The Leaf Lab

Triosk pianist Adrian Klumpes’ debut solo album. Like a Rothko canvas, Be Still is minimal and introspective, yet rich and intense; a rush of colour from a deliberately limited palette. As Klumpes explains: “Minimalism assumes much more involved actions before and after the event”. As a result, the album is vested with a range of emotion: feelings of violence, relief, loneliness, pain and finality are integral to the recordings. Recorded in a single five-hour session in Klumpes’ hometown of Sydney, all the sounds were captured in the same room, with the same mics, using the same piano. Simultaneously premeditated and spontaneous, the recordings strive for an edgy tranquility.

On Montauk Variations, pianist Matthew Bourne has reinvented his approach by stripping away the clutter and quirkiness characteristic of previous work. Fragility and romanticism have now become key focal elements in highly personal performances that still carry the Bourne hallmarks of unpredictability and elliptical intensity.

"In Each And Every One" är Polar Bears femte album och det första nya sedan 2010 års storsäljare "Peepers". Plattan är producerad/mixad av bandledaren Sebastian Rochford och är ett nytt kapitel i Polar Bears framfart som ett av de mest spännande och progressiva banden i sin generation.

Pike Laurence: The Undreamt-Of Centre [CD]

On the face of it, there’s an unbridgeable chasm separating the innovative jazz maven Sebastian Rochford and London-based, Portugal-born rapper Jyager; but as anyone familiar with either artist’s work will appreciate, these are artists for whom categorisations have little meaning. Common Ground is a concise, 25-minute collaborative mini-album, with music almost entirely derived from samples of Polar Bear’s Peepers album.

"Same As You" är uppföljaren till det Mercury Prizenominerade albumet "In Each And Every One". "Same As You", även det på bolaget The Leaf Label, är mer tillgängligt än det mörkare förra men med samma lekfullhet och experimentlusta. Inspelat av Rochford i London och mixat<br/>i Mojave-öknen med Ken Barrientos.

Following his celebrated moogmemory project, Matthew Bourne returns to the piano for Isotach. Once again, spontaneity is the keyword where Bourne is concerned, catching on tape that pregnant moment when a piece begins to form. Skeletal piano motifs, an aching use of space and sparing cello arrangements are deployed to devastating effect. Recorded in his rural Yorkshire home, Bourne&rsquo;s piano placed to overlook the moors while he works, the album title is a nod to the weather, which played a part in its creation. The recordings took place during what Bourne describes as &ldquo;extreme weather&rdquo;. If you listen carefully you can hear the wind and rain picked up on the microphones, the sparse instrumentation providing the calm in the eye of the storm.