Now well into its second decade, the Coin Coin project by the saxophonist and mixed-media artist Matana Roberts continues to explore African-American history through a recuperative focus on memory and ancestry, summoning a heteroglossia of voices through group recitations, guttural catharsis and plainspoken word, graphic and other aleatoric forms of notation, samples, loops and effects pedals and the torrents and cascades of their alto saxophone. Describing their practice as a process of ‘panoramic sound quilting’ which weaves together fragments of spirituals and other folk songs while naming the series after the freed slave and pioneering Louisiana businesswoman Marie Thérèse Coincoin, the project to date has veered between ensemble jazz and big-band live performance to solo noise collages buttressed by manipulated field recordings and swarming drones.
On the opening salvo from Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden… the artist introduces a new ensemble featuring the violinist Mazz Swift, their fellow alto saxophonist Darius Jones, the clarinetists Matt Lavelle and Stuart Bogie, the percussionists Mike Pride and Ryan Sawyer, the vocalist Gitanjali Jain and the smoky pianist Cory Smythe, citing the immersive compositional habits of Maryanne Amacher who made extensive use of auditory distortion products, and explicitly defining their narrative as a paean to the liberatory quality of reproductive rights. Roberts tells the story of a woman in their ancestral line who died following complications from an illegal abortion, with the narrator of ‘unbeknownst’ portraying themselves as ‘electric, alive, spirited, fire and free’ as they begin to unspool an ‘old dusty saga’, which was kept from their ‘little love bit’ boys in order to ‘keep me always angelic in their hearts’ but ‘the women in my line will speak truth’.
Born and raised in the Republic of Guinea-Bissau before migrating to Portugal at the age of thirteen, the archivist and ballpoint pen artist Normal Nada the Krakmaxter manifests a meta-kuduro multiverse on his solo debut for Nyege Nyege Tapes, as he melds the frenetic dancefloor mutations of Lisbon’s still burgeoning batida scene with trap kicks, heavy metal crunches, kuduros and syrupy tarraxinha rhythms. Described as ‘a meditation on the vertigo of our existence’, on Quelque chose s’est dissipé the Parisian poet and composer Audrey Carmes spins breathy vocals over evolving layers of synthesizer buoyed by celestial reverberations on the bass guitar, vibraphone and flute.
On the Occitanian tambour, metal percussion, tambourine, FM pipes and synthesizer accompanied by Gabriel Delfour on hurdy gurdy and Gaston Vialard on cabrette bagpipe, the percussionist and sound chaser Sébastien Forrester plays out ‘a reverie on Aveyron, an homage to the bourrée of the elders’. Cole Pulice evokes the ephemerality of time through his signature blend of tenor saxophone and live signal processing, with a piece of widescreen pastoralism on Longform Editions which exhales full of wispy hope for the future while bearing the griefs and pangs of the neighbouring past.
With a slinky shuffle and a silvery sigh, ANOHNI recalls some of the last words Lou Reed shared with her as he gazed into life’s infinite portal with a sense of deep gratitude and chastening rapture. Christine Ott on the ondes Martenot and piano, Mathieu Gabry on keyboards and effects and Pierre-Loïc Le Bliguet on drums and other percussion unite as The Cry, a new improvisational trio whose debut blurs the line between avant-garde jazz, krautrock and progressive instrumental music, sprightly and coiling through serpentine grooves and seething with the potentiality of silicon magma. Adorned with field recordings from her home in the desert of El Djerid plus tombak and modular arrangements from the Franco-Iranian percussionist Cinna Peyghamy, the Tunisian dub and transe practitioner Azu Tiwaline enters the inner sanctum.
An acclaimed conductor whose solo work found a fertile middle ground between the modular repetitions of Terry Riley and the kankyō ongaku school of ambient minimalism, Joe Hisaishi is best known for his film scores in collaboration with the directors Takeshi Kitano and Hayao Miyazaki. Following their introduction on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the composer has provided the score for all but one of Miyazaki’s films in a symbiotic relationship which has been compared to the great partnerships of Hitchcock and Herrmann, Fellini and Rota, Leone and Morricone and Spielberg and Williams. For his debut on Deutsche Grammophon with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in tow, Hisaishi has arranged some of his most cherished songs from Studio Ghibli classics like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro, billed as a symphonic celebration with featured roles for the soprano Grace Davidson, mandolinist Avi Avital, The Bach Choir and the violinist Stephen Morris.
The skronking saxophonist Zoh Amba and scabrous guitarist Bill Orcutt bottle lightning through the spirited hands of their mutual acquaintance Chris Corsano, from an impromptu session at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco the day after the drummer and tenor wrapped a duo tour of the west coast. Sparks flew and the seed germinated to produce the first shoots of The Flower School, which opens with ‘What Emptiness Do You Gaze Upon!’ as Amba prunes and hews at every possible permutation of a bruising motif. Matthew Shipp distills his solo piano practice to its purest essence on a set of ten fastidious improvisations, and Kate Ellis embraces the here and now as the cellist resume her collaboration with Laura Cannell ahead of the release of Echolocation as flashes and rainfall, half-veiled and wide open vistas yank the curtain on the latest iteration of tracks of the week.
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Matana Roberts – ‘we said’ / ‘different rings’ / ‘unbeknownst’
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Normal Nada the Krakmaxter – ‘Batida 8’
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ANOHNI and the Johnsons – ‘Sliver Of Ice’
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Matthew Shipp – ‘The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp’
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Audrey Carmes – ‘La fin du film’
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Azu Tiwaline – ‘Night in Palmtree’
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Zoh Amba, Chris Corsano and Bill Orcutt – ‘What Emptiness Do You Gaze Upon!’
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Sébastien Forrester – ‘Bouôrgxo’
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Joe Hisaishi – ‘Ashitaka and San’ (from Princess Mononoke)
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Kate Ellis – ‘Here and Now Part 2’
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Cole Pulice – ‘If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture’
