HENRY KAISER & MAX KUTNER - WILD COURSES

• henry kaiser & max kutner: wild courses
      (2018, cd, australia, iluso records ircd15) 

Recorded in April of 2017, this guitar duet album is a particularly special and unusual one. Like Kaiser’s 1979 classic WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE duet album with Fred Frith, this Kaiser-Kutner recording breaks new ground in an unceasingly entertaining manner. Composed of duets on instruments with coursed pairs of strings, acoustic and electric 12-strings and 8-string bass, the music occupies very unique sonic territories.

John “Drumbo” French originally suggested that the two might find a fruitful recording collaboration together. Kutner plays guitar in Drumbo’s current MAGIC BAND, and Drumbo and Kaiser have collaborated for 40 years. A tip of the hat to the music of the original BEEFHEART MAGIC BAND occurs in the duo’s surprising cover of GLIDER from THE SPOTLIGHT KID. The bulk of the duets are improvisation, recorded live in real time.

11 remarkable and beautiful experiments, using a variety of 12-string guitars.
Beautiful.

APE SHIFTER - APE SHIFTER II

from Glass Onyon PR :

Instrumental Riff-Rock Masters APE SHIFTER To Release Sophomore Album APE SHIFTER II

Since releasing their self-titled debut in March 2017, APE SHIFTER have completed two European club tours encompassing Germany, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. They have shared the bill with Loudness, The Skull, White Cowbell Oklahoma, and Mörglbl, among others. Festival performances have included Zytanien (main stage), Burg Herzberg Festival, OBOA, Free n Easy, Festival Kult!, and others.

On Friday, March 29, 2019, APE SHIFTER release their follow-up album to their debut with their sophomore release APE SHIFTER II.

From rockin' 70's riffs played with punk rock ferocity to creeping metal grooves and all out bashers, APE SHIFTER give new meaning to intense simian instrumental rock from the nasty pits of the Hellabrunn Zoo.

NI - PANTOPHOBIE

• ni: pantophobie
      (2019, cd, france, dur et doux)

Scheduled for the first of March, the second Ni album has just been released.
"Pantophobie".
Eleven tracks, all with 'phobie' in the title.
The first track is called 'Phonophobie' and is 15 seconds of silence. How appropriate.
All the other tracks combine strange rhythms with heavy guitar lines.
Supberb music in a beautiful package.
Great !!

Out on vinyl and on CD.
Also available as Bandcamp download.

NUBIYAN TWIST

Afrobeat and electronics !
Nubiyan Twist has a new album out on the Strut Records label.

TONY LEVIN AND AYUB OGADA

Tony Levin :
With the passing of the wonderful musician Ayub Ogada, it seemed right to share this duet. Recorded at Real World Studios by David Bottrill, Ayub played his nyatiti and sang, while I did some funk fingers bass and sang harmony. A train went by while we were running the song down, which inspired the title, and engineer Tchad Blake kindly donated his recording of that train, which we inserted into the take. It's from my World Diary CD.

NEW RELEASE FROM JOHN TABACCO

NI - LES INSURGES DE ROMILLY

• ni: les insurgés de romilly
      (2015, cd, france, dur et doux)

After two mini albums, French band Ni released their first album in 2015 on the Dur Et Doux record label.
Entitled "Les Insurgés De Romilly", the album presents 8 full-blown energetic tracks.
Math rock at its best.
Love it.

SPINIFEX - SOUFIFEX

• spinifex: soufifex
      (2019, cd, nl, trytone tt559-076) 

The latest release by experimental jazz ensemble Spinifex !!

from the Spinifex website :
In 2017, Spinifex adapted two pieces and recorded them for the CD ‘Amphibian Ardour’: a Sufi traditional of Kurdish/Iranian origin, and a Qawali traditional from Pakistan. We liked this music so much that we decided to create a whole project, SOUFIFEX, dedicated to music inspired by Sufi traditions. Deeply rooted in our musical approach of combining cutting-edge composed structures with free improvisation, Spinifex dived into the magic of ritually repeated patterns and concentration on the beat.

Out on the TryTone record label.
https://trytone.org/wordpress_A/catalog/

POLLO DEL MAR - YEAR OF THE ROOSTER

• pollo del mar: year of the rooster
      (2006, cd, usa, private release pdmcd-5) 

San Francisco based surf band Pollo Del Mar contributed their fine version of Frank Zappa's 'Peaches En Regalia' to the 2004 "Lemme Take You To The Beach" sampler.
Two years later, they released a live version (recorded in Belgium) on their "Year Of The Rooster" album.

INSOMNIO

Insomnio ensemble
in concert in Utrecht, earlier this month.
performing Frank Zappa's The Yellow Shark