Friday, 28 February 2025

OUI048 : Sarcastic Fringehead / Dive Into It

 

Cover art by Luis Yary


OUI048 : Sarcastic Fringehead / Dive Into It

Sarcastic Fringehead emerged from a shared interest in improvisation, sound, texture, and transformation by the four band members

The quartet moves between diverse musical worlds such as jazz, improvisation, rock, drone, and others. Difficult to summarize under one term; it’s eclectic, quirky, and boundary-pushing. Raw, growling textures give way to more immersive sounds, only to land through bowed guitar and bass in a still life, with cymbals tolling ominously, while the harmony distorts until only repetition remains.

About Dive Into It:

Dive Into It was recorded and mixed by Dries Vanende and mastered by Pierre Vervloesem.

The pieces are all free improvisations. The first three tracks form a suite that was recorded in one take. This is followed by a rougher track without a fixed time signature, transitioning into a bowed drone piece. The album closes with a composition that spontaneously arose on the day itself, written by Emanuel Van Mieghem.

Dive Into It presents a series of specific sounds that Sarcastic Fringehead wanted to capture, and it offers a clear view of the versatility of the tonal colour by the band.



Joseph Nowell - Piano, keyboard, FX
Nicolas Van Belle - Guitar, FX, Voice
Emanuel Van Mieghem - Double Bass
Gionata Gardina - Drums
Recorded and mixed by Dries Vanende at Zinnema, Brussels
Mastered by Pierre Vervloesem
Artwork by Luis Yary: https://luisyary.myportfolio.com/
Eternal well composed by Emanuel Van Mieghem


Emanuel Van Mieghem: 

Emanuel Van Mieghem is a Belgian double bass player and composer, primarily active in jazz and improvised music. He began playing electric bass at age 15, teaching himself by playing along with records. After studying with Janos Bruneel and Wouter Berlaen at Kunsthumaniora Brussel, he was inspired to switch to the double bass. He earned a Master of Arts with Magna Cum Laude from the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp in 2020. 

Emanuel has performed at notable festivals such as the Jaffa Jazz Festival and Gent Jazz Festival, and has studied under various renowned musicians. In 2023, he won the ‘Prix de la meilleure composition’ at the Avignon Jazz Festival for his project Mojo Jojo. He has performed at prestigious events like the Flagey Jazz Festival, Brussels Jazz Weekend, and many other European venues. Now based in Brussels, Emanuel is a sought-after bassist in the jazz scene.


Joseph Nowell: 

Joseph Nowell, born in England in 1994 to an Italian family, began playing piano at age 4. He studied at Pimlico Academy in London and performed in Paris and Prague. At 14, he moved to Siena, Italy, winning third prize in the “G. Burrini” classical competition the following year. He completed his Master of Arts in classical piano at Conservatorio “Rinaldo Franci” in Siena in 2015, while also studying jazz piano at Siena Jazz. In 2019, he earned a Master of Arts magna cum laude in Jazz Piano at Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen, performing at the Jaffa Jazz Festival and with the Antwerp Jazz Orchestra. Joseph was a finalist in the “Concorso per Solisti Jazz” in 2021 and participated in the final of Umbria Jazz’s “Conad Jazz Contest” in 2022. In 2024, his band Iqnovara was shortlisted for Jong Jazztalent Gent. 


Gionata Gardina: 

Born in 1987 in Bergamo, Italy, and resident in Brussels since 2018, Gionata Giardina is a drummer and teacher of jazz, rock and its derivations. He has collaborated with important artists on the Italian and Belgian jazz and rock scene and has recorded over the years more than a dozen albums and participated in several festivals (Klara Festival, Brussels Jazz Weekend, Bergamo Jazz Festival, Berchidda Jazz Festival, JazzMi, Blue Flamingo Festival etc.). His education includes a bachelor diploma from the Conservatory of Brescia in Italy, an Erasmus year at the Conservatorium Maastricht in the Netherlands, a master's degree at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel and numerous masterclasses along with summer workshops. 


Nicolas Van Belle: 

Nicolas is a guitarist and composer, active in sound-improvised music, jazz, rebetiko, noise rock. He completed his master’s degree 2019 from ‘The School of Arts’ Ghent, studied one year at the Royal Academy of Music, Denmark and also met different Norwegian artists in Oslo which led him to develop his own music palette. Nicolas seeks unconventional playing possibilities, resulting in compositions that capture specific sound colours. As a sideman, he is involved in various projects such as Suura, Erem,, Yarès, Ever Present, Baljuw and others. His work combines acoustic and electronic music, experimental sounds, and influences from various genres, often using effects to bring his sounds to life. 


Digital release on the 28th of February 2025.


Track isting:


1: Suite - Something in the water

2: Suite - Movement by the lake

3: Suite - Sunbathing on a peeble beach

4: Try something different

5: The sea is as oil

6: Eternal well


Itunes, Spotify, etc.:


https://bfan.link/dive-into-it


And on Bandcamp:


Friday, 21 February 2025

ODG209 : DISORGANISM / A Thyrsus



Cover art by DISORGANISM


ODG209: DISORGANISM / A Thyrsus


A Thyrsus 

In the dust and tragedy under Čelet’s bed, in the tiny attic room where he dwelt, lay a long-forgotten cardboard box containing incomplete letters from old lovers; voices on cassettes from a previous time and a photo booth likeness of himself from a former life- poor, hunted, glowing. 

It can only have been for a matter of moments that the Disorganism had been placed on the floor in this room and yet one morning in the early innocent 2000s, T. Čelet returned to the empty club, freshly desolated, to be confronted with 7 voices in full flow. How it had rendered sound from magnetic tape we don’t need to understand, such are its tongues, but Čelet fell onto all fours under the sound being formed around him from the flies at the window, from the calls in the street, abandoned instruments and, after hollow decades, the voice of Maya Horiuchi. 

Such lonely and exquisite agony, as this perfect ghost-lover gorged on his current self. He could only writhe and rotate like some arthritic sleeper, desperate to placate their tortured bones. And his dance became the music and music his dance as he pleadingly groped for something to hold onto. 

At some point he had managed to start recording and what arose is a reliquary of the incident; the pine cone atop the ivied shaft. 

Soaked in sweat he fell out into the bustling street below, blinded in the watery white sunlight, clutching fistfuls of tangled tape and whispered, 

” …a thyrsus!” 

Čelet, Thébru 

Les Batignolles - 2003

Maya Horiuchi

Digital release on the 21st of February 2025.

Track listing:

1: Piety nor Wit (feat. Maya Horiuchi)
2: People Aren't
3: Meniscus
4: Certainty Creases
5: The Keres' Feast (feat. Maya Horiuchi)

Itunes, Spotify, etc.:


And on Bandcamp:

Friday, 14 February 2025

ODG208 : Les Boucles Absurdes / J'entends le sable murmurer

 

Cover art by Jean-Pierre Jonckheere and A.L.


ODG208 : Les Boucles Absurdes / J'entends le sable murmurer 

'J'entends le sable murmurer' was originally a track from the previous Les Boucles Absurdes album 'L'homme qu'on oubliait vite' released in 2023 (see ODG175). 

Jean-Pierre went then to ask some of his most favorite musicians on Off to do a rework of the piece with total freedom. 

Here is now 6 completely different interpretations of the track. Enjoy!

Digital release on the 14th of February 2025

Track listing:

1: Pierre Vervloesem 
2: Wataru Iwata 
3: Ruben Van Rompaey 
4: Alinovsky 
5: Tetsuroh Konishi 
6: Bruno Vansina

Itunes, Spotify, etc.:

https://bfan.link/j-entends-le-sable-murmurer

And on Bandcamp:

Friday, 7 February 2025

ODG207 : Floy Krouchi / Below sea level

 



ODG207 : Floy Krouchi / Below sea level


Floy Krouchi (see also OCD047OCD052 and ODG159) gives us again her subtle mix of her fragile and inventive bass playing  over an electronic background / drones.

It's a musical introspective work dedicated to to the people that lost their lives, their homes, or their black and white family photography generations of black people scattered with no title of property.

’Below Sea Level’ is a sonore road movie drifting from interior landscapes which retraces in 11 abstract, experimental and minimal tracks the encounter of musician Floy Krouchi, bassist and electroacoustic composer, with New Orleans: its geography, its history — delta from Mississippi, “Wetlands”, “Second Lines” — and his poetic imagination.
This album is, as is often the case with Floy Krouchi (Bass Holograms Ensemble 2016, Vibrant Continuum 2020, and FKBass Solo 2022), an exploration of the fretless electric bass exploited in all its potential, accompanied by some field recordings.
It was conceived, composed and recorded during a residency in Studio B at Piety Street Studio, and mixed by Mark Bingham.



Initially released in 2015 on CD on the Magnetic Deer label 'Below Sea Level’ is re released ten years later on Off.
You can order the cd directly from Floy. Just write her an email here: drfloy@yahoo.com

Digital release on the 7th of February.

Track listing:

1: In D
2: Interior Bass
3: Imaginary train
4: Flood 2
5: Lost homes
6: Second line
7: Old B&W negatives
8: Wetland
9: Firecraks
10: Flood

Itunes, Spotify, etc.:


And on Bandcamp: