A new episode of KEVIN PRESS’ The Moderns podcast features a piece from one of our recent releases: HYDRA ENSEMBLE – VISTAS (cd). The album is available from our bandcamp store.

Yes, this Friday June 24th we’re hosting our 4th label event at the nice PlusEtage jazz club in Baarle-Nassau (Netherlands). Before the Summer stop, we’re pleased to welcome Belgian percussionist KRIS VANDERSTRAETEN, cellist LUCIJA GREGOV and guitarist DIRK SERRIES to the live stage. As we know this will be a treat for the abstraction in free improvisation. The musical pallet and inventive trickery of percussionist KRIS VANDERSTRAETEN (something you need to see to understand and revel in), the nuanced but striking musicianship of cellist LUCIJA GREGOV and the wilful pointillism of guitarist DIRK SERRIES guarantees to be an unique event. Tickets are available at the entrace or you can reserve your seat by emailing : info@plusetage.nl 

MOORS MAGAZINE just reviewed ONNO GOVAERT + SERRIES/VERHOEVEN’s TWOFOLD double disc on A New Wave Of Jazz. A lot of praise and a funny but warm reference to the great Cecil Taylor.

Read it here (in Dutch). The album is available from our bandcamp store.

“Twofold is een dubbel-album – op de ene cd hoor je drummer/percussionist Onno Govaert spelen met pianiste Martina Verhoeven, op de andere cd speelt Dirk Serries versterkte akoestische gitaar, ook met Onno Govaert.

Het album met Martina Verhoeven doet oppervlakkig gezien wat denken aan een klassiek jazz-piano-drums-duo (denk aan Cecil Taylor in Berlijn) maar Verhoeven en Govaert durven paden te bewandelen die eerder nog niet bewandeld waren – eat your heart out, Cecil Taylor! Waar bij soortgelijke duo’s de pianist vaak de Grote Solist is en de drummer de ondersteuner, zijn Govaert en Verhoeven volledig gelijkwaardig, en dat betekent bijvoorbeeld ook dat Verhoeven regelmatig een stapje terug doet om Govaert de ruimte te geven, en dat pakt steeds enorm goed uit. De drie stukken die we hier horen zijn alle drie fenomenaal mooi en spannend van begin tot eind. Een album om heel vaak te herbeluisteren ook, want dit is echt een groeiplaatje.

Toen ik het album van Govaert met Dirk Serries net had opgezet wandelde er een vriend binnen die lollig opmerkte: “had je opnames van je kinderen teruggevonden?” Een stompzinnige variatie op de opmerkingen die sommige moderne kunst vroeger kregen: “Dat kan mijn neefje van vier ook…” Niets is minder waar natuurlijk, maar het geeft wel aan dat je voor deze geïmproviseerde muziek nog net even wat meer je best moet doen. Om te beginnen is het aan te raden het hele stuk van zo’n drie kwartier te beluisteren, dan zul je tot de conclusie komen dat er onder meer heel ingetogen stukken tussen zitten, en misschien hoor je zelfs bij die eerste draaibeurt al de magie van deze twee virtuoze musici die elkaar weer op een heel andere manier uitdagen – het muzikale avontuur is er niet minder om, en als je bereid bent je oren open te zetten kon er wel eens een complete wereld voor je open gaan.

Die vriend heb ik overigens een fragment uit de film Mr Holland’s Opus laten zien waarin Richard Dreyfuss, die de muziekleraar meneer Holland speelt, uitlegt waarom hij besloot muziek te gaan maken – hij had van iemand een lp van John Coltrane gekregen, omdat diegene dacht dat dat wel wat voor hem zou kunnen zijn. Hij kwam thuis, draaide de plaat en “I hated it!!” Maar hij draaide hem nog een keer, en nog een keer, en uiteindelijk raakte hij verslaafd aan Coltrane, omdat hij na een paar draaibeurten door kreeg waar de magie van die muziek in zit. Echte goede muziek wordt altijd beter als je hem vaker hoort. Twofold moet je vaker horen, geloof me.”

Today we released our four new albums :
SERRIES/THOMPSON/VERHOEVEN – Today And All The Tomorrows (cd)
RENNIE/ROBERTS/SERRIES – Translucence (cd)
HYDRA ENSEMBLE – Vistas (cd)
ONNO GOVAERT + SERRIES/VERHOEVEN – Twofold (2xcd)

All four albums are available from our store on bandcamp. Till midnight you can still enjoy the pre-order bundle, saving you 100% on postage.

Nick Ostrum of FREE JAZZ BLOG catches up with some of our releases. Lovely feature. All the releases are still available from our bandcamp store.

A New Wave of Jazz is a label run by Dirk Serries whose first activities reach back to 2015. Since then, it has accrued over 50 releases of free jazz and related minimalist music, if one takes into account those recordings released through their subscriber service. Many of these involve Serries himself; others do not. Invariably, however, these releases are compelling, when not also pushing the boundaries of their respective aesthetic corners. Below is a review of several of the label’s recent duo releases, and one quartet, which was a long-distance pandemic collaboration.

Tom Jackson and Colin Webster – The Other Lies (A New Wave of Jazz, 2021)

It begins with protracted, stable layered tones. First Jackson, then Webster deviate into more active territory, but still hold back in volume as the piece builds in intensity. They then slip into ping pong of short chirpy phrases, feinted wells of sound, and percolation, huffs and whispers. Although each of The Other Lies’ six tracks has its own focus and intensity, all are somewhat restrained considering much of Webster’s other work. And they are all the more interesting because of it. Indeed, these pieces, all improvised, run the gamut from long-tone minimalism to a sprightly neoromantic races to free arrhythmia. Webster and Jackson are both deft reedists and, although they do not follow the post-modern extended techniques playbook completely, they add just enough clucks, squeaks, tinny trills and breath to keep this duo session interesting for the entire hour it runs.

John Edwards and Dirk Serries – Melancholia (A New Wave of Jazz, 2021)

Two masters of improv, an acoustic guitar and a double bass. What is not to like? This is very much what one would expect from John Edwards and Dirk Serries. It ebbs; it flows; it contorts. Serries’ metallic strums are met tit for tat by Edwards. Edwards’ itinerancy is circled by Serries’ clangy runs. And vice versa. Edwards deploys his array of techniques, shifting from extended periods of strums to struts to scratchy bowing. Both musicians really show some patient creativity, here, without grandstanding or grooving. Some of that likely has to do with the intimacy of these types of duo sessions. It gives him and Serries space, especially in the second of two tracks, to explore their own corners of sound when they are not looping through each other. Little information about the meeting is offered, though this sounds like a free improv meeting, wherein ideas may have been discussed beforehand but little was put on paper and parameters rather than charts were set.

NB: Raw Tonk has a quartet release featuring Edwards, Serries, Colin Webster and Andrew Lisle recorded at these same sessions. I am not sure which was recorded first in the day, though I would wager Melancholia was. Regardless, taking the two together displays just how adaptive and responsive Edwards and Serries are. Despite a similar tendency toward subtlety and understatement, Peck and Fleet is a very different release.

Anton Mobin & Martina Verhoeven – Cure and Mound (A New Wave of Jazz, 2021)

I was very excited when I first encountered Cure and Mound. I first encountered Anton Mobin’s work years ago, through live online release with Thomas Thiery through Audioactivity. Since then, I know he has worked extensively with field recordings and cut-and-paste musique concrete and was featured on disc 5 of the Sonny Simmons box-set Leaving Knowledge, Wisdom And Brilliance / Chasing the Bird . That said, I, in my restricted corner of listening, have not really heard much of him since. On Cure and Mound, he joins pianist Martina Verhoeven for a compelling romp through some strange sonic terrains. This is another duo, like the previous two, recorded in February of 2020, right before Covid got real for many of us and the bare-bones (and heavily produced) solo, then duo, became the ensemble of choice. Indeed, this sounds more social than that. Recorded only a few months later, this almost inevitably would have been a remote affair. (See below for a success in remote improvisation and convincing cohesion.)

Verhoeven and Mobin engage is a brilliantly noisy dance, the metallic clangor of the piano and the tortured grind of Mobin’s prepared chamber intermingle into a single, scraping force. Verhoeven herself shuffles between truncated phrases on the keys and pounding the piano, both inside and out, implying some extra-acoustic elements through extended techniques and piled sounds. For his part, Mobin bends the electroacoustic barrier in his custom box of objects, pickups and contact mics, which contribute further to the listener’s wonder of where exactly these sounds emanated. Although some of this is more tuneful, such when Verhoeven stretches out about two-thirds into the first track, it is more generally noisy, cacophonous and glitchy. And wonderfully so.

Tom Ward, Martina Verhoeven, Dirk Serries, Cat Roberts – Imaginary Junction (A New Wave of Jazz, 2020) 

I had wanted to hear more from Cath Roberts ever since I reviewed some of her archival releases from the beginning of the pandemic. When I saw Imaginary Junction, with NWJ label-owner and prolific guitarist Serries in addition to Verhoeven (see above) and the hitherto-unknown-to-me Tom Ward on other reeds and flute, I jumped at the opportunity to listen. As far as Roberts’ work, this is some of the best I have heard yet.

The musicians here are remarkably responsive given the situation. This sounds like good, practiced, live improv. And, in a sense, this is live. It was recorded in two locations – Brockley, England and Sint-Lenaarts, Belgium – simultaneously, though the two locations were reacting to each other remotely. For such a situation, however, this sounds remarkably tight. Sometimes Roberts and Ward dance together as the leads. At others Serries and Verhoeven enlace their strings. (I assume these are the duos respectively in Brockley and Sint-Lenaarts.) These, however, are hardly sections in the strict sense, even if the reeds tend to take the amelodic front and Verhoeven and Serries often provide the nonrhythmic backing. This is deeply steeped in European free improv, albeit with the tonal dynamics and odd sounds that root it more firmly in the present. In short, it shows Roberts, Serries, Verhoeven and Ward can hold their own and create some truly compelling music together even in unconventional circumstances.