Album Reviews

Album Review: Hommage à Bartók (2016) by Steve Swell’s Kende Dreams

Steve Swell’s Kende Dreams Silkheart (CD) When engaging the work of someone who looms as large as the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, a number of paths may emerge. One could take on the fact that his research into the musics of Hungary, Romania, and other regional ethnographies presaged the bending of space and tonality by

The Caustic Ballads (2016)

Relative Pitch Records (CD) Released February 19, 2016. Recorded by Atticus Pomerantz. Mixed and Mastered by Jim Clouse. Photography by Bayley Sweitzer. Executive production by Kevin Reilly & Mike Panico. Personnel: Leila Bordreuil (cello) Michael Foster (saxophones) Track List: Born of Its Own Asphyxiation Pleasure and Cruelty Intimate Shrinkage of My Body and the Castration

Pulverize the Sound (2015)

Relative Pitch (CD) Personnel Peter Evans (trumpet) Tim Dahl (bass) Mike Pride (drums) Art is not entirely beautiful. Its ability to shape transcendent experience into material reality is often attached to aesthetic pleasure or “meaning,” but that isn’t to say such an angle requires consonance. Indeed, a large swath of art relies on confrontation, bewilderment

Album Review: Barker Trio (2015)

A review of the much-anticipated debut record by Barker Trio is now available here. –Cisco Bradley, November 7, 2015

Barker Trio (2015)

Barker Trio Phantom Ear Music (CD) Personnel Andrew Barker (drums, compositions) Michael Foster (tenor & soprano saxophones) Tim Dahl (bass) Track Listing You Are a Real _____ Scarface Pajamas Failed States A Teeming Portal Inner Vortex New Wolves, Old Bones Invalid Request Review Barker Trio’s gripping yet subtle self-titled debut record is one of the

Seven Storey Mountain III and IV (2014)

Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain Pleasure of the Text (CD) This record is one of the true masterpieces of the new millennium. It contains two CDs, both recorded live at Issue Project Room (Brooklyn), the first on March 11, 2011, and the second on June 6, 2013. Led by the visionary trumpet player, Nate Wooley,