Rolling Stone's 20 Best Avant Albums of 2015

Liturgy is a Brooklyn-based, self-styled “Transcendental Black Metal” band whose yearning, energetic music exists in an uncanny space between avant rock, black metal, fine art and shamanic ritual.

Philip Jeck writes: “… and they sparkled like burnished brass”* Out of the depths of our complaints, it could be all so simple. To be never fooled by the finesse of a long-yearned for solidity, but in the momentary aplomb of a sleepy walk threading through familiar streets we’d hum our way, alto, baritone and tenor toward some harmonious end. An effect like some wonderful recollection of one or other of those technicolour movies. Not real for sure, but if you are in the mood…. I would like to acknowledge the influence the writer Marilynne Robinson has had on this work. I would recommend reading any/all of her four novels and also “When I was a Child I Read Books” [Virago, 2012]. This collection of essays include “Austerity as Ideology”, which dissects prevailing economic thinking, and “Open Thy Hand Wide…” which continues with a celebration of liberal thinking as Generosity (and also turned over my received knowledge of Calvinism). Her ability to convey a love of humanity and sense of wonder about the great mystery of existence in her writing has, since I first read a book of hers, found a way into the way I think about my work - not illustrating but meditating upon. “After all, it’s [humankind] debts are only to itself.” (Marilynne Robinson) *from The Book of Ezekiel

Matana Roberts is one of the most acclaimed, socio-politically conscious and aesthetically intrepid avant-jazz practitioners of the 21st century. The critical accolades for her multi-chapter Coin Coin work place her at the vanguard of stylistic innovation and radicalization, while confirming the deep substance and soul that guides her compositional agenda. Roberts has long employed the phrase "panoramic sound quilting" to describe Coin Coin, and with this third chapter in the series she implements this metaphor most overtly, creating a sound art tapestry from field recordings, loop and effects pedals, and spoken word recitations, alongside her saxophone and singing voices. Coin Coin Chapter Three: river run thee unfolds as an uninterrupted album-length flow, in what Roberts calls "a fever dream" of sonic material, inspired by a solitary research-based road trip Roberts took through the American South in early 2014.  Fragments of traditional song are the album's main touchstones, with Roberts' singing voice riding atop waves of radiophonic texture, layered spoken word, and an often dislocated, wandering horn. It is the first explicitly solo work in the Coin Coin series, and a fascinating extension of the cycle; yet another adventurous, socially engaged definition of what Jazz can mean in this day and age.

Mary Halvorson’s "Meltframe" is the product of three years of gestation and refinement. Initially conceived as a solo guitar album made up of jazz standards, the final document is comprised of modern compositions long admired by Mary, the oldest being Duke Ellington’s "Solitude". The remainder of the pieces date between the early 1960s through to Tomas Fujiwara’s "When", a recent addition to the book of music for The Hook Up, an ensemble in which Halvorson is a charter member. In a twist befitting a player with such an original voice, the pieces Mary chose to interpret are not exclusively from composers who have informed her playing and music from the beginning, such as Roscoe Mitchell, Ornette Coleman and Oliver Nelson, but also by contemporaries of hers, Chris Lightcap, Noël Akchoté and Tomas. Viewed as the personal, and often revealing statement that solo documents often are, "Meltframe" traces Mary’s path from the beginning to the present.

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