Rob Mazurek-cornet, voice, bells, modular synth, sampler
Thollem Electric-modified electric paino, analog effects

“Only briefly acquainted, McDonas and Mazurek show remarkable responsiveness to each other in these complex improvisations. The nineteen minute opener "Shouts" begins in a haze of electric piano and synth before Mazurek slips into a disembodied wordless chant adding to the otherworldliness of the piece. About fourteen minutes in, the cornet becomes identifiable, the piano's notes..

Evan Parker - soprano saxophone
Matthew Wright - turntable, live processing, sound design

“Horizons Held Close is the first unadorned Trance Map release featuring only Evan Parker and Matthew Wright since their 2011 debut. The sounds are strange but utterly compelling. Parker's soprano snakes its way through Wright's turntables, software, and processing/sampling.”

“It is no longer startling to hear tubes and valves channelling breath and imagination into such fine gradations of utterance. The process of deterritorialization from the trumpet's inherited identity is too far advanced to spring major surprises. The pleasure of listening to Hautzinger and Ulher together lies in the success of their creative interaction, the synergetic uplift of their shared and distinct techniques, their spontaneous responses and intuitive leaps. Prolonged introspection blossoms into...

Lisa Ullén - piano
Elsa Bergman - double bass
Anna Lund - Drums

“Ullén/Bergman/Lund is a piano trio based in Stockholm that plays free jazz that channels the American free jazz tradition as well as contemporary classical music. Combining raw power with an exquisite attention to detail, the three musicians make every moment sparkle with possibilities. In this aural space, every movement matters.
Ullén and fellow Swedes Bergman and Lund are all significant players in the...

Maria Valencia - alto sax, Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, toy piano, cymbal, percussion

"Compendio de Alofonías Abisales was imagined between the town of Sutatausa (Colombia) and the mountains of Banff (Canada). Intuitively, it was recorded in July 2022 during an artistic residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Inspired by old naturalist manuals, the pieces that make up this recording are fleeting sound taxonomies that ambiguously reveal the movements of the wind, the play of the...

Benjamín Vergara: trumpet

"This impossibility is propelled as an subterranean homage to trumpet players of the caliber of Don Cherry, Bill Dixon, Miles Davis, Lester Bowie, Tomasz Stanko, Wadada Leo Smith, Jaimie Branch and Chet Baker, all of them sublime atmosphere creators who observe the universe as a unit."

Fie Schouten - bass clarinet, clarinet in A, basset horn
Vincent Courtois - violoncello
Guus Janssen - piano, organ, harmonium, harpsichord
Giuseppe Doronzo - baritone saxophone (tracks 6-8, 10)

“This music is improvised and inspired by Judith Schalansky’s book "Atlas of Remote Islands: 50 islands I never set foot in and never will." The music is an echo of her writing, of inspiration by islands, entities with different and changing characteristics.”

ALEX WARD: clarinet (tracks 1, 2 & 4) and electric guitar (tracks 2, 3 & 4)
CHARLOTTE KEEFFE: trumpet and flugelhorn
OTTO WILLBERG: double bass
ANDREW LISLE: drums

“Item 4 is Alex Ward's latest ensemble to feature his compositions for improvisers. His previous work in this field with ensembles such as Predicate, Forebrace and the Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet has been described as "deft and utterly mesmeric" (Philip Clark, The Guardian review of Alex Ward Quintet "Glass Shelves And ...

Zosha Warpeha - Hardanger d'amore & voice

"silver dawn is an ethereal collection of improvised vignettes performed on solo Hardanger d’amore, a sympathetic-stringed relative of the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. Resonant strings and wordless vocals are gently guided by the cyclical momentum of dance and the instrument’s lingering overtones, magnifying moments of transience in suspensions of time."

Jamison Williams - baritone saxophone

"Solo baritone saxophone recorded at Le Sauvage cathedral, Luxembourg; the place name goes back to a legend of a wild woman, who is supposed to have only eaten raw meat, had a double row of teeth, and lived under a rocky promontory, where she was buried by a landslide. In early chronicles, it is referred to as Val de la sauvage femme (French for "Valley of the wild woman")."

“Commissioned by Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation, trumpeter Nate Wooley developed a modular compositional structure of small melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, conceptual, textural, and timbral fragments, allowing Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), and Matt Moran (Vibes) exceptional freedom in improvisation.
Wooley starts of with a fine little melody in the first piece, then Moran comes along, and a few moments later Courvoisier adds some tones to it. It all starts very calm and...

Jack Wright - tenor, alto and soprano saxophones

“There is a delicacy and a passionate hardness, stripped bare of cloying sentiment. Its rawness is the exuberance of sound overflowing, basking in its self-created luxury…. It is, every bit of it, composed the same moment you hear it.”

If you give this very spacious, large emsemble recording that is very open and also very planned the time and attention that it needs to unfold, I think you’ll be entranced!

“As a musician, I've been curious for many years of how collective musical practices can provide a sense of weightlessness, as well as how a focused interplay can blur the lines between musicians and sound sources and create reconfigurations of the relations between the two. I have also tried to explore these observations in...