Svetlost

Feb 13 2020

Best of 2019 #10: Svetlost – “Odron Ritual Orchestra”

 

This is an album that’ll get into your blood is how I began my write-up of Odron Ritual Orchestra for The Bandcamp Daily.  The Skopje, Macedonia 11-piece ensemble Светлост, or Svetlost, is a throwback to the avant-garde big bands of the ‘70s, where chaos and raging intensity amplified sweet melodicism and a thundering groove.  No matter how often this music gets played (and for me personally, it is very often indeed), its propensity for thrills never wanes even a little bit, and the impact of its huge surges of intensity just seems to keep getting stronger.  Despite the absolute show of force and raw power this music represents, there is something remarkably unguarded and vulnerable about it, as if the musicians ripped open their chests to expose their hearts as proof of their sincerity.  There is something terribly cathartic about this music, in the way it lets everything out, and how it sweeps the listener up in its embrace and carries it away.  The music is a throwback sound to a previous jazz era, but the heart-on-its-sleeve emotional display feels very relevant to today.  It’s what we need to get through these days.  This is one of the best things I’ve heard all year, and I just can’t enough of it.

Your album personnel:  Ninoslav Spirovski (clarinet, soprano & tenor saxophones), Petar Hristov (soprano & alto saxophones), Ivan Trajanoski (alto & baritone saxophones), Vasko Bojadžiski (tenor saxophone), Bisera Bazer (trombone), Vladan Drobicki (trombone), Kristijan Novkovski (drums, percussion), Dragan Teodosiev (drums, percussion), Konstantin Hadži Кocev (piano), Panče Bujukliev (minibrute), and Deni Omeragić (contrabass).

Released on PMG Recordings.

Music from Skopje, Macedonia.

I wrote about the album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Listen | Read more | Available at:  Bandcamp

By • Recap: Best of 2019 • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Dec 31 2019

Now up: Best Jazz on Bandcamp in 2019

 

And here we go.

It was pretty much an impossible task to cobble together a Best of 2019 list for Bandcamp, limited, as I was, to just 15 slots.  Too many great recordings in 2019, too few opportunities to train a spotlight on them.  Rather than do a typical ranking, I went with the approach of presenting a cohesive picture of the modern jazz landscape, a snapshot of its diversity and how that leads to new and exciting forms of expression… including many that leave the 1950’s bop sound far behind.

Some of these albums will be familiar to you from the monthly recommendations columns to already hit The Bandcamp Daily, but there are also a few that will be new to this column.  2019 was the best year ever, and this list is just a fraction of the evidence supporting that claim.

And on that note, let’s begin.

Follow this LINK to read those recommendations and listen to music from each album.

Check out past recommendations by running through my contributor archives.

Have fun going through the list!

Cheers.

By • Announcement - Music • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec 24 2019

Now up: September’s Best Jazz on Bandcamp recommendations

 

And here we go.  Let’s do some catch-up on notifications about my latest Best Jazz on Bandcamp recommendations posting on The Bandcamp Daily.  This monthly installment covers albums for September 2019.  There’s ten primary recommendations in total, plus some bonus recommendations, to boot.  There’s been no let-up on the deluge of new music in 2019, so if you were thinking about maybe settling into a prior month’s purchases, forget about it… you’ve got more excellent new music to discover.  I have been saying this same thing nearly every month, and every month it is true.  On that note, let’s begin.

Follow this LINK to read those recommendations and listen to music from each album.

Check out past recommendations by running through my contributor archives.

Have fun going through the list!

Cheers.

By • Announcement - Music • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,