OCD044 : Cassini Flyby / Grand Finale

Cover art by Vera Brüggemann

OCD044 : Cassini Flyby / Grand Finale

Grand Finale sees the avant garde experimental jazz rock prog trio lead by Chris Jones going further in their explorations. The combination gives us at time relax moods, at time very nervous inflections. Based around the story of the probe Cassini...a true journey!

In 2016 Tom Clarke (drums), Peter Marsh (bass & electronics) and Chris Jones (guitars) – all veterans of London's improvisational/experimental music scene - began regular sessions in the heart of London's Brixton. Combining a shared love of jazz, krautrock, Canterbury and electronica, the band began exploring the possibilities of improvisation, but combined with a strong rhythmic undertow. 

Simultaneously, NASA's Cassini-Huygens probe, which had begun its own exploratory journey nearly 20 years beforehand, had entered the final phase of its mission: a series of data-gathering 'flybys' of Saturn and its satellites. During the band's earliest sessions, the probe was regularly sending back sublime and awe-inspiring images of our Solar System that seemed to mirror the ominous yet driving aesthetic at the heart of the trio's music. Suddenly, the band had a name…

Like all semi-improvised music, this was a delicate balancing act between form and chaos; between the solid and the ethereal. At the beginning of 2017, Tom and Peter entered Baby Microbe studios in Brixton to record a set of backing tracks which were subsequently sent to Chris; now living in Northern Germany. Guitar overdubs were recorded in Germany and then taken back to London to be mixed.

The Cassini mission's final approach toward Saturn's surface was known as the 'Grand Finale': a carefully pre-planned and audacious dance between the various moons and rings of the giant planet that ended in a fiery plunge into the super-dense atmosphere. This combination of daring, science and auto-destruction also plays out in the band's debut album. From the vastness of space to the microscopic click's and buzzes of digital circuitry under duress, Grand Finale is a wild ride into the unknown…

Digital release on the 18th of October 2019.

Track listing:

1: Full Steam Ahead

2: You Know, We Can Never Come from This

3: F Ring 1

4: Picnic with Rhea

5: Dark Titan

6: Shitstorm on Tethys

7: F Ring 2

8: Final Dive

9: Intension

10: Enceladusian Birds (Bonus track)

11: Polar Hexagon (Bonus track)

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OUW002 : Dominique Maes, Jean-Pierre Jonckheere / Bestiaire de mon jardin secret

Cover art by Dominique Maes

OUW002 : Dominique Maes, Jean-Pierre Jonckheere / Bestiaire de mon jardin secret

Second release on the new (Un)spoken words, 'Bestiaire de mon jardin secret' is a collection of 21 texts full of humour about animals running in the secret garden of Dominique Maes. 
Born in 1957, to this day still alive and working every day to be even more. 
Writer, draftsman, clarinetist, he is also the generous director of the Poetics Grand Drug Store, a store of imaginary products. 
He is a member of the music group "Camping Palace Orchestra".

Dominique

Jean-Pierre Jonckheere from Les Boucles Absurdes (see also OPV007 and OPV010) adds all the background music which typically matches perfectly the little poetry behind all the tracks. 

There are 3 pure instrumentals as well that give some space between all the texts. Dominique plays all the bass clarinets on the tracks. A discovery if you enjoy French speaking!

As Dominique says it: "Enter the secret garden. Dare to lose yourself, it's worth it. You will come out more alive. And you will then return, from time to time, when the need arises.

You will meet philosophical animals, tender, desperate, cruel, implacable as life, sweet as the moments of ephemeral joy that must have the art of taste when they

arise.

Stroll in the woods, the meadow or on the beach. The bestiary is infinite and happiness can arise under a simple dead leaf. All you have to do is find your gift of wonder."

Dominique and Jean-Pierre

Digital release on the 11th of October 2019.

Track listing:

1: Introduction

2: Le jardin secret

3: Le canard

4: Le Pinguin

5: Le loup

6: La valse

7: La truite

8: Le sanglier

9: La bête

10: Le moineau

11: Le requin

12: L'éléphant

13: L'oie

14: Klezmer

15: Le rhinocéros

16: L'hippopotame

17: Le poulpe

18: Les musaraignes

19: Lhassa

20: Le scolopendre

21: La crevette

22: Le cochon d'Inde

23: Le tyrannosaure

24: La barrière

ODG114 : Goudron et Plume / Low

Cover art by Goudron et Plume

ODG114 : Goudron et Plume / Low

The visionary sound of Goudron et Plume is back (see also ODG083) and this time it's much more electro-rock-blues-dancefloor.

The voice of Professor Plume is more busy than ever while the Doctor Goudron adds powerful beats and synths solo on the top of each track! 
An improbable mix and a bit like Jan Hammer would play with Nick Cave! A must!

Goudron et Plume

Digital release on the 4th of October 2019.

Track listing:

1: Jkd

2: Klez

3: Project #3 - Featuring Jonny Bonaccorso on some drums

4: God Drums - Featuring Luca Cacciatore on Saxophone​

5: Low

6: Pink Soda Tears

OPV015 : Artiste International / Pierre Vervloesem feat. Morgan Ågren

Cover art by A.L. / Graphism by DJeromebosch

OPV015 : Artiste International /  Pierre Vervloesem feat. Morgan Ågren

Another masterpiece from Pierre Vervloesem (see all his physical releases here and all his digital ones here), this time featuring the amazing many times awarded Swedish drummer Morgan Ågren (playing also with Pierre on OPV006 - Kings of Belgium / Très fort) on all tracks. 

12 crafted tracks full of humour, stunning time signatures, new things happening every seconds, and moving music that will never let you wondering what but instead wondering how! An album that you will not forget or be bored even after a thousand time listening to it! Enjoy!

About Morgan Ågren:

Morgan Ågren has been a drummer since age four and a Grammy winning musician on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in Umeå, Sweden in 1967, Mr. Ågren was spotted as an outstanding talent at a young age as he began performing publicly at age seven, and eventually joined forces with ten year old blind keyboardist Mats Öberg in 1981. In 1988, still around their late teens, Morgan and Mats got invited to play with Frank Zappa for a few different projects in the US - just before Zappa passed away. While some of the Zappa influence remains, Morgan and Mats have long since found their own voices. In the mid 90’s, they began releasing CDs on Morgan’s label Ultimate Audio Entertainment, eventually forming a stable band, which has amazed audiences in Europe, Asia and the USA since 2001.

With superb playing ability, the Mats/Morgan Band is a well-honed, cohesive unit, arriving at its own voice in progressive jazz/rock. Mats/Morgan Band is an absolutely monsterous band who await the world’s discovery! Morgan have climbed the readers polls in various drum-magazines recently. In 2010 Morgan was voted No.1 in Modern Drummers readers poll in the category "fusion”. Morgan has also played with Devin Townsend, Squarepusher, Bill Laswell, Steve Vai, Trey Gunn, Henry Kaiser, Fleshquartet, Fredrik Thordendal (of Meshuggah), Karmakanic, Spoonman, Glenn Huges, Tony Iommi, Terry Bozzio, Mike Keneally, Denny Walley, Kaipa, Bolon Bata, Dweezil Zappa etc.

Pierre

Morgan

And a very good review in 'Big beautiful noise' by Lee Henderson here. 

Physical and digital release on the 27th of September 2019.

Track listing:

1: Two Degrees 

2: Racka Boom

3: Hop Hop Hop

4: I Wait

5: Before the Move

6: Chapata

7: Annie aime la bite

8: Amandine pas

9: The Bass

10: Rue Blaes

11: After the move
12: Autumn is Useless

CD price:

Price

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OUW001 : Sarah Kokot / Minutes domestiques

Cover art and embroidery by Sarah Kokot

OUW001 : Sarah Kokot / Minutes domestiques

Sarah Kokot was born in Belgium in 1984. As a child, she wanted to become a painter, or writer, or florist. With its sound capsules, it is a little bit the three at a time ... Offering our senses, by sound and word, mental landscapes to dream and feel.

She made her first sound clips in 2016 during a radio creation workshop led by Marie Michiels and Miguel Allo. She then begins to broadcast them on a Soundcloud page that she calls "small orders". The term comes from entomology and refers to the least known insects of the general public.

In her sonic poems, Sarah Kokot works to magnify the insignificant, to stretch a furtive sensation, an absurd reflection in a space of astonishment at once naive and disillusioned.

With "Domestic Minutes", she responds to the invitation of the Off label, and offers a set of capsules marked by domestic intimacy.

All by Sarah Kokot, except music on 5 by Johannes Brahms. 
Voices on 7: Clara Marciano, Arthur Delhaye, Valérie Lebrun, Renaud Suarez and Rachel Heyberger.
Mastering by Pierre Vervloesem.

This is also the first release in the new (Un)Spoken Words series.

Sarah - pic by Jeanne Bidlot

Digital release on the 20th of September 2019.

Track listing:

1: Intro

2: Les grains de beauté

3: Extension du domaine de la lutte à l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs

4: Les marquises de la chambre rose

5: Dans ce miroir, février 2019

6: Le petit doigt en l'air

7: Le petit doigt en l'air 2 (Bonus track)

And on Bandcamp :



Cd price:

Price

World shipping €9,00 EUR

OVD026 : Alinovsky / 4

Covert art by A.L.

OVD026 : Alinovsky / 4



The 4 tracks were recorded in Merida (Yukatan) by Alinovsky (see ODG004, ODG059 and OPV013). A mix between the Mexican mood, weather and ambient music, with a bit of melancholy, past memories, futur hopes and a lot of rhythmics in the melodies.

Once back to Brussels Alinovsky gave his rough mixes to Pierre Vervloesem who added some rhythms and did the editing, the final mix and the mastering with his touch of genius as always!

Merida 4 is an hommage of some sort to Kraftwerk. 

Alinovsky and Pierre 

Digital release on the 13th of September 2019.

Track listing:

1: Merida 1 - Spring

2: Merida 2 - Summer

3: Merida 3 - Rainy Season

4: Merida 4 - Fall and Winter

OJP038 : Pulse Convention / Simultaneous Spontaneity

 Cover art by A.L. and 齊藤 晃 (Akira Saito)

OJP038 : Pulse Convention / Simultaneous Spontaneity

In 2006 Wataru IWATA (Piano and Fender Rhodes) started his project Pulse Convention with UEZI on drums before becoming a full band with the addiction of Hiroshi NAKAMURA (Saxophone) and Noboru ANDO (Contrabass) in the late 2007. 

IWATA named and formed the band with the aim to express and show the generative reaction of each player to the surrounding atmosphere and that particular moment where they interact not only to the music but to the space of the notes filled in order to create a specific sound moment after moment. After a number of live events, concerts in clubs and bars, they stopped playing together in the end of 2008. Finally Pulse Convention was revived in the fall of 2018. 

This album captures that fresh moment of their reunion in a studio where they just improvised for a few hours. Here you have 9 tracks which travel between atmospheric contemporary jazz without having one member trying to be in front of the others. A real unity and pleasure transpires through the whole album as they never stopped playing together.

All the songs composed and performed by Pulse Convention. 
Mastering by Pierre Vervloesem. 

Hiroshi, Uezi, Wataru and Noboru / Photo Ken Iwai

Digital release on the 6th of September 2019.

Track listing:

1 Viridian Moon

2 Walk up to the Dune

3 Low Gravity

4 Reboot

5 Sphere Fluid

6 Sphere Fluid 2

7 Opalescence

8 Hydroscopic Ray

9 At the End of the Struggle