Avishai Cohen – Naked Truth (with Yonathan Avishai, Barak Mori & Ziv Ravitz)

The next morning I drove to my hometown. At night I went out with friends and I told them about her. And I wrote to her that I talked about her to a girl I knew. And she got slightly jealous saying that that girl was smarter and cooler than her. While driving back home in the night I listened to this album in my car and I sent her a link to the second track. And I texted her that I don't know what other women I like, because you are the only woman ever. And how I much I ache that I can't have you here in my arms, listen to this song and run my fingers all over your beautiful body.

I won't see her ever again, I'm sure. And I won't even try to call her or text her. I will listen to this and cry and ache and wake up in the night. And bang my head because I was stupid enough to block her and not see what she wrote to me for the final time. Hoping that one day she will call me and with just a look in her eyes I will follow her and be her slave. 2022 cd on ECM.

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PS:

Yes, I know I will never see your eyes again, I will never hear your voice again. You hurt me so much. I could be anything you would ask me to be, apart from what you asked me to be. I refused that. But I love you and I cry every night. Every time a woman comes to have sex with me, I think only of you and I regret having sex with them, because all I want to do is mourn your absence. If you ever read this, just know that 

For you and I to be born 

Just for this 

Just to meet you 

Just for this was the world made my eyes

Just for this 

Just to meet you

Enahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou ‎– Éthiopiques, Vol. 21

An Ethiopian nun playing solo piano who released music to raise money for orphan children. This is one of the few records I've played to my partner that she likes, so I guess it must be good enough. She plays really passionate - yet mostly calming - gospel/blues/modal jazz tunes, which is shocking given that she's not African-American. Highly recommended stuff. 2006 cd on Buda Musique.

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The Necks - Three

Arrived during the lockdown omg! 2020 CD on Fish Of Milk.

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Anguish - Anguish

Crazy collaboration between MC Dalek and Mike Mare of Dalek, Mats Gustafsson and Fire!'s drummer Andreas Werllin and Hans-Joachim Irmler of Faust, giving an expanded sense in the 2000s collaborations between Faust and Dalek. This is dirgy and super-dark and combines the best of Dalek's industrial/ambient hip hop, Faust's motorik psychedelia and the free jazz madness of Fire! and Gustafsson's sax torture. 2018 cd on RareNoise Records.

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Avishai Cohen / Yonathan Avishai ‎– Playing The Room

Avishai Cohen's previous album on  ECM Cross My Palm With Silver was excellent and in this new collaboration with pianist Yonathan Avishai he continues offering beautiful nightly jazz. I love his trumpet tone, he is very close both in accent and feeling to Chet Baker, and I dig that there are no Euro-jazz elements, the ones that ECM keeps releasing and I keep avoiding,but there are huge blues undertones, reminding of Keith Jarret's best moments. Excellent album, highly recommended. 2019 cd on ECM

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Sarah Hughes, Jon Collin ‎– Washington DC, 11 April 2019

Wailing, mourning psychedelic ambient jazz folk by Jon Collin - the true successor of early-Pink-Floyd David Gilmour - and alto saxophonist Sarah Hughes. Highly recommended. 2019 cdr on Early Music.

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The Dogmatics - Chop Off The Tops

Second  excellent album of macabre atonal jazz exploring the limits of music space and clarinet potential by The Necks' Chris Abrahams and Kai Fagaschinski. 2018 self-released LP.

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The Dogmatics - The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle LP

Mentioning The Necks the other day in the new Swans album post, I've come to think that the best albums there are the two where the Australian trio participates, owing very much to Chris Abrahams's hazy piano. What better way to listen to some more Abrahams than this duo he maintains with German clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski. Awesome slithering and unsettling improvised avant-jazz with emphasis on music spaces, microtones and a very entertaining black metal aesthetic as you can see in the album cover and the logo. Excellent stuff. 2012 lp on Monotype Records.

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Kit Downes - Dreamlife Of Debris

The second album of Kit Downes on ECM retains the church organ basis of the previous album Obsidian, but incorporates other instruments, namely piano played by him, saxophone (already present in Obsidian), cello, guitar, and drums. The sound is deeper, more unsettling, with the instruments creating worrying atmospheres, reaching drone levels at times, and the reverberating sound giving the album a very unique quality. 2019 cd on ECM.

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Christian Vander Trio ‎– Jour Après Jour

Great live nightly jazz album by the one and only Christian Vander accompanied by Philippe Dardelle on double bass and Emmanuel Borghi on piano. Features a composition by Vander, one by Michel Grailler, one by the Sherman brothers (who wrote the music for Mary Poppins lol) and Coltrane's "Like Sonny." 1989 cd on Seventh Records.

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Don Cherry - Dona Nostra cd

An incredible swan song by legendary trumpeter Don Cherry, who died a few years after releasing this album. Top-notch nightly jazz with touches of world music, played by a superb sextet featuring Bobo Stenson on the piano and Anders Jormin on bass. 1994 cd on ECM.

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Eziak - Nomads cdr

Ambient soundscapes mingle with instrumental prog rock and jazz and infused with a post rock sensibility. Somewhere between Shora, ECM jazz, and the rhythmic elements of The Necks. 2012 cdr on Triple Bath.

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Midnight Doctors - Through A Screen And Into A Hole

Jazz project conducted/masterminded by Phil Begg, who was also behind the very good ambient/drone project Hapsburg Braganza. This is the second effort of Midnight Doctors, after 2013's self-titled, which was graced with the presence of Mike Smith and Mike Vest of Bong, Dario-Lozano Thornton, and Posset, only the latter one appears on this. In contrast to that album's short vignettes of dark soundtrack jazz, this is a more focused attempt at creating long tracks. The music style is similar to Bohren & Der Club Of Gore's Sunset Mission and Black Earth, both in terms of the nightly foreboding atmosphere (minus the more horror-ish aspects of the latter album), and of the ambient feeling, which here is also accentuated by samples, electronics, and the droning of cellos, pianos, and other instruments. However, I wouldn't do this cd justice if I said that it's a rehashing of Bohren's masterpieces, as there is more at play here. Apart from the soundtrack aspects, there are also elements of deep spiritual jazz at its heaviest and finest,akin of Alice Coltrane's more experimental and improvised moments, reaching epic proportions on the penultimate track "Climactic Loss." Another point of reference could be The Embassadors more laid-back and spacious take on dark jazz. I also dig the slightly noise rock elements at play here, which remind of Reeks And The Wrecks (complete with a touch of New Orleans funeral jazz) and Oxbow's two latest jazz-tinged releases. A great album that has been on repeat for the last few days. 2015 cd on Ourodisc.

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The Embassadors ‎– Live At Cologne Philharmonic Hall

Here's a live performance of The Embassadors recorded in 2007 at The Cologne Philharmonic that was once posted online. I don't remember where I found it, nor can I locate on the web so there you go. Don't expect any dub here, only slow, moody, late-night jazz accompanied by strings. Very relaxing, ideal for some good ol' wine before going to bed. 2009 self-released mp3-only material.

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The Embassadors ‎– Coptic Dub cd

Second (and sadly, last) album by The Embassadors, this time completely instrumental, without Michel Ongaru. The atmosphere is jazzier, even calmer than on Healing The Music, with more psychedelic dub effects and a jam mood, but less African/world influences. At some point I think I can hear a hang instrument (on "Desdemona Breathes") and this makes for a nice alternative to Bohren as night-time driving music. Not many activities are better than this anyway, so you understand that this is good music. 2009 cd on Nonplace.

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The Embassadors Feat. Michel Ongaru ‎– Healing The Music cd

German-based group headed by saxophonist Hayden Chisholm collaborates with Kenyan baritone singer Michel Ongaru creating a landscape of jazz, dub, gospel, and African musical influences and a pop sensibility. There's a nice laidback warm afternoon feeling to this; imagine them as the dub and a little bit happier little cousin of Bohren & Der Club of Gore. 2007 cd on Nonplace.

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Owen Marshall - The Naked Truth

Incredibly deep, dark and psychedelic spiritual jazz by this dude who recorded nothing apart from this album and a single (also included) as a statement against the record music industry. A point of reference would be Herbie Hancock's Crossings and Sextant, but the dark funk and exotica elements combined with the lo-fi, swampy production also gives me a feeling of early Dr. John for some reason. Originally released in 1975 by Aditi Records, this is the 2012 Jazzman cd re-release.

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Faust - Fresh Air

Faust return three years after Just Us with a collection of studio and live recordings from an American tour with a list of collaborators including Barbara Manning of Glands of External Secretion and Braden Diotte of Tarantula Hawk. It's incredible how much these old guys continue experimenting relentlessly with drone, motorik rhythms, noise rock, toxic funk, and avant-garde dub jazz while collaborating with people that had probably barely been born when Faust released their first album. Highly recommended. 2017 cd on Bureau B.

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RIP Tomasz Stańko

It was only yesterday that I saw that Tomasz Stańko passed away of lung cancer. He was one of the most important contemporary jazz musicians and trumpeters, with an amazing sound whose romanticism and tenderness was up there with the giant Chet Baker and his compositions had this amazing nightly feeling that is hard to rival.

As the tiniest tribute I share the commemorative video ECM prepared which includes some of his most touching moments.

plus his amazing version of Krysztof Komeda's "Litania" (aka Rosemary's Baby)

Nicolas Masson, Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret, Lionel Friedli ‎– Travelers cd

Swiss clarinet and sax player has been an ECM staple for some years now, having released two albums there with the trio Third Reel, offering gorgeous expansive jazz with generous doses of ambiences, improvisations and some of the best recent melodies in the genre (can anyone forget "Lara's Song"?). This is his second (I think) self-standing album after Departures, whereby his is accompanied by the musicians of his live quarter Parallels, manned among others by Colin Vallon, who's also released  few albums on ECM. by 2018 cd on ECM. On the first track someone could think "oh no another ECM modern dissonant Garbarek-y high-pitched annoying jazz" but fortunately this is not the case. Here we got - mostly - subdued jazz ballads with great communication between the musicians - sometimes Vallon is arguably stealing Masson's thunder actually - and an equal amount of darkness and nostalgic emotion. Given that, there are still some more experimental and atonal moments reminding of Third Reel, especially the percussive chaos of "The Deep" and the slightly threatening "Blurred," which are probably the album's best moments along with the pensive "Almost Forty." Good job.

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