Joseph Dejean Gérard Marais
Duo

On June 3rd Gondwana Records present ‘Next Time Could Be Your Last Time’ – the debut album by Forgiveness, AKA Jack Wyllie, JQ and Richard Pike. Described as “not really jazz, not really new age, not really ambient or electronica”, instead they welcome you into a synaesthesia-inducing technicolour fantasy, full of wondrous emotive beauty.This genesis began with the sharing of music, burgeoning friendships, and the mutually-inspirational benefit of the collective power of a group dynamic, with each spurring the next on to heighten their already expansive skills.Intertwining the acoustic, electric and digital, utilising instruments and tools from across the decades, their synthesized Shangri La is a place where craftsmanship meets musicianship, even including sections notated on sheet music. The mood whilst recording, however, was one of loose freedom and enjoyment, with parts displaying a light-hearted playfulness. A world where shiny electronics meet flute and sax motifs, subverting them into something new.Jack Wyllie is best known for his work with Portico Quartet, Paradise Cinema and Szun Waves as well as collaborations with artists such as Luke Abbott, Adrian Corker and Charles Hayward. Whilst JQ has released on Boxed and Lo Recordings, with his music also remixed by Loraine James, Sun Araw and Foodman. Richard Pike has had multiple records on Warp as a member of PVT, collaborated with Modeselektor and Ital Tek, recorded under his alter-ego Deep Learning, and founded the tape label Salmon Universe, all whilst composing scores for TV drama.Wide-ranging influences on the LP include 70s era ECM and Miles Davis, Spencer Clark/Star Searchers, Ansel Adams, Steve Reich, H Takahashi, Don Slepian, The Blue Nile, Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’, Michael Gordon’s ‘Rushes for 8 Bassoons’, Sir Simon Rattle’s documentary ‘Leaving Home’, Horoshi Yoshimura, Ulla Strauss and Disasterpeace, plus new developments in vaporwave and software experimental.Hitting the centre at the ven diagram of these interests, the record converges the trio’s individual sound worlds into something singular. Primarily purveying a sense of endorphin-flushed tranquillity, they build synthetic, bucolic, lysergic landscapes, which although imbued with processed plasticity also contain multi-stranded depths of textural field.

Bon Voyage Organisation is above all the story of the construction of an ensemble, the quest for harmony, through music, between beings. A central leitmotiv in Adrien Durand's composition and production work for almost ten years.Emancipated from all constraints and affirming the radical choice - previously initiated with La Course - of an entirely instrumental sound, (Loin des) Rivages was recorded over five days in June 2020 at Jean-Benoit Dunkel's Studio Atlas (Air) and mixed the following summer by Adrien Durand in his Parisian studio, Bureau 12. It was an orchestrated performance considering that all ten tracks were played live, gathering up to thirteen musicians in the same room.This close collaboration allowed Adrien Durand and the members of the ensemble to transcend themselves. Together, they deliver the incredible energy of Sentier des Orpailleurs (and Adrian Edeline's superb solo), the depth of melancholy of Apacheta (co-written and co-arranged by Adrien Durand and Gustave Rudman), and the originality of Et s'éveillent...Inspired by the great explorers of the soul: Sun Ra, Moondog, Coltrane - a cover of his Naïma actually opens the album - Adrien Durand mixes humanity’s first instruments (the percussions and the winds) with its latest ones (the mixing tables and the synthesizers). Thus, he continues the most interesting yet rewarding artistic journey: The journey inward, far from the standards of civilization, in the heart of what some can take for madness, reaching into a jungle of the soul so marvelously represented in Clément Vuillet’s artwork.This is not an intellectual record but rather a spiritual effort, because, as Adrien Durand likes to repeat in his concerts: "Let us step into music as we step into a sanctuary."

Le trio instrumental basse, batterie, saxophone explore la noirceur d'un jazz tous azimut à la John Zorn, décompose les rythmiques noises à la Shellac et nous offre une suite logique à Nerf déjà sorti sur Head records et Rude Awakening. Les Yeux De La Tête las d’être comparé aux Autres (comme on les appelle entre nous) , devrait par la suite s’appeler Mosca Violenta, comme le nom de cet album. Notons que Mosca Violenta s’est lâchement permis de voler un titre aux Marylin Rambo pour compléter l’album …

It's been a long time since the UK jazz scene was as thriving and fertile as it is right now, and one of the most fascinating artists currently doing it is Emma-Jean Thackray. UM Yang is her long-envisaged project "dedicated to the Taoist philosophy of duality and harmony" and it has been record straight to vinyl, lending the sounds a real, visceral feel. The DJ, beat maker, trumpeter, singer and composer draws on all her skills to collide worlds here as she leads a septet into the unknown. Free jazz, wailing trumpets, deconstructed marching bands and so much more make for a dense tapestry of sound that leaves you spellbound.