Cuneiform Releases for Sep/Oct 2016

THAT :: CONCERT CHAMPÊTRE
Unpopular Classics (Poulenc)
Live at QUEERING SOUND, 06 June 2021
Rhizome DC, Washington DC USA

THAT :: JS Adams + Christopher Mathews-Larsen
RECORDING :: Steve Sanford
MIX :: JS ADAMS

THAT :: CONCERT CHAMPÊTRE :: LIVE

Am7 CHORDS! MOTORIK BEATS! CICADAS! BUZZSAWS! KAZOOS!

LIVE @ QUEERING SOUND 2021 :: 13 JUNE 2021 :: RHIZOME DC :: WDC

CK BARLOW :: SAMPLER / ELECTRONICS
CHRISTOPHER MATHEWS-LARSEN :: GUITAR / DRUM PROGRAMMING / AZTEC DEATH WHISTLE
JS ADAMS :: PROCESSING + EFFECTS / FIELD RECORDINGS / LOOPS / AZTEC DEATH WHISTLE / AUDIO PLAYBACK
JEFF BARSKY :: GUITAR
JOSH MAXWELL :: BASS
+
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION :: KAZOOS
AUDIENCE COORDINATOR :: CHRIS VIDELL

RECORDING :: STEVE SANDERS

ONE CHORD PONIES :: A LIFE OF INDETERMINATE REWARD

DECONSTRUCTION/RE-ADAPTATION OF LA VOIX HUMAINE (THE HUMAN VOICE), AN OPERA BY FRANCIS POULENC BASED ON THE ONE-ACT PLAY BY JEAN COCTEAU. HELLO? HELLO!

LIVE @ QUEERING SOUND 2021 :: 15 JUNE 2021 :: RHIZOME DC :: WDC

[ live performers ] 
CK BARLOW :: SAMPLER / ELECTRONICS
CHRISTOPHER MATHEWS-LARSEN :: GUITAR
JS ADAMS :: PROCESSING + EFFECTS / FIELD RECORDINGS + LOOPS / SAMPLES / CALIFONE + PREPARED VINYL / AUDIO PLAYBACK
JEFF BARSKY :: GUITAR
JOSH MAXWELL :: BASS

[ digital contributitors ]
BLEEDINGBLACKWOOD . {AN} EEL . JASSIE RIOS . ROSHI NASEHI . SARAH O’HALLORAN . KATIE MACYSHYN 

RECORDING :: STEVE SANDERS
MIX :: JS ADAMS

LA VOIX HUMAINE :: 13 JUNE 2021 :: LIVE

Buy it here
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/other-worlds

Andrew Niven – drums, percussion, synth, sequencers
Eric Klerks – bass, 8-string guitar, synthbass
Max Kutner – electric and acoustic guitar

with
Mike Keneally ¬– keyboards, guitar, samples
Jonathan Sindelman – keyboards, organ
Daniel Rosenboom – trumpet
Jessica Lurie – baritone sax
Gregg Bendian ¬– vibes

Produced by Mike Keneally and Android Trio

Concentric Lines

ANDROID TRIO "Concentric Lines" from "Other Worlds" (Cuneiform Records)

From our upcoming release "Somnambulist" coming out on Cuneiform records January 20th! Preorder is available now here: https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/somnambulist

The Kandinsky Effect  - Somnambulist

X (Part 1)

Gyp The Blood

Nice Day for a Lynching-Kenneth Patchen

The bloodhounds look like sad old judges
In a strange court. They point their noses
At the Negro jerking in their noose;
His feet spread crowlike above these
Honorable men who laugh as he chokes.

I don’t know this black man.
I don’t know these white men.

But I know that one of my hands
Is black, and one white. I know that
One part of me is being strangled, 
While another part horribly laughs.

Until it changes, 
I shall be forever killing; and be killed.

Recorded by The Claudia Quintet +1 with Special Guest-Kurt Elling


The Bloodhounds

Richard Pinhas / Barry Cleveland  [Featuring: Michael Manring & Celso Alberti]

Richard Pinhas / Barry Cleveland - Zen/Unzen [Edit] from Mu (out Sept. 2016 on Cuneiform Records)

Richard Pinhas / Tatsuya Yoshida / Merzbow - "TVJ 33 (Core Track)" [Edit] from 'Process and Reality' (out September 2016 on Cuneiform Records)

Richard Pinhas / Tatsuya Yoshida / Merzbow - "TVJ 33 (Core Track)" [Edit] from 'Process and Reality'

"Smith uses his magisterial instrumental voice, his inspirational leadership and his command of classical, jazz and blues forms to remind us of what has gone down and what's still happening."
– DownBeat’s 80 Coolest Things in Jazz Today

"A trumpeter and composer of penetrating insight."
– Nate Chinen, The New York Times 

Wadada Leo Smith – trumpet, director of the ensemble
Anthony Davis – piano
Ashley Walters – cello
John Lindberg – bass 
Pheeroan akLaff – drums 

With America’s National Parks, visionary composer and Wadada Leo Smith offers his latest epic collection, a suite inspired by the scenic splendor, historic legacy, and political controversies of the country’s public landscapes. Writing for his newly expanded Golden Quintet, Smith crafts six extended works that explore, confront and question the preserved natural resources that are considered the most hallowed ground in the U.S. – and some that should be.

America’s National Parks was released shortly before Smith’s 75th birthday in December, arriving, coincidentally, in the midst of celebrations for the centennial of the National Park Service, which was created by an act of Congress on August 25, 1916. The spark for the project, however, came from two places: Smith’s own research into the National Park system, beginning with Yellowstone, the world’s first national park; and Ken Burns’ 12-hour documentary series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
trumpeter six-movement"The idea that Ken Burns explored in that documentary was that the grandeur of nature was like a religion or a cathedral," Smith says. "I reject that image because the natural phenomenon in creation, just like man and stars and light and water, is all one thing, just a diffusion of energy. My focus is on the spiritual and psychological dimensions of the idea of setting aside reserves for common property of the American citizens." 

His 28-page score for America’s National Parks was penned for his Golden Quintet, a fresh reconfiguration of the quartet that’s been a keystone of his expression for the last 16 years. Pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Pheeroan akLaff are joined by cellist Ashley Walters, affording the composer and bandleader new melodic and coloristic possibilities. "The cello as a lead voice with the trumpet is magnificent," Smith says, "but when you look at the possibilities for melodic formation with the trumpet, the cello, the piano and the bass, that’s paradise for a composer and for a performer." 

While these preserved landscapes offer the inspiration of powerful natural beauty, Smith’s always open-minded view of the world leads him to find that same inspiration wherever he is. "Every concrete house is from nature," he says. "Every plastic airplane that flies 300 people across the ocean comes out of nature. Every air conditioner conditions a natural piece of air. I think that the human being is constantly enfolded in organic nature and constructed nature, so I’m constantly inspired, inside the house or outside the house."

Wadada Leo Smith, "New Orleans" [Excerpt] from 'America's National Parks' (out 10.14.2016)

"São Paulo Underground's work - all of Mazurek's work, really - draws from multiple traditions, each of them already porous and absorbent, and combines ideas from each into something utterly new, while keeping it welcoming to almost any curious listener." 
– The Wire 

"Mixing the opaque with the diffused and blurring the lines between electric and acoustic, Rob Mazurek’s wide ambition continues to race toward the outer limits of what is possible in music." 
– Something Else 

São Paulo Underground: 
Rob Mazurek – cornet, Mellotron, modular synthesizer, Moog Paraphonic, OP-1, percussion and voice 
Mauricio Takara – drums, cavaquinho, electronics, Moog Werkstatt, percussion and voice 
Guilherme Granado – keyboards, synthesizers, sampler, percussion and voice 
Thomas Rohrer – rabeca, flutes, soprano saxophone, electronics, percussion and voice 

With their breathtaking fifth album Cantos Invisíveis, the multi- national, multi-ethnic, multi-everything São Paulo Underground sounds more confident and intrepid than ever, with a glorious program of music evoking lost haunts, enduring love, and the sheer delirious joy of making music together. 

In many ways the music on Cantos Invisíveis is a celebration of camaraderie and the spaces that allow love and friendship to unfurl. Alchemical aural conspirators for some 10 years, the group has developed its own approach to structure, with slippery forms, unabashedly beautiful melodies and lapidary textures laced with disquieting eletronica beats and stutterstepping improvisation. Rather than evoke a particular time and place, the music inhabits multiple planes simultaneously as "a projection of sound that celebrates as well as mourns past, present and future times," Mazurek says. "The vocal quality of this particular music shouts and hollers for love and compassion, the joy and sorrows of life. It’s a street parade for everybody." 

The experience of listening to Cantos Invisíveis often feels like stepping through the fourth wall, as if you’re in the room with the guys, watching the instrumental conversations unfold in real time. The production enhances the intimacy, creating space to enter the music rather than building a protective shell. It’s a communion that can only develop "as a result of a lot of beautiful time spent together working on music and ideas and then travelling together playing throughout the world," Takara says. "I think there ́s a certain atmosphere that only living and spending time together bring, and the record captures that beautifully. 

These singular players create music unlike any other ensemble in São Paulo Underground, which expands into realms seen and unseen on Cantos Invisíveis. The title translates from Portuguese as "invisible corners" or "invisible songs" or "disappearing corners or songs." Thismusic evokes the elusive nature of these songs, "the way we make our music, always masking it in some kind of way, a disappearing through layering and sound manipulation," Mazurek says. "The songs kind of disappear in a way like a cloud of pink in the sky. We create atmospheres that cause form and melody to disappear, and to reappear", so that savvy sound explorers can join São Paulo Underground on an unforgettable journey.

Cantos Invisíveis

São Paulo Underground, "Olhaluai" from 'Cantos Invisíveis' (out 10.14.1016 on Cuneiform Records)

Recorded at Avatar Studios NYC May 2012 (Katherine Miller)
Mastered at Pinch Recording NYC May 2020 (E. Scott Lindner)

Personnel:
Matt Steckler - alto/soprano sax, flute
Curtis Hasselbring - trombone
Todd Neufeld - guitars
Dave Ambrosio - bass
Satoshi Takeishi - drums & percussion

01 Night Cravings - Master A 44

Cuneiform Records is an independent record label releasing adventurous, boundary-bursting music by artists from around the world. Founded in 1984.

Wadada Leo Smith, "New Orleans" [Excerpt] from 'America's National Parks' (out 10.14.2016)

Cuneiform Records

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