The latest in a prolific string of solo and collaborative releases by James Rushford, Turzets collects a pair of new works primarily created and recorded last year while the Australian composer-performer was in residence at La Becque, an art center on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The side-length piece “Fallaway Whisk” explores hesitation in its many forms—reticence of speech, sonic restraint—using live, abstracted translations of text from English to German against a lush and swelling soundscape. On the flip side, “Quire” is a work in ten movements influenced by the composer’s study of late medieval repertoire on portative organ, weaving the instrument’s woodsy interlocking melodies with angelic Yamaha CS-80 synth sweeps and stuttering glitches. The combined effort is somewhat a departure for Rushford, working in traces of Klaus Schulze, concrete poetry, and ars subtilior into a precise and ever-unfolding tapestry. Rushford’s work draws from a wide range of collagist and improvisatory musical languages, staking out an idiosyncratic stylistic space that has been variously described as “electro-acoustic experimentation with a beating heart” (Boomkat) and “haunted Jacobean ASMR” (The Wire). Investigating the creases, cracks, and folds in traditions ranging from early music to New Age, Rushford’s work subtly exaggerates seemingly liminal aspects such as atmosphere and the bodily presence of the performer until these take on a weight equal to musical elements such as pitch, rhythm, and timbre. In recent years, Rushford’s solo work has been guided by his theorization of sonic images, particularly the shadow, which has inspired pieces as diverse as an hour-long companion to Federico Mompou’s 1959–67 piano cycle Música Callada (2016) and a sumptuous translation of the play of light across flat surfaces into synthetic sound (The Lake from the Louvers, Shelter Press, 2021). His long-standing performance practice for piano, portative organ, synthesizers, and electroacoustic devices, is constantly infused with a delicacy of touch and a harmonic sensibility in which unorthodox tunings coexist with influences from fin de siècle Impressionism, the twentieth century avant-garde, and popular musical structures. He has worked with a vast range artists including Klaus Lang, Annea Lockwood, David Behrman, Tashi Wada, Haroon Mirza, Dennis Cooper, Ora Clementi, crys cole, Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger, Will Guthrie, and Graham Lambkin. He has performed as Golden Fur (with Sam Dunscombe and Judith Hamann) and Food Court (with Joe Talia and Francis Plagne).

DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz!!!!!!! In the newest record by the iconoclastic Brooklyn-born composer Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947), find two mesmerizing works for carillon, the keyboard-controlled bell tower derived in the 16th century. On side A, a new piece recorded at the artist’s studio in Belgium—a high-ceiling, stuffed-animal-packed paradise he calls Charleworld—among friends and “divinities,” his name for the thousands of plush toys he’s amassed since the ’60s. On the flip side, Blank Forms Editions’ very first and long-out-of-print release appears on vinyl for the first time: a cathartic street recording of the maximalist composer’s 2018 musical eulogy for his late friend Tony Conrad, performed on the bells of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where the two first met. Two mesmerizing “klanggdedangggebannggg” sessions in the Quasimodo of 53rd Street’s inimitable, trance-induced style. Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries in the bustling, cross-disciplinary downtown New York arts scene of the ’60s and ’70s, Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947) has embodied the notion of the artist as playful polymath, testing and transcending nearly every creative form imaginable in his more than six-decade career. Originally trained in Jewish sacred singing to be a cantor, he began his artistic life as a musician, studying piano and accordion, accompanying figures like Tiny Tim and Allen Ginsberg on percussion, using early synthesizers as an assistant to Alwin Nikolais, and eventually landing a long-running gig as the carillonneur at Midtown’s St. Thomas Episcopal. This libertine spirit of experimentation soon led to adventures in other aesthetic arenas: making kinetic light sculptures with Len Lye, devising choreographed performances with Simone Forti, and producing a series of visceral videotapes with the Castelli-Sonnabend collection. In the ’70s, he was particularly prominent on the burgeoning loft movement, becoming well-known for his sparse, intense, and exacting long-form piano concerts that seemed to bend the very nature of time and space. Beginning in the ’80s, he spent decades in self-imposed exile from the new music scene, living variously in Europe and Hawai'i and privately honing his hermetic sonic and visual practice. This was followed by a period of triumphant resurgence beginning in the mid-’90s, since which he has performed and exhibited globally. This release is on the occasion of Blank Forms’ sixth annual gala honoring Charlemagne Palestine.

Preorder! Graham Lambkin (of Shadow Ring fame) returns with a long awaited epic double LP, Aphorisms, his first major solo outing since Community (Kye, 2016). Recorded mostly during the early winter months of 2022, in post-pandemic New York and post-Brexit London, Aphorisms assembles the sonic detritus of daily life into hauntingly intimate aural soundscapes. Made between Lambkin's residence in East London and Blank Forms in New York, Aphorisms superimposes the two spaces onto one another creating an imaginary stage where his musical dramas unfold. A transatlantic mediation on the rooms where Lambkin has lived and worked, Aphorisms summons up hallucinatory vistas by way of the composer’s collage technique, layering field recordings, piano, guitar, percussion, vocal fragments, and repurposed elements on top of one another in double, triple, and quadruple exposures. Like the Shadow Ring’s Lindus (Swill Radio, 2001)—recorded between Folkestone and Miami—Aphorisms ruminates on estrangement and displacement, catching Lambkin as he returns to London after two decades of living in the States, in his words, “leaving home to return home.” Aphorisms continues Lambkin’s synthetic-naturalist approach to sound-making, twisting disparate and unique elements together to create the sensation of a coherent sonic space. At the heart of his practice is the illusion of form, whereby Lambkin combines sonic elements, documenting the moment that they coalesce into music only to disintegrate back into incidental sound. The album is centered around two pianos, one in New York and one in London, sounding together as if through the ether, creating a spectral atmosphere that Lambkin fills with melodic snippets, fragments of songs, spoken-word musings, and guttural barks or “the animal purity of voice,” as he has it. The superimposition of the two spaces is maximized in the album's closing titular track, where, much like on earlier works such as Salmon Run (Kye, 2007) and Softly Softly Copy Copy (Kye, 2009) fragments of familiar melodies float through the mix as though being played from afar. Aphorisms is Lambkin at his best, extending methodologies only hinted at previously and taking his now-idiosyncratic mission statement to a new chapter. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Unbegrenzt is the third in an ongoing series of archival records of the unheard music of Swedish composer Catherine Christer Hennix, co-released by Blank Forms Editions and Empty Editions. It follows Selected Early Keyboard Works and Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku (named the #1 archival release of 2019 by The Wire), in addition to a two-volume collection of Hennix’s writing titled Poësy Matters and Other Matters. Recorded in February of 1974 and featuring Catherine Christer Hennix (recitation, percussion, and electronics) and Hans Isgren (bowed gong), Hennix’s realization of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Unbegrenzt” (German for “unlimited”) from Aus den Sieben Tagen is an elaboration both rigorous and radically different from the canonical 1969 recording issued by Shandar. The collection of 15 text pieces written in Paris during May of 1968, Aus den Sieben Tagen, denies its performers notated direction and instead provides poetic cues that hinge upon Stockhausen’s conception of “intuitive music,” a Eurocentric perspective on improvisation antithetical to the vernacular forms Hennix had engaged with as a young drummer performing in Stockholm jazz clubs with musicians like Bill Barron, Cam Brown, Hans Isgren, Lalle Svenson, Allan Vajda, Bo Wärmell, and many others. While both Hennix and Isgren saw the formal prospect of Aus den Sieben Tagen as a productive development of and beyond La Monte Young’s event scores, she here steadfastly counters his rationalization of intuition with the Principle of Sufficient Reason. (Cf. Brouwer’s Lattice.) Eschewing the busy, conservatory-addled lapses into idiomatic citation of Stockhausen’s 1969 recording, Hennix’s alternative realization of the “Unbegrenzt” score’s instructions to “play a sound with the certainty that you have an infinite amount of time and space” is based on her concept of Infinitary Compositions, the trademark of her ensemble The Deontic Miracle which, at one time, considered adding Stockhausen, La Monte Young and Terry Jennings scores to its repertoire. Taking a mature, minimal iteration of Stockhausen’s compositional method of “moment-forming” to heart, her version’s dark, controlled feedback and amplified bowed gong subtly shift through an immanent sequence of formative moments, step by step. Its bubbling computer noise, percussion, and repeated ominous transient sounds of temple blocks over the bowed gong terminate with the integrated recitation of exotic text fragments from Hevajra Tantra which faithfully take Stockhausen’s score into deeper vistas of the unconscious and a more devastating opening to the unlimited time and space of a dreaming mind. Audio restoration and mastering by Stephan Mathieu, with an essay by Bill Dietz as well as a conversation between Dietz and Hennix. Catherine Christer Hennix (b. 1948) started her creative life playing drums with her older brother Peter, growing up in Sweden where she heard jazz luminaries, such as John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Archie Shepp, and Cecil Taylor perform from 1960 to 1967. Directly after high school, Hennix went to work at Stockholm’s pioneering Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), where she developed early tape music, incorporating computer generated speech done at the Royal Technological University (KTH), where she was an undergraduate student. After traveling to New York In 1968, she met artists Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles who invited her to stay at the Something Else Press Town House where she had the opportunity to meet, among others, composers John Cage, James Tenney, and Phil Corner. During the following years she developed fruitful collaborative relationships with many composers in the burgeoning American avant-garde, including, most significantly, Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. Young introduced Hennix to Hindustani raga master Pandit Pran Nath and she would later study intensively under him as his first European disciple. While Hennix continued to make music performing alongside Arthur Russell, Marc Johnson, Henry Flynt, and Arthur Rhames, she also served as a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at SUNY New Paltz and as a visiting Professor of Logic (at Marvin Minsky’s invitation) at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In recent years Hennix has led the just-intonation ensemble the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which has featured musicians Amelia Cuni, Amirtha Kidambi, Chiyoku Szlavnics,  Hilary Jeffrey, Amir El-Saffar, Benjamin Duboc and Rozemarie Heggen. She currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey pursuing studies in classical Arabic and Turkish makam.

Before any instrumentation, Francisco Mela addresses his fellow musicians, pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker, with a sense of anticipation and affirmation, “Okay guys, ready? Rolling!” The sense of camaraderie and his artist-focused approach is heard throughout the album’s majestic improvisation—as well as in its inspiration, dedicated to Mela’s longtime musical partner, the legendary jazz musician McCoy Tyner. Tyner was well-known for his boundless musical talent, and perhaps best-known for playing in John Coltrane’s quartet, which revolutionized the jazz world and reverberated through the music world at large. But it was his mentorship that truly touched Francico Mela: Tyner encouraged him to explore the boundaries of both his personal expression and his musical ability, affirming the philosophical conviction that music was a gateway to liberation. That pursuit of freedom was a lifelong aspiration, and one borne from community. Mela recalls performing at New York City’s Blue Note with McCoy Tyner, on a specific night when maestro Cecil Taylor came to listen to McCoy’s trio. Tyner and Taylor shared a conversation, and afterwards Tyner returned backstage, gently confiding in Mela, “I wish I were that free. We play music to free our souls.” Likewise, Tyner encouraged Mela to pursue his broadening interests, inspiring Francisco to embrace experimentation and musical freedom. In Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 1, Mela, Shipp and Parker compose an album that is equally innovative and welcoming, offering the best of experimental jazz and paying homage to McCoy Tyner’s indelible creative influence. This is the first chapter of Francisco Mela’s Music Frees Our Souls trilogy dedicated to McCoy, always featuring William Parker on bass but with different piano players on each volume. The album, Francisco Mela’s second from 577 Records following MPT Trio (2021), will be available on limited edition blue vinyl (100 copies), black vinyl, CD, digital. Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 2 & 3 will be released in the near future.

Can music liberate us? Francisco Mela, who worked and partnered with the legendary jazz musician McCoy Tyner, believes so. On this album, the second volume of Music Frees Our Souls, Mela collaborates with pianist Cooper-Moore and bassist William Parker to build a 2-part extended track project of advanced dialogue between 3 of the genre's most important instruments. Tyner was well-known for his boundless musical talent, and perhaps best-known for playing in John Coltrane’s quartet, which revolutionized the jazz world and fundamentally influenced the music world at large. Despite his indelible, wide-reaching impact on experimental jazz, it was Tyner’s mentorship that truly touched Francisco Mela: Tyner encouraged him to explore the boundaries of both his personal expression and his musical ability, affirming the philosophical conviction that music was a gateway to liberation. This album is again dedicated to Tyner’s mentorship and encouragement, suggesting we all embrace experimentation and musical freedom. This second volume/album will be available on limited edition burgundy red vinyl, black vinyl, CD, or download in January 2023. Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 3 is also planned for release in the near future. Cooper-Moore - Piano William Parker - Bass Francisco Mela - Drums Recorded November 13, 2020 by Jeremy Loucas at Douglass Recording, Brooklyn, New York

eo Genovese - Piano, sax William Parker - Bass Francisco Mela - Drums Recorded November 13, 2020 by Jeremy Loucas at Douglass Recording, Brooklyn, New York

Outernational Sounds present a reissue of Nate Morgan's Retribution, Reparation, originally released on Nimbus West Records in 1984. A core member of the circle around Horace Tapscott, pianist Nate Morgan was a key member of the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra, known as The Ark. Here is the second of his two LPs for Nimbus West. His first, Journey Into Nigritia had been a declaration of arrival laced with energies drawn from Cecil Taylor and Coltrane. One year later, in 1984, with nods to Herbie Hancock ("One Finger Snap") and Ellington ("Come Sunday"), Retribution, Reparation was a confident statement of purpose. Politically charged with pan-Africanist Black nationalism, and titled with uncompromising directness, the album focusses the sound world of the Ark into a surging, restless masterpiece of spiritualized modal jazz. Danny Cortez on trumpet and Jesse Sharps on saxophones comprise an explosive frontline. Fritz Wise and Ark regular Joel Ector hold down the rhythm section. Morgan's forceful, Tyner-like chords and virtuosic solos bind the music together. From the poised drama of the opening dedication to Tapscott's U.G.M.A.A. organization, through the propulsive militancy of the title track, "Retribution, Reparation" spreads the word: "Advance to Victory, Let Nigritia Be Free!" Fully licensed from Nimbus West founder Tom Albach.

"Joe McPhee's first international release, Black Magic Man, was issued on the newly formed Hat Hut imprint in 1975. It was a watershed moment for the 35-year-old musician. Based in Poughkeepsie, New York, he was too far away from Manhattan to have participated extensively in the Loft Jazz happenings of the decade. European exposure, however, would give McPhee an alternative circuit, something of an escape route from the trappings of American cultural myopia. "In support of the new record for this Swiss label, McPhee invited John Snyder on a European tour in October 1975. Snyder was a synthesizer player with whom McPhee had made the duet LP Pieces Of Light, released a year earlier on CjR. The two musicians developed an extensive repertoire, playing diverse spaces in the Hudson Valley. Geographically close gigs were a plus, since it took extra energy to hoist Snyder's ARP 2600. "McPhee and Snyder were invited to play at the Willisau Jazz Festival in Switzerland. If you compare this live record with Pieces Of Light, a studio effort, it's considerably more open. South African drummer Makaya Ntshoko is rolling thunder on the choral 'Voices,' shuffling under Snyder's bubbly beat on 'Bahamian Folksong.' It is quite a special combination, enough so that Hat Hut chose to release it as their next LP, Hat Hut B in their alphabetical series. The Willisau Concert represents the sound of Joe McPhee opening up, opening out, expanding his field of operations to include new figures, fresh experiences, new continents of sound."

Grapefruit Records is proud to introduce Stenhjärta, a new duo consisting of Gustaf Dicksson & Magnus Jäverling. Both are active in the Swedish Underground music scene centered in Gothenburg. Gustaf is known for his shape-shifting prolific solo project, Blod, as well as his participation in the notable music collective, Enhet för Fri Musik. Magnus is somewhat newer to the scene, appearing on some Blod recordings as well as releasing a fascinating concept album called Bowdark on the Discreet Music label in 2022. As a duo here they are exploring classic prog-folk motifs with very Swedish influences. Gryning Kommer Röd is yet another gorgeous album delivered to us from the heads and hearts of two active musicians of the Swedish Underground.

Demeters Döttrar is the new trio of Ida Skibsted Cramer, Charlott Malmenholt and Astrid Øster Mortensen. Søndag I Spejlet ('Sunday In The Mirror') was mainly recorded in Gamlestaden, Gothenburg between 2022 and 2023 and consists of 8 tracks that lies somewhere in between 90's lo-fi experimental bedroom music and brash text-sound compositions channeled through the ever-inspiring cassette underground. Listening to Demeters Döttrar is like stepping into a parallel universe; a tiny unexplored corner with paper-thin walls or a very delicate bubble that is about to burst any moment. The instrumentation is sparse and mainly consists of guitar, vocals, prepared tapes and occasional harmonica. The recurrence of rain in different forms throughout the recording almost functions as a percussive backbone at times, the one thing except for the sound of the actual room that sort of keeps it all together. With one foot in Sweden and one foot in Denmark, the group is utilizing both countries' language in an uncompromising and peculiarly alluring way. The almost brutal intimacy brings the more mellow Deux Filles moments to mind, though music wise this owes more to Un, early Charalambides and at times groups like Dadamah. A daring, major statement and one of the most beautiful, strange and other-worldly debut albums we heard in quite a while. Mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Gloss laminated covers, comes with insert. Edition of 500 copies.

Māpura Music is a collaborative and spontaneous music making program for people living with disabilities set in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. Its facilitator, Stefan Neville (of Pumice etc.), has been active in the New Zealand underground for over thirty years, personifying an Aotearoa DIY sensibility that effortlessly links melodic song formats with open ended experimentation. On surface level, this collection of improvised group jams verges towards the latter, but soon structures of a playfully melodic sensibility reveal themselves and references beyond the Corpus Hermeticum / Kye axis can be considered. This is neither avant noise nor is it sound collage, but it also barely adheres to any (western) folk, rock or pop song formats. Kinship might be sensed with other disability music projects such as Reynols and Les Harrys, the anarcho stew of London's Triple Negative and even Basil Kirchin's elaborate 'Worlds within Worlds'. But whilst Kirchin famously used the voices of neurodiverse people as source material – with all its possible implications – here we have the people themselves taking agency and center stage. A wildly original sound vision is put forward by this fairly constant crew of ad hoc music makers (Jemima Aherne, Hugh Bawden-Hindle, Trevor Bull, Tom Cathro, Allyson Hamblett, Colin Harris, Dave Kane, Cheyenne Minhinnick, Thais Nesbitt, Stefan Neville, Sushannah Shaw, Yung Sung Chen and Kevin Tan) and a wicked sense of humour ripples through unusual arrangements and track titles like 'Here when You Don't Need Me'. Ominous clatter and drone rock give way to mantra-like vocalisations, slide-guitar workouts to sheets of dreamy keys, chaos is summoned and resolved into clarity. As Neville puts it: "every feeling that is possible is released into the air".

A unique dialogue between the electronic textures of Saint Abdullah with the live drums of Jason Nazary (Anteloper).Saint Abdullah consists of Tehran-born brothers Mohammad and Mehdi Mehrabani-Yeganeh, who have been exploring a diverse palette of sounds over their releases to date, including collaborations with Eomac on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People label, and Model Home on Purple Tape Pedigree, as well as their own duo album on Important Records.Jason Nazary is a drummer and composer from Atlanta and based in Brooklyn. Fascinated by the intersection of acoustic and electronic music, Jason has been a force in New York's creative music scene for over a decade. As well as his own solo work he also co-leads a number of ensembles, among them the dystopian electro noise duo Clebs with singer Emilie Weibel, and until recently Anteloper (International Anthem), an improvising modular beat shredding duo with the much-missed Jaimie Branch.

Blood Blood is a connective tissue. It nourishes. Cleanses. Regulates. Only a living being can create it. Attempts to engineer synthetic blood have not been successful, to date. Thus, either we "produce" it ourselves, or there will be none... Blood is always in motion. It travels throughout our bodies. In each of us, there are an estimated 96,000 kilometers of blood vessels, that pump our blood. If blood is not in motion, it clots within a few minutes. It begins to die... od is not in mi Every minute someone needs blood. One in ten patients is a recipient. One unit (450ml) is capable of saving three lives. On the other hand, in cases of severe burns, up to twenty units are needed for one patient. In Poland, 2.4% of the population donates blood, while in European Union countries the average is about 8%. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." (Leviticus 17:11). For centuries, in all cultures, religions and beliefs, blood has held the same significance. It has been synonymous with life. In ancient Mesopotamia it was believed that the first humans were created from the blood of a slain deity. In Egypt, blood was removed from the body before mummification, to prepare it for eternal life. In the Old Testament, consuming blood was forbidden. This is still the case in Judaic teachings. It contains the life force. Upon death, this force should return to God. Blood saves. "And they shall take the blood of the lamb, and sprinkle it on the doorframes and on the thresholds of the house where they shall eat it. [....] The blood shall serve you to mark the houses, in which you shall dwell. When I see the blood, I will pass by, and there shall not be a destructive plague, among you when I punish the land of Egypt." (Exodus 12:7-13). The God of the Old Covenant will spare the lives of those, whose house is marked with the blood of the Passover lamb. By doing so, a person will make the passage (pesach - literally to pass over, leap over) and be free, just as the Chosen People were liberated from the rule of Egypt. Blood cleanses and justifies. "Then one of the elders addressed me: 'These in white robes,' he asked, 'who are they, and where have they come from?' And I said to him: 'Lord, you know! And he said to me: 'These are those who come, from the great tribulation, and have rinsed their robes, and in the blood of the Lamb have whitened them. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and in His temple they worship Him day and night. And the One seated on the throne shall spread a tent over them." (Revelation 7:13-15) What does blood mean to you? Blood is life and holiness. In the Christian tradition, it is a symbol of eternal life. Blood of Christ gives life and is life, because it is Christ's body. In art, blood is a symbol of emotions. A blood brotherhood, blood pact, or a document signed in blood, are eternally binding. Blood is a bond, a fellowship - this is why in Polish we say related-by-blood and blood-relatives. If you donate blood - someone becomes your relative… The concept for this record began in February, 2023. It is an audio-portrait of the Regional Centre of Blood Donation and Treatment the name of prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Dorobisz in Wroclaw, enriched by the music of Piotr Damasiewicz and Jakub Wójcik. It is not background music. It is music that requires attention and focus. Detachment and meditation. An immersion into its depths. "Blood" is an invitation to experience a journey. A journey of living fully, through stopping, to rebirth and a new existence. "Blood" is YOU and your interpretation of the world and its hues.

“Make Polish Jazz great again”: Piotr Damasiewicz & Power of the Horns return with “Polska” LP A musical visionary, some outstanding instrumentalists, the 10th anniversary of the collective’s founding, a reflection on Polishness, and finally – a 4,000 km-long walking pilgrimage of 100 solo concerts in 100 temples. These events, symbols, experiences and facts have somehow been combined into one coherent whole – the Polska LP, the first release by Piotr Damasiewicz & Power of the Horns Ensemble since 2013. “Power of the Horns have the ability to captivate audiences of any festival, from jazz gigs to the huge Open’er, from the Baltic Sea coast to the Tatra Mountains, and hopefully in every corner of the globe”, as Kajetan Prochyra wrote in Jazzarium a few years ago, shortly after the release of the phenomenal concert album Alaman which earned the band considerable fame in the jazz scene. Power of the Horns, however, turned out to be a scarce commodity. They only performed on special occasions, and it took 6 years for their second album to be released. Now they are back with the album titled Poland. This repertoire is a kind of synthesis of what influenced the image of jazz that accompanied Piotr Damasiewicz while building his musical identity. This is the essence of what was closest to Piotr’s heart in Polish jazz in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, when he would mostly listen to Polish masters live, on the radio and on recordings. It was a period when he often listened to Wojtasik with Szukalski and Harper (it was the Quest album that was the main inspiration behind “Billy”), or some of the unearthly recordings of the Polish trumpet master Tomasz Stańko, such as Bosonossa, Litania, and From the Green Hill. Damas spent that period of his life in Katowice, which he still associates with the hard work of miners. It also remains a symbol of Polish industrial characterised by heavy groove... That’s why he has composed “Kleofas”, an homage to one of the Katowice coal mines. The recording session for Polska LP occurred at a very special time. The album was recorded the day before and on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, as these were the only available dates for all of the musicians. The exceptional atmosphere and thus the dignity of this time were emphasized by the events preceding the recordings. “It was a very moving period, concluding a certain era, as several people close to us, both musically and personally, died. The great master, Tomasz Stańko, to whom we partly dedicated this session, passed away” – the leader explains. There is some kind of symbolism in the fact that when the sound of sirens froze Warsaw for a moment as it does yearly, the album session in Studio S2 (Polskie Radio) was coming to an end. Last year Piotr Damasiewicz and his orchestra celebrated the 10th anniversary of Power of the Horns. It is hard to believe that it took a decade for one of the most outstanding bands promoting Polish jazz in the world to record their first studio album. However, it is hardly surprising given that the leader of PotH – Piotr “Damas” Damasiewicz – is one of the busiest Polish artists around. It is not easy to lead such a big orchestra of gifted musicians, or, to be more precise, a bunch of contemporary Polish jazz stars – that's why the line-up that took all the jazz recaps of 2013 by storm with their debut concert album Alaman (For Tune) remained in phonographic slumber for another 6 years, at the same time putting on a few major concerts with guests such as James Carter, Lotte Anker, Anna Karwan and Zdzisław Piernik. Since the formation of Power of the Horns, the band leader has received a Fryderyk award for his jazz debut, while his colleagues, an alto saxophonist Maciej Obara and Dominik Wania, a pianist, have successfully released albums for the legendary German ECM label. For Piotr Damasiewicz, 2019 is a year full of round numbers. Damas set off on a 4,000 km pilgrimage along the Way of Saint James starting in May when he crossed the border with Ukraine in the village of Korczowa, continuing through the south of Poland, Germany, France, and finally completing the journey in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain. The very idea of such journey seems to be impressive but if one adds that the trumpeter’s mission was to play 100 solo trumpet concerts in 100 temples of various denominations in order to prepare for his academic research, it’s beyond comprehension. Astigmatic Records is all the more proud to present Polska LP, the first, long-awaited studio album of Power of the Horns Ensemble led by Piotr Damasiewicz. The 42 minutes of this outstanding music was recorded in the summer of 2018 in Studio S2 in Warsaw under the supervision of Michał Kupicz who was also responsible for the mix. The album is due to be released on CD, vinyl, and all streaming platforms on November 29, 2019. It can be now pre-ordered in Asfalt Shop and Sounds of The Universe, as well as via the Bandcamp platform. The premiere concert showcasing the Polska programme will be held during the Wrocław Jazztopad Festival on November 23, 2019. The event will be preceded by a meeting with Piotr Damasiewicz taking place at 11 a.m. in Mleczarnia near Narodowe Forum Muzyki.

Piotr Damasiewicz - TRUMPET Liba Villavecchia - ALTO SAX Grzegorz Lesiak - GUITAR Alex Reviriego - BASS Vasco Trilla - DRUMS, PERCUSSIONS The band Damasiewicz, Lesiak, Villavecchia, Reviriego, Trilla with SKAWA recording is the result of cooperation and friendship of five exceptional artists. The paths of these musicians have intertwined for many years. Each of them is characterized by a unique sound and the awareness of creating their own language, which is a bridge connecting artistic sensitivity, philosophy, mysticism and reality. Each of them blazes its own trail, often in difficult and untouched terrain. Constantly transcending themselves is the essence of their creativity and the true art of living. The initiator of the project is the guitarist Grzegorz Lesiak, who together with the Catalan drummer Vasco Trilla and the bassist Alex Reviriego created an adventure music band called "Essence". The combination of this line-up with the activity and philosophy of the multi-instrumentalist Piotr Damasiewicz is no coincidence, thanks to whom their art has acquired a deeper, spiritual dimension. This unique arrangement is characterized by coherence, openness and extremely subtle expression. Lesiak, Trilla, Reviriego, Damasiewicz recorded the album On The Way under this banner, then decided to invite another musician, Liba Villavecchia, with whom Trilla and Reviriego already co-create the Catalan trio. This is how the quintet was created. They recorded in Beskid Mały in Sucha Beskidzka in a location characteristic for Damasiewicz label, i.e. near Mioduszyna in Śpiwle. The material was recorded in October 2022. It contains interpretations of 5 impressions written by Damasiewicz. L.A.S. listening and sounding – a new concert-publishing initiative, the goal of which, in addition to recording and releasing sounds, is to promote art and music by experiencing it together on the listener-musician, artist-viewer line. The energy built during concerts and live recordings allows for creation of unique publications, with inserts including, as a tangible result of cooperation, the audience’s impressions about the music they listened to.L.A.S.is an artistic platform focusing on the co-creation and coexistence of unforced interpersonal relations. It is the realization of the mutual need to share knowledge and skills, of being in harmony and with nature, of mutual respect for space, building relationships with the world, looking at what is happening around you, focusing on your own needs, listening to yourself and others, of different perception of the world, being in peace with nature and yourself, of following your intuition. All of this guides Piotr Damasiewicz – such goals and principles, among others, are implemented in the L.A.S. In a way, L.A.S. constitutes a platform where you can stop and ponder or talk about what is meaningful to everyone. The basis of such meetings is sound and openness to listening.

We would like to introduce a new Polish- Austrian quartet led by the trumpeter and composer Piotr Damasiewicz and his Viennese connections- the meticulously passionate saxophonist Krzysztof Kasprzyk, Viennese-to-the-bone, versatile bassist Thomas Stempkowski , and the jazz and electronica drummer Alex Yannilos.The music of the quartet is best described as “(…) expressive, free though very rhythmic and melodic, manic at times, always lovingly passionate.” It goes back to dear to our hearts sounds of 60es and 70es jazz, in which composed and conjointly improvised had an equal place and the energy between musicians and listeners during a live performance was the crucial part of a creating process. The formation of the band is the result of a meeting of the musicians as part of the Melomaniac Corner concert series, organised by Anna Moser in cooperation with the Polish Institute in Vienna, which took place in Strenger Kammer, in the viennese jazz-club Porgy & Bess in February 2019. The repertoire was written especially for this occasion by Piotr Damasiewicz. The band members felt that the collective had something special, something worth continuing. The idea to release an album arose. In April musicians met again to prepare for the recordings. In May 2019, the Viennese Suite material was recorded in the renown Amann studio in Vienna, in a live recording session as part of the new initiative and label of the leader- L.A.S.