Live music as the scabrous experimental titans Oxbow and Peter Brötzmann, by turns bastions of blues-tinged noise rock and European free jazz or the avant-garde, unleash a double album from their vaunted 2018 collaboration at Moers Festival. At another end of the same spectrum, Charles Lloyd blows into the bows of desolation alongside the guitarist Julian Lage and percussionist Zakir Hussain, from a session recorded as a livestream concert for a virtual audience in September of 2020 at the Paul Mahder Gallery in Healdsburg.
Film music as Laila Sakini draws inspiration from amateur dramatics and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s arthouse darling The Double Life of Veronique with its haunting score by Zbigniew Preisner, attributed to the fictitious composer Van den Budenmayer within the film, swapping out the flute and a sense of operatic grandeur to spotlight the humble recorder with all of the scale and tactility of the puppet theatre, no strings attached as a spirit of hope hikes the ceiling and suffuses every wall. Meanwhile with David Ralicke, Joel Virgel, Peter Jacobson, Peter Walker, and Wally Ingram among the contributors, the experimental music ensemble Arthur King unwind the next in their Unknown Movie Night series with an improvised accompaniment to the cult classic Koyaanisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke, blending babbling vistas with a technological throb and staggered mum, all departure with no terminus.
The songwriter and bassist Mali Obomsawin folds an ancient Wabanaki mourning song into the body of a Catholic hymn, translated from Latin into the Abenaki language by an early French Jesuit priest who lived among the Abenaki. Setting the Harrowing of Hell, which tells the story of Jesus’ descent to liberate lost souls at the time between his crucifixion and resurrection, in Obomsawin’s hands the reconstituted free jazz squall turns equal parts feverish and recriminatory, with the music video directed by Lokotah Sanborn set inside the thrice-burned Catholic Church of the Odanak First Nation.
From his upbringing at the Sai Anantam Ashram where daily bhajans were led by Alice Coltrane to more recent collaborations with Joey Badass, Dezron Douglas, and Georgia Anne Muldrow, the keyboardist Surya Botofasina brings his unique approach at the intersection of hip hop and jazz to a devotional suite which basks in the sun and skips against the shore, accompanied by Carlos Niño, Mia Doi Todd, Jesse Peterson, and his own mother the acclaimed harpist Radha Botofasina. ‘Sun of Keshava’, the third single from his upcoming debut Everyone’s Children, was written in a reflective mode and dedicated to his son.
Sparing no imitators, the original Fulu Miziki of Kinshasa led by Lady Aicha and Pisko Crane unveil their living testament, a furiously ebullient blend of industrial clanks and clangs, spiky punk, spiritual jazz, and Congolese soukous pressure. Ab-Soul steps back from the brink over a sample from Nick Hakim and with a steadfast glint vows to do better as he preps his first record in six years. The saxophonist Timo Vollbrecht and his longtime Fly Magic ensemble give heed to happiness, Wiki wants one more chance and earns it over beats by Subjxct 5 with a verse from Navy Blue, and Cory Smythe recites the Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach standard ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ to the point of amber-licked combustion, as tracks by Burial, Earth Room, Okay Kaya, and Aylu complete the latest roundup of new music.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Ab-Soul – ‘Do Better’
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Charles Lloyd – ‘Desolation Sound’
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Arthur King – ‘Living in Tech’
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OXBOW & Peter Brötzmann – ‘Cat and Mouse’
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Timo Vollbrecht – ‘Happy Happy’
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Mali Obomsawin – ‘Wawasint8da’
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Surya Botofasina – ‘Sun of Keshava’
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Laila Sakini – ‘Paloma Expressions’
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Okay Kaya – ‘Inside of a Plum’
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