Tag Archives: modern jazz

Brian!, Trevor Dunn, Miriodor, and Oiseaux-Tempête

by Dæv Tremblay

Brian! – Cataclysmic Engine (Nefarious Industries)


What if you replaced the bassist with a bassoonist? Well, Brian! answered this question in 2010 with their debut EP EEE. Twelve years on, the New York power trio has mastered its peculiar sound and grown more confident, more adventurous, and more certain. With the Cataclysmic Engine, you can hear the idiosyncratic sound of the bassoon, somewhere between electric bass and synthesizer during the riffs and a genuine woodwind instrument during solos. I love this instrument, and I’m really grateful that such a band exists! Be sure to check out this new… Read more

God Alone, Insane in the Rain, Wizrd, and Angela Avetisyan

by Dæv Tremblay

God Alone – Etc. (Prosthetic)


Somewhere between blues, noise rock, and post-metal, we find Irish quintet God Alone. Their new album, Etc. was a huge surprise for me, and an absolute banger of an album. Perhaps you can best experience the breadth of the band’s sound by listening to the ten-minute “Kung Fu Treachery”, which goes to hell and back, and shows God Alone’s ease with disparate yet memorable musical composition. One of the great underrated noise rock albums of the year!

Insane in the Rain – Insane in the Rain


Carlos Eiene, also known as Insane in the Rain,… Read more

Best of Modern Jazz 2021

by Dæv Tremblay


Here’s some of the best jazz albums of 2021!

Number Five: Wood River & Cantus domus – Sediments We Move


On Sediments We Move, Charlotte Greve takes us on quite the panoramic tour! Backed by the Cantus domus choir, this is jazz with choir, and it’s positively disconcerting. I love it so much!

Number Four: Skrim – The Crooked Path


The avant-garde jazz journey of Skrim’s Crooked Path release is one you can’t easily forget, as you’ll constantly be thrown this way or that, to the whim of the composers-improvisers leading the boat. An amazing album!

Number Three: Patrick

… Read more

Big Heart Machine – Big Heart Machine

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

I’ve been waiting on this release for as long as it has been announced (or very nearly so), but, when it was finally released, it was impossible for me to listen to it attentively and, thus, prepare a short review before the month’s end. It is doubtless that I can say that Big Heart Machine would’ve made it in August’s monthly recommendations, but you’ll have to be content with this belated, overdue one.

Big Heart Machine is the eighteen-piece big band under the baton of Miho Hazama and the production of Darcy James Argue, another … Read more

Les Rugissants – D’humain et d’animal

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

Les Rugissants is a nu jazz ensemble from Paris, France, and they recently released their latest album: D’humain et d’animal–Of Human and Animal, if you allow me the free translation. At the junction of progressive rock and big band jazz, Les Rugissants plays an emotive and intellectually compelling brand of jazz that I must make sure you not miss.

After the lyrical and rather romantic introduction of “Le visage”, we get to an interesting \(\frac{5}{4}\) motif in “Second hymne delphique à Apollon”, which gets expanded upon throughout the song, quite rewardingly so. At … Read more