This is the French National Jazz Orchestra - on this recording a 11 piece band - who have a revolving cast of artistic directors.
This is a frighteningly good, stunningly complex album of electric jazz that is on the level of complexity, especially rhythmically of someone like Albert Marcoeur or Arrigo Barnabe, if either of those two were writing 'jazz'.
Lots of great stuff going on at fairly blinding speed and those who know my enthusiasm for avant-progressive and envelope-pushing that doesn't..

The ONJazz is the French National Jazz Orchestra – which varies in size, but is always a big band - who have a revolving cast of artistic directors.
Since they have a revolving cast of directors, the only thing that you can count on is that they will present great players playing frighteningly good, stunningly complex music of electric jazz. That’s a pretty good and safe bet for going in blind, even if you don’t know them.

“With his second program entitled Rituals, the first repertoire of...

"The raucously raw, Vodoun-inspired rhythms of Cotonou have confirmed Benin as a mecca of '70s Afro sounds and revived the story of its people, but the unopened vaults housing the country's catacombs of musical riches are endless. With this as a...

Really great 12 piece band from Geneva; their albums are very good, but their shows are SO much fun.

“Founded in 2006 by Vincent Bertholet (Hyperculte), the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp is a large-scale project. Designed as a real orchestra, the size of the ensemble has varied over time. Now with 12 members, 14 in the past or 6 at the beginning, the ensemble has scoured the stages of Europe to demonstrate that the formula "the more the merrier" has never been more true than on stage...

"In a trajectory full of about-faces, Music for Four Guitars splices the formal innovations of Bill Orcutt's software-based music into the lobe-frying, blown-out Fender hyperdrive of his most frenetic workouts with Corsano or Hoyos. And while the guitar tone here is resolutely treble-kicked -- or, as Orcutt puts it, 'a bridge pickup rather than a neck pickup record' -- it still wades the same melodic streams as his previous LPs (yet, as Heraclitus taught us, that stream is utterly different the second...

“Oregon emerged in 1970 as a splinter band from the Paul Winter Consort. Its members each had experience in jazz, classical, and a variety of non-western musical styles, and were also multi-instrumentalists.
Ralph Towner played standard acoustic and 12-string guitar, piano, a variety of electric keyboards, trumpet, and flügelhorn.
Paul McCandless' instrumental arsenal included oboe, English horn, soprano sax, bass clarinet, the musette, and tin flute.
Collin Walcott handled most of the...

"Oregon, formed in 1970, comprised Ralph Towner (classical and 12-string guitars), Paul McCandless (oboe and English horn), Glen Moore (double bass) and Collin Walcott (sitar and tabla).
The band's music has always been almost totally acoustic. ''Acoustic instruments sound more expressive to me,'' Towner explained to Jazzwise magazine (UK) in September 1997. He further explained his guitar style: ''With classical guitar [you're] using all the fingers of your right hand to pluck which means you can...

Oregon, which had its origins in the Paul Winter Consort of the 1960s, emerged in the very late 1960s and boasted four talented players who were all multi-instrumentalists: Ralph Towner (12-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, French horn), Paul...

“This is how Oregon should have always played. Hard driving, focused and rhythmic while still being airy and lyrical. Absolutely an undiscovered masterpiece.”

“'Everyone Is Evil' is the Oresund Space Collective's's 40th release. This session took place in Sept. 2022 and collected up a number of top musicians to create several albums of progressive, psychedelic, world music and space rock!
The track 'Everyone Is Evil' is an epic 64 minutes track that takes the listener on an intense journey through different universes and a bit of Can, Magma and other bands but in their own unique way. 'Everyone Is Good' brings you down to a more calm state in this...

Recorded October 4-5, 2008 by this great, Danish, all-improvising, instrumental spacerock outfit. This is a terrific band who are not as appreciated as they should be and whom are awaiting greater discovery by fans of the genre.

“The music on this album was recorded during the October 2008 sessions that gave us the 'Dead Man In Space' and 'Slip Into The Vortex' releases. 'Sleeping With The Sunworm' is a 56 minutes space rock jam (originally released on CD in 2011), which is split into three parts..

“Mos/Fet is the first studio album by the French band Orgöne. Fully self-produced, this first opus is a double-album composed of four twenty-minutes tracks, delivering a complete immersion from which you won't escape unscathed. With Mos/Fet, Orgöne reveals a SF mythology mixing '70s pop culture, ancient Egypt, pan-Africanism, spatial and paranormal exploration against the backdrop of Cold War and USSR. This first album is an interdimensional music journey in which the guide would have left you alone in...

Before they emerged in 1971 with Collage, firmly establishing themselves as one of the top Italian progressive rock bands of the 70s and one of the originators of the RPI template, Le Orme released a number of late 60s singles and an album which were very much of the psychedelic spirit of the times, mixed with a bit of their ‘beat group’ beginnings.
This collects that album and those singles in one package. Hear the band as they started; a quintet of organ/celeste/electric piano, guitars, flutes...

Collage, Le Orme's first progressive album and third overall, is a stripped-down affair with only organ, piano, bass and drums. The exception is the opening title track which could be considered the bridge between their psych and prog compositions styles. Collage" has a "kitchen sink" mentality and features an orchestra, pseudo-baroque motifs and some shallow trendy moves. However, the next track, "Era Inverno", is the beginning of the classic Le Orme sound. Aldo Tagliapietra's instantly recognizable....

About 5 years ago, after a 10 year silence, Le Orme came out of nowhere with a new line up (2 new keyboardists + bassist/guitarist/vocalist Aldo Tagliapietra & drummer Michi Dei Rossi) and a very fine reunion album, Il Fiume. This is their follow up an...

Aldo Tagliapietra : vocals, bass, 12-string & acoustic guitars, sitar
Francesco Sartori : piano, keyboards
Michele Bon / Hammond organ, keyboards, guitar synth, choral arrangements (6)
Michi Dei Rossi : drums, percussion, glockenspiel, gamelan
Venice Gospel Ensemble : chorus vocals (6,10)
Andrea Dal Paos : choral arrangements & conducting (6,10)
Paolo Steffan : acoustic guitar (10)
Pepè Fiore : tabla (6)

“A 1996 return to quasi-form for one of the most important

Coinciding with the release of Contrappunti, Le Orme released their first live album titled In Concerto. The selections contained on this release are curious only by the omission of current material. 95 percent of all the chosen songs are from their ra...

The 3rd album by the reformed Italian classical/symphonic rock band Le Orme, since they re-emerged in the mid 90's. This has been unavailable for a number of years now and makes a welcome return.
This features two keyboardists (one on piano, keyboards and violin and one on organ, keyboards and guitar emulator), original drummer Michi Dei Rossi and original vocalist/bassist Aldo Tapliapietra. It's very good!
Like in the old days, it includes a cover by Paul Whitehead.

Uomo di Pezza, Le Orme's fourth album, opens appropriately enough with an organ prelude joined by a complex and heavy rhythm section. Silence begets a piano melody and then Aldo's beautiful voice enters. The model found on Collage has been rediscovered...

Two scored works by this young composer/improviser/producers, these pieces generally develop very slowly & pain-stakingly, but are not tranquil. [Tzadik]

One of my many, many 'odd' musical pleasures is the latin music of the Palladium era (late 40s / mid 50s) by a number of mostly expatriate Cubans living in New York, such as Tito Puente, Anselmo Sacassas, Machito, etc.
This new release has more of *that* spirit and *that* sound than any other modern recording I have heard. Conditionally recommended.

"Akokán is a Yoruba word used in Cuba meaning “from the heart,” and indeed, every song on the self-titled debut album (Daptone Records) by...

Aruán Ortiz: Piano
Brad Jones: Bass
Chad Taylor: Drums, Mbira

"When Aruán Ortiz appeared with his new trio at Zürich’s unerhört!-festival on 26 November 2016, the sense of anticipation was palpable; how would the music from the well-received studio album Hidden Voices feel in a live context. The trio were at the end of their first European tour, and on a roll. Immediately after the concert Ortiz was already enthusing about the interaction and musical dialogue.
“Mulling it over” – ...

Aruán Ortiz: Piano
Brad Jones: Bass
John Betsch: Drums

“Aruán Ortiz, acclaimed as a piano cubist, excellent jazz improviser and wayward stylist who strays far from Cuban music while remaining so deeply rooted in Cuba’s musical tradition, presents an impressive trio album with two congenial collaborators Brad Jones and John Betsch. Cuban influences from toques, rumba and Afro-Haitian music blend with European art music and modern jazz. “Serranías is a special album for a double anniversary

Ludal Le Chacal: voice & keyboards
Captain Flapattak: drums & voice
Thybo: guitar & voice
Fabien De Kerbaleck: bass & voice

This band features several members of the Zeuhl band Rhun, in a more rock / oddball guise and using nom de plumes!

"The psychedelic keyboard rides as a top thing while using the distorted base and relatively cymbal-based drumming as a whole, feeling the influence from MAGMA, Orthodox rock with multiple vocals By singing out a melodic line, soun

Osage Tribe were formed in 1971 by Franco Battiato, then working as pop singer, with his loyal drummer Cucciolo, guitarist Marco Zoccheddu who had just left Nuova Idea and bass guitarist Bob Callero...the remaining trio, based in Genova...