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Best Music of 2015 - Maria Schneider

I remember heading down to the Visiones club in the heart of Greenwich Village back in the late 80's and early 90's to hear Schneider conduct her band comprised of some of the best NY musicians. It was like a lab and she was able at that time during the heart of of the Republican war on art play mostly each every week. It was a treat. Today Schneider continues composing lovely sumptuous stuff like Thompson Fields but it seems unjust that a collective like the one that she led and conducted can exist in our real world today.

From The Telegraph:

The jazz orchestra is a notoriously expensive beast, which is why relatively few jazz composers choose to work with it. Composer and band leader Maria Schneider is one of those few. Over several decades she’s defied economic logic to work exclusively within the medium, refining her art as composer and arranger to the point where she now has few if any peers.

Her latest album, some 10 years in the making, shows just what a supple and powerful instrument a jazz orchestra can be. The title refers to a farm owned by some family friends in the South-West corner of Minnesota, near where Schneider was raised herself. It’s unspectacular country, apart from those occasions when a storm boils up on the horizon, but Schneider loves it deeply. The eight numbers on the album, all composed by Schneider, evoke its quiet, unspectacular beauty. The liner notes are an indispensable part of the experience, picturing the landscape and its wildlife through Audobon’s bird paintings and photographs of country lanes that to a British viewer look remarkably familiar – until you turn the page and encounter another image, which shows this landscape is on an altogether vaster scale.

The music echoes that quality of being both huge and intimate. Often a number will begin with a musing, gentle solo, such as the plaintive accordion melody played by Gary Versace that begins Home. At first this is heard against high tinkling piano, beautifully played by Frank Kimbrough (like all great band-leaders, Schneider attracts the best players because she gives them space to breathe). This is soon subsumed by a chorale in brass and saxes, and the music swells to a broad tutti glow. But as with every piece, what seems to be a straightforward emotional trajectory from small to large is complicated by switchbacks and surprises. Nimbus, a hymn to the drama of Minnesota’s great storms has a fascinating indefinable emotional flavour, fateful in the way mysterious calms keep falling across the music, only to be pushed aside by another big climax

The title track adds a touch of twilight mystery, with bell-like piano harmonies straight out of Messiaen strung like garlands over simple major chords below. Not everything is musing and gentle. Arbiters of Evolutions is a big bold number, striding over the flat green fields of Minnesota in seven-league boots, the saxes of Donny McCaslin and Scott Robinson calling out like birds.

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From NY Times:

There’s a grand naturalist compulsion in Maria Schneider’s writing for large ensemble, and it has led her toward a more potent expression of her art. “The Thompson Fields,” the first album since 2007 to feature her namesake orchestra, teems with observant references to the pastoral world: prairies, exotic bird plumage, the dark gyre of a funnel cloud, the flutter of monarch butterflies.

Ms. Schneider, a composer and orchestrator of extravagant insight, has made these kinds of connections for a while. And as a conceptual device, it’s not a new story in jazz: Duke Ellington set a precedent for capturing the rhythms of life that Wynton Marsalis has diligently adapted to his own uses. But Ms. Schneider has her own trademark way of using timbre and harmony to bring a tactile presence to the dimensions of sound — and more impressively, of applying the same tools to illuminate emotional terrain.

Because she works at her own pace, she has had time to break in most of the album’s pieces, including the title track, a sweeping rumination featuring Lage Lund on guitar and Frank Kimbrough on piano, composed more than five years ago. “Walking by Flashlight,” the album’s overture, adapts a theme from her 2013 album “Winter Morning Walks” (ArtistShare), for chamber orchestra and soprano, which won three Grammy Awards in the classical field.

The orchestra, as a single breathing organism, is Ms. Schneider’s instrument, but she also puts a great deal of responsibility on her soloists.

So a track called “Arbiters of Evolution” becomes a swaggering concerto for the tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, the ensemble surging and receding behind him. Something similar happens with the alto saxophonist Steve Wilson on “Nimbus,” an evocation of heavy weather; and with Gary Versace, playing accordion on “A Potter’s Song,” dedicated to the memory of the trumpeter Laurie Frink, a longtime fixture of the band.

The album’s deluxe packaging, with its handsome photographs, illustrations and text, amplifies its brilliant musical ambitions and serves as a statement of principle for Ms. Schneider, a vocal critic of music streaming services. Compensation is her main argument, but the physical experience of music also seems like a factor — speaking of which, her orchestra will perform in the flesh at Birdland, from Tuesday through Saturday.

From Rifftides;

Ted Kooser’s poem “November 18” inspired the piece Schneider calls “Walking By Flashlight.” The quiet dynamics of her orchestration support a solo by Scott Robinson on alto clarinet, an instrument seldom used in modern music. Robinson employs it with the intimacy the piece demands. Schneider’s longtime pianist Frank Kimbrough solos in the same mood. Kimbrough later shines with guitarist Lage Lund on the album’s title piece inspired by a farm near Windom owned by Schneider’s family friends the Thompsons. “The Monarch and the Milkweed” features trombonist Marshall Gilkes and flugelhornist Greg Gisbert. Subtle brush strokes painted into the soundscape by drummer Clarence Penn contrast with the intensity of Schneider’s orchestration. Superb engineering, mixing and post-production mastering enhance such nuances.

“Arbiters of Evolution,” the New Guinea excursion, reflects on the competitive displays of male birds-of-paradise. A big piece of orchestral impressionism packed with energy, it features long virtuosic solos by tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, and Robinson on baritone sax. The two then improvise exchanges suggesting the dazzling exhibitions that male birds perform as they compete for the attention of a female deciding on a mate. Schneider’s album notes describe how she was moved by film of those touching and funny avian performances. Her score and the band’s energy capture both aspects.

“Nimbus” recalls tension, fear and weird beauty in a part of the Midwest subject to storms that bring the sudden violence of tornadoes—and the relief when one passes without leaving a trail of destruction. “A Potter’s Song” memorializes Laurie Frink (1951-2013), who was the Schneider orchestra’s lead trumpeter. Gary Versace is the soloist in the elegy, playing with taste unlikely to generate new accordion jokes. In other pieces, Schneider employs simple accordion lines by Versace as commentary or as artful contrast with the ensemble. One such instance is the introduction to “Home,” a thread of single notes from the accordion. The featured soloist, tenor saxophonist Rich Perry, enters with his pure tone, wafting on hymn-like orchestral chords as he and the rhythm section gather intensity. Schneider’s voicings of the orchestra’s bottom notes in this piece are a highlight of the album.

“Lembranca” is Schneider’s remembrance of the influential Brazilian musician Paulo Moura (1932-2010) and her visit with him to a Rio de Janeiro samba school where he was a hero. Trombonist Ryan Keberle and bassist Jay Anderson have lengthy solos; Keberle’s expansive, Anderson’s compelling in spite of—or perhaps because of—his soft tone. Kimbrough and Versace play important roles in setting the temper of the piece. Penn’s drumming and the work of guest percussionist Rogerio Boccato impart the samba spirit. Schneider’s orchestration uses dynamics to build excitement, and then lets it subside slowly for a satisfying end to the piece and the album.

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Best Music of 2015 - Dan Bejar

Enigmatic and truthful Bejar's compositions got me interested in the words that accompany music after many years of ignoring lyrics in popular music. But there is more! In his newest album Bejar has great words, super tunes, and as always great delivery. And now there is a more complex musical supporting structure that enriches his tales of consciousness. Keep it up Dan.

 

From an Interview at Pitchfork:

Pitchfork: The song “Times Square” shows up on Poison Season as a full-band rocker and a dour, string-laden lament. Why did you decide to include both versions?

Dan Bejar: That song is emblematic of the two approaches I took for this album. I initially had a very austere vision of that song, but once I got the band together, I tried to describe it to them and, off-the-cuff, I was like, “Well, it could also be this basic ‘70s rock number in a ‘Young Americans’ or Springsteen style.” So we just banged it out, and it felt good. I stared at both versions for a long time, and they both went on because I had multiple meanings I wanted to get out; even though the words and melodies are the same, the two songs mean two very different things. These days, though, my feelings are mostly keeping with the glamorous, super-downer version.

Pitchfork: That’s funny because I feel like most people who listen to the album will come away humming the brighter, ‘70s-rock version.

DB: I guess so; it's a pretty solid beat. And it's a straight-ahead song in a lot of ways. But that's why it couldn't just be that version of the song on the record. I really despise pop music these days, so I can't have people walking away humming songs. I'm totally about drawing lines in the sand: We’ve done this postmodern shrugging of the shoulders for a while now, and it hasn't really worked out, so if I make pop music at this point, it's by accident.

Pitchfork: It actually seems somewhat radical to reject that postmodern idea of liking all types of music now.

DB: Yeah, and I don't want to take a bunch of heat for that! And I don't think it really counts if I feel that way because it's too natural for some dude in his 40s who's putting out album number 10 to lament that everyone likes everything. If I was in my 20s, I would just be like, “Whatever, you're an old crank who likes Van Morrison.”

But I can't be alone in rejecting that idea; it does seem like a played-out way of being. It's a way more complicated argument than I'm going to ever give it credit for, but surely some people are getting sick of basking in production moves and pop craft and producer culture. I hardly like any of it, though I'm sure that there are merits to lots of it. But my gaze needs to meet other things, and I can't be thinking about that shit.

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From The New Yorker:

Dan Bejar, an enigmatic and prolific singer-songwriter from Canada who has, since the mid-nineties, performed as Destroyer, has a reputation as a killjoy, and a curmudgeon. “That comes from me shooting off my mouth in interviews,” he told me last month, sitting up in bed by a window overlooking the Strathcona section of Vancouver, British Columbia, where he lives with his wife and their young daughter. This spring, he made an offhandedly dismissive remark about Taylor Swift—God forbid!—and was blasted by a disproportionately vocal faction of the online critical establishment that was quick to defend pop music’s very own one per cent. “I should never open my mouth,” he said quietly, and sighed with resignation. “I guess I didn’t realize how much had changed in North America, or that pop music had become such a loaded, political thing.”

Bejar, forty-two, just released his tenth record, a sumptuous double LP on Merge Records. It is the best of his career, the work of a man with road-earned songwriting chops and a font of knowledge about peripheral, outlier purveyors of sophisticated, adult-oriented pop and jazz of the seventies and eighties, like Bryan Ferry, Miles Davis, and Lucio Battisti. Bejar’s previous records found him perfecting a voice that is truly distinct in contemporary rock, committing to eclecticism, trying on glam rock, outsider folk, even spaced-out disco. What carried them all was a certain economy of form, his undeniable wit, and his trademark devastating, often bleak lyrics. For the new album, in thirteen lush tracks, Bejar maintains a deliciously melancholic atmosphere, melting between austere piano ballads and keyed-up, E Street-style benders—in his words, “Destroyer at the Sands.” The title, “Poison Season,” reflects Bejar’s persona. Even when the music swells around him, he continues to mutter toxic, self-annihilating prose, as if he were caught in the spotlight with his back to the audience: “Baby, it’s dumb. Look what I’ve become—scum” and “I think I used to be more fun . . . Oh shit, here comes the sun.”

If the record sounds a pinch too precious, the eight-piece live act ought to work as a fine antidote. “We’re going out as a bona-fide jazz-rock band,” he said. “When we’re really pushing ourselves, there’s no way a stage isn’t better than a studio.” Then, with the disarming confidence that makes his music so good, he quipped, “It’s like that with every band, and always will be, and that will never change.”

From the AV Club:

The press materials for Poison Season, the 11th record Dan Bejar has recorded under the name Destroyer, cite David Bowie’s chamber-pop classic Hunky Dory as an influence this time around. The touchstones—ornate strings, piano flourishes—are certainly there, but Poison Season is a looser, less-constrained affair. With its saxophones, bongos, and violins, it’s more of a Young Americans-Hunky Dory hybrid.

About those saxophones. As on his previous record, 2011’s Kaputt, saxes act here as a through-line amid stylistic and lyrical shifts. On Kaputt, Bejar used the instrument to conjure the hazy atmosphere of Roxy Music; on Poison Season, the saxophone wails like Clarence Clemons solos (as on the blazing “Dream Lover”) and provides a sultry backdrop to Bejar’s fever-dream imagery (“The River”).

“Times Square” is the album’s centerpiece. With its galloping conga drums, steadfast acoustic guitars and, yes, saxophones, the song is a pop confection of the highest order. Its sunny groove pauses for each chorus, when Bejar, in his signature speak-singing, says, “You can follow a rose wherever it grows,” as a piano delicately descends. Bejar then brings back the groove with the line, “Or you could fall in love with Times Square,” a tension release rivaled by few songs so far this year.

The rest of Poison Season is more disheveled and unpredictable, but charmingly so. “Hell” is so string-heavy it’s downright baroque, until a plaintive trumpet echoes Bejar’s lilting melody. From there, the song breaks into a clap-along pop song backed by a horn section, with Bejar singing, “It’s hell down here, it’s hell” as the cacophony grows behind him. Elsewhere, Bejar is joined by dark, moody funk (“Archer On The Beach”), stately piano (“Bangkok”), and lush, weepy strings (“Girl In A Sling”), but nothing about Poison Season sounds inconsistent.

As on his previous records, as well as his work with The New Pornographers, Bejar sounds completely comfortable in any setting. No matter what the context—horn-section rave-up, string quartet, druggy miasma—he sounds completely at home. Poison Season is the sound of an artist in complete control of the strange chaos around him.

Best Music of 2015 - Nicola Cruz

A great electronic reflection of the multi-faceted indigenous music of the Andes, with all its complex rhythms and steadfast beats. A very nice surprise for those who sometimes have difficulty with the common view of this beautiful region. Mysterious and ethereal in its own electronic way.

From Remezcla:

When an artist creates his or her sound, it’s most often a sonic representation of their reality. Prender el Alma, Nicola Cruz’s debut album, is nothing short of this. The self-proclaimed Andes step producer’s work is organic and evokes the sound and landscapes of his homeland with a modern electronic twist. Drenched in nostalgia, it’s a beautiful dream into his past, with hints of the future lurking in his present.

I was eager to see Cruz for his second performance in Los Angeles at The Well – a hair salon/clothing store/gallery/concert venue in Downtown Los Angeles. Generally, The Well invites a crowd that’s not predisposed to music from outside of the U.S. Usually, the crowd is part health goth, part Young Lean and SoundCloud rap fans, and 100 percent hipster LA. But tonight would be different – electronic downtempo from Latin America would be taking over the evening. Little People, Yppah, Teen Flirt, and of course Nicola Cruz would be changing the scene.

Cruz’s set began slowly with light percussion, airy Andean flutes, and hushed, attention-grabbing chants. Although Cruz was the only performer onstage, his compositions sounded as if all the instrumentation were being performed live. The lack of computer-based technology created a very raw and intimate setting, where attendees experienced the land, culture, and musical history of Ecuador and the Andes. As his performance progressed and built up layer by layer, I realized that Cruz isn’t just any other producer – he’s inviting you into his life and his personal history.

Although it might seem like his downtempo, modernistic production clashes with the folkloric Andean musical tradition, it instead comes across as a projection of himself. Cruz’s compositions mesh folkloric instrumentals with current technology, to create a sound that represents both worlds – his country’s past and Western music’s present.

Cruz’s background provides a window into his creative process. Since  his work is heavily based on environmental sounds, Cruz’s journey to music came much more naturally. At 12 years old, one of his friends was looking to create a band and needed a drummer. Entering the band solely to spend time with his best friend, Cruz convinced his parents to buy him a drum set. He says that “it was one of those subconscious decisions that you take and all of a sudden you’re on this camino towards music.” Oddly enough, he began his music career playing Megadeth covers.

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From Sounds and Colors:

The first time I heard Nicolá Cruz’s debut album Prender el Alma, one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was how sophisticated the Ecuador via France artist’s music sounded. From the slow-ambient intro and the Andean flute in the album opener “Sanación” to the final shake of maracas in the closer “Cocha Runa”, no sound, sample or beat is gratuitous or seems out of place. Every sound is meticulously layered to fill up room and head space; to create an atmosphere and to set a standard for the new genre that Cruz himself has labeled Andes-step. That standard is incredibly high for whoever follows in his footsteps. Nicolá Cruz created a genre-bending new classic but, it’s not only that. Prender el Alma sounds like a world of love where the folklore and mysticism of the Ecuadorian Andes are front and center like we’ve never heard them before.

From the opening track “Sanación” you understand that Cruz’s work is more akin to minimalism than most of his ZZK labelmates, excluding Chancha Via Circuito, who is a clear influence. The sounds of nature and the pan flute echo through the first seconds of the track, followed by staccato percussion and a beautiful but sharp acoustic guitar that pave the way for bigger beats. Organic instruments come in slowly and meld together under machine music giving the illusion that sound is elastic and expanding, a trick he makes his signature for the rest of the record. The guitar riffs and hard driving percussion are a mainstay in the follow-up, “Puente Roto”. There, he marries seemingly disparate sounds so well and so precisely that the use of the bass and the wobble mid-track feels like a natural progression. You really have to sit down and listen to Cruz, the idea is to go down the rabbit hole with him.

His penchant for leaving percussion alone and undisturbed is one of the driving forces of the record. This can be heard in “La Mirada”, one of the most urgent and intriguing tracks on Prender el Alma. It’s playful in a dark way, with it’s strange use of echo to fill in silence, and the acoustic guitar riffs that waver in intensity from danceable to mildly melancholic. It’s one of the most danceable tracks, with a reggae vibe and a chorus line that provides an air of pure mystery. Much like its follow-up, “Cumbia del Olvido”, the track feels like movements within single songs, some changing tempo mid-song, others introducing new instrumentation every few seconds to keep you on your toes.

The clear banger is the record’s title track “Prender el Alma”, inarguably the most club ready of the lot. It’s the first one on the record that doesn’t command you to sit down and listen; it tells you to do the opposite with its pulsing bass line, distorted, electronic voice and the massive build-up. In it’s own way, it’s a bit of an Andean techno track with it’s 90s-like synth lines. The pan flute replaces those synths mid-song to become the main focus in this glorious dance party of a song. It’s follow-up, “Colibria” is the sexy, downtempo comedown with a funk bass line, vocals and glitches reminiscent of Thievery Corporation. But it’s a two for one surprise with “Colibria”, as it changes five minutes in to a haunting deep bass track. Like I mentioned in the beginning, it’s sophistication at it’s maximum. The record ends with the triumvirate “Equinoccio” featuring Andean singer Huaira, “Eclipse” and “Concha Runa” featuring Tanya Sanchez. These tracks close out the album on a high note; full of light and amazing female collaborators.

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From an interview at Important Cool:

You were known beforehand too, particularly through your collaboration with Nicolas Jaar. I was surprised to find that you have actually produced quite a lot of house music, not so much techno, but it is club music. Were you always inspired by what you’re doing now, or did you make a conscious decision to make something truly Ecuadorian?

“I started making electronic music in 2006 or 2007. So I think that for all of us who are part of electronic music, house, and techno are an influence, no? They are the origins, right? The fundamentals of electronic music. So for me, no doubt, they are my background, 100 percent. I love house and techno.

“So before I made more of this music. Now, like you say, I’ve taken a path more toward…I don’t know, as a producer. I feel eclectic. I like to experiment and not be located in the same place. So that is what I am doing now – experimenting with folklore and electronic music.

“Who knows? Maybe in some moment I’ll return to making house and techno. I don’t rule it out. For the moment, I feel, like the world; that I’m saturated with so much house and techno everywhere. I still appreciate it and everything, but my path is a different one.”

And did you grow up with this Ecuadorian music that clearly now influences you a lot?

“In Ecuador, this music is played a lot: it’s on the radio and wherever you go you are exposed to Ecuadorian folk music. So it’s very normal and natural for me, this result, the music that I make. I’m inspired by music from here.

“There is no ‘because’ to this project. It’s my nature. I never sat down and said, ‘This is something new, so I’m going to sell it.’ It’s simply a result of who I am and where I come from.”

I imagine that even though it seems very new from the outside, there must be a whole scene of people involved in similar stuff?

“Yes, in fact. I love seeing when other people have this same curiosity of working with folklore, a more ancient sound from Ecuador.”

Do you find yourself collaborating more with colleagues there in Quito, or with the artists from ZZK Records?

“Definitely more with people from Quito. There are tons of really good musicians here whom I admire a lot. I like this idea of driving each other forward, and of presenting the work that they do, because it’s very coherent with what I do. They’re from here too. They understand.

“At the same time, I am currently curating an album of remixes from ‘Prender El Alma’, and those are more international collaborations.”

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Best Music of 2015 - Bixiga 70

 Fela's influence is always welcome in my house and the Brazilians from Sao Paulo have managed to stir his spirit back into a welcome return. Combined with some expert ska the large ten piece group lights up the sky. Inspired music wedded to the soul and dancefloor.

From The Guardian:

More than 18 years after his death, Fela Kuti is acquiring more tribute acts than he had wives. From Brooklyn’s Antibalas to Montreal’s Souljazz Orchestra; from London’s Kalakuta to Tokyo’s Kingdom Afrocks, dozens of bands are exploring Afrobeat’s jittery rhythms and martial horns. Sao Paulo’s Bixiga 70 are more imaginative that most, using Afrobeat as the stock in a stew that’s spiked with ingredients from Brazil, the Caribbean and other parts of Africa.

The mellow opener Ventania distils the frenetic pulse of Afrobeat in the same way that bossa nova distils samba; Niran fuses Blaxploitation riffs with the Malinke drumming of Guinea; the snake-charmer riffs of Lembe mix big-band funk with Gnawa hand percussion; while Martelo would make a terrific 70s cop-show theme. The USP, though, is the horn section: instead of the rudimentary fanfares of many Afrobeat bands (Fela’s Afrika 70 included), this lot have some serious chops – and a baritone sax player who can raise goosebumps.

From Sounds and Colors;

Even if the São Paulo bairro of Bixiga was almost entirely colonized by Italian migrants more than one hundred years ago, today that influence is clear only when reading the surnames of its inhabitants and eating out in one of its delightful restaurants. Culturally, it is indeed another pair of shoes, because the central borough of the Brazilian city is dotted with venues, cultural centres and shops able to give life to one of the most exciting and diverse artistic panoramas in Brazil.

Bixiga, as the name suggests, is also the inspiration for a project born five years ago called Bixiga 70, which has rapidly become an embodiment of the musical dynamism of the area. Earlier this year, the band, which added a distinctive 70 to its name recalling the outstanding band of Fela Kuti, Africa 70, but also the house number where they used to live, has released its third LP and demonstrated that the link between Brazil and West Africa is possibly even stronger than the one with Europe.

In truth, the 10-piece collective represents the most African-oriented aspects of the paulista music scene, drawing from afrobeat, funk and jazz, Afro-Brazilian spiritual imaginary, but also from their own country’s and South America’s traditional repertoires, reviving styles like carimbó, candomblé, samba, salsa, cumbia…

To refine the atmosphere, the musicians also decided to give their productions some electronic and psychedelic atmosphere, and reggae upbeat mood. The result has always been an irresistible rhythmic blast characterized by determined percussions, overwhelming beats, frequent turnovers between solos, improvisations and ensemble music and haunting melodies.

However, if their previous efforts served to make their name known, it’s with their most recent work that Bixiga 70 finally shows itself to be more than a young and up-and-coming act. III is the proof that the ensemble has effectively become aware and confident in its own abilities.

Bixiga 70’s sound has become more cohesive, dynamic and smoother, while its grooves are still addictive, today as they were five years ago. Opening track “Ventani” is truly a bee in a bonnet, which thanks to its catchy harmonic line quickly seduces the listeners’ ears.

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From The Quietus:

Few countries lend themselves to musical fusion better than Brazil. This is the potential unleashed by Bixiga 70, the São Paulo based group dedicated to celebrating Brazil's African past by channelling the spirit of Fela Kuti. The 70 is homage to The Afrika 70, Fela's house band of that legendary decade. Bixiga is the group's local neighbourhood. Fela tribute bands are commonplace, but in true Brazilian style Bixiga 70 use afrobeat more as a musical ingredient than a restrictive identity.

Bixiga 70's sparsely named third album, III, again celebrates the African influences that usually surface in Afro-Brazilian culture, commonly manifested in the polyrhythmic drumming that survived in transit from Africa during the Trans Atlantic slave trade. Fela Kuti shares a similar root here. It's the drums that make afrobeat great, so it's promising to hear Bixiga 70 percussionists Gustávo Gék and Rômulo Nardes thumping out their worth across a variety of Brazilian, Caribbean and African adaptations. Brazil's rich history of assimilation means that something new is created, and from the slow grooves of opening track 'Ventania' onwards, III proves far too confident to rely on the kind of imitations that must be tempting for an afrobeat band to fall back on.

The jigsawed coastlines of Brazil and Angola represent a musical path less synonymous with afrobeat. Semba music – that gloriously upbeat snapshot of the Angolan capital, Luanda, in festival mode – is a wild party like no other; picture a Brazilian carnival and then multiply it by ten. Hints of semba come through in Bixiga 70's guitar work, with a Portuguese cultural solidarity in the two nations making the link natural. For those unaware of semba, Bixiga 70 will unlock one of Africa's most criminally overlooked genres.

Other elements pulled from the travels of Bixiga's ten members include cumbia from Colombia, Malinké drumming from Guinea, Cuban blaxploitation riffs- most apparent on the deliciously funky 'Niran'- and the complex instrumental rhythms of Ethio-jazz. Fundamentally though it's the horns that dictate the pace, and this is where Fela Kuti's Yoruba influence is most obvious. The horns on III blast out with serious swagger. A tight backing of trombones and saxophones give each track irresistible danceability; Kuti would probably look to the horns as a litmus test of afrobeat quality, and in this regard Bixiga 70 shoot off the scale.

Helado Negro - Live Recording

Best Music of 2015 - Eric Chenaux

As an out of kilter experience that a good joint or a juicy unknown woman can produce-Chenaux's music plays in that space of emotional dissonance that makes you doubt your very solid lost perceptions. Droopy and sentimental like no other musician he succeeds making love seem like a teen age sensational thing but so mature and new (she said).

From The Quietus:

Skullsplitter is his fifth album; characterised by his awkward and off-kilter flair. 'Have I Lost My Eyes?' begins the record in a kind of warped, desert island crawl. It's as if the tapes are melting in the sun as the Chenaux's sixth chords slide and fall apart. Eventually, we break into erratic waves of sound; they should bath the listener, but their unpredictable irregularities are stringently relaxing. I think that is what it is to be Eric Chenaux: inescapably unhinged. You can imagine that generally, Skullsplitter is an effort to pen concise ditties but it is his edification and background in the avant-garde that prevents songs like 'Spring Has Been A Long Time' from resembling something you'd expect from the English folk troubadours of the early-seventies, and make them so much more.

Skullsplitter is driven by the theme of the seasons, as seen in the lyrics ("spring has been a long time coming"), song titles such as 'Summer & Time', and the four separate movements of the record. Through this obsession, the developments stutter and jump as oppose to naturally progress, and can seem a little contrived at times. These broad progressions lack cohesion and are predictable; losing you time and again as the timbres are cast aside for something unrelated to that what's come before it. One constant throughout the record however is bare instrumentation. Whilst it is minute and subtle, the styles in which Chenaux engages are far from that, and are thoroughly unconventional. He lures you into a sense of security with that simplicity and warps your expectations. The distinctive guitar style, misshapen as it plays, is a vehicle that defines this approach.

There's something deeply private about this collection. It's almost like finding that box under somebody's bed that was never really meant for anybody else's eyes and, as the guitars bend and warp and deteriorate, you flick through as many sketches and notebooks before the whole thing falls apart in your hands. The intimacy on pieces like 'Poor Time' or 'The Pouget' enables the experimentalist to develop a connection with his listener without the pieces having to move that much. With an air of self-pity, this warped and unique way of presenting himself can at times be fascinating, whether this is intentional or not, it doesn't really matter.

From Exclaim.Ca:

For the uninitiated, the wide-wobbling and out-of-step guitar sounds that dominate the first minute and 22 seconds of Skullsplitter might seem like a test of dedication. But when Eric Chenaux's falsetto chimes in to muse, "Have I lost my eyes? Is that twinkle in my mind?" they'll learn there's no option to turn away. On his first proper solo album for Constellation Records, Chenaux's combination of hacked music box guitar experimentation and lonely lounge crooning conjures a spell simply too enchanting to break.
 
Full of woozy ballads punctuated by gorgeous, adventurous electric and nylon-stringed guitar instrumentals, Skullsplitter is obsessed with the theme of time's onward march, and over its course — especially on "Spring Has Been A Long Time Coming," "Poor Time," "Summer & Time" and the title track — Chenaux launches a thorough poetic investigation of the seasons and the cyclical nature of time and space.
 
It's particularly significant, then, that "Have I Lost My Eyes?" and "Skullsplitter" find Chenaux reaching into his back catalogue to produce more intimate, nearly unrecognizable renditions of cuts from 2008's Sloppy Ground and 2006's Dull Lights; Chenaux even explored Rodgers and Hart standard "My Romance" before on his 2003 release with the Reveries, Blasé Kisses.
 
Skullsplitter dispatches the listener on a mission to crack the mysteries of time and space, and without offering much in the way of answers, its potential for repeat listens is enough of a reward. Skullsplitter is a triumph of post-modern songwriting, where decisions can be recast and repurposed to suit the needs of the present.

From Now Toronto:

You have to pass through a long tunnel of distortion that phases in and out (like being in a room with a TV set with flickering reception) as you enter the cathedral-like sanctuary of Eric Chenaux's guitar and voice on the avant-balladeer's fifth album.

Chenaux's myriad guitar experiments often disrupt the more straightforward lyric and melodic qualities of the songs, including his high, smooth vocals. Since 2012's Guitar & Voice, the guitar has risen in his world, taking up more space in the music. It flickers flame-like through anthemic My Romance, grows bassy on The Henri Favourite and sounds like a wonky banjo on Spring Has Been A Long Time Coming. At some points (the jazzy Poor Time) the blip-bleeping and wahing almost thumb their nose at the vocal melody. Elsewhere they sound Celtic and oddly floral.

Five tracks have vocals, four are instrumental. When Chenaux alights on something more typically songlike, he sparks both anticipation and memory: an interesting marriage of nostalgia and novelty.

Eric Chenaux "Have I Lost My Eyes" from Constellation Records on Vimeo.

Best Music of 2015 - Efrén López

The faithful delicacy of this music makes me understand how advanced our early music Mediterranean forefathers actually were. Authentically orchestrated these pieces have a contemporary quality in the complex rhythms they coaxes from the various original instruments. Great ensemble playing.

 

From Songlines:

Although Efrén López is Spanish-born, he mostly plays various types of Turkish saz and tanbur (long-necked lutes) as well as guitar, santur (dulcimer), hurdy-gurdy and other instruments. The disc opens with the dark and powerful ‘Kurtoğlu Zeybeği’, a Turkish dance that López apparently wanted to be ‘so slow that each bar lasts a week.’ Thankfully it’s speedier than that, but it has a weighty gravity contributed by a davul (barrel drum) played by López and Cretan lyra from Kelly Thoma. It’s followed by ‘Plaerdemavida’ (Pleasure of my Life), dominated by the haunting, breathy sound of a multi-tracked ney (flute) played by Christos Barbas.

If the music on this rich and beguiling album comes from anywhere, it’s from the Labyrinth workshops created by Ross Daly in Crete, dedicated to the study of the world’s modal musical traditions – and that’s certainly a hallmark of quality. The flamenco-inspired ‘Como al Pie del Suplicio Estuve’, sung by Raúl Micó, begins with a spectral melody on Cretan lyra played by Stelios Petrakis, with whom López appeared at the first Songlines Encounters Festival. One of the real showcases of long-necked lute playing is ‘O Gios tou Lykou’ (Son of the Wolf), which features López playing four different instruments. This album is bursting with musical imagination and sublime instrumental playing – with the amusing stories behind each of the pieces provided by López in the booklet.

From World Music Central:

Spanish multi-instrumentalist Efrén López has released his first solo titled El Fill del Llop (the son of the Wolf). Efrén López hails from Valencia, the Spanish city on the Mediterranean coast. He is best known for his work in one of Spain’s finest world music ensembles, L’Ham de Foc. In recent years Efrén López has been traveling across the Mediterranean, spending time with Greek and Turkish musicians.

El Fill del Llop is Efrén López’s tribute to eastern Mediterranean musical instruments. The album features nine original instrumentals plus one flamenco piece and an Occitan song with contemporary arrangements. Musically, Efrén López incorporates influences from Greek, Turkish, Persian, Spanish and Medieval music.
The album was recorded in various locations in Greece, Israel and Spain, featuring many of Efrén López’s friends and collaborators.

The lineup on El Fill del Llop includes Efrén López on davul, çöğür, bulgari, meydan saz, kopuz, cura saz, üç telli bağlama, fretles guitar, Cretan laouto, ud, Kurdish tanbur, Persian santoor, bass citole, citole, shofar, gothic harp, hurdy gurdy, guitarró, lute, bandurria, mandola, Irish bouzouki, palmas, banjo, and vocals; Kelly Thoma on Cretan lyra; Christos Barbas on Turkish ney; Aleix Tobias on cymbals, square frame drum of Peñaparda, tambourine, bottle, udu, legüero drum, palmas, bells, bendir, adufe, tavil, nagara, metallic percussion, karakebs, sabar; Diego López on doira, bendir, davul, daf, gungru; Stelios Petrakis on Cretan lyra; Raúl Micó on vocals; Miriam Encinas on bendir, vielle, dilruba, flute, and recorders; Evgenios Voulgaris on Yaylı tanbur, bass yaylı tanbur; Sofia Lambropoulou on kanun; Meira Segal on Turkish ney, Bulgarian gaida, and kawala; Itzhak Ventura on Persian ney; Jérôme Salomon on tombak; Iván López on vocals; and Raquel García on Galician gaita.

From Diariofolk:

La carrera del músico Efrén López (Manises, Valencia, 1972) es tan amplia que cualquier intento de resumirla en unas líneas pecará con seguridad de falta de rigor. Haciendo un pequeño resumen, diremos que fue fundador del seminal grupo L’Ham de Foc, para posteriormente trabajar con artistas y bandas como Evo, Capella de Ministrers, Carles Dénia, Maria del Mar Bonet, Pep Gimeno “Botifarra”, Miquel Gil, Ross Daly & Labyrinth o Stelios Petrakis, entre otros muchos.

Con El fill del llop, López da un paso más en su carrera y estrena un nuevo proyecto donde es el único responsable de todo el trabajo y vuelve a sumergirse en las tradiciones mediterráneas de España, Turquía o Grecia y en distintas épocas musicales. Para ello ha manejado instrumentos de las distintas geografías: oud, saz, zanfona, guitarra, banjo, santur o bouzouki con una maestría adquirida durante muchos años de estudio y aprendizaje por el Mediterráneo y Oriente Medio.

En “el hijo del lobo” encontramos una gran mezcla de sentimientos y emociones, desde delicadas piezas de inspiración kurda, donde cada instrumento va jugando a su manera con la melodía, hasta potentes aperturas a ritmo del davul, un doble tambor turco de sonido sobrecogedor.

El disco cuenta además con acercamientos al flamenco -Como al pie del suplicio estuve, donde nos descubre al cantaor valenciano Raul Micó cantando a El Lebrijano-, a las danzas francesas -Bourrées de la carrasca de la vaca, una composición para zanfona- y a los sonidos portugueses – Azinhaga-.

Para El fill del llop, el valenciano se ha rodeado de músicos amigos que ya le han acompañado en diversos proyectos, como Christos Barbas o Miriam Encinas (hija de la añorada Dolores Laffitte), junto a otros músicos que exploran las mismas sonoridades que Efrén, como Alexandre Guitart, presentándose todos ellos con el evocador nombre de Abracadabra.

Abracadabra también da nombre al tema que cierra el disco, una fiesta de percusiones manejadas por el inmenso Aleix Tobias, que hace de traca final para este trabajo extraordinario que va ganando en cada escucha, a medida que somos capaces de ir asimilando todos los detalles que se esconden en él.

Best Music of 2015 - Bruce Livingston

 The subtle co-mingling of piano pieces from distant time and space gives us a flavor for those placid moments in sleep when anything is possible in the dark tranquility of matter. A pensive set of compositions played with determination. A welcome introduction to Timo Andres and Mohammed Fairuz.

From I Care if You Listen:

Solo pianist Bruce Levingston‘s Heavy Sleep, released this year on the Sono Luminus label, carries a conceit of heritage and lineage that makes an interesting concept and reason for this particular collection of works to coexist. The album features works by Americans Timo Andres and Mohammed Fairouz, in addition to J.S. Bach (with original works and arrangements by Reger, Siloti, and Kurtag)– the new work by Andres is said to echo Bach and Chopin, Fairouz tributes Ligeti; Kurtag, Reger, and Siloti arrange Bach (and it is argued, reflect on Bach in doing so), and the original Bach works offer the symbolic voices of man and God. The record makes a musical argument for close spiritual connectivity between these artists.

There’s really three releases here: Heavy Sleep, a single; the collection of Bach works, a record; and the Fairouz set, an EP. By that assessment, you’ve got quite a deal. Still, I would have liked to have heard more space devoted to the works of Andres or someone else, to have heard the ideas in Heavy Sleep furthered, or at least heard others facets of Andres’ style, and Levingston’s lovely realization of it. One reason for it could be simple economics. Andres was commissioned by Premiere Commission, Inc., a nonprofit foundation founded and artistically directed by Levingston that has commissioned and premiered over fifty new works.

Andres is a wunderkind rightfully compared to John Adams by the New Yorker in terms of his early career ascendancy. The eponymous track, Heavy Sleep is based on the poem ‘Nocturne’ by the Swedish poet Tomas Transtömer. Levingston graciously lays out some behind-the-scenes process in the liner notes (always read the liner notes– hard to do in the age of Spotify, but that’s another topic), offering a frank mea culpa of sorts: “I know, super nerdy,” Andres opines, describes his contrary-motion chaconne that chromatically modulates on repetition, a “Debussy + Bach vibe if such a thing is even possible.” “Maybe nerdy, but also gorgeous!” Levingston offers, and I certainly can’t disagree. He makes the Steinway Model D sing with clairty and depth.

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From Modern Music Review:

The right pianist with the right imagination can fashion a program that is very...right. Pianist Bruce Levingston has done this vividly on his album Heavy Sleep (Sono Luminus 92183). What we have in the artist's vision is a series of piano works where "each relates either directly or spiritually to the theme of death, rebirth, or both," to quote the pianist from the liners. Every work also refers obliquely or directly to other composers and/or their own works. The idea is that "together, these works offer a touching perspective on the close spiritual connectivity we all share as artists and as human beings, culture to culture, past and present."

This germinating set of ideas gives Levingston the inspiration to make the music express deeply. It is a pianistic monument in its own way to the ideas and composers involved.

Two modern works serve as bookends to the music of Bach himself or his music as represented in piano transcription. It begins with Timo Andres' "Heavy Sleep," then proceeds to the Bach-Reger "Chorale Prelude in B Minor," the Bach-Siloti "Prelude in B Minor," continues with a Bach Prelude and a Fugue, both also in B Minor, his "Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor," a Fugue in D Minor, Bach-Kurtag's "Gottes Zeit Ist Die Allerbeste Zeit" and finally Mohammed Fairouz's "El Male Rachamin" in memory of Gyorgy Ligeti.

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From Audiophile Edition:

This is a very unusual piano collection. It is in many ways a thematic or “concept” album where you should expect all the pieces herein to be quiet and fairly slow-paced. In many ways it is kind of sleep inducing, but that is not a criticism. Neither should it be criticism that all the works here are a bit elegiac and not at all virtuosic and propulsive.

The title, “Heavy Sleep”, according to publisher’s notes is meant to reference not only the opening work on this album, but also to note the phrase’s allusion to death and eternal sleep. Surely we have musical references to death, eternal rest, and so forth. In some ways, I guess the whole is a bit dark and melancholic. However, there is also a lot of excellent music here. The works of the great J.S. Bach are synonymous with the Baroque and with greatness. They may or may not be one’s favorite style (not mine, I confess) but they are brilliant. Some of his very best- known keyboard and choral music is represented here (and mostly in one of the master’s most often used keys; B minor). I was surprised and impressed with the transcriptions by Max Reger (he himself an organist), Alexander Siloti (a Russian pianist-composer) and György Kurtág. Each of these is expectedly beautiful and delicate to listen to.

I admit that that the two new works held the most interest for me. Timo Andres is a very talented “up and coming” New York- based pianist and composer whose work I am just starting to get familiar with. His title work, Heavy Sleep, takes its name from a poem by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. It is essentially a chaconne inspired by a Chopin coda. In Andres’ words, it provides a kind of “Debussy + Bach vibe.”  It is a beautiful work that I could listen to repeatedly.

I felt very positively as well about El Male Rachamim (A Prayer in Memory of György Ligeti) by Mohammed Fairouz – as I do all of his music. This young New Yorker is already a force in American contemporary music and quite a talent. Fairouz studied with the late Ligeti for awhile and this touching five-movement work takes its inspiration from the poem “El Male Rachamim (God full of mercy)” by Yehuda Amichai and the funeral rites that inspired it. There are moments of great respite in this work and also moments of great unrest; of sorrow and a lack of resolution. There are always elements of Fairouz’s culture that run through his music and the result is always beautiful and sad; hopeful and worrisome all at once. For me, this was the highlight work of this album.

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