I've regularly restarted this page — so that it doesn't become too long — and have written many new introductions here. This time, though, I'm intending to write an intro to keep, and then I can restart the reviews below from time to time.... (There're also archive links at the bottom of the page.)
So next some links to related pages:
And then a brief summary of what to expect here: Most of the entries will be reviews focused on individual albums, but I also regularly mention (sometimes with extended tangents...) multiple albums in one entry. This work began as a "social" project, meaning that I'm mostly interested in trios, quartets, etc. (There are many solos & duos appearing, but I tend to skip them here.) And then "jazz" has basically been about the expression of freedom in music, and per the social project, this becomes collective freedom. So the orientation here is toward collective freedom.
The latest entries are then at the end of the page.
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org>Pace the general intro above then, I also want to add some additional thoughts, i.e. within a context that will cycle this discussion to an archive in another year or so. Perhaps that should start with reflections on the comments already made: When I began this project, I didn't have much of a plan in mind, and wanted to become more familiar with what was appearing under a "jazz" heading circa 2010. Subsequently, as regular readers will know, I've come to feature fewer "inside" performances, but instead post-jazz types of interactions that embrace ideas from free improvisation, contemporary classical music, etc. (Notions of jazz as collective freedom would seem even to suggest that it might always need an element of "outside....") So "free improvisation" might be a better heading here, although I do include occasional composed music too. And then it turns out that there's more music in this general vein being released in 2026 than e.g. in 2010 — & that's partly due to self-release opportunities, but also due to growing interest in the sort of musical ingredients I've often featured here, i.e. broad harmonic interactions, "just" or alternative tunings, extended techniques, etc. Many of my choices on what to review consequently become more arbitrary than ever.... (There's no question that there're albums appearing now that would have excited me 10 years ago, but today just seem to be one of several recent examples of....) I remain enthusiastic about these musical directions then, but need to keep things to a reasonable volume here. As noted already, I also involve many tangents: Part of that is (relational) style, but part of that also derives from a (perhaps misguided) desire to mention other worthwhile albums, i.e. that I don't want to make time to review in more detail. As far as solos or duos then, musicians regularly send them to me, and they can certainly be worth hearing (including pace e.g. that keyboard music has often already involved multiple "voices..."), but even a duo isn't a full-scale social interaction from my perspective, i.e. tends toward closure. As I sometimes say though, a third brings the whole world, i.e. a kind of juggling of responses. Moreover, creativity — or at least collective creativity — is about being in the world, it's about relations & priorities. (We might be able to restore our energies via retreat from the world, but it's not — in itself — a means to action.) So there's no question of a general, ongoing role for caring creativity: It's desperately needed in a variety of settings, at least as inspiration, but it's probably also worth questioning how much these rather specialized productions can affect outcomes around the often black & white disputes animating world politics today. (Sometimes I say that the current situation revolves so much around stupidity that I have to question if art & intelligence are actually relevant, i.e. versus simple physical presence. What is there really to say in argument anymore, i.e. when the people in charge are just hateful liars? "Arguments" mean nothing. Maybe no argument then, but coming back to the arts, an obvious response is truth & love. And this is not exactly a revelation either.) Arts & music often then involve various sorts of shadings, not necessarily "black & white" truth — when sometimes it can seem that we need a less nuanced response. (Tangentially, it's also been disappointing to me lately to have e.g. parents of small children move to "protect" them from e.g. nonstandard musical tunings. Many people do seem to remain quite rigid in their attitudes regarding what is or isn't musical.) Yet we're also increasingly goaded toward simplistic emotional responses, and so a more complex affectivity can sometimes project a political message by itself. It's fair to continue observing that that's not an action plan though, and issues of relevance are shifting quickly. Still, notions of shouting yes-no binaries back & forth clearly serve to lock in the same bad frameworks, when we need new frameworks. Yet I also sometimes feel as though I'm talking about nuance (or even education...), when our leaders are now just blatantly lying while serving their own private (& increasingly terror-based) agendas. There isn't much nuance there, and they're basically daring people to stop them: The volume of nastiness is already intended to overwhelm, which then undermines the (historical) dynamics of confrontation per se.
11 February 2026Back in January 2024, I reviewed Na Parede by an international quartet of string improvisers, and Convergência do Vôo (recorded last June) is now the third release to feature the same core trio from that album — João Madeira, Fred Lonberg-Holm & Carlos "Zíngaro" — this time alongside Bruno Pedroso (drums). The second quartet album for the trio had been Enleio, adding Bruno Parrinha on bass clarinet (after guitarist Florian Stoffner for Na Parede). And all three albums have now appeared on Madeira's 4Da Record label, after the first was reissued there (after its original release by Chicago's Catalytic Sound...) with Enleio (recorded in 2024). I'd described Na Parede as having a dense & intricate sound, i.e. as a generally quick & ongoing elaboration of shifting figures (not unlike some more recent reviews here...), sometimes dramatic (so invoking humanity per se...), sometimes suggesting more of a wilderness.... Then I didn't end up mentioning Enleio, but the obvious other reference there is Parrinha's Dada album (reviewed here May 2022) with Lisbon String Trio. The former is also much more human-plaintive in its general expressions than was Na Parede, perhaps seeming more personal. Of course, Madeira & Parrinha have recorded together often (& e.g. most recently with 2 x 2, released earlier this year on 4Da Record...), including trio Ground Zero of the Hunt with Pedroso (released last year). Then e.g. Madeira & Zíngaro released duo Arcada Pendular last year too — but what I hadn't noticed before is that the interaction between Zíngaro & Lonberg-Holm goes back to duo Flying Aspidistra #2 (recorded in Chicago in 2003). (Zíngaro has released a new string trio album with Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues too, 'Pataphysique recorded this past December....) And then Convergência do Vôo does suggest a kind of coming together at speed, drums providing a very different emphasis from guitar & especially from the "chamber" feel around clarinet. The result also recalls for me specifically a recent trio from Zíngaro & Madeira (there with Sofia Borges on percussion), Trizmaris (reviewed here November 2024), i.e. more of a "free jazz trio" formation & energy — similarly for Convergência do Vôo as a "free jazz quartet," i.e. adding cello to its frontline. Roles are not actually so neatly segmented here (although there's also less of a general feeling of overlapping calls, pace Na Parede), but the quasi-jazzy interaction of the rhythm team is notable, including for how it's been recorded & mixed for both albums, i.e. with a clear bass acoustic across the soundstage, but with the top line coming off more muted. There's thus less of a brilliant sound projected by violin, which is often in virtuosic figures, but there's an invitation to listen more to the other parts. There're consequently also slower sections, including with a sense of the outdoor. And then the result basically involves considerable string counterpoint, not articulated overall in a linear way though (pace recent Feldman references...), but rather folding into more angular diagrams via smaller figures. (Pedroso had previously appeared e.g. on Clean Feed as well, and his drumming is relatively traditional, supporting variously the free jazz quartet formation here.) So as an ongoing project, the returning trio does seem to be developing its own (string) ensemble style, across changing moods & in varying partnerships now with three others. And given the usual density of (relation &) articulation here, much has already happened.
14 February 2026Belgian guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe (b.1984) appeared in this space previously (in June 2022) with Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton, an album I wanted to note (if only in a sort of "me too" sense...) but didn't discuss much. After all, it was a rendition of someone else's music (from a generation ago, Braxton's landmark Iridium residency dating to 2006...), and that's not something I tend to feature — but I also found it captivating, and continued listening, i.e. reveling in the free & precise articulation of such enigmatic music. Now Van Cauwenberghe is back with his own music in trio with Mariam Rezaei (turntables) & Sakina Abdou (saxophones) for The Forward Process, recorded in Antwerp in September 2025. In this case, the explicit reference is to Ursula K. Le Guin, with Van Cauwenberghe citing her classic The Dispossessed & its tease of a sort of "chamber music" derived from its Simultaneity Principle, i.e. "instruments each playing an independent cyclic theme, no melodic causality, the forward process entirely in the relationship of the parts." Of course there's no technical description in the novel (which I read in college anarchy class, itself a paradox I suppose...), but Braxton's Ghost Trance Music can indeed suggest such a thing. Itself inspired by the North American Ghost Dance movement, Ghost Trance Music is about changing senses of past-present-future via the notion of a 3-way coincidence, i.e. overturning Old World concepts regarding the flow of time — which Braxton further emphasizes i.e. in his statements about all of his music being suitable for playing at once, or e.g. per the Ghost Trance compositions suggesting that "Braxton's music has always been this way" per my extended review of GTM (Syntax) 2017 in April 2019. For The Forward Process then, Van Cauwenberghe provides (per the quote from Le Guin) independent material for the three musicians — in this case per (intervallic) principles from Henry Threadgill — but also the possibility of sampling by Rezaei: The sound of the "turntable" itself (& Braxton had already designated e.g. cassette players for real-time samples of his own music!) can be rather mysterious (although it must be the source of e.g. the occasional drumming?), but the multiple guitars & saxophones confronting us at times do make the sampling part obvious (if only indirectly, upon reflection...) — even as these developments can seem to slip beneath conscious notice, the music constantly in flux overall despite its cyclic individual material. (There can be e.g. a strong rock vibe at times too, appearing or disappearing, but usually a less genre-inspired sense maintains, moving quickly sometimes through various evocative spaces.... E.g. bent string tones, soon yielding a feeling of slowing time, invoke a mysterious aura right from the opening.) And then I wasn't familiar with Rezaei (although I'd heard her e.g. with Mette Rasmussen...), and while Abdou hadn't been mentioned here either, she's released both solo & trio albums the past few years on Relative Pitch.... I should also note that The Forward Process appears on Dropa Disc, a label I'd first noted here (in a review of PEN, by leading English improvisors...) in May 2017, still with a relatively small catalog today.... And then (critical) senses of temporality — e.g. articulating the flow of time — have been increasingly frequently raised in this space of late, especially last month with Live at Salle Cortot (also featuring pre-developed material presented in an improvisational format...), but already e.g. with Dots and Dashes (reviewed in December, more of an improvised chamber concerto format...) & Piwal (reviewed in September, composed from the jazz-esque Balinese tradition), and then recalling again Same Place (originally reviewed December 2022) in a review of Kalpa (earlier this month to close the previous page cycle, its designated material again articulated improvisationally....). Works such as Kalpa & especially Same Place (e.g. via its title) then explore a sense of cyclic sameness that does underlie the material of The Forward Process, yet of course the latter has a very different title.... Intensity levels vary greatly as well, especially via rock energy or even quasi-industrial grinding on the high side, but the music can also be sparse & mellow.... Moods seem to arrive organically, but there's no mistaking them. (The three short improv tracks are also characterized as "resetting" & "dreamlike" & tend to feature disorienting, shifting timbres....) An intense sense of liminality is thus developed, with various arrivals, but also fleeting senses of correspondence... as if we're distracted (or in a dream...) for a moment, only to discover ourselves somewhere else entirely. (I.e. liminal & crepuscular senses are heightened together. Intensity can also come to modulate senses of temporality more generally....) The Forward Process further seems like music that could continue forever, but unfortunately does not, finally kind of dripping to a stop. Even a single track can confuse one's sense of time. As a full album though, it's short, while also seeming to have been happening forever — it's paradoxical music, i.e. a forward process deriving from repetition. (And the material was developed collectively by the trio, named "1984" after both their birth years & another sci-fi classic....) In the ancient Western tradition, differences between cyclical & sequential (or secular...) time were figured e.g. by Aion & Chronos, but "1984" isn't content to glimpse the (often obscured) former, or their interplay, but rather seeks — it seems — to blow up their historical (established, philosophical) relation. Cyclic time has also been associated with religion, hence why "secular" tends to take on a more specific meaning today, but do note that the Christian religion had already broken/opened cyclic-eternal time, i.e. by establishing its own secular interval/arrow between the First & Second Comings (at which point cyclic-eternal time was to return). This is relevant today: Some people are more anxious than ever to prepare for the Second Coming, while "secular trends" (principally climate change & technology, themselves intertwining entropy...) dominate our imaginations (including in mutated forms for their various deniers...). So what is changing, what is staying the same? Answers might vary in any moment, with The Forward Process presenting a sort of abstract musical-temporal diagram of this broad notional situation, perhaps even a diagram for less imperialistic theories of time, i.e. at least offering moments outside of current ubiquitous & oppressive notions. (In a sense, music is made of time, but it also reimagines & variously reforms its substrate, so to speak. It thus provides an opening to reflect & to comment.) And such a temporal interrogation & reconfiguration does seem capable of offering more than a mere outside, perhaps even unraveling our various (conceptual) impasses... from some future point that happened long ago. So Van Cauwenberghe seems to be a particularly notable explorer in this general space (in this case starting from Braxton's Ghost Trance Music, with which his music shares intricacy & precision), i.e. interrogating notions of temporality & historicity in music in real-time performance.
17 February 2026Murmur is then the third release by Magda Mayas' Filamental (all on Relative Pitch). Remarkably, the same octet of musicians continues to maintain through the series, i.e. Confluence (recorded in 2019 & reviewed here in May 2021), Ritual Mechanics (recorded in 2023 & reviewed here in May 2024), and now Murmur (recorded in Berlin, September 2024), with Mayas returning to piano after using two different electric keyboards for the two tracks on Ritual Mechanics. As had Confluence then, Murmur presents a single track (a single composition...), this time somewhat shorter, but richer in performance details. Confluence had also specifically cited a graphical score, and such a note is absent from Murmur, so I'm not sure how the performance was undertaken, perhaps more from verbal agreement and/or prior practice. In any case, the inspiration is specifically a flock of birds — perhaps not unlike Great Waitress classic Flock (from 2013) — & their close & constantly varying alignments in flight (called "murmurations," a term I didn't know before, but I guess most associated with European starlings...). So there's already an embedded interrogation of individuality versus collectivity — but also an opportunity to hear another kind of ongoing tapestry of closely varying figures (instrumentation here, besides piano, remaining two each of harp & cello, violin & two alto reeds...), i.e. per recent trends in this space. Of course, Mayas' sort of chiming gamelan piano does often stand at the center of the sound, providing a distinctive & usually soothing orientation (pace e.g. a review of trio Oneiric from last January...), i.e. versus the string-only sonorities of e.g. trio A Far Within (as reviewed last month). A sense of calm thus often seems to be embedded. And yet Murmur is already noisy (& mysterious, even sounding electronic...) to open, its general buzzing motion soon coming more into focus, intensities rising & falling in time (with what seems to be at least one full reset of the ensemble about two thirds of the way through...), often involving a heightened density & verticality (minus directive harmonic motion...). Not unlike the birds, I suppose, it's also apparently the ongoing collective experience of this relatively large group that allows for such vigorous, but non-colliding motion: Listener attention is captured immediately, but immediately afterward turns toward a state of flux, a kind of pulsation of activity per se, the limits of the ensemble remaining mysteriously on the outskirts of a central band of sound, itself (sometimes not so) subtly seething, sometimes growing in intensity (sometimes seemingly even in insistence...), only already to be shifting & reconfiguring itself again.... So pace the watery & more grounded Confluence, Murmur can indeed sound airborne, i.e. stretching before us in visions of wandering center & unclear boundaries. Vibes of (e.g. musical) suspension thus fill the senses, i.e. suspension arrayed across our attention spans, pace in turn an internal dynamic of suspension (of non-collision, non-arrival...), itself variously swirling (although never frenetically, pace e.g. an interval of broad, sinking glissandi...). And yet somehow there're moments of tremendous repose — vaguely zoomimetic perhaps, with (technical) suspension invoking its own sense of floating, a sense moreover of equivocation (between individuation & collectivity). Such equivocation is of course an aspect of humanity too — as Murmur does let us glimpse collective otherness more broadly. And then the (sonic) breaks increasing in duration toward the end, the thinning of connectivity here, can suggest an incremental dispersal, i.e. a thinning of field (& so a return to more individual & therefore partial existences...). To cite Flock again, a (musical) gathering might thus take on the character of a (necessary & sustaining) rite: Murmur, yielding its own sense of affective refreshment, then becomes the most striking & potently illustrative example (of this sort of gathering) so far.
20 February 2026It's good to feel busy again here (after some slow times), including with some major new offerings from ongoing ensembles already featured, namely octet Filamental from the previous entry... after e.g. trio DLW last month — & now the latest untitled album (recorded outside St. Louis this past November) from trio Ewen-Smith-Walter. The original Ewen / Smith / Walter album was recorded in 2011 (& so I'll sometimes refer to it from here as Untitled 2011...), as was the first DLW album (Grammar), while the first Filamental album (Confluence) was later, from 2019. From my perspective, Untitled 2025 is then the fourth Ewen-Smith-Walter album, but by bassist Damon Smith's Balance Point Acoustics label it's circumscribed as Untitled (2), and described as "a proper follow up" to the original Ewen / Smith / Walter (reviewed here March 2013). Meanwhile guitarist Sandy Ewen had self-released Live in Texas (recorded in 2014, reviewed here November 2016), and then Weasel Walter (credited only as "percussion" for this outing...) released Untitled 2019 (reviewed here October 2020): The latter, including impressionistic track titles, still sounds very strong musically to me, but also has an unusual, floating soundstage mix (which I took to be an intentional development at the time...), with Untitled 2025's return to a more traditional acoustic mix-master situation apparently prompting part of the assessment.... As had Untitled 2011 then, Untitled 2025 includes a series of (very different from before!) visual artworks by Ewen, as well as (for a second time) introductory notes by Henry Kaiser. And Smith had played 7-string electric bass with electronics on Untitled 2011 (as he had e.g. for what was then a recent trio with Kaiser & Walter, Plane Crash from 2008, both also released by Walter's UgExplode label), but more recently he's seemingly exclusively on acoustic double bass.... Untitled 2025 could further be considered a development toward "classical" abstraction, as slower & lighter sections continue to seem more prominent (although Untitled 2011 had already embraced a surprising sense of lightness at times...), and of course for its general lack of titles. There's also a sense in which this trio references itself (although never with formal material, e.g. per DLW), i.e. outside of any real genre concept (even as passing evocations abound...), its own history & sense of sound thus coming to forge a distinctive collective voice, including through various other configurations: Smith & Walter most recently appeared here with trio Seeing the way the mole tunnels (with James McKain, reviewed last August), while Ewen last appeared (with Smith) with Udo Schindler (& guests) for Munich Sound Studies Vols. 4, 5 & 6 (reviewed December 2024), and the entire trio had recorded with Roscoe Mitchell (for the second time) for One Head Four People (reviewed in the previous entry at the time, also December 2024) — plus recorded various duo albums together, especially in the earlier years. (Mitchell played the unusual bass saxophone for that second quartet album, and derived textures can perhaps be heard echoing here as well....) The result is then the very assured & personal-collective articulation of Untitled 2025 (again more than an hour in length, although actually the shortest of the trio's four albums noted here...), i.e. versus what can now seem a more tentative or preliminary start with Untitled 2011.... Now the listener can glimpse entire vistas across these extended works/tracks, perhaps buoyed at times by senses of traveling (or traveling across ideas...), but featuring a broad sense of repose in some moments as well. ("Unrelieved tension" aside) Walter is known for his fast & controlled drumming, i.e. interpolating potentially strong rhythmic color at any point, usually cutting immediately again to a different rhythm or tempo, i.e. nothing like driving (e.g. martial) rhythm or even groove. (There's a sense of the liberation of rhythm per se, i.e. from the longer temporal arcs of sound painting, yielding intensive textural canvases in flow....) Smith also brings a real intensity at times here, e.g. extended & searing bowed glissandi (the most Joëlle Léandre-like I've heard him...) at the center of the trio's sound — a situation that did occur already (on electric) for Untitled 2011 — with (also already) a strong bass line setting an anticipatory opening tone. And then Ewen was new to the scene for that first album (playing with Walter for the first time & forgetting her regular amp...), but here she remains, increasingly prominent (still often with Smith...) across free improvisation: Her varieties of sounds & articulations (again from growl to twitter...) tend to suggest an abstract (ecological) jungle, e.g. beyond her more explicit zoomimetic invocations elsewhere.... (Everything is always something else?) And then there's surely more to be said, including as personal styles continue to be imitated by others... but the listening experience can already be highly satisfying overall, indeed (perhaps surprisingly) leaving silence hanging in the air. Untitled 2025 thus establishes further the ongoing stylistic achievements of what is today perhaps North America's most consistently inventive freely improvising trio.
25 February 2026And then I didn't end up mentioning the most recent Improvisors (recorded in Chicago last April) when it was released last year, pairing again Jaap Blonk (voice & electronics) with Damon Smith (double bass) — i.e. especially after Rune Kitchen (2022), with Ra Kalam Bob Moses — this time with Michael Zerang on percussion: Blonk, Smith & Zerang (the ninth in the Kontrans Improvisors series — after e.g. Wassermann, Blonk & Vorfeld, reviewed here March 2019...) does end up being less contrapuntal & tight than Rune Kitchen, i.e. is more sparse & exploratory & soloing (sometimes with overlapping calls...), i.e. more recitative-like per classic 1960s vocal weirdness (& perhaps senses of trauma...). And Blonk may very well have been in a "classic" mood more generally last year, since he also released Ursonate on Corbett vs. Dempsey, an avant garde vocal "sonata in primordial sounds" written (1922-1932) by Kurt Schwitters, i.e. a unique "classical" piece well worth noting.... But of course the belated mention here also was prompted by the previous entry & specifically Blonk's participation (with Smith & Ewen) on Munich Sound Studies Vols. 3 & 5.... And although Blonk, Smith & Zerang didn't strike me to the same degree (i.e. pace Rune Kitchen & its world-making...), there's also e.g. a sly sense in which Blonk's voice moves in & out of the texture (& he's got some dueling lines via looping too...), so there's something more than 60s dramatic recitative. (And Zerang has occasionally appeared in this space since Psychotic Redaction, reviewed May 2012... i.e. before the first Ewen / Smith / Walter.)
26 February 2026