Spotlight: Intakt Records

With the Xmas season fast approaching, this Swiss label could provide one-stop shopping for all the modern guitar records you need to please fellow fans or yourself. This small label offers over 250 recordings, many of which feature pioneers (Fred Frith, Elliot Sharp) and current stars (Mary Halvorson, Kurt Rosenwinkel) of modern guitar. It is also a great place to discover new players from Europe (Dominic Landolt, Vojko Huter).

Fred Frith All Is Always Now – Live At The Stone
This is a three-disc set of Frith with, on various tracks, Laurie Anderson, Ikue Mori, Sylvie Courvoisier, Shelley Hirsch, Jessica Lurie, Evan Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Gyan Riley, Nate Wooley, and a host of others, culled from decade of performances between 2006 and 2016 at the original Stone in NYC. ’Nuff said.

Tom Rainey Trio Combobulated
One of three records featuring Mary Halvorson. Here she joins drummer Rainey and
Ingrid Laubrock on saxophone, finding further original ways to use delay as part of her musical voice, while, as a trio, they blur the line between free improv and composition.

Saadet Türköz And Elliott Sharp Kumuska
The Turkish singer and the American musical polymath demonstrate remarkable empathy. Türköz’s endlessly inventive intonations and vocal sonics are perfectly set off by Sharp’s equally imaginative accompaniment .

Human Feel Gold
The number of bands containing musicians of this caliber that have played together for two decades can probably be counted on one hand. Chris Speed and Andrew D’Angelo on horns, Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar, and Jim Black, drums, who will be entering their third decade next year, are back speaking the unique group language they have developed.

Ingrid Laubrock Contemporary Chaos Practices Two Works For Orchestra With Soloists
An ensemble led by two conductors, Eric Wubbels and Taylor Ho Bynum, provides a lush, often ominous backdrop for solos by Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis (piano), Nate Wooley (trumpet), and Laubrock’s sax.

Trio Heinz Herbert Yes
Dominic Landolt (Guitar, Effects), Ramon Landolt (keys, synth, samples), and
Mario Hänni (drums) create their skittering landscapes as a unit, resulting in a cohesive sound that serves as a sampler of minimalism, prog rock, electronica, and many things in between, sometimes all at once.

Fred Frith Trio Closer To The Ground
If their last record veered close to power trio norms, this outing is more about “sound, mood, texture, ideas, and atmosphere.”

Michael Formanek Even Better
Playing with Sun of Goldfinger’s Tim Berne on alto, Mary Halvorson offers some serious chops along with her distinctive DL4 pitch shifts on bassist Formanek’s latest.

Elliott Sharp Carbon Transmigration At The Solar Max
Drummer Bobby Previte and electric harpist Zeena Parkins join Sharp for a live recording at the Jazzfestival Saalfelden. Sharp later added additional tracks and mixed. The strings of Sharp and Parkins meld into one giant instrument punctuated by Previte’s perfect percussion.

District Five Decoy
A Swiss quartet of Xaver Rüegg (bass), Tapiwa Svosve (alto saxophone, synths/electronics), Vojko Huter (guitar, synths/electronics), and Paul Amereller (drums), have evolved their own approach to a classic jazz lineup by honoring the harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic complexities of the music while adding their own ambient and electronic voices.

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