November brought a bunch of excellent albums to us, and in a huge variety of genres and approaches. Here we have a couple of typically fascinating French albums, an intense prog/metal/jazz mash-up from Patrick Shiroishi and Mark Kimbrell, absorbing modern classical music from Tyondai Braxton, a tribute to our favorite cellist (hint: click here), another experimental rock album from Palm, a wild tenor sax quartet, a new one from a star NYC improvisers, Patricia Brennan, and more. A rich sampler of music to bring us into December!
Pick hit!
Fred Pallem & le Sacre du Tympan – “X”
(released November 18, 2022)
Fred Pallem – Bass Guitars, Synthesizer, Vocals
Remi Sciuto – Alto & Baritone saxophones, Flutes
Vincent Taeger – Drums
Guillaume Magne – Acoustic & Electric Guitars
Sebastien Palis – Harpsichord, Clavinet, Organ, Upright piano
Christine Roch – Tenor Saxophone, Clarinets
Sylvain Bardiau Trumpet, Fluegelhorn
Daniel Zimmermann – Trombone
Guillaume Lantonnet – Glockenspiel, Tambourine
Strings (10 violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos)
It’s hard to resist an album that’s billed by the band as a “tanning cream for the ears” and Fred Pallem’s “X” (for “10” – it’s his 10th album) does not disappoint! Palem employs his usual mix of retro/nostalgic trappings (harpsichords!) and advanced jazz harmony, which creates delightful fun. Pallem accomplishes this range with 25 musicians playing brass, strings and yes, those harpsichords. Pallem says that the mission of “X” and his band Le Sacre du Tympan is to put orchestral music back on the map, “like a strange impossible place where Wagnerian flights would intersect with the groove of David Axelrod’s basses and the madness of Jean-Claude Vannier.” But don’t just take our word for it, go to the link above and dive into a strange and wonderful adventure of an album.
Pick hit!
Patricia Brennan – More Touch
(released November 18, 2022, Pyroclastic)
Marcus Gilmore – drums
Mauricio Herrera – percussion
Kim Cass – bass
Patricia Brennan – vibraphone with electronics, marimba
Brennan is one of our favorite new musicians, returning with More Touch after the brilliant solo vibraphone outing Maquishti from last year, and her appearance on Mary Halvorsan’s Ameryllis, which was one of that album’s highlights. Those accomplishments don’t really prepare the listener for the level of experimentation that’s going on here. Brennan eschews easy melodic themes and the high energy often used to sugarcoat dissonance. Instead, this music questions, probes, and interrogates your preconceptions about form and content. It’s subtly and gently challenging. Brennan says the music “reflects a process of inner search,” backwards to Brennan’s roots “in Veracruz, Mexico and forwards into the future. A music of fluidity, flexibility, precision, and density.” Another fascinating release from one of the great new talents in music.
Tyondai Braxton – Telekinesis
(released November 11, 2022)
Telekinesis is an eighty-seven-piece work for electric guitars, orchestra, choir and electronics—featuring the multiple orchestras Metropolis Ensemble, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and the chamber choir The Crossing. Braxton calls Telekinesis “the latest and largest example of intersections between my electronic music and notated music, both sonically and philosophically.” Throughout the recording and production process, Braxton sought to “create an environment where electronic instruments and acoustic instruments coexist in a place that feels balanced and organic.” I’ll add what I recommend as the ideal way to listen – wait until it’s quiet, late at night, and use a good pair of headphones – you’ll be amazed at the huge and rich forces used to make this music, the depth of the sound, the attentional to detail, and especially the kaleidoscopic array of sounds.
Oort Smog – Every Motherfucker Is Your Brother
(released November 11, 2022)
Mark Kimbrell – Drums
Patrick Shiroishi – Multiple saxophones
This one-track album takes a few minutes to get going, but if you’re impatient, wash the dishes and come back 5 minutes in, because if you stick around till the end of the record you’re in for a treat. EMIYB builds and escalates for its half hour duration, reaching one apex after another of intense synergism between Shiroishi’s battery of saxes and Kimbrell’s batterie. From the Bandcamp page: “Kimbrell and Shiroishi combine elements of brutal prog (both are members in Upsilon Acrux) and free improvisation in their long form composition . . . written over the course of eighteen months and recorded during the pandemic/George Floyd & Breonna Taylor protests, Oort Smog drew from a number of influences to create their own sound – one of urgency, heaviness, and hope.” I guarantee if you listen to this album in one sitting, you’ll press repeat and start it over again – it’s heavy but exhilarating.
Avram Fefer – Juba Lee
(released November 18, 2022, Clean Feed)
Avram Fefer – alto and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet
Marc Ribot – guitar
Eric Revis – bass
Chad Taylor – drums
Avram Fefer’s Testament was one of the best albums of 2019, and he returns with the same potent group. You can hear the chemistry of musicians that have played together for years, both in the efficient but powerful rhythm and the distinctive way that Fefer and Ribot play their sax/guitar melodic lines. Speaking of the melodies, they are very fetching, and the album dances throughout.
Tom Skinner – Voices of Bishara
(released November 4, 2022)
Tom Skinner – Drums
Kareem Dayes – Cello
Nubya Garcia – Tenor saxophone and flute
Tom Herbert – Acoustic bass
Shabaka Hutchings – Tenor saxophone and bass clarinet
If you’ve followed this blog, you know the music of great cellist Abdul Wadud is one of our passions. Drummer Skinner has that passion too. During the Covid lockdown he spent hours deep listening to Wadud’s masterpiece By Myself (covered by our blog here). Voices of Bishara is the result – recorded with a band of today’s hottest players, including British saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings. The results are enveloping and authoritative. A winner.
Flat Earth Society – R.I.P.
(Released November 1, 2022)
Link to Apple Music
Link to Spotify
Link to band website to download album
This wonderfully named band was founded in 1998 by architect and multi-instrumentalist Peter Vermeersch and is known for eclectic music that “owns the ability to seduce a number of different audiences, from more select jazz listeners to a wild young rock public.” R.I.P. has a concept that is best described on the band’s website:
“In this project FES creates its own funeral repertoire and Perpetuum Mobile: 12 farewell songs for the funeral of the members of the orchestra. All fifteen of them must die, through illness, plain bad luck, old age or a stupid accident, there is no shortage of causes. As the suite progresses, the orchestra dwindles until no one is left: a tragicomic preview of what is to come. As the last musician leaves the stage, the whole orchestra is reunited, as in Roland Topor’s story “Blues for Gaston”. And they celebrate that reunion exuberantly with a wild Death defying Danse Macabre. The order of the deaths was determined by chance, resulting in rather illogical and therefore interesting orchestral compositions. R.I.P. challenges fate, extracts beauty from tragedy and grief, and pays a macabre tribute to life with a virtuous portion of black humour.” The music is a blast, ranging from careening high-energy tunes with the whole band to smaller, more focused ensembles. The spontaneity that you can hear on the album is something that I want to hear live!
Palm – Nicks and Grazes
(released October 14, 2022)
(released October 14, 2022)
Performed by Palm:
Eve Alpert
Gerasimos Livitsanos
Hugo Stanley
Kasra Kurt
Matt Anderegg
We don’t write about too many rock bands on TNB, but Palm is no ordinary rock band. On their latest effort, Nicks and Grazes, Palm continue and develop their embrace of discordance to dazzling effect. The band’s guitarist Kasra Kurt, says “we wanted to reconcile two potentially opposing aesthetics, to capture the spontaneous, free energy of our live shows while integrating elements from the traditionally gridded palette of electronic music.” Palm’s 2018 album Rock Island is a masterpiece that we had in repeat play at TNB, and the new one is just as good.
Battle Trance – Green of Winter
(released August 26, 2022)
Travis Laplante – Tenor sax
Patrick Breiner – Tenor sax
Matt Nelson – Tenor sax
Jeremy Viner – Tenor sax
Battle Trance is new to us – four tenor saxophonists who play all over the range of instruments, which they use to create atmospherics, as well as unusual and sometimes intense voicings. This album starts with “vocalized” sax playing that produced an effect reminiscent of some of the Ligeti used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It then settles into resonant sax stylings that show off the rich and nuanced acoustics of the recording. The album ends on another high note – a storm of syncopated saxes chase each other in circles for the climactic and breathtaking 10 minutes of the album. Amazing and distinctive.