Novelties at Clean Feed

Continuing to make the difference through difference, Clean Feed has recently released three more records.

One of them is “Zul Zelub” by Jorge Lima Barreto, one of the halves of Telectu and one of the most influential names in Portuguese contemporary music.
The concept of this album comes from the so called “unrealized music energy”, a theory developed by Lima Barreto with João Marques Carrilho. The idea is that, in the moment immediately before starting to improvise, the musician forms a purely mental investment of memory and intention, something of the metaphysical domain in which the music retains a dream-like flux.
As with any conceptual work of art — in this case an improvised work — this record has several layers. In its essence, this is a piano solo recorded live in concert. It is simultaneously lyrical and experimental, rare combination. It addresses dynamics of time and textural timbres, spontaneous preparations, and metamorphic melodic figures. The piano melds with a short wave radio receiver in “Zul” and with four CD players projecting a montage of natural sounds in “Zelub”. These techniques bring to mind the avant-garde music and Fluxus movement of John Cage and his use of multimedia and interart (video, installation, performance art) in some of his compositions. In the studio, the live recordings were remastered and manipulated to create new textures and structures preserving the original solo piano.

Another fresh item at Clean Feed’s catalogue is “Every Woman is a Tree”, by the Angles collective: a free jazz record with a post-bop twist. Angles is formed by Swedish alto (and sometimes baritone) saxophonist Martin Küchen, a musician that spans the artificial divisions imposed between the “new” and the “old” improvising schools, with radical extended techniques such as the sonic use of saliva.
In “Every Woman is a Tree”, Küchen accompanied by some of the most interesting musicians on the Scandinavian scene: Magnus Broo (trumpet), Mats Äleklint (trombone), Mattias Ståhl (vibraphone), Johan Berthling (contrabass) and Kjell Nordeson (drums). This is a recording that, although “thought out” and structured, it’s still organic and is even visceral, as the subject of this record – “war” – requires.

Finnally, we’ve got Lugar da Desordem, which joins in itself Bruno Pedroso, Ken Filiano and Paulo Curado for “The Bird, the Breeze and Mr. Filiano” work.
This is the result of the association of an unorthodox jazzman (Curado), who also composes for the performing arts and film (with a particular interest for animated cartoons), a bassist with classical education and strong roots in jazz history but also the vocation to go beyond the tradition (Ken Filiano), and a drummer who plays mainstream and avant-garde with equal conviction and skill (Bruno Pedroso). The recording is a wonder of purpose, delivery, drive and energy, with focused attention to detail and nuance. It demonstrates that a power jazz trio can be sensible and lyrical, even if in a twisted way.

Images: Clean Feed