Oh, Art as Catharsis, it’s not the first time we praise you and undress our hearts to your fascinating gift for finding jaw-dropping new music from the island-continent of Australia. We can continue to deny we are total fanboys by arguing that it’s the first time we do so this month, but we know everybody sees through us and the lies we tell ourselves. Well, until Lachlan and AAC starts to disappoint us, we will continue to praise the label’s merits and its amazing roster. This time, it’s an Australian-American band: Sydney’s and New York’s Ground … Read more
Tag Archives: polyrhythm
Quantum Trio – Duality: Particles & Waves
With members from Poland and Chile meeting in the Netherlands to play modern, progressive jazz together, Quantum Trio just released a massive hour-and-a-half-long double album, Duality: Particles & Waves. Besides being of massive scale and tremendous musicianship, Duality is a concept album on the wave-particle duality, an important concept in quantum physics. The first disc, Particles, is focused on the tangible, while the other one, Waves, embodies the ethereal facet of matter and energy. Concretely, the shift is very noticeable on the music itself. As per their own description, Particles contain polyrhythmic tunes and ballads, both undeniably … Read more
Exclusive Video Premiere: Ikarus – Ryuujin
We are pleased to present a live video of Ikarus performing ‘Ryuujin’ off their most recent album, Chronosome.
Ikarus is a Swiss contemporary jazz band with an interesting configuration. They take a typical acoustic jazz trio composed of piano, bass, and drums, and add two scat vocalists – one male and one female – to the mix. This results in a highly unique sound defined by sublime vocal interplay underlaid by dynamic compositions.
The human voice, unbound by language, is more versatile than any other instrument one might use. Ikarus certainly proves that with their stellar performance. The rhythm … Read more
A new, live tune from Instrumental (adj.)!
Seeing all the guys play seated is a strange sight indeed, but I’m not one to mind at all. The new song, The Nightmare of Adulthood, is about 6 minutes long and will be on their EP that comes out November 10. These guys are really amazing to see play together and I can’t wait to jam their tunes on the EP!… Read more
XYAX – Ode to the Universe (in three parts)
XYAX is Dave Tremblay and Ben Norton. XYAX is self-described as “22nd-century electronic un-metal un-music”.
Lyrics are presented on their site: XYAX.net
We all love albums that give us “out of this world” experiences. Well XYAX’s entire concept is to bring you that. XYAX does what modern technical death metal and progressive bands fail to do on a daily basis. XYAX does not feed you a riff salad and actually brings you something that is truly innovate in it’s vocal approach, song structures, rhythmic diversity, and production values.
Even with being so technical and having many layers, “Ode to the … Read more