The album, recorded in 2001 in Cologne, Germany, is a tremendous soundscape that focuses on the micro: dings of the glockenspiel, muted thud of prepared piano, hiss of electronics, and scrapes of percussion, played in service to the macro musical arch.
The cast is an eye-catcher: Sylvie Courvoisier on piano, prepared piano, Tony Oxley providing percussion, Bill Laswell on bass, field recordings, electronics, Miroslav Tadic on guitars, Pat Thomas on cassette player, electronics, electric keyboard....

Angelica Sanchez - Piano
Camila Nebbia - Tenor Saxophone

"Camila Nebbia and Angelica Sanchez form a remarkable duo with an immediate affinity that is truly striking. Sanchez's austere lyricism beautifully complements Nebbia's highly expressive language, resulting in duets that showcase their creative and profoundly interactive nature."

Ornella Noulet - alto saxophone except track 6 played on soprano saxophone & bells

"Promise of Faithfulness was created during a winter in Brussels, between the search for new sounds and the interest of what we might call spirits in music. This debut solo album is a tribute to the last words of Albert Camus's speech for the Nobel Prize : "It remains for me to thank you from the bottom of my heart and to make before you publicly, as a personal sign of my gratitude, the same and ancient promise...

“Large-scale improvisation runs the risk of devolving into indistinct masses of sound. While this outcome is not necessarily undesirable, maintaining coherence among more than a handful of improvisers is a challenge. Onceim, a French ensemble of over 30 musicians led by Frédéric Blondy, manages to thread this needle by taking a slow, quiet approach that hides complexity within passages of long-held tones.”-Avant Music News

Evan Parker - soprano saxophone (1,3,5,6) tenor saxophone (2, 4)

“Evan Parker made his first trip to North America as a performer in the fall of 1978 touring solo in the US and Canada. His landmark solo record Monoceros had been recorded in April. This is a recording of his first solo performance in New York City. While it may lack the sonic fidelity of Monoceros, its raw passion makes a statement to the New York audiences lucky to have been at Environ that October evening.”

“Composer/Performer Zeena Parkins announces the release of two multi-part compositions, inspired by discoveries she made combing through the Walter Benjamin archives in Berlin. “Past Turned Space” features virtuoso players William Winant/percussion and Brett Carson/keyboards navigating a set of vignettes, flickering in response to Benjamin’s intimate descriptions of childhood memories. “Dam Against the Spring Tide” is graced with an all-star band of composer/performers, including: Zeena Parkins/acoustic...

“Pavone composed four distinct pieces for In the Action, all employing extended bowing techniques, and focusing on in repetition, song form, and sympathetic vibration, with clever usage of effects. The first one "Oscillatory Salt Transport" suggests a series of gentle, resonating waves that somehow bridge between the strict, highly disciplined minimalism of New York and sensual, folk melodies of the British isles. This piece actually refers to the waves of the ocean and how they are essentially pushing...

Jessica Pavone - compositions, viola, effects, track 2 performed using one of Ken Butler’s hybrid instruments

"What Happens Has Become Now is Jessica Pavone's fifth solo viola album and her fourth for Relative Pitch Records. Over the past twenty years, Pavone has been developing solo music based on the pitches of the open strings intended to accentuate the natural sympathetic resonances of her particularly loud viola. Over the years, she has incorporated and experimented with electronic effects...

Ab Baars-tenor saxophone, clarinet, shakuhachi
Ig Henneman-viola
Ingrid Laubrock-tenor and soprano saxophones
Tom Rainey-drums

“Dutch theatricality meets American resourcefulness on this conclave from four like-minded musicians whose collective tastes veer to the freer end of the improvisational spectrum. As it turns out, shorthand sobriquets for the participants on the CD spine also work as a solid, semi-ambiguous band name. Live @ the Jazz Happening Tampere provides the...

Chris Pitsiokos-alto sax

“This is Pitsiokos' second solo saxophone release for Relative Pitch. His first one, "Speak in Tongues" was a tribute to his forbears on the horn. On "Art of the Alto" Pitsiokos stakes his claim to stand amongst them.”

Peter Evans - trumpets
Tim Dahl - electric bass & microphone
Mike Pride - drumset, glockenspiel & auxiliary percussion

“Pulverize the Sound was formed in the intensely collaborative, hybridized, prolific and promiscuous scene of NYC experimental music. Its members have clocked in time with musicians and bands from a huge variety of scenes, always ending up in a place peripheral to any definable genre.
Collectively, the members of Pulverize the Sound have worked with Lydia Lunch..

Mette Rasmussen - alto saxophone and objects
Paul Flaherty - alto and tenor saxophones
Zach Rowden - contrabass
Chris Corsano - drums, percussion

“A blisteringly sensitive assaultive slow dash concerning the heartbreaking space between and within solids. Two saxes, bass and drums freely improvising a restrained tantalizing acceptance.”

Ada Rave: tenor sax + preparations, soprano and sopranino on track 6

Tenor saxophonist Ada Rave, born and raised in Argentina, decided to move to Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 2013. She had heard ‘the call’, followed her musical intuition and became part of the colorful community of Dutch creative improvised music.
Educated in the jazz tradition she started to look for a more personal language. A deep search. Not an easy path to go.
The destination is always changing. Each step

Tomeka Reid - Cello
Isidora Edwards - Cello
Elisabeth Coudoux - Cello

“We maneuver through woody sounds created by individual movements and decisions. Our cello playing is free from classical patterns, a real achievement! It is not natural to develop one's own approach to this high culture instrument. In this trio there are three multi-layered variations of personal expressive will and power.”

“Searching for leadership in a singular sense on Geometry of Caves immediately becomes an exercise in needless futility. The foursome behind the fifty-minutes of freely improvised music is resolute in its acceptance of communal responsibility and creation. Vocalist Kyoko Kitamura sings and speaks in wordless flurries, matching and Taylor Ho Bynum’s brassy exhortations on cornet and either bass or piccolo trumpets. Cellist Tomeka Reid and guitarist Joe Morris worry and pluck their respective strings...

“It’s not a novelty that Canadian-born, New York-based trumpeter Stephanie Richards is a risk-taking artist, considering she has worked with giants of the improvised new music such as Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill as well as Kanye West and The Pixies, references in the contemporary rap and indie-rock genres, respectively.
In collaboration with the electronics wizard Dino J.A. Deane, whom she met through the late 'conduction' pioneer Butch Morris, Richards releases her first solo record...

Erin Rogers - saxophones, compositions

"2000 Miles – the second solo album from Erin Rogers – dives deep into the sonic underbelly of the saxophone, uncovering a radiant world of imagination and curiosity, where beauty is served raw. Rogers forges an alternative voice for the instrument, percussively blending tone with mechanism and melody with shimmering vocals, gutturals and breath. Singular sounds erupt into splatters of harmonic partials and multiphonics, while layers of industrial...

“They combine on three long-form improvs, the shortest of which clocks in at just over 17 minutes, giving ample scope for the freewheeling exploration at which all three excel. They take such an egalitarian approach that it's a noticeable event when one drops out. In a favored gambit, Rupp's scratchy staccato guitar textures jostle against extended legato lines from Schubert and Rogers, but that just provides a launching point for further goings-on in which they match dynamics, hit peaks of intensity and...

Sofia Salvo - baritone saxophone

"The first solo release of baritone saxophonist Sofia Salvo, “ROTAROTA” consists of a series of improvised pieces. They evoke emotional memories aspiring to set them free and mutate them into blaring music."

Frank Schubert – alto & soprano saxophones
Alexander von Schlippenbach - piano
Martin Blume – drums, percussion

“The trio is comprised of legend and the doyen of improvised music and free jazz: the pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach. The term "accompaniment" is rather unsuitable for the trio: Frank Paul Schubert on alto and soprano saxophone and Martin Blume on drums, act as equal partners. All trio members at ear level are the source of ideas and impulses, their interplay is a subtle.

“‘Root Of Things’ is a good example of how an unconventional arrangement can make very natural sounding music. Bisio’s bass lines syncs up with Shipp’s piano lines then diverge onto its own parallel path only to reunite with Shipp again. Dickey acts not as a timekeeper but a third timbre zone, serving dashes of cymbals and tom-toms in measured portions. Together, the symmetry produces something that doesn’t seem ordered but makes sense.
For ‘Solid Circut,’ it’s Shipp’s turn to begin the performance...

Tamio Shiraishi - alto saxophone

"Tamio Shiraishi has worked out of Queens, NY since the early 1990s and regularly plays solo sets in the NYC subway system which have become the stuff of legend. Much of Tamio's solo aesthetic is built off of interactions with a physical space.
These ten archival duos represent some of Tamio's work with like-minded improvisors."

“Saxophonist Catherine Sikora makes a bold and singular statement with her solo album Jersey. Each of the 13 tracks is both a fully realized and poignant stand-alone monologue as well as an essential link in an intimate and deeply personal artistic expression.
A serene, logical progression of notes transforms the calm "The Knowing of Sums" into a passionate and blue-tinged improvisation. Energetic and crisp lines weave a graceful melody that returns to the opening quietude. The ardent and...

Chloë Sobek - violone
Tim Berne - alto saxophone

“This is the first collaboration between Australian improvisor Chloë Sobek who plays the Renaissance precursor to the double bass, the violone and New York saxophonist Tim Berne.”

Steve Swell - trombone, pocket trumpet

"Rhina P. Espaillat is a poet whose poem “Why Publish?” (please google it!) imagines how her poetry could touch someone 100 years from now. That poem speaks of her connection with a future reader. It inspired me to see my music the same way and think what it might mean for someone who picks up this recording in the future and connect with it in a way I might not have imagined. It might inspire a future listener to take the risk of creating or doing...