São Paulo Underground: "Jagoda's Dream"

"The sound you do not hear but see, and the visual you cannot see but hear, is the work,” says Rob Mazurek. “The rest is up to the imagination." That sentiment shouldn’t be surprising to fans of the prolific cornet player, composer, and Chicago-based avant-garde luminary. His entire two-decade career has been an adventure in experimentation, and he serves as a gravitational hub around which dozens of bright talents orbit as members of his various ensembles. At present, Mazurek is the leader of the compact duo and trio versions of Chicago Underground; its antipodal counterpart, São Paulo Underground; the expansive, sprawling Exploding Star Orchestra; and the nascent Sound Is Quintet. Though his various projects all offer unique perspectives on sound and structure, they’re all propelled at some level by Mazurek’s fascination with the visual and often seek out new sounds through the expressive manipulation of color.

Imagination is an important part of Mazurek’s methods. His compositions exist in a dreamy world that incorporates elements of jazz, post-rock, electronic music, and noise, drifting, floating weightlessly in a limbo that practically demands the listener to dive deeply into the piece and create form in the spaces and gaps left open. Mazurek isn’t content to let the listener have all the fun, however, and facilitates imagination not just in the consumption of his work but also in its conception. On many of his albums, he uses unorthodox methods of composition and conducting to imbue his sounds with new passion and flavor, and color plays a significant role in that mission.

“Recently, I used a sequence of square paintings with a very specific layering of color ― graphite, white, red, and green,” Mazurek says. These paintings were to serve as visual prompts for his ensemble, in lieu of a traditionally written score or set of instructions. “Written music is very much what it is,” Mazurek says, with an air of exasperation. “These experiments push the player to imagine what could be there, what's behind the obvious. It's exciting. The top color, green, was pushing out from the painting, while the other colors were barely seen — as if inaudible. The suggestion of the reds, graphites, and whites could only be read as interpretive projections of imagined colors and textures and shades.”

Such exercises conjure sound using color and visual treatments as an input, but Mazurek’s belief in the malleability and interchangeability of the aural and the visual has led him to work from the other end, with sound as input and color as the output. "I did a work called Music for Shattered Light Box and 7 Posters where the sound from a CD player played very specific shards of my compositions,” he says. “The sound goes into a light box and affects the light source. You do not hear the sound; you only see the effect that the sound has on the light and the shards of that light being projected through the shattered glass.” For him, the lights and colors emitted by the box is the performance. Whether or not one actually hears the music is an afterthought for him; it’s practically irrelevant. “You can take the CD and play it and hear what the sound is,” he says, “but only afterward, if you're interested enough [by the lights]."

Given his interest in manipulating sound and color, it’s no wonder that Mazurek considers himself a visual artist as well as a musician. "I paint,” he says. “It flows quite naturally. I see my work as a visual artist and a musician as the same at times, and at other times, completely different.” His paintings deal with bold color and shape, in their rawest forms. Highly evocative of the chromatic abstracts of Mark Rothko, these works appear simple at first glance, but closer inspection reveals layers of details and subtle inflections. Some of his work has served as album art on his Chicago Underground records, such as Axis and Alignment (2002) and Synesthesia (2000).

“The paintings I made for these records are special,” he reveals, “in the sense that they are not quite what they seem. They seem like large-format paintings, when actually they are very small and done with small brushes over a long period of time.” Mazurek named the latter album for a neurological condition that can affect a person’s perception. Senses become crossed and combined in strange ways. Numbers and words can have a taste to a synesthete; months can acquire personalities, and sound can suggest color. It’s a peculiar syndrome that often results in creative, artistic types. Mazurek doesn’t claim to be a synesthete, but his belief in the intimate connection between color and sound certainly make him sympathetic to one’s worldview.

“I especially enjoy the painting on Synesthesia, where I used linseed oil under the whites to make it crack a bit and reveal underneath,” he says. “This was probably my first discovery of this idea of not revealing too much of what is underneath and to let that power shake the foundation of the painting.” These vibrant, nuanced covers are indicative of Mazurek’s artistic philosophy. All his work, regardless of medium, is geared toward discovery, and for him, music and visual art are two sides of the same coin, two ways of achieving the same goal, inexorably intertwined with one another. "Color, form, texture, power,” he says. “These ideas all seem to be applicable, in sound and in plastic."

This mindset was not exactly shared by Mazurek’s idol and collaborator, free-jazz legend Bill Dixon. Like Mazurek, the trumpet legend also moonlighted as a visual artist and painter, and he created the cover art for Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra, the pairing’s 2008 collaboration. Though the art is abstract, the approach is markedly different than the one that Mazurek took on his Chicago Underground covers. Whereas Mazurek’s art uses fuzzy borders and bleeding edges seeping out from large blocks of bold color, Dixon’s cover is far more structured and precise, with heavy stripes and lines of dark hues falling on top of one another but never fraternizing, always observing clear definition and distinction. This difference in artistic manner between the two horn players carried over into their views on the relationship between their visual art and their music.

Dixon, who passed away in June of 2010 at the age of 84, considered his two domains to be separate. Mazurek sees things differently, however. "I could always make my own parallels to his music and paintings,” he says. “His golden tone and striking lines, the colored nuances in his dynamic flow, the intense brightness in his upper register of the horn and cavernous blackness of the lower end. His ingenious turn of a melodic fragment and bursts of sun-flare excitement — that's a painting right there! Anyone interested in the ideas of sound, color, and form should study his works deeply. He will be greatly missed."

Despite this ideological impasse, Dixon was game enough to engage in one of Mazurek’s imaginative scoring methods on the aforementioned album. The first six minutes of “Constellations for Inner Light Projections,” the album’s centerpiece, was composed using a video score that presented The Exploding Star Orchestra, which includes such notable Chicago musicians as Nicole Mitchell, Jason Adasiewicz, and Jeff Parker, with an array of colors to be interpreted by the players individually and transformed into music. The result is a curious olio of reactions that reflects the disparate emotional and sensory reactions of the musicians. "In the beginning, there was some general confusion,” Mazurek says, “but after their eyes and brains got used to the idea, wonderful things started to happen ― quite indescribable things. It has a kind of cloudy haziness, and when it breaks out of [the visual score], the piece has more of a hard sound."

On deck for Mazurek is a particularly ambitious project, even for a seasoned veteran like him: a 10-volume set of music for his partner’s new label, Sun Core Records, that further elaborates upon his theories on the link between light, color, and sound. "I have been working with the folks at La Grande Fabrique [recording studio] in Dieppe, France on this goal,” he says. “This is their area of expertise, and with their technology, I am creating video pieces and sound pieces built entirely on this premise, juxtaposing each on the other and creating a whole different universe. It's quite exhilarating.”

Mazurek calls the potential for such juxtapositions “endless,” and indeed, his inspirational compositions are drawn from a colorful palette that appears to be inexhaustible. As he delves deeper and deeper into the visible spectrum, pulling out shards of sound from little-investigated regions, we can only imagine what will follow — and that might be Mazurek’s true goal after all.

Björk: Biophilia (Nonesuch)

Björk: "Crystalline"

There’s a reason that Björk, the Reykjavík-born queen of avant-garde pop, is a household name and also remains respected as an artist. It’s because she’s adamant that music is an art and be seen as such. Art isn’t always looking to be liked, and Björk’s music — characterized by a vivid and stubborn imagination since the beginning of her solo career in 1992 — is hardly snuggly. There’s always been a chill to it, an intensity we don’t always know what to do with. Biophilia is no exception.

The much-hyped release is as ambitious as anything before it. For weeks, geeked-out music critics have been drawn like moths to a porch light thanks to Biophilia's extra-musical elements, which include an iPad app, featuring graphic explorations of each track; live shows that use custom-made instruments like the Gravity Harp or twin musical Tesla coils; and a laser-laden video by French director and longtime Björk collaborator Michel Gondry. But it would be a shame if people forgot that beneath the chatter is an album. Biophilia may be unique because of its multiplatform release, but that’s not what makes it good.

Musically, it’s expansive, dramatic, and remarkably accessible. “Crystalline” is a pulsing, glowing sleeper that erupts into a hammering drill-’n’-bass salvo. “Virus” uses the hang masterfully, its warm metallic tones being a suitably alien backdrop for Björk’s iconic voice. These intrasong dynamics are great achievements, as is the subtle emphasis on melody. But the most important thing about Biophilia seems to be its subject matter. In the compositions, the lyrics, and — most noticeably — the album art and apps, the central theme is our physical universe. Björk embarks on a meditative musical exploration of nature, science, and technology, and we’re fortunate to be invited. There should be plenty to explore alongside her.

- Text by Timothy S. Aames

Icebird: The Abandoned Lullaby (RJ's Electrical Connections)

Icebird: "Charmed Life"

With his 2007 album The Third Hand, crate-digging DJ RJD2 took a decidedly soulful and organic turn, transforming into a funk-pop singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His newest project, Icebird, is another advancement, joining forces with soul singer Aaron Livingston to craft groove-heavy electro-acoustic jams.

Livingston, who may be best known for an appearance on The Roots' album The Tipping Point, leads each track with his raspy, powerful croons. Though RJ is no slouch on the mic, Livingston's vocal presence allows RJ to entirely focus on production for Icebird, and it shows. The songs and range of sounds are, respectively, some of the best and most diverse of RJ's career; each track bursts with hooks and harmonies but never goes too sugary.

In fact, nearly any given track on The Abandoned Lullaby could serve as a lead single. Mid-album tracks such as "Spirit Ache" — which shines with its harpsichord and glockenspiel tinges alongside synth and bass grooves — are every bit as infectious as the choruses to "Charmed Life" and "Going and Going. And Going." Any fan of RJ's recent works will love Icebird.

Mayer Hawthorne: How Do You Do? (Universal Republic)

Mayer Hawthorne: "A Long Time"

As the soul revival sound goes, Mayer Hawthorne is in a league of singers who strike the proper balance between old school and new school. Yes, the singer’s act takes greatest influence from the early Northern soul era, but there’s more to Hawthorne’s music than a game of name-that-classic-45.

For this sophomore effort, Hawthorne reaches deeper into the late-'60s, early-'70s reference bag to make a no-frills record packed with tolerantly addictive soul hooks. How Do You Do? covers a lot of ground and shows some new sides to Hawthorne’s musical palette with cleaner and more robust production and instrument arrangements. Whether or not his jump to Universal Republic from Stones Throw has anything to do with it is arguable, but Hawthorne finds a way to use time-honored soul maxims to forge an individual sound.

- Text by Michael Nolledo. Read the full review here.

São Paulo Underground: Trés Cabeças Loucuras (Cuneiform)

São Paulo Underground: "Jagoda's Dream"

Fifteen years after the creation of his Chicago Underground workshops and groups, prolific composer/cornetist Rob Mazurek continues to expand his boundaries in exciting new directions.

Trés Cabeças Loucuras is his third album with the São Paulo Underground, an intercontinental quartet that formed in 2000 with the aid of some talented Brazilian multi-instrumentalists. Though Mazurek's Underground incarnations have been more concerned with grooves and melodies than many of his other projects, Trés Cabeças Loucuras presses further into the melodic traditions of his second home.

The music here very much bears Mazurek's style, but it also combines the experimental jazz traditions of Sun Ra to create a type of "cosmic tropicalia." The "miniature guitar" plucking of the cavaquinho combines with deep, buzzing synthesizers, noisy effects, and Mazurek's effortless cornet fluctuations, allowing listeners to enjoy melodies as well as timbral depth. Chicago jazz stalwarts Jason Adasiewicz, John Herndon, and Matthew Lux give "Just Lovin'" and "Six Six Eight" another dynamic layer.

Myrath: Tales of the Sands (Nightmare Records)

Myrath: "Merciless Times"

“Symphonic prog metal” and “North Africa” may not yet be synonymous, but Tunisian metal band Myrath has found its own voice by infusing its compositions with Oriental and Middle Eastern flourishes.

Musically, Myrath (Arabic for “legacy”) writes almost directly from the modern prog-metal playbook, right down to the harmonized keyboard/guitar runs and full-band mid-song showdowns. But Zaher Zorgati’s power/hair-metal vocals reach for a sound more evocative of the ancient Middle East: higher registers, huge vibratos, and inflections that make the band’s sound reflect the pain, confusion, and longing of which Zorgati sings.

Despite the obvious temptation to link Myrath’s music with the upheaval that its homeland witnessed in the early part of the century, the band’s lyrics almost exclusively look inward. Sonically, the group could pass for a roaring war drum, but upon closer inspection, Myrath simply uses big sounds to tackle timeless questions.

- Text by Andrew Reilly. Read our interview with Myrath in Assault of the Earth: Metal Bands from Around the Globe, coming in 2012.

Honorable Mentions

Bill Laswell, Raoul Bjorkenheim & Morgan Agren: Blixt (Cuneiform)

Scott H. Biram: Bad Ingredients (Bloodshot)

Casiokids: Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen (Polyvinyl)

Emika: s/t (Ninja Tune)

Future Islands: On the Water (Thrill Jockey)

Joe Henry: Reverie (Anti-)

Marketa Irglova: Anar (Anti-)

Murs: Love & Rockets Vol. 1: The Transformation (DD1)

Rustie: Glass Swords (Warp)

Trash Talk: Awake 7” EP (True Panther)

John Zorn / The Dreamers: A Dreamers Christmas (Tzadik)

[Chromatic, our 400-page exploration of musicians and color, is out now. Order here!]

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi: Rome (Capitol)

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi: "Two Against One" f. Jack White

After meeting in the mid-2000s, eclectic producer Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi began work on a new project — part pop collaboration and part homage to the classic Italian film scores of the 1960s and '70s.

The two met in Rome to begin recording nearly five years ago, laying down tracks with studio musicians who recorded on some of Ennio Morricone's most famous scores (by American standards).  Now, after a number of trips back to Italy and the addition of guest vocalists Jack White and Norah Jones, the project has finally been released to anxious ears.

Though at least 50% instrumental, Rome falls closer to elaborate pop than Morricone mimicry, with basic foundations allowing for romantic tinges and sweeping strings to flavor the surroundings.  (Think of a less-digitized and more-heavily layered sister album to Air's Virgin Suicides soundtrack.)

There are only minimal doses of reverberating Western guitar leads; tracks such as "The Gambling Priest," with six-string twang and wandering keyboard melodies, are less common than the verse-chorus-verse arrangements, instrumental or otherwise.  Each track is short and sweet, with none clocking in over three-and-a-half minutes, resulting in a beautiful old-school pop album that doesn't overstay its welcome.

Nader Sadek: In the Flesh (Season of Mist)

Nader Sadek: "Petrophilia"

Born in Egypt and residing in New York, visual artist Nader Sadek has become a leading purveyor of extreme-metal imagery, creating backdrops, videos, installations, masks, and more, often for music-related purposes.  Now he has called on many of his metal brethren to help create a collaborative concept album of pummeling death metal with black-metal undertones and brooding interludes.

Credited as a writer and producer, Sadek is the key creative component, but he doesn't play the music.  Instead, that's left to a super-group trio of vocalist Steve Tucker (ex-Morbid Angel), guitarist Rune Eriksen (ex-Mayhem), and drummer Florent Mounier (Cryptopsy) as well as a small army of high-profile guests, including Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Sunn O)))), Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation), Nick McMaster (Krallice), Mike Lerner (Behold…The Arctopus), and others.

Musically, In the Flesh is a bombardment of speed picking, dive-bombing guitar leads, blazing double-bass beats, and deathly growls, but it always demonstrates a sense of balance, avoiding the listening fatigue that's common to the genre.  In addition to the varying riffs and tempo shifts, the album benefits from percussive outros, interjections of dark ambience, and finishing touches such as choir vocals on "Of This Flesh."

The concept is based on the life/death cycle of petroleum (and the animals that turned into it over the course of millions of years).  Sadek draws parallels between this cycle and petroleum's present effect on countless lives around the world.  The music fits the dark theme — one that will be further explored as Sadek rolls out videos for each song on In the Flesh.

13 & God: Own Your Ghost (Anticon)

13 & God: "Old Age"

In 2005, the members of American indie-rap group Themselves and German experimental post-rockers The Notwist combined for a side project called 13 & God. The self-titled release meshed the nasally delivery, super-fast rhymes, and synthesized production of the former with the gentle singing, acoustic guitar, and piano melodies of the latter — while retaining both groups’ affinity for uncommon sounds.

On Own Your Ghost, the successor that’s been six years in waiting, the group is joined by Themselves collaborator Jordan Dalrymple (also known as Antonionian). This addition, on top of further musical maturity, helps 13 & God to become more than the sum of its parts — and more than a collection of beats and melodies with alternating vocalists.

If you missed 13 & God the first time around, now’s a great time to check it out.

The Fierce & The Dead: If It Carries on Like This, We Are Moving to Morecambe

The Fierce & The Dead: "10×10"

A proponent of building listener-ship via social networking and "name your price" sales models, British guitarist Matt Stevens has used 21st Century conventions to build a buzz about his melodic, instrumental works.

The Fierce & The Dead, Stevens' latest endeavor, was spawned out of collaborative improvisations during the writing of his second solo album. With the aid of bassist Kev Feazey and drummer Stuart Marshall, Stevens' song sketches morphed into structured yet improvised post-rock jams, 10 of which comprise the trio's full-length debut, If It Carries on Like This, We Are Moving to Morecambe.

Like much of Stevens' solo work, the guitars here are looped and layered to create a much denser and harmonized sound. His guitar is the most likely instrument to explore spur-of-the-moment directions, thanks to the steady rhythm section, but it never goes on meandering free-time tangents.

Many songs, in fact, might sound entirely composed if not otherwise known. But no matter the method of creation, The Fierce & The Dead's debut engages while keeping things simple. From the slowly building circles of "10×10" to the glitch-y effects and sax cameo on "Daddies Little Helper" to the buzz-saw rock of "Landcrab," this is a promising addition to the post-rock landscape.

Starlicker: Double Demon (Delmark)

Starlicker: "Double Demon"

The members of jazz trio Starlicker are each a mainstay in Chicago's dynamic, intermingled improv scene.  Cornetist Rob Mazurek, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, and percussionist John Herndon all have a long history with each other — including in Mazurek's otherworldly hard-bop extravaganza Exploding Star Orchestra — and each is involved in a good half-dozen projects at any given time.

Double Demon is the latest creation by Mazurek as a bandleader.  In the past, the veteran composer and soloist has utilized Adasiewicz in a variety of capacities, but none has found the two balancing duties quite as much as in Starlicker.

Adasiewicz alternates between rapid single-note runs and pounding chords, walking the line that a bassist normally does between melody and rhythm.  Mazurek takes the traditional lead more often than not, but he often syncs up with either the vibes or the drums before the three split for polyrhythmic improvisation.

More often than not, jazz fans will need to appreciate the genre's "free" variety to dig Starlicker, but even if they don't, there's plenty of superb musicianship on display to warrant interest.

Honorable Mentions

Altar of Plagues: Mammal (Profound Lore)

Animal Farm: Culture Shock (Focused Noise)

Austra: Feel it Break (Domino)

Bachelorette: s/t (Drag City)

Bonnie "Prince" Billy / Phantom Family Halo: The Mindeater EP (Sophomore Lounge)

J Rawls: The Hip-Hop Affect [sic] (Nature Sounds)

A Storm of Light: As The Valley Of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade (Profound Lore)

Tokimonsta: Creature Dreams EP (Brainfeeder)

Chad VanGaalen: Diaper Island (Sub Pop)

Weekend Nachos: Worthless (Relapse)

Hank Williams III: Hillbilly Joker (Curb)

Nick Butcher: "Implements" (Stream)

Along with partner and co-owner Nadine Nakanishi, Nick Butcher runs Chicago-based art and print studio Sonnenzimmer. In addition, he's an accomplished musical artist, working with Portland, Oregon-based indie label Hometapes to release a handful of records. Butcher's latest musical endeavor is a series of six lathe-cut 7" records entitled Free Jazz Bitmaps, which mix samples from discarded house and jazz records with original instrumentation.

April 28 marks the release of the second volume in the series. Each bimonthly release is limited to just 10 records and comes in a screen-printed sleeve with art by Nakanishi. The collection will ultimately be featured on vinyl LP in early 2012. As an added bonus, the forthcoming LP will feature reinterpretations by fellow Chicagoans Jason Adasiewicz, Tim Daisy, Keefe Jackson, Mike Reed, Jason Reobke, and Jason Stein.

If you're in the Chicago area, head over to Comfort Station (2570 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago) at 7pm on Thursday, April 28 for a record-release performance by Butcher. While you're there, check out Jordan Martins' exhibit, Jaguar Headband Twins, and an additional performance by Tim Lowly.

Klang

Klang: "Stompin' at the Savoy"

Things that come to mind when watching clarinetist James Falzone play: a passerine bird (such as a sparrow or a finch), Shakespeare's Puck, and a violently ill inpatient. Sounds hidden within his music: funeral processions of the Middle East, the frenetic beeps and boops of early-’90s video games, and malfunctioning industrial automatons. His influences: French composer Olivier Messiaen, jazz clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre, and oral historian Studs Terkel. What you need to know: to him, all music is cut from the same fabric, and improvisation is a way of life.

A Chicago native, Falzone is a recording artist, composer, professor, and constant advocate for what he calls the cross-pollination of improvised jazz, classical, and world music. This goes back to when Falzone was 10, when he was given his first stereo and headphones. It was Christmas. He’d been playing the clarinet for six months.

“The first thing I did was turn it on, put the headphones on, and turn to the classical station,” Falzone says. “But the Studs Terkel show was on. So the very first sound I ever heard through headphones was Studs Terkel. And I just found his voice, the sonic quality of his voice, truly fascinating. You know when you’re at a campfire, and you hear the water popping in the logs? It was that kind of a sound. And I’ve always felt like, in some way — it sounds so weird, but in some way, I’m just trying to recapture the kind of warmth I felt when I would hear the sound of his voice.”

To have such a heightened awareness of sound at 10 years old, there might’ve been little doubt that Falzone would end up here, leading several groups and playing in numerous others, all worthy of their own exploration. But first, out of respect for the way that Terkel let people tell their own stories, here's Falzone’s creative process and frame of mind, in his own words:

“In the last couple of years, my composing time has been relegated to very early in the morning. For instance, tomorrow morning, I will attempt to get up at four, to write music. If I don’t feel like getting up at four, I’ll just stay up 'till four. I’ll occasionally go spend a day somewhere — go to the library or go to my parents’ house in the suburbs, if they’re away. But the actual truth of it is that I don’t waste any time. Time is so important to me; I just don’t waste it. I don’t watch television; I rarely take a break of any sort.

“At this point in my life, I feel called — and I use that word strongly — to be surrounded by great beauty. Making it and being exposed to it. And, of course, I mean that in all sorts of ways — from the pop music that I listen to, to the food that I eat, to the garden that I grow, to the way I raise my children, to their education, and to the way I teach as well. And it does mean that sometimes I come across musicians who want to play with me, and I don’t sense that they have that same kind of fervor. And I just say, ‘You know, I think there’s probably other people we could be working with.’ There’s got to be room for that.”
 

“At this point in my life, I feel called — and I use that word strongly — to be surrounded by great beauty. Making it and being exposed to it."

Three of Falzone’s most recent projects: Other Doors, by Klang, being released April 26 on his Allos Documents label; Lamentations, a record written for oud (the pear-shaped Middle Eastern stringed instrument), clarinet, and percussion; and something called “Sighs Too Deep For Words.”

The first, Other Doors, is a bit of an odd duck for Falzone. It has the usual suspects: Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, Jason Roebke on bass, Tim Daisy on drums, and Falzone on clarinet. But conceptually, it re-imagines the King of Swing, Benny Goodman. “A really vital part of music-making is relationships,” Falzone says of his choice to pursue the project. “In many ways, this Benny Goodman record was a salute to that, because one of the things that Goodman did that I respect is [letting] his band-mates shine. He had great sidemen, and he’d let them do their thing. So I tried on this record to give people space to do their own thing­, to do the same thing in my own realm that [Goodman] did in his.”

Lamentations is — perhaps predictably — completely different. A meditative study of Arabic modes, it features Ronnie Malley on oud, Tim Mulvenna on hand drums, and Falzone on clarinet. “As a guidepost,” Falzone writes of the album, “I funneled my composing and conceptualizing through the lament, a musical/poetic genre that has transcended cultures and time.”

But perhaps the true incarnation of Falzone — his myriad musical interests, virtuosic skill on the clarinet, and humble vulnerability — is an improvised solo piece called “Sighs Too Deep for Words,” a piece that Falzone’s been writing for nearly two years.

Notes jotted in a five-by-eight, grid-lined Moleskine notebook during a March 19 performance at Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio: “Title comes from Paul’s letters.” “Changes in tone, but not pitches.” “Blips and glitches.” “'Woodwind.'” “Extension of his mouth.” “Stations = identities.” “Overtones/undertones.” “Literally feel it in your ears.” “The sounds — eventually you can’t differentiate them anymore.” “You forget to breathe, and when you do, you’re so conscious of it, it’s like gasping.”

What was actually happening: A man with a clarinet, exploring — for 51 minutes — 1) improvisation as a contemplative practice, 2) responding to “the moment,” and 3) the relationship between the conscious and subconscious. But already, we’re off the map. Improvised solo? He just wings it for an hour?

Not quite. Falzone has an idea of where he wants to go, and he uses several types of bells to create ambient sounds that he can interact with. Most importantly, he sets up three stations, each of which has its own identity, its own musical style. That night, three black folding chairs formed an isosceles triangle. Next to the apex was a table, which held the bells. Stage-left was a piano with a cinder block set on its sustain pedal, amplifying the clarinet when it reached certain decibels.

^table _{[ ]} .^{station 1} piano

.^{station 3} .^{station 2}

Station One: “The center is this place of control, letting time go by in a way that feels like you have some control over it,” he says. Here, a bell is rung each time he returns — a new hour, a new scene. Things move slowly. Phrases are long.

Station Two: Everything is microtonal. He works in incredibly small and highly dissonant intervals and restricts himself to a low register. Partially, he’s imitating an mbira, an African thumb piano. He plays faster than at Station One. Or does he? “It feels like it’s going faster — even though it’s not,” Falzone says. “There’s no pulse going on. One of the tricks of music is that we’re manipulating time. There was never a pulse anywhere on Saturday night. So was I playing faster? You can’t say I was.”

Station Three: Here, he’s only playing in the most altissimo part of the instrument — “two octaves over the highest C of the instrument.” Normally, a clarinet player’s lips are on the reed, but Falzone puts his teeth on it. This station is about emotional intensity, about not letting yourself off the hook. Some women put their fingers in their ears.

Falzone alternates between each station several times: Station One to Station Two, back to One, to Three, back to One — always back to One and the tolling bell. He really does seem to be a different person in each chair. And yet it’s an illusion, as is much of what Falzone does with his instrument. “It involves a lot of trickery,” he says. “A lot of what I’m doing is not what I was trained to do; it’s not what a clarinet teacher would tell me to do. Even clarinet players would be like, ‘What was that? What did you just do?’ Not that I’m so great; it’s just a lot of false fingerings, putting your fingers down in ways that you’re trained not to do.”

A poignant moment of the performance comes at Station Three, when he throws the smaller bell into the larger and rings it repeatedly, holding his clarinet shriek as he looks for more things to throw in, like a witch over a sonic cauldron. He grabs one of the small Middle Eastern bells and begins shaking it violently, as if he can no longer control his muscles, all while filling the room with a scream that seems to go on and on. After a few seconds, you begin to realize that the two sounds, from the bell and the clarinet, are interacting with each other.

An excerpt from a conversation:

JF: “I don’t know if you guys could hear it, but where I’m at, there’s actually this weird phasing thing going on when I’m playing those high notes and ringing that bell; it showed up on the recording too.”

TA: “Yeah, that’s something I noticed too. Somehow in that register and with that bell, you could literally feel something changing inside your ears at different times, bouncing back and forth.”

JF: “Yeah, yeah.”

TA: “I was trying to figure out how to describe it. I haven’t done it yet.”

“Improvisers have long tried to figure out how to do solo shows,” Falzone says. “It’s been a big thing. It’s so egotistical and masturbatory, to just get up there and be wailing away for 25 minutes. And I’ve done those kind of things, and I’ve always felt like, ‘Well, that just felt awful.’ One of my friends, a great cellist, has said that you can’t improvise solo — because improvisation is about a dialogue. And I think he’s right in some ways, so that’s why I had three personalities — so I could have a dialogue going on.”

It’s not just for the audience’s sake that Falzone sets up the show this way. He says that the older he gets and the more that he improvises, the less a performance is about what notes he plays. “Now it’s about the situations I put myself in,” he says. “That’s an interesting place to be as an artist. I have to think about, ‘Can I get myself in a situation that allows me to be challenged and be put on the edge of all I can do?’ Saturday night was that.”
 

"One of my friends, a great cellist, has said that you can’t improvise solo — because improvisation is about a dialogue. And I think he’s right in some ways, so that’s why I had three personalities — so I could have a dialogue going on.”

The morning after the show at the Experimental Sound Studio, Falzone had another challenging performance, a weekly gig that’s one of the lesser mentioned but more interesting things that he does. In addition to being a creative force in the improvised jazz and classical worlds, Falzone is the director of music for Grace Chicago Church, a small gathering of people that meet in an elementary school in Lakeview. The music, as you might predict, is not typical church music.

The Grace Consort: violin, cello, clarinet, tin whistle, sometimes launeddas, hand drums and percussion (especially bodhrán), guitar, mandolin, and voice. All of the players are working musicians, and almost all are classically trained. But they don’t necessarily share a common faith. Some of the members are agnostics who simply come on Sundays to make beautiful music. If you have experience going to church — even once — you get what an anomaly that is. But it’s natural for Falzone, who refuses to work within the demarcations of “classical” and “jazz,” and so likewise rejects “Christian” and “non-.” Call it another experiment in cross-pollination — one with interesting results. One night, Falzone went to hear Mulvenna and saxophonist Rob Denty at a club in Pilsen. “They were playing this tune, just the two of them,” Falzone recalls, “and I’m thinking, ‘I recognize this, what is this?’ It turns out, it was one of the hymns from church that Tim just loves.”

Though Falzone is a man of faith, he doesn’t have a background in liturgical music. “I’d only had a moderate background even going to church,” he says. “I’d never played music in church, and I kind of stayed away from it, to be honest.” But after being approached in 2002 by his friend Bob Reid, the pastor of Grace Chicago, Falzone decided to try it. He set to crafting arrangements that defy much of what church music has become. In any given arrangement, he is toying with both traditional hymns, contemporary styles of world music, and improvisation, and what he’s doing is resurrecting ancient practices.

A hymn’s words and music used to be separate — any text could be matched with any tune. Hymnals were arranged with indexes in the back, so that songs and words of the same meter could be easily combined. He’s broken these two elements apart again, pairing 15^th Century religious texts with a Hindu folk song, for example, or adding an original coda to a centuries-old hymn.

“Everything we do at Grace runs through my filter,” he says. “No hymn is left untouched. And that’s been my solution to the traditional-versus-contemporary-music bullshit. I’ve not been interested in addressing that question…I wanted to make an indigenous sound for this congregation.”

Part of what makes the liturgical music so engaging is the amount of improvisation that the players are capable of. “I might just give people a mode to work with or a set of chord changes,” Falzone says. “Sometimes, I don’t even give them anything. I think of the service as a film score, and I’m trying to bring motifs back and forth. Sometimes those motifs…will be key centers from a previous hymn, so even if they don’t realize it, subconsciously [the congregation] is brought back into a kind of state from that hymn that they sang 10 minutes ago. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but that’s the idea.”

Whether with Klang or the Grace Consort or by himself, Falzone is most interested in cross-pollination. To him, there might be subtle differences between a set at Chicago rock club The Hideout and a performance Sunday morning, but it’s all cut from the same fabric. “When you get six musicians…improvising and creating on the spot,” he says, “I think that’s taking the beauty of music for music’s sake, and celebrating it — because it’s God’s. And when I’m doing something in the non-liturgical realm…and there’s some kind of really great moment that happens — an epiphany in terms of a new height that we’ve reached with the energy that’s created — I think it’s the same thing going on, in both those places.”

If Studs Terkel were alive today, he no doubt would’ve loved interviewing Falzone. In fact, Falzone did meet Terkel once, just before he died. “It was just too short of a meeting to say [everything] to him,” Falzone says, “but I tried to explain that he was really important, and I shook his hand.” To this day, Terkel remains an anchor for Falzone. Not only are the musician’s compositions crafted from the same courage and vulnerability as the author’s writings, but just the timbre of Terkel’s voice reminds Falzone of a time when he was 10 years old, just starting out on the clarinet, hearing sound through headphones for the first time. “Whenever I feel like I’m losing something in myself,” he says, “like when I just get so caught up in getting gigs and trying to be a working musician, and forget about being an artist, I get my Studs Terkel tapes out, and I go for a long car ride, and I listen to him again.”

Named after the awkwardly constructed Nintendo device of the late 1980s, Powerglove is a power-metal quartet that combines the shredding, über-harmonized, finger-tapping insanity of a band like DragonForce with the kitschy nostalgia of video-game covers.

On the band's first EP and LP, it tackled late-'80s and mid-'90s classics from Tetris, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, F-Zero, and assorted Final Fantasy games.  Now the group turns its video-game MO to the realm of Saturday-morning (and prime-time) cartoons for Saturday Morning Apocalypse, its first release on E1.

With maximum riffage and maniacal beats, lighthearted themes turn epic, sinister, or anywhere between.  Comic nerds whose formative years came in the '90s will smile upon hearing the album opener, the theme to the X-Men cartoon series — which, after three minutes, segues into a classical-guitar breakdown before finishing with full force.

Themes from The Simpsons, The Flintstones, Pokémon, Inspector Gadget, and The Transformers each are remade with squealing pitch harmonics, chugging guitars, and rapid double-kick beats.  There's a dark, powerful rendition of the Batman cartoon theme, with a glockenspiel providing a few complementary passages.  In the Batman theme — and throughout the disc — keyboards play a vital role, as killer programming accounts for the sweeping faux strings, "orchestra hits," synth arpeggios, and general spookiness.

And though these selections primarily are from Saturday-morning cartoons, there are a few other treats as well, including a fantastic metal rendition of "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  The absolute highlight is the Winnie the Pooh song ("Heffalumps and Woozles"), taking the grandeur to another level with an interlude of harp, pizzicato strings, bells, and more.

As the teenage antagonist from the 1989 film The Wizard would say, "I love the Powerglove.  It's so bad."

Powerglove: "This is Halloween"

Victoire: Cathedral City (New Amsterdam)

Formed in 2008, Victoire is an all-female electro-chamber quintet that was founded by composer Missy Mazzoli.  In just a few years, the classically trained group has issued an EP and landed a number of notable gigs, slowly building buzz around Brooklyn.

Cathedral City is Victoire's proper debut, and it's a striking album that marries emphatic string motifs to minimal yet clever accents of keyboards, clarinet, melodica, and rapturous vocals.

Other chamber ensembles have pushed boundaries in the 21st Century, but Victoire does so in a way that feels completely natural.  Digitized hi-hat beats, looped/glitched vocals, and touches of electric guitar (courtesy of The National's Bryce Dessner) subtly complement a harmonious blend of violin, double bass, and the aforementioned elements.

Epic classical-rock composer William Brittelle, bassist/composer Florent Ghys, and gifted soprano vocalist Mellissa Hughes also make appearances on Cathedral City, adding more character to an album that doesn't lack it. Cathedral City is an exciting arrival.

Victoire: "Cathedral City"

Aloe Blacc: Good Things (Stones Throw)

Starting his career as an MC in the hip-hop duo Emanon, Egbert Dawkins III — known as Aloe Blacc — transitioned to a solo soul singer early last decade.  The two careers overlapped for a stretch, but Dawkins began focusing on his solo career midway through the decade, following his 2003 debut EP with a 2006 full-length album, Shine Through.

Dawkins sang a lot on Shine Through, but he still offered a few raps to go with hip-hop production values, Latin sounds, and even a few pop vibes (like the Justin Timberlake-esque "Are You Ready?" and "Want Me").  Good Things, his sophomore follow-up, focuses on his soulful and R&B elements — with a few funky twists — in an effort to create "positive social change" through good vibrations.

A lot of it feels as personal as on previous albums, but tracks such as "Life So Hard" tackle political topics like the cruel hand of capitalism.  A similar sentiment is expressed on album opener "I Need a Dollar," a tune that has doubled as the theme for HBO's How to Make It in America.

Thanks to production assistance from the in-house team at Truth & Soul Records, Good Things remains sonically eclectic, tabbing strings, a vibraphone, and more in addition to the usual soul instrumentation.  It doesn't reach as far, stylistically, as Shine Through, but it refines Aloe Blacc's approach while expanding his political influence.

Aloe Blacc: "You Make Me Smile"

Greg Ward’s Fitted Shards: South Side Story (19/8)

Jazz saxophonist Greg Ward has accomplished so much over the past decade that it’s hard to believe he’s still in his late 20s.  His list of musical cohorts is so long that there's only time to mention a few big names — Hamid Drake, Jeff Parker, Von Freeman — and despite his relocation to New York, he's back in Chicago, his previous residence, nearly every other week for one-off gigs.

Fitted Shards is one of Ward's newest ensembles as a leader, and it features three other excellent young Chicagoans: bassist Jeff Greene (Blink.), keyboardist Rob Clearfield (Loom), and drummer Quin Kirchner (Nomo).

From the get-go, the quartet's debut, South Side Story, is unconventional for an album that is thoroughly jazzy.  "Segue," the opener, is built on a short bass repetition, providing latch-able ground for Ward's dexterous runs before an unexpectedly dense wave of keyboards provides some oomph.

The rest of Ward's compositions fall somewhere on the jazz spectrum, but each tune has its own feel and flair, including decidedly un-jazz elements like prog-ish synth accents on "All In" and distorted guitar backing on "Step Forward."  Additionally, Clearfield's talents are indispensable, as he brings Ward's softer melodies to life.

Greg Ward's Fitted Shards: "Step Forward"

Honorable Mentions

Jason Adasiewicz: Sun Rooms (Delmark)

Rahim AlHaj: Little Earth (UR Music)

Bad Religion: The Dissent of Man (Epitaph)

Ben Folds & Nick Hornby: Lonely Avenue (Nonesuch)

Black Anvil: Triumvirate (Relapse)

Enslaved: Axioma Ethica Odini (Indie Recordings)

Floored By Four (Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Yuka Honda, Dougie Bowne): s/t (Chimera Music)

Adam Haworth Stephens: We Live on Cliffs (Saddle Creek)

Alan Moore: Unearthing (Lex)

Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green: Apex (Pi)

Three Mile Pilot: The Inevitable Past is the Future Forgotten (Temporary Residence)

Unearthly Trance: V (Relapse)

Pete Yorn: s/t (Vagrant)

The Microscopic Septet’s Friday the 13^th: The Micros Play Monk will feature twelve original arrangements of jazz legend Thelonious Monk’s songs, celebrating the musician that sparked the band’s existence.  The album includes artwork by Barry Blitt of the New Yorker, and liner notes by jazz critic Peter Keepnews.

The Two Faces of Janus, by quick-fingered saxophonist/flutist Jason Robinson, is one of three projects to be released simultaneously by three different labels in September and October.  The album features ten original pieces ranging from two-reed duets to layered sextet pieces, reflective of NYC’s distinctive jazz scene.  Joining him on the album are noted New York musicians Liberty Ellman, Drew Gress, George Schuller, Marty Ehrlich, and Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Stay tuned for news on Cuneiform's other fall releases, including albums from Richard Pinhas, Univers Zero, and Uz Jsme Doma.

Om: God is Good (Drag City)

Following the amicable departure of drummer Chris Haikus in early 2008, hypnotic bass-and-drums duo Om found a chiefly suitable replacement: Emil Amos, a key component of visceral, worldly, genre-defying quartet Grails.

Amos joins bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros, a long-heralded piece of stoner-doom band Sleep who has used Om to channel discarnate vibes.  The result is a further worldly bent, with the help of friends such as flutist Lorraine Rath and Lichens / 90 Day Men member Rob Lowe on tamboura.

Recorded with Steve Albini at Chicago's Electrical Audio, God is Good showcases Om’s penchant for creating music that is as genuinely emotive as it is heavy, best illustrated on opening number “Thebes,” which begins serenely, building into a rollicking thunder before coming down again.  And like the art, God is Good represents another step in the journey for Om — a heightened sense of focus and wellbeing.

Om: "Cremation Ghat II"
Om: \"Cremation Ghat II\"

Ben Perowsky: Moodswing Orchestra, Vol. 2 (El Destructo)

For this second installment of down-tempo jams and improvisations, drummer/producer/composer Ben Perowsky joins forces again with turntablist / electronic performer Markus Miller and keyboardist Glenn Patscha, who all began the Moodswing Orchestra in a live improv setting in 2002.

Gathering a cast of all-star guests for this installment, Perowsky instructs his musical brethren away from the jazz idiom — in his words, "less Herbie, more Eno."  The result is an eclectic disc full of elastic grooves, sultry and low-key vocals, and atmospheric improvisation.  Smooth bass sounds meld with computerized tones, flute, oboe, theramin, saxophone, and the trio's regular armaments to create a seductive sonic alloy.

Big-name collaborators Bebel Gilberto, Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields), Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob), and Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) join lesser-known but equally vital guests in the form of Pamelia Kurstin, Marcus Rojas, Joan Wasser (Joan as Policewoman), Doug Wieselman, and others.  For soothing jams with striking originality and exceptional musicianship, pick this up.

Ahleuchatistas: Of The Body Prone (Tzadik)

With its proper Tzadik debut, Ahleuchatistas issues one of its most well-rounded albums, mixing improvisational and math-rock madness with refined (though still measurably impenetrable) rhythms.  There's a greater emphasis on melodies and repeated patterns this time around, and new drummer Ryan Oslance proves capable of appropriate accompaniment.

Tzadik, which last year re-released the band's 2004 album (The Same and the Other), should be a suitable home for Ahleuchatistas, which appeals to fans of math rock, prog rock, and experimental rock and even draws in some jazz heads.

Jason Adasiewicz’s Rolldown: Varmint (Cuneiform)

Vibraphone virtuoso Jason Adasiewicz has some of the most dexterous chops in Chicago's thriving jazz scene, capable of creating motion blur for concertgoers.  But Adasiewicz also slows it down, and his effort as a bandleader, Rolldown, combines the two worlds in a deft interplay between composition and improvisation.

For this sophomore effort, Rolldown treats listeners to more of its wandering, melodic passages, rife with cool ambience, fiery solos, sharp snare accents, and clicking chemistry.  Cornetist Josh Berman, alto saxophonist and clarinetist Aram Shelton, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Frank Rosaly round out the expert quintet.

Jason Adasiewicz's Rolldown: "Hide"
Jason Adasiewicz\'s Rolldown: \"Hide\"

Teased since March, the finally available debut album from Bygones is a spastic/melodic guitar/drums dichotomy.  The duo consists of drumming whiz Zach Hill (of Hella and all other bands) and tech-ish guitarist Nick Reinhart (of indie mathists Tera Melos).

The project sounds very much like one would imagine, but a complex catchy-ness is inherent in nearly every track.  The duo's intermittent utterances and backing harmonies fit better than any conventional vocals likely would.

Klang: Tea Music (Allos Documents)

Chicago clarinetist/composer James Falzone is a gem in a robust jazz mine, merging dynamic improv chops with classical compositions and a reverence for musical traditions.  His last "solo" effort, The Sign and the Thing Signified, was a beautiful chamber-jazz effort.

On his Allos Documents label, Falzone now issues the studio debut of Klang, a four-piece ensemble that includes acclaimed local collaborators in the forms of vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Tim Daisy.  Though Klang is led by Falzone, the resultant material is jazzier than his normal fare, stemming from Falzone's fondness for 1950s saxophonist/clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre.

Klang: "G.F.O.P."
Klang: \"G.F.O.P.\"

It’s a busy, burgeoning community, where each musician carries responsibilities for upwards of a dozen bands, supporting one another live and on record, developing their skills and a familiarity with each other’s musical styles and tendencies.

“It’s a family,” Adasiewicz says. “The reason why the bands are sounding better and better is that we’re growing together. We play an insane number of projects with one another, and the bands are cohesive and evolving.” This camaraderie can be heard in large ensembles like Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, of which Adasiewicz is a crucial member, and smaller groups like Rolldown, the vibe player’s personal project.

As a young musician growing up in Crystal Lake, a suburb of Chicago, Adasiewicz found himself torn between his interest in jazz and love of rock. He discovered the vibraphone in junior high, and though it piqued his interest, his primary focus was on the drums. “My drum teacher had a vibraphone nestled away in the studio,” he explains, “and when I heard it for the first time, it was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ I didn’t know something like that existed. [It was] always on the side, though. Drums were in the forefront.”

He entered DePaul University to study jazz but was disinterested in the rigid, academic approach to music he found there. Ironically, it was only when he entered the Chicago indie-rock scene as drummer for the band Pinetop 7 that he discovered the deep, rewarding jazz music that he had been looking for. Mixing with notables like Fred Lonberg-Holm and Jeff Parker, who managed to pursue their improvisational inclinations while also moonlighting for rock bands, gave Adasiewicz the confidence and motivation to try new things.

He credits his true education in jazz to Chicago’s renowned Jazz Record Mart, where he found new sounds, new ideas, and new friends who would serve as his collaborators for many years. “The Jazz Record Mart is a really amazing record store that specializes in jazz and blues,” he says. “It’s a classic downtown environment with an insane amount of records. It’s for serious record dorks.”

It’s also where he met cornet player Josh Berman, his one-time roommate and current collaborator in Rolldown. “We lived in this house together,” Adasiewicz says, “fiddling around with compositions, writing, trying to figure it out, and we looked up to people like Rob Mazurek, Fred Anderson, and Ken Vandermark.” It wasn’t long before Adasiewicz was playing with his idols, learning from them and using his newfound knowledge to develop his songwriting and guide his own groups.