Out of print
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In Which They Are At Home |
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Unbreakable, Their Bodies |
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SKEIN (ALBEE, GRATKOWSKI, BUCK, UCHIHASHI, KAUFMANN, DE JOODE, BARRETT) Spectra & Affrays
In early 2002, Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski and Wilbert de Joode first got together as a trio at a small venue in Amsterdam. Since then, the three musicians have been touring and performing internationally on a regular basis, while constantly developing, deepening and enriching their musical rapport now documented on five CDs so far: kwast on Konnex; Unearth on Nuscope; Palaë and Oblengths on Leo Records; and Geäder on Gligg Records. To celebrate their ten-year anniversary as a trio in 2013, Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode invited Richard Barrett, Tony Buck, and Okkyung Lee to form the sextet Skein which led to a series of concerts and a release on Leo Records in 2014. An extended version of Skein performed at the 2016 Berlin jazz fest, and the original Skein line-up came back together again to perform at the 2017 Kaleidophon festival in Ulrichsberg, Austria. In 2018 Skein performed the first time in the actual septet formation at the Konfrontationen Festival Nickelsdorf and in 2021 at the Klangspuren Festival Schwaz. „The music is very much like a chemical reaction as maybe seen from the inside. Sounds are discontinuous and fragmented; the decomposing anions and cations oscillate under their own electrostatic charges to form new links where they can, rather than where they are willed, until one must wonder if any of the equations will ever reach equilibrium.
This is a fine album of startlingly free improvisation. It's spectacular.“ says Ken Cheeetham in Jazz Views. Full tracklist: 1. in Which They Are At Home 2. Unbreakable, Their Bodies 3. Suggesting A Thousand Stones. Price: € 18,-/copy incl. worldwide shipping.
Liz Allbee, Frank Gratkowski, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Achim Kaufmann, Richard Barrett, Wilbert de Joode und Tony Buck wechseln auf Spectra & Affrays die Charaktere und die Geschwindigkeiten wie andere die Unterhosen, also hoffentlich oft. Aufgenommen vor fünf Jahren bei den Nickelsdorfer Konfrontationen,
ziehen alle an einem Strang. Ein beeindruckendes Spektrum, dem von hinten Tony Buck die nötige Schubkraft verleiht.
(Freistil, August 2023)
Skein, true to its name, weaves and entangles the highly personal and often eccentric vocabularies of its experienced improvisers while letting the bold and uncompromising, totally free dynamics lead the direction of the music in completely democratic dynamics. Skein never slides into virtuosic articulations or into familiar conventions or structures while exploring resonating, timbral details and always keeps a stimulating tension and energy and poetic pathos. The ensemble acts like a strong-minded ensemble that mastered beautifully the art of the moment, or, as the first piece is titled, in which they are at home. The three pieces sound like a long suite that continuously enriches its rich palette of sounds with more imaginative details, or as Guenther titled the third and last piece, Suggesting a thousand stones.
Fantastic performance. Great album.
(Free Jazz Blog, September 2023)
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