Music Reviews from the Staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House

 

November 20, 2024
Ten Records that Made the World a Better Place in 2024
The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House take the opportunity to share their thoughts about ten records released in 2024 that brightened their day upon initial listening and through-out the days that followed.

 

Syyspimee - Guillaume Gargaud & Eero Savela
Label: Ramble Records & (bandcamp)
Catalog #: RAM-159
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Release Date: February 2, 2024
Media: compact disc, digital download
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

In 2024, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House had the good fortune to experience many excellent albums. In these end-of-the-year reflections, we seek only to share the pleasure that we found in listening to a few specific musical releases. This year there were two albums that, upon first hearing, we knew would end up at the top of the year-end list. While we first heard Syyspimee in January, its appeal has stayed with us through-out the year. There are many things we appreciate about this album. First, the music presents a collaborative interaction between guitar and trumpet with an inherent creativity and thoughtfulness that resonated within us. Second, the music introduced us to the French guitarist Guillaume Gargaud and Finnish trumpeter Eero Savela. Discovering voices new to our ears is always a delight. Third, Syyspimee encouraged us to explore the discography of Gargaud, which proved to be as varied and experimental as we could have hoped.

The full review of Syyspimee was posted January 28, 2024

 

Patina - Akira Sakata & Kazuhisa Uchihashi
Label: Innocent Records (bandcamp)
Catalog #: icr-028
Location: Japan/Germany
Release Date: August 20, 2024
Media: cd or digital download
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

We loved the music of the daxophone in the hands of its creator, Hans Reichel, and we love the way that Kazuhisa Uchihashi has expanded the repertoire of the instrument in the thirteen years since Reichel's passing. We are embarrassed to admit that, before Patina, we were ignorant of the music of free jazz saxophonist, Akira Sakata. Born in Hiroshima in February, 1945, six months before the atomic bomb was dropped, Sakata has a distinguished career as leader and sideman. What enamored us to this recording was not just the sound of the daxophone and saxophone but the musical lyricism and telepathic communication demonstrated in the improvisational duets. It seems like only an idiot could have remained oblivious to the music of Akira Sakata until 2024. Apparently, we are unabashedly that idiot! We thank Kazuhisa Uchihashi for the introduction to the music of Akira Sakata. From Patina, we take heart that the world is infinitely variegated and there remains the possibility of finding unexpected treasures in the unrecognized names of free improvisation.

The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House are notoriously unreliable reviewers. We never got around to reviewing Patina, but we did post reviews of the Uchihashi's solo record, Singing Daxophone (12/28/2021), and the duo with Junji Hirose, saxophonedaxophone (07/28/2016), which are as different as night and day and both essential daxophone records.

 

Lifetime Rebel - Joëlle Léandre
Label: RogueArt & (bandcamp)
Catalog #: ROG-0137
Location: Paris, France
Release Date: July 15, 2024
Media: four compact discs & one dvd
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

Joëlle Léandre is the grande dame of French free improvisation and a seminal figure of European free improvisation. We suppose that the global community of listeners of free improvisation universally hold her in high esteem and the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House are no exception. For some decades, we have anticipated each new release by Joëlle Léandre and find a thrill when we hear the first few strokes on each album eliciting a deep thrum from her bass. We appreciate the music as well as the artistic and human example of Joëlle Léandre, who is the incarnate form of a Lifetime Rebel. The four ensembles collected on this boxed set include some favorites and some new collections of musicians. Among the star studded cast of collaborators are Nicole Mitchell, Myra Melford, Craig Taborn, Mat Maneri, Ingrid Laubrock, Steve Swell, Jason Hwang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe Morris and Fred Moten. Lifetime Rebel is truly an embarrasment of riches.

It is no exaggeration to say that the music of Joëlle Léandre makes a frequent appearance on the end-of-the-year top ten lists from the Poison Pie Publishing House, including those from 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, not to mention Flowing Stream was our favorite record of 2014!

 

silver dawn - Zosha Warpeha
Label: Relative Pitch Records
Catalog #: RPRSS029
Location: New York, United States
Release Date: May 3, 2024
Media: compact disc or digital download
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

Since its debut release in 2019, the Solo Series of Relative Pitch Records has captured the attention of the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House. It is not just that each album provides the musical artist an opportunity to express just what their instrument has taught them, but many of the names on these releases are new to our ears. In some cases, these albums represent an introduction of the soloist to American listeners. While we celebrate the sustained excellence of established luminaries, such as Joëlle Léandre, it is equally important to us to continually support a current generation of creative musicians discovering their own unique musical expressions. If we did our math correctly, as of today, there are thirty-three releases in the RPR solo series with only one musician appearing twice. By our count, eleven albums in the series were released this year, making 2024 one of the most prolific to date.

Each time an album in the Relative Pitch Records Solo Series introduces us to the music of an artist new to our ears, we want to write a review to share the good news. Alas, the activities with which we pass the hours of the day are constrained by any number of factors, including physics, daily duties of making ends meet and general fickleness. In 2024, we did write a review of silver dawn, which introduced us to Zosha Warpeha and her Hardanger d'Amore, which we enjoyed repeatedly. We include it here on its own merits and as a representative of the RPR solo series.

The full review of silver dawn was posted March 11, 2024. This year, we also wrote a review of another entry in the Relative Pitch Records Solo Series, namely Monophonic by Maria Bertel posted May 17, 2024.

 

Central Park's Mosaics Of Reservoir, Lake, Paths And Gardens - Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers
Label: Red Hook Records (on Bandcamp)
Catalog #: RH1005
Location: Bantry, Ireland
Release Date: May 10, 2024
Media: vinyl, compact disc or digital download
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

Central Park's Mosaics Of Reservoir, Lake, Paths And Gardens is billed as the first recorded collaboration between trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist/organist Amina Claudine Myers. When we learned that such an album existed, we were especially curious to see what these long-time members of the AACM had to say together in duet form. We were not disappointed. This was a very pleasant introduction to the Red Hook label.

The full review of Central Park's Mosaics Of Reservoir, Lake, Paths And Gardens was posted May 16, 2024.

 

untitled - Keiji Haino & Jun Morita
Label: Les Disques d'Ailleurs
Catalog #: 002
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Release Date: December 1, 2024
Media: compact disc
bandcamp.com N.A.
discogs.com entry

We listened to a several recordings including Keiji Haino released in 2024, including this duet with Jun Morita, a twelfth album from the trio of Haino, Jim O'Rourke & Oren Ambarchi and the twentieth-anniversary reissue compilation of his solo albums, Black Blues. The untitled collaboration between Haino and Jun Morita stood out because of the instrumentation and the fact that this album served as our introduction to the electronics of Jun Morita. The instrumentation includes the polygonola, a percussive instrument, originally designed as a non-destructive technique to determine the ripeness of fruit. (We reviewed (July 10, 2017) the first release of the polygonola as a musical instrument.) Haino also appears on the harmonium, which he had also played on Drums & Octobass, which appeared in last year's PPPH top ten list. As for the electronics of Jun Morita, we found it a sublime complement to Haino.

 

One Third of the Sun - Thuluth
Label: Al Maslakh
Catalog #: MSLKH 028
Location: Beirut, Lebanon
Release Date: July 5, 2024
Media: compact disc
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

We listened to half a dozen new recordings released in 2024 that included Magda Mayas. These included Hour Music, One Third of the Sun, Blue Plum Bloom, Ritual Mechanics, Air Vol. 2 and Splitter Musik. In the smaller ensembles, she is a lead creative force. As a member of a larger ensemble of like-minded musicians, she contributes her distinctive voice to the shared vision. It's hard for us to elevate one album above the other as it is essentially arbitrary. However, by engaging in the fun and frivolous tradition of the end-of-the-year top ten lists, we are asked to make a subjective judgment.

Thuluth is a trio made of Magda Mayas on piano, Ute Wassermann on voice and Raed Yassin on double bass. All musicians are also credited with performing on "objects". One Third of the Sun is the debut release of the trio, though it the second release by Mayas on the Lebanese label, Al Maslakh. The album contains three tracks of abstract sound sculptures with a mixture of smooth and jagged edges. Regardless of whether one is familiar with the piano manipulations of Magda Mayas, One Third of the Sun is worth a listen or two or three or four...

 

Fluid Fixations - John Butcher + 13
Label: Weight of Wax
Catalog #: WoW 06
Location: United Kingdom
Release Date: February 1, 2024
Media: compact disc or digital files
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

We listened to three new recordings released in 2024 that included French clarinetist and vocalist, Isabelle Duthoit. These included Fluid Fixations by the John Butcher +13 ensemble, Oratorio by Benjamin Duboc, Jeanne Benameur and Ensemble Icosikaihenagone and Dans Le Morvan, a duet with trumpeter Franz Hautzinger. Certainly the duet has the greatest proportional contribution from Duthoit, but, as they say, variety is the spice of life, and we already have an entry in our top ten list from the Relative Pitch Records label.

On Fluid Fixations, fourteen improvisors set about to perform a score written by John Butcher that seeks to integrate fixed composition and fluid improvisation. As we have noted in previous reviews, each listener's path to a record is different. We came to it because we trust the esthetic sensibilities of Isabelle Duthoit and allowed her to lead us into unfamiliar territory. From our point of view, it seems a successful recipe because we likely wouldn't have stumbled upon Fluid Fixations otherwise and it turned out to be a welcome diversion.

 

In-Yu - Susan Alcorn
Label: Longform Editions
Catalog #: LE150
Location: Sydney, Australia
Release Date: June 11, 2024
Media: digital file
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry

Pedal steel guitarist, Susan Alcorn, started 2024 off well by reissuing in digital format an old and very hard-to-find album, Sur. She continued to appear on albums released in 2024, including Michael McNeil's Barcode Poetry, a quartet called New Baltimore Quiet, a duet with Catherine Sikora called Filament, a solo piece titled In-Yu and a cool soundtrack by Dan Deacon, All Light, Everywhere. All these recordings are pretty different from each other, though the common thread is the weaving sound of Susan Alcorn's petal steel guitar. To be honest, we enjoyed every one of these releases. But the staff of the PPPH settled on one for our end-of-the-year top-ten list.

On In-Yu, we are treated to a single twenty-seven minute track of solo pedal steel guitar. It's a lovely, contemplative piece and we think it captures very well the quintessential creative musical expression of Susan Alcorn.

 

Album # 10

We posted the first nine entries in the second half of November so we held off filling the last spot on this list for a little while longer to see what appeared in the upcoming weeks.

Every year, it's hard to down select to ten albums from all the wonderful music, which we encountered during the past twelve months. 2024 was no different. Many excellent releases will be omitted from this list. For example, we immensely enjoy the improvisation of Derek Bailey, who died in 2005, so finding a previously unreleased duet with Sabu Toyozumi from 1987, Breath Awareness on the Lithuanian label NoBusiness, was a delight. It's true that the store of music, which Bailey gave to the world is exhausted, so it is feels like an undeserved gift from beyond the grave to hear him play in a performance new to our ears.

We also appreciate the music of French percussionist Lê Quan Ninh, who in 2024 contributed to a trio release, Beneath the Forge on the Slovenian label Klopotec. This album introduced us to flautist Massimo De Mattia and drummer Gal Furlan.

The Tyshawn Sorey Trio released a double lp, The Susceptible Now on the American label Pi Recordings, which was awesome in an under-stated way. However, since Sorey was recognized as a genius by the MacArthur Foundation in 2017, he has little need of what pitiful support mention on the blog of the Poison Pie Publishing House can provide. Such are the arbitrary constraints erected by the PPPH staff in assembling this list.

Since the first of January, 2017, the PPPH has serially published on a daily basis a fragment of non-idiomatic improvisational creative writing, written while engaged in active listening to a recording of a different piece of music. For each day of 2023, the hundred-word blog posts were collected into what we lovingly refer to as a post-existential musical score, titled Hebeloma's Clockwise Cadenza, in which a bireme circumnavigates the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. As was the practice of the ancient Greeks, time was kept for the oarsmen of the vessel by a pair of musicians—a vocalist chanting to the accompaniment of a double-reeded aulos. Therefore we were drawn to The Telescopic Aulos of Atlas by Lukas De Clerck, released on Ideologic Organ. The album blends archeological knowledge of an instrument from antiquity with a modern reinterpretation.

As of today (November 28, 2024) we still haven't made up our mind. Check back later.

 

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