Discus This current project of the classically trained duo of pianist and poet Robert Mitchell and cellist Shirley Smart came about after conversations back in 2014. Their desire to merge the structure of classical with the freedom of improv led to this collaboration, in which Robert also wished to address his family’s history and their relationship to the Windrush scandal in a way that is accessible yet emotive.
Daily archives: 14/03/2022
Purple Trap Keiji Haino has rarely been one to avoid portentous titles and boy howdy has he stayed on-brand with My Lord Music I Most Humbly Beg Your Indulgence In The Hope That You Will Do Me The Honour Of Permitting This Seed Called Keiji Haino To Be Planted Within You. Away from Fushitsusha, Haino has a reputation for playing an extensive range of instruments — Shruti boxes, […]
Discus Martin Archer from Discus mentions that there are very few solo bass albums being released these days; but thankfully Michael Bardon, erstwhile member of Shatner’s Bassoon, has chosen to correct that. Over ten wildly varied pieces on The Gift Of Silence, he pushes both the bass and cello and our understanding of what sounds can be wrenched from them to their limits.
Bristol 10 March 2022 The acoustic charms of Stroud-based Maja Lena are first up, a songbird sweetness of voice attached to a fingerpicking deftness, that ’60s Yamaha neck dwarfing her fingers, her vocals skipping like wind-blown grass to gentle tonal shifts, then leaping unexpectedly in joyous abandon. The slumbering reflections of her Christmas-themed song reverbing to those silent quilted fields, the matted mulch of morning leaves.
Jazzland Since starting Jazzland twenty-five years ago, Bugge Wesseltoft has dipped in and out of collaborations and various artist projects with regularity, finding different modes of expression depending on the players involved. Here, shorn of any outside involvement apart from assistance from Håkon Kornstad on a couple of pieces, we find Bugge at the piano allowing his mind to wander, seeing where this freedom and time to ponder […]