free jazz and free-form improvisation (or whatever pleases our ears for that matter)
Saxophonist Matthieu Metzger likes going beyond the traditional techniques associated with his instrument, notably thanks to his passion for electronic treatments – he's been designing real time transformation music software since he was a kid.
This 31-year-old investigator of musical genres loves to venture into dangerous territory. As well as being a fine jazz player/improviser and a member of the French ONJ (Orchestre National de Jazz), he's dipped into contemporary music, folk, rock, metal and mandingo.
Some of these compositions lurked in Matthieu's memory or his shelves, others were specially written for this occasion – the strange and exciting experience of planning an album. With no unity to justify, no tragic concept. As a matter of fact, it was all about the pleasure of cooking for you something abstract and joyful.
Who is blowing? Through what organic or manufactured matter? Who can stir up the glowing embers, swell the sails, carve the glass? Who can tame the air?
Tamers of gusts, surfers of atmospheric waves, explorers of windswept labyrinths, Géraldine Keller and Jean-Luc Cappozzo have over the last ten years devised a unique taming act, whereby they subject the ether to their every whim.
This album tells so much more than the intertwined stories of a windchaser who played jazz until he forgot the very notion of idiom, and a soprano with a background in contemporary music who readily immersed herself in the deep end of the moment.
On the red-hot thread of this friendship (or this love, call it what you want!) the duo whose stubborn search you are about to witness are like tightrope walkers without a safety net over a den whose lions, pacified, keep quiet…
An all-improvised transnational collaboration between: Mike Ladd (vocals & synthi), Carol Robinson (clarinets & voice), Dave Randall (guitar) and Dirk Rothbrust (drums & percussion).
Mike is known for fucked-up musical musings and lyrics and has released many a cut on Big Dada records. He brings his voice and synthi to the mix. Carol comes from the contemporary and experimental worlds. She plays all sorts of clarinets and sometimes talks on mic. Dave plays with a whole bunch of people including Faithless and has released records as Slovo and Randall. He brings electric guitar and his guitar FX to the mix. Dirk is a drummer and general heavy new music guy from Köln. He brings lots of surprising things on which to bang.
It's a question of connection, of combining multiple sound worlds, of going into totally unexpected places...
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Founded in 2000 in Sweden by Jan Ström and Åke Bjurhamn, Ayler Records has gained recognition among free jazz fans over the years by releasing both archive and contemporary recordings from artists as diverse as Jimmy Lyons, Noah Howard, Peter Brötzmann, William Parker or Charles Gayle, as well as documenting the Scandinavian free jazz scene.
In 2009, Ayler Records moved to France where it is now operated by Stéphane Berland who had joined the label in 2005, bringing with him the will to open the catalogue to forms of improvised music in less direct relationship with the free jazz history, while remaining faithful to the original spirit.