and directing the musical flow of the trio. Guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil’s playing is always maddeningly articulate, alternately playing the role of melodicist and flayer of splintered atonality across the stereo field. Bassist Tom Blancarte provides shredding, rumbling harmonic counterpoint, and impeccable underpinning for the trio’s cosmic gyrations.
With Voices of Grain, TOTEM> have outdone themselves, creating one of the most jaw-dropping sets of guitar trio improv yet committed to record… In the process, the band has expanded the lexicon of creative trio improvisation to include a bevy of mind-bending extended techniques for electric guitar, percussion, and upright bass.
Voices of Grain is a great, free-ranging set of electric guitar trio improv that will equally excite the jazz cognoscenti alongside the creative rock underground! Don’t sleep on this!
Edward Ricart Quartet + Paul Dunmall “Chamaeleon”
Chamaeleon is a stellar new offering from electric guitarist Edward Ricart’s powerful working quartet, augmented by a very special guest… firebrand English saxophonist Paul Dunmall. Paul is one of the finest players in realm of creative new music, best characterized by his devastatingly original playing in countless configurations, and a massive discography boasting an unsurpassed level of creativity and an unimaginably high level of consistency.
Edward Ricart is a rising star of improvised music, with collaborations ranging from members of the rock bands Fugazi, Tortoise, Black Flag, and Bardo Pond to Merzbow, and jazz legends Peter Broetzmann, William Hooker, Ches Smith, Travis Laplante, Kevin Shea, Roy Campbell, Tim Daisy, Marty Ehrlich, Angelica Sanchez, and Steve Swell, among many others. He is also a member of Ohio-based avant rock trio Hyrrokkin, and Washington DC free-rock duo Matta Gawa.
Recorded in Brooklyn at Seizures Palace (Swans, Akron/Family, Charles Gayle, Angels of Light) during Paul’s visit to New York City for the Vision Festival in 2012, Ricart pulled together his group for a rare opportunity to document Dunmall along a crew of Downtown New York’s finest… The band features legendary trumpeter Herb Robertson, bassist Jason Ajemian (Marc Ribot, Ken Vandermark, Rob Mazurek), and drummer Andrew Barker (Gold Sparkle Band, Sirone, William Parker).
This set of music is freely improvised, yet exists firmly within the jazz tradition. The music boasts a serious backbone, coupled with a massively parallel frontline. The group dynamically pairs spontaneously composed, angular lyricism with limber fluidity from the rhythm section, pushing the boundaries of improvised quintet music from the outset. Chamaeleon is stunningly cohesive, marking the musicians as masters of ebb, flow, assertiveness and energetic expression.
Like the Edward Ricart Quartet’s debut for UK-based SLAM Productions, Ancon, this record boasts gorgeous graphic design and layout by New Atlantis Records’ very own Senior Design Coordinator… the Designer’s Republic- perhaps best known for their work for Warp Records, Autechre, and Aphex Twin, among many others!
Tatsuya Nakatani + Shane Perlowin “Anatomy of a Moment”
Percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani’s approach to music is visceral, non-linear and intuitively primitive, expressing an unusually strong spirit while avoiding any categorization. He creates sound via both traditional and extended percussion techniques, utilizing drums, bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects and bells, as well as various sticks, kitchen tools and homemade bows, all of which manifest in an intense and organic music that represents a very personal sonic world. His approach is steeped in the sensibilities of free improvisation, experimental music, jazz, rock, and noise, and yet retains the sense of space and quiet beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music.
Guitarist Shane Perlowin is a multi-disciplinary guitarist whose music straddles the boundaries between ever-deepening traditional study and primal idiosyncratic expression. His prolific discography as guitarist and composer of the experimental rock band Ahleuchatistas is appreciated around the world for its high intensity, dark beauty and unreserved expansiveness. Though a fixture in avant-garde circles, Perlowin expresses deep universal sentiments through rhythmic pulses, hypnotic textures, and simple melodic inventiveness. His approach is a hybrid of classical guitar, world music, blues, American primitivism, jazz, rock, and free improvisation.
Together, Nakatani & Perlowin share a chemistry that casts percussion and guitar in unique roles. At times, Perlowin ties the room together with insistent morphing arpeggios while Nakatani paints worlds of texture and frenzied activity by scraping and bowing. Lyrical passages caressed from nylon strings are punctuated by metallic events, whose simultaneity is reminiscent of the collaborations of John Cage and Merce Cunnigham. It is their respective years of improvising and craft-honing that prepared Nakatani and Perlowin for the music that would result from their encounter. And, it was fortune that permitted this particular musical moment to be documented.
For more information, visit:
www.sundmagi.com
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