NEW YORK UNITED - Volume 2
577 Records
(Will be available as CD, Vinyl and Digital Album)
Daniel Carter: Saxophones, Flute, Trumpet, Clarinet; Tobias Wilner: Synthesizers, Percussion, Vocals, Piano, Guitar; Djibril Toure: Bass; Federico Ughi: drums
Recorded at Sear Sound Studios, New York City, USA, on December 5th, 2018
This second album from New York United opens with poignant vocals, a soft, avant-garde-jazz score and graceful electronic percussion. This is just as expected from an experimental band which thrives where definitive, NY-avant-garde sounds, such as generated by the likes of Ayler and Coltrane, are tempered by post-recording, electronic controls which might themselves be seen as improvisation. There is again a surreal atmosphere of fantasy accompanied by a certain, continuing impetus. Those post-recording, electronic controls, applied by Tobias Wilner, are extemporising with the musicians’ impulsive creations.
One of the fabled gurus of creative music, Carter is vastly experienced, having played with musicians like Billy Bang, Hamiet Bluiett, Susie Ibarra, Sunny Murray, William Parker, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, Matthew Shipp, Cecil Taylor and David S. Ware, among other equally significant names. Where Carter is the free-jazz elder and storyteller, Tobias Wilner is the architect of an unrelenting, ambient-electro, rhythm base. Djbril Toure, bass player, and drummer Federico Ughi construct an elaborate framework designed to hold and present those genre-defying, factored off-the-cuff, new and malleable sounds, ready for fashioning by Carter’s wind. The album was initially recorded in an improvised studio performance.
The title of the second track of the album, The Grind, tells us some of what the music’s narrative is about - the daily grind of life in New York – the chore, donkey-work, drudgery, fag, graft, slavery, slog, toil, travail – the hustle needed to keep up with New York. It is an unremitting swelling of the brass sounds against a vacillating, electronic pulsation to build a mesmerising wall of sound that is suddenly cut short, leaving the listener in a state of silent shock. It feels like being switched off.
This is, I think, how I feel about New York – I don’t want to go there – but the music is different. It is mature and refined. It is delightful, a brilliant album.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
577 Records
(Will be available as CD, Vinyl and Digital Album)
Daniel Carter: Saxophones, Flute, Trumpet, Clarinet; Tobias Wilner: Synthesizers, Percussion, Vocals, Piano, Guitar; Djibril Toure: Bass; Federico Ughi: drums
Recorded at Sear Sound Studios, New York City, USA, on December 5th, 2018
This second album from New York United opens with poignant vocals, a soft, avant-garde-jazz score and graceful electronic percussion. This is just as expected from an experimental band which thrives where definitive, NY-avant-garde sounds, such as generated by the likes of Ayler and Coltrane, are tempered by post-recording, electronic controls which might themselves be seen as improvisation. There is again a surreal atmosphere of fantasy accompanied by a certain, continuing impetus. Those post-recording, electronic controls, applied by Tobias Wilner, are extemporising with the musicians’ impulsive creations.
One of the fabled gurus of creative music, Carter is vastly experienced, having played with musicians like Billy Bang, Hamiet Bluiett, Susie Ibarra, Sunny Murray, William Parker, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, Matthew Shipp, Cecil Taylor and David S. Ware, among other equally significant names. Where Carter is the free-jazz elder and storyteller, Tobias Wilner is the architect of an unrelenting, ambient-electro, rhythm base. Djbril Toure, bass player, and drummer Federico Ughi construct an elaborate framework designed to hold and present those genre-defying, factored off-the-cuff, new and malleable sounds, ready for fashioning by Carter’s wind. The album was initially recorded in an improvised studio performance.
The title of the second track of the album, The Grind, tells us some of what the music’s narrative is about - the daily grind of life in New York – the chore, donkey-work, drudgery, fag, graft, slavery, slog, toil, travail – the hustle needed to keep up with New York. It is an unremitting swelling of the brass sounds against a vacillating, electronic pulsation to build a mesmerising wall of sound that is suddenly cut short, leaving the listener in a state of silent shock. It feels like being switched off.
This is, I think, how I feel about New York – I don’t want to go there – but the music is different. It is mature and refined. It is delightful, a brilliant album.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
