OPV015 : Pierre Vervloesem feat. Morgan Ågren / Artiste International

Cover art by A.L. / Graphism by DJeromebosch

OPV015 : Pierre Vervloesem feat. Morgan Ågren / Artiste International

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

And on Bandcamp:



CD price:

Price

World shipping €15,00 EUR

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-OUI019 : Pulse Convention / Simultaneous Spontaneity

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

OJP038-OUI019 : 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

And on Bandcamp:

ODG103-OUI060 : Ben Sluijs Quartet / Flying Circles

Cover art by Marijke Deweerdt

ODG103 : Ben Sluijs Quartet / Flying Circles

Another reissue from the Ben Sluijs Quartet ( see also OCD039, ODG086 and ODG095) originally released in 2002 on the W.E.R.F. label, Seasounds was recorded at Jet Studio - Brussels.. 

"This is already the third album for WERF with the same quartet and the sixth in the series "finest in Belgian Jazz" that the cultural center of Bruges publishes on the occasion of "Bruges 2002". This is to say if Ben Sluijs and his companions are appreciated by amateurs and critics. The Antwerp artist took special care to design this album, which probably foreshadowed a turning point in his career towards freer forms and spontaneous creations in duo or trio (first part of "Flying Circle"). poems on "Stones" and some tests of the deceased "Travers" we had let him feel.
In the virtuosities he developed extensively when playing hard-bop, Ben prefers today a research on the sounds (breath control in the beak on the melancholic and black "Medieval") and introspection by harmony who pay a tribute to the European classics of the past century as Scriabin. The game of the violist remains a patchwork of plays (Coltrane on the occasion of the first solo on "Exactly what I do not mean", Monk for the writing of "Mouth Peace" and the approach of Erik Vermeulen at the piano) but today it transpires with a good assurance, a beautiful tranquility ("Xzen"). Piet Verbiest (b) provides a rigorous accompaniment of classicism whereas Eric Thielemans drives in the contemporary way, close to the cutting of the melodies, light on the skins and the cymbals.
The short and exotic "Second Flight" reminds me of Yussef Lateef's "Sounds of Nature".
Ben offers on this piece a beautiful flute sound with a passage in scales that he may have borrowed from the finals of Jacqus Pelzer on the "Theme for Freddie".
A very good record of a mature artist."  Jean-Marie Hacquier

• Alto Saxophone, Flute – Ben Sluijs
• Contrabass – Piet Verbist
• Drums – Eric Thielemans
• Percussion – Chris Joris
• Piano – Erik Vermeulen

Originally released as W.E.R.F. 034.

Digital release on the 30th of August 2019.

Track listing:

1: All One Song
2: Medieval
3: Flying Circles
4: Mouth Piece
5: Naomi
6: Exactly What I Don't Mean
7: Xzen
8: Second Flight

Itunes, Apple Music, Spotify, etc.:

https://bfan.link/flying-circles

And on Bandcamp:

Two new African and Japanese Spotify playlists!

Two new playlist on Spotify to Enjoy! 

A compilation of some of the best Japanese experimental tracks from the Japanese serie:
24 tracks to discover here:




And a compilation of the Matonge series with 11 tracks to discover here:



Enjoy!

Autumn is useless video!

First video from the forthcoming album 'Artiste International' from Pierre Vervloesem Feat. the one and only drummer Morgan А̊gren!

Enjoy!