December 1st 2012

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

A busy autumn of touring and albums. Lean Left, which hit the road in Europe during September, released a hat trick of recordings from performances at Cafe Oto exactly one year earlier- two nights in London on September 11th and 12th, 2011- with Ab Baars as a guest for the 2nd set on night one, Steve Noble sitting in on the 2nd set on night two. The 1st sets from both evenings were released as a cd on Unsounds, the set with Baars and the set with Noble were released as separate lps on Kollaps, each feature a different 18 page booklet of black & white photos by Andy Moor and Ken Vandermark. Previous to that, released in time for a July European tour with Getachew Mekuria & The Ex & Friends, was the double cd on Terp called, “Y’Anbessaw Tezeta.” This album featured studio sessions recorded in winter of 2011 and spring 2012, as well as a cd of archival material- Mekuria performing with the ICP Orchestra, the Haile Selassie 1 Theatre Orchestra, and live with The Ex in Montreal. In addition to the music, a 40 page booklet of interviews, articles and photographs is included with the album- amazing! Timed with the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet and Double Tandem tours were a couple of albums- a double cd with the Tentet (“Walk, Love, Sleep” on smalltown) and the second cd by the trio (“Ox” on dEN Records). And, after much work over several years, the new DKV Trio box set, “Past Present,” was issued by Not Two. It features 7 cds: 6 recorded live in Chicago and Milwaukee between 2009 and 2011, and a bonus disk from the band’s performance of Don Cherry compositions at the Sant’Anna Arresi festival in Sardinia during August of 2008. All of these recordings, plus other new albums by Peter Brötzmann, Mats Gustafsson, and Paal Nilssen-Love, will all be available at catalytic-sound.com by early December.