Category: Album Reviews

July 16, 2020 / Album Reviews - Archive

PROJECT-K (Savant) 8/10 At first you think there’s a guitar in the ensemble, and then you hear more clearly the teardrop-shaped notes of Do Yeon Kim’s gayageum, the ancient Korean cousin of the koto. Jazz being a language rather than an idiom, the instrument readily slots into this music’s neon…

July 11, 2020 / Album Reviews - Archive

STOCK (Lionsharecords/Planet) 9/10 Here’s the tangible benefit of not rushing to record a band; of letting it simmer away in rehearsal and live performance so, when it hits the studio, cohesion is a given. But this being saxophonist/clarinettist Julien Wilson, cohesion does not equate to abandoning exploration and simply settling…

June 28, 2020 / Album Reviews - Archive

THE EARLY BIRD GETS (Aerophonic/Birdland) 9/10 It’s like a blade – not so much a scalpel and as scythe, hewing its way straight into your central nervous system. I first heard it soon after a general anaesthetic, and I swear hospitals could use Dave Rempis’s alto sound to clear their…