After the album Calques recorded live during a concert, Novembre returns with Encore, a double studio album,the result of a long maturation in terms of form, composition and playing. As they have been doing for more than ten years, Romain Clerc Renaud and Antonin Tri Hoang have constructed a complex poetic form, made up of multiple back-and forths between simple and gentle themes (Encore, Petit Matelot) or very fast ones (LetCo, Klaxon); between very short pieces (Miniatures) and large developments (Continuum). Everything is arranged by the play of contrasts and resonances: a piece is interrupted to be continued later (Please wait), a motif is metamorphosed by dint of repetition (Encore), a piece is played again, but as quickly as possible (Letco Flash). The second CD of the album illustrates another side of the art of montage. Marc Baron recorded Novembre while they were working on Encore, using the most varied materials and techniques (tape recorder, hydrophone, boom box, spring, tape loops). With this harvest he has constructed an electroacoustic piece that diverts, amplifies and transforms the music of Novembre. --- CD1 Compositions by Romain Clerc-Renaud and Antonin- Tri HoangRecording: Antony - July 2021Engineering and mixing: Erwan BoulayMastering: Pierre Luzy, Music Unit CD2Electro-acoustic piece by Marc Baron, produced in the studio in the summer 2018 from recordings of the band Novembre.Design: Galilée Al Rifai

Under the name SBATAX, Bertrand Denzler and Antonin Gerbal continue their exploration of flow, speed and patternsby exacerbating the sound of their saxophone-drums duo. The furrow they dig ends up forming spirals thatgradually migrate towards regions where movement becomes a texture that floats in the wind. Bertrand Denzler and Antonin Gerbal have been working together since 2011, both as a duo and with bands and projects such as Zoor, Denzler-Gerbal-Dörner, Onceim, Horns+, CCP3 or Protocluster, whose albums have been released by labels such as Umlaut Records, Confront Recordings and Remote Resonator. --- Music by Bertrand Denzler (Suisa) and Antonin Gerbal (Gema-Sacem)Recorded at Curved Pitch, Saint-Ouen, France, June24th 2022Engineered by SbataxMastered by Jean-Pierre Bouquet, L'Autre StudioPhoto by Benjamin DenzlerDesign by Erica Saïdah

Cartographie de rythmes is a sound exploration guided by an imaginary map of rhythm, offering as many possible poles to navigate between. The first part of this cartography, Vitesses approchantes (Umlaut Records, 2021) for two percussionists - Sylvain Darrifourcq and Toma Gouband -, focused on the notion of phase shift through falsely repetitive motifs whose slight variations in speed generate sonic illusions. In this second part, Cardiaque, it is the relationship between text and music that constitutes a new crest line: how to listen to the language's rhythm while respecting the rhythm of the music. "Rhythm" does not mean the same thing while talking about music or text - and we would like to preserve the vitality of each field: like the beat created by two frequencies, the two rhythmic logics generate new interferences without losing their singularities. Julien Gaillard's texts are intertwined in a montage that allows us to travel from note-taking to poem. His voice mingles with that of Aurélie Maisonneuve and the tone of Fabrice Arnaud-Crémon's clarinet: together, they carry these textures made of truncated cycles, frames and breaks. The theme of the heart runs through the cycle: accelerations and phase shifts, thresholds between periodicity and arrhythmia, in the light of questions of breathing and heartbeat, take on a singularly organic dimension: the exploration of rhythm becomes an exploration of body states. --- Recorded in June 2022 at Athénor - Centre National de Création Musicale (Saint-Nazaire)Engineering and mastering / Ananda ChererDesign / atelier informationCare / Ronan Le RégentProduced by Athénor scène nomade - CNCM incollaboration with La Maison de la MusiqueContemporaine.

"Original compositions between jazz, ditties and microtonal post-romanticism; hits from the 60s, marginal classics of the jazz repertoire (among others with old Dutch lyrics), a traditional song from Belarus, a Cologne march from the 30s, a peace song from the USA and a piece of music in which a programmable lithophone made of more than200 stone slabs plays the leading role. All this in an always delicately unpredictable approach by eleven improvisers of the most diverse character, lovingly arranged by the ensemble's namesake, as well as warmly supported here and there by La Chorale Transcendentale. Lucia Mense / recordersJoris Rühl / clarinetsGeorg Wissel / alto saxophone, clarinetUdo Moll / trumpetMatthias Muche / tromboneCarl Ludwig Hübsch / tubaMichael Griener / drumsRadek Stawarz / violinOxana Omelchuk / casio DM-100 keyboard, harmoniumKetonge / electronics, voiceSimon Rummel / piano, harmonium, melodica, voice With the singers from La chorale transcendentale

Grip, Denzler and Johansson, respectively in their early thirties, early fifties and early seventies, found each other through the intertwining scenes between Paris and Berlin. When taking a look at their previous musical activities you will get an exquisite account of the contemporary history of experimental improvised musics (yes, plural!) in Europe. It is a dense heritage in service of forming a new model for a creative process. Emerged through the questioning of methods, Neuköllner Modelle combine bipolar procedures in creating something which could be likened with a retarding ballad of the insistent up-tempo murmur accelerating in the backdrop-world of today. "Neuköllner Modelle is a gathering of musical ideas which function really good together. Our instruments and unique way of handling them formed the model serving the creation of Neuköllner Modelle. First there was an idea of the music, then there was the band. Our language is individually different and slowly changing, therefore we have something to say when we play. We are common in being different. A common thought is sometimes more reducing than a dissident. Anyway, without tension or friction, no music. In my music these opposing elements are of great importance. "Sektion 1-2" is an ambitious production in the sense that we have made (and make) our best to make it reflect the first idea we had. The questions of our age-differencies are not so interesting for me. It is more of an obvious and natural fact. What is more sad, maybe, is that not so many musicians today work across the invisible generational borders.'' Joel Grip, interviewed on the Free Jazz Blog "Pairing Denzler, a musician with an astute approach to minimalist saxophone (check out Tenor (Potlatch, 2012)), with Grip, a collocating musician who ties many disparate European improvisational forms together, and Johansson, the Swiss army knife (although he is Swedish) of drummers, is a genius amalgam of musicians." - All About Jazz --- Bertrand Denzler / saxophone Joel Grip / double bassSven-Åke Johansson / drums --- Recorded by Andrew Levine at Sowieso, Berlin, November 2015. Mastered by Werner Dafeldecker. Cover design by Teresa Iten. Notes by Bastian Zimmermann. Produced with the support from The Swedish Art Council.

"Pickelhaube is the solo album of one of the most active improvisers and music activists of today. This is the result of an unique and completely analogue recording and reproduction, and brings to you the very full body of a wooden battle ship of an instrument, the contrabass, and the breath of a musical mind." “This is a solo in duet with the current era of silent repression of every mind that’s not in line for the mental pawnshop. In these times, most shallow behaviors are presented as if the deepest of engagements and beliefs. We are dressed up in a fictional all-in-one hat, the helmet and the warhead: Die Pickelhaube. Blow yourself out of your own mind or simply step out of your helmet. And listen.”

"This unique repertoire is the result of a thorough work of transcriptions and rearrangements from recordings and scores, including some unpublished material found in New York. Under the direction of Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, the fourteen musicians from the French jazz new avantgarde, pursue their work of highlighting forgotten figures of the jazz history, with a generous and communicative enthusiasm. From the Harlem Public Library basement to the wooden floor of the Lavoir Moderne Parisien theater in Paris, it is a special invitation to enjoy together here and now an ageless music." --- Pierre-Antoine Badaroux / direction, sax altoAntonin-Tri Hoang / alto saxophone, clarinetGeoffroy Gesser, Pierre Borel / tenor sax, clarinetBenjamin Dousteyssier / alto, barytone, bass saxophonesBrice Pichard, Louis Laurain, Emil Strandberg / trumpetFidel Fourneyron, Michaël Ballue / tromboneRomain Vuillemin / guitar, banjoBruno Ruder / pianoSebastien Beliah / double bassAntonin Gerbal / drums --- Recorded live at Lavoir Moderne Parisien on April 19-21, 2018, in Paris, FranceRecorded, mixed and mastered by Augustin MüllerTexts by Pierre-Antoine BadarouxArtwork by Sven-Åke JohanssonDesign by Dominique Hamot

The project “Lifework: A Unity” is an overview of Philip Corner’s music, performed by Ensemble Hodos, and covering the five periods of Mr. Corner’s music over five CDs to be released successively in 2014. This is the 2nd volume – and first to be released – of the recorded documentation of Philip Corner’s music by Ensemble Hodos. The disc covers the years 1960-75, when Corner, just back from Europe, took an extensive part in the New York Fluxus scene, and started to experiment with graphic notations, indeterminacy, performance pieces and happenings. The pieces in this volume are all in their own way challenging the notions of traditional music theory : Crash Actions and its companion piece In Intimacy – Pulsation are both dealing in a great variety of ways with the concept of pulsation ; Punkt as the title implies is only points, isolated sounds ; whereas Compare with “Exquisitely Sloppy Om” is one the many developments of Corner’s explorations of one sound. --- Recorded on Friday, March 1, 2013 by Etienne Graindorge. Mixed and mastered by Pierre-Antoine Badaroux & Sébastien Beliah. Artwork by Raffalëlle Bloch  

After meticulous historical research and recording transcriptions, Pierre-Antoine Badaroux and his orchestra built a new repertoire based on the work of European musicians who discovered and took over jazz - specifically between (1925-1940). These tracks give us a take on the story of the birth of jazz in this new territory at a very special time, and brings to life a music that made history. "Compositions from USSR, Spain or Tchekoslovakia are to be discovered! And maybe, among many others, you will re- discover the swing touch from the British pianist Jack Hylton, the Belgian saxophonist Fud Candrix or Léo Vauchant the French and then Californian trombonist." "The talented and festive 14 musicians of UMLAUT BIG BAND, coming from the new jazz scene (ONJ) and/or from the European improvisation avant-garde (Peeping Tom, Zoor), gathered in 2011 to celebrate with its ecstatic audience the energy of the good ol’ swing bands." --- The Umlaut Big Band are: Pierre-Antoine Badaroux / direction and saxophone alto  Antonin-Tri Hoang / saxophone alto, clarinet Geoffroy Gesser / saxophone tenor and clarinet Jean Dousteyssier / saxophone tenor and clarinet Benjamin Dousteyssier / saxophone alto and baryton  Brice Pichard, Louis Laurain, Emil Strandberg / trumpet Fidel Fourneyron, Michaël Ballue, Nicolas Grymonprez / trombone Romain Vuillemin / guitarBruno Ruder / piano Sébastien Beliah / bass Antonin Gerbal / drums --- Recorded on the 23-27 February, 2015 at Le Luisant, Germigny-L’Exempt. Mixed and mastered by Ken Yoshida. Design by Sven-Åke Johansson et Dominique Hamot.

The 14 musicians of UMLAUT BIG BAND, mostly from the new jazz guard (Un Poco Loco, ONJ, Duke Orchestra) and European improvisation (Hochstapler, Peeping Tom, Bribes 4, White Desert Orchestra, ONCEIM), have been celebrating together since 2011 the golden age of swing in the tradition of big band orchestras, whether mythical or unfairly forgotten. In EURO SWING VOL. 2 , the Umlaut Big Band documents another history of jazz in Europe between 1925 and 1940: that of American smugglers. While a first part, "Euro Swing" (Umlaut Records, 2015), was interested in European composers and arrangers, this new opus focuses on the work of American musicians on the old continent. The aim is to shed light on the role of smugglers such as Benny Carter, Duke Ellington, Sam Wooding, Willie Lewis and Fud Livingston, who have been able to play across Europe. Always in search of a surprising and sharp repertoire of music, the Umlaut Big Band exhumes again beautiful treasures forgotten. --- The Umlaut Big Band are: Pierre-Antoine Badaroux / direction and saxophone alto Antonin-Tri Hoang / saxophone alto, clarinet Geoffroy Gesser / saxophone tenor and clarinet Jean Dousteyssier / saxophone tenor and clarinet Benjamin Dousteyssier / saxophone alto and baryton  Brice Pichard, Louis Laurain, Emil Strandberg / trumpet Fidel Fourneyron, Michaël Ballue, Nicolas Grymonprez / trombone Romain Vuillemin / guitarBruno Ruder / piano Sébastien Beliah / bass Antonin Gerbal / drums --- Recorded 23-27.02.2015, at the Luisant, Germigny-L'Exempt by Ken Yoshida. 

Following up from Sektion 1-2, Neuköllner Modelle are joined by pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach. Their music evokes questions on swing: how it is heard today and fed back to us historically. “Neuköllner Modelle is perhaps the first serious attempt to swing once again without playing standards. The musicians develop jazz as a form of instant composition, with the energy of not only the blues but also bebop, and in the classical hierarchy of a rhythm section consisting of double bass and drums. However, all four musicians come from the areas of Free Jazz, of improvised music, or even, in Johansson’s case, of performance and conceptual music.” The excitement, and here lays perhaps the keys of swing, is connected to the way Neuköllner Modelle voices out the positioning of strong independent and co-existing ideas. Their music is striving towards a common somewhere asserting their differing assumptions and expectations. --- Bertrand Denzler / saxophoneJoel Grip / double bassSven-Åke Johansson / drums Alexander von Schlippenbach / piano --- Recorded by Andrew Levine at Sowieso, Berlin, November 2015. Mastered by Werner Dafeldecker. Cover design by Teresa Iten. Liner notes (in german and english) by Bastian Zimmermann. Produced with the support from The Swedish Art Council.

اسم is a name written in ink. A dash through European creative music. A round trip, Berlin – Oxford, via Paris. اسم is Pat, Joel and Antonin in a dotted silence without name. Acoustically, the trio creates abstract forms close of written contemporary music with sounds reminding us of traditional jazz trios. The groove which appears in this music is dense, extreme but always quiet. Music in a continuous flow of high voltage charges. In Arabic, اسم is a way to connect between different cultural and imaginary worlds. --- Joel Grip / bass Antonin Gerbal / drums Pat Thomas / piano --- Recorded at Eglise Saint-Merry, Paris on June 2, 2014.

One of the best records of 2017 for sure. Four of the most idiosyncratic and creative voices at the margins of jazz, imagine their way into and around the music and philosophy of Ahmed Abdul-Malik. This is music to listen, dance and think to. A new jazz record, from a new jazz band. [Ahmed] make music about the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik. They excavate, re-inhabit and use a-new the now overlooked documents, and fragmentary plans, of his mid-20th century synthetic vision to produce a new jazz imagination for the 21st century. Ahmed-Malik (1927-1993) was a NYC bassist, oudist, composer, educator and philosopher. A potent(ial) influence on Coltrane and Monk (we imagine), he was also a significant composer in his own right. (Ignored into creative obscurity, he spent his final decades teaching, and performing seldom). His albums Jazz Sahara (1958) and East Meets West (1960) fuse aspects of Arabic and East African musics and thought, his committed long-term relationship with Sufi Islam, and then-modern jazz and thinking – in revolutionary and vital ways. The product is exciting, radical, raw, and beautiful. But, as well as honouring these traditions, Abdul-Malik invented and imagined a lot*. Abdul- Malik’s straddling, synthetic and inclusive vision is one of the great projects of the imagination in jazz. He mixed sounds and ethics, meanings and beliefs in open, experimental ways without dogma. And so do [Ahmed]. They visit and (re)think his compositions and the process potential in them. They play the notes, but use them, and the ideas in and about them, as vehicles for their unique imaginations, instrumental approaches and ideas. Through his compositions they re-imagine and re-synthesize, moving from what they know into newly creative space. They imagine themselves into the future, free of the dogma, clichés and cloy neo-classicisms of current ‘improvised music’ and ‘free jazz’. ** Kelley, R.D.G. (2012) ‘Ahmed Abdul-Malik’s Islamic Experimentalism’ in Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times. Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 91-119 talks about this in his brief but fascinating study. --- Joel Grip / bass Antonin Gerbal / drums Pat Thomas / piano Seymour Wright / saxophone --- Recorded live at Hagenfesten in Dala-Floda, Sweden, August 6, 2016 by Arve Birkeland. Mixed at Studio206.de by Patrick Petzold Photography and design by Sven-Åke Johansson. Produced by Joel Grip and Seymour Wright. Sleeve notes by Robert Levin.