alarming

Nathalie Loriers/Chemins Croisés - L'arbre pleure
A nice album with a quintet featuring Gialuigi Trovesi and oud player Karim Baggili. The first track's expansive arrangement deftly plays with texture (low-register piano rumble, clarinet roars embedded in the middle of the band, a delicate handoff from unaccompanied piano to unaccompanied oud) and varied instrumental roles (piano seamlessly shifting from melody to groove to rumble as different instruments come in). The constant negotiating between and superposition of east and west (abrupt Arabic rhythms vs. fluid jazz phrasing, modal melodies vs. elaborate harmonisation) is handled with subtlety.

See also the recently reissued Silent Spring.

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So Percussion! Alarm Will Sound! Swinging microphones! Things that groove! Things that don't! Rock sax vs. classical sax! All that and more, in Darcy's epic review of a Steve Reich celebratory extravaganza.

See the comments to Scratch My Brain's post for an interesting back-and-forth between Jeff and Darcy.

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Last Plane To Jakarta relays an alert on an out-of-control police officer's rampage in a Houston club. Scary.

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More cheerfully, Just Outside describes a birthday party souvenir.