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Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Cuneiform Records JUNE 2021 Newsletter

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Cuneiform Records

JUNE 2021 Newsletter

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NEW RELEASE!  JUNE 2021 ON CUNEIFORM RECORDS
THE FOURTH WORLD QUARTET – 1975 
jazz / classical // impovisation/ composition
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THEY ARE OUT: CUNEIFORM'S SPRING  RELEASES! 
Released  MAY 2021 ON CUNEIFORM RECORDS

JACK O' THE CLOCKLeaving California
Americana/ avant progressive / alternative rock


Released  APRIL 2021 ON CUNEIFORM RECORDS
DESERTION TRIO - Numbers Maker
alt-jazz/ out-jazz from Nick Millevoi's Philadelphia trio
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SNEAK PEEK! COMING OUT JULY  28 ON CUNEIFORM RECORDS
NO SAFETY

alt-rock/ art rock/ avant-progressive from early 90s NYC band
featuring Chris Cochrane,  Zeena Parkins & others 

Spill
Live at the Knitting Factory
Live in Italy

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CUNEIFORM ARTISTS ON TOUR:   LIVE CONCERTS & TOURS
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EXPLORE CUNEIFORM RECORDS ACTIVITIES ONLINE
• Join us on SOCIAL MEDIA
• 
Discover new artists & albums on Cuneiform Records BANDCAMP PAGE
• Enjoy performances on Cuneiform Records YouTube Channel
 Purchase music from100s of labels at WaysideMusic.com, our sister store, estab.1980

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COMING OUT

JUNE 25, 2021

on CUNEIFORM RECORDS:


THE  FOURTH  WORLD  QUARTET



1975

File under:  JAZZ / CLASSICAL / / IMPROVISATION / COMPOSITION
Label: CUNEIFORM RECORDS
CATALOG #: Cuneiform Rune 481
Format: CD / DIGITAL
UPC: 0-45775-04812-3

 
From '60s exploratory psychedelia to
Detroit’s experimental art/punk Destroy All Monsters
[featuring members of Stooges and MC5]
and 
Boston’s explosive Mission Of Burma and Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic's chamber rock:
THE FOURTH WORLD QUARTET
is the missing link,
a wellspring of inspiration and fertile ground for musical exchange 



listen / share a track, "The Transformation of Oz", on SoundCloud
 
BENJAMIN MILLER: alto saxophone, electric guitar, composer
LAURENCE MILLER: bass clarinet, composer
ROGER C. MILLER: piano, percussion, cornet, composer
JACK WATERSTONE: alto saxophone, composer 

The brothers Miller grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They came of age during the Summer of Love when revolution and the White Panthers were livening up their hometown. They formed their first band together in 1967, covering 13th Floor Elevators and Mothers of Invention. Two years later they were engaged in freeform rock improvisations and started their first all-original rock band Sproton Layer. Their summer 1970 recording, With Magnetic Fields Disrupted, was released in 2012 on the German label World in Sound. During this time, they would see the MC5 at a free concert in the afternoon, then head over to the University of Michigan New Music department to hear Stockhausen at night. John Sinclair's Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival a couple years later definitely had an impact on their world-view.

In 1975 the three brothers attended Thomas Jefferson College, a small Art School in the middle of Michigan. Benjamin and Laurence had recently absorbed the advanced jazz of Eric Dolphy and Anthony Braxton while at school in Boston, playing in the Nova Mob with Don Davis (later of Microscopic Septet). Roger had maintained an active interest in the music of Bela Bartok and Igor Stravinsky in Ann Arbor.

 
The Fourth World Quartet, with school-mate Jack Waterstone rounding out the quartet, was born out of this mash-up of free improvisation, classical music and jazz. All members composed, ranging from fully scored pieces to graphic scores or mere verbal instruction. Laurence arranged the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Tnoona" for the group and Roger arranged the main theme from Igor Stravinsky's mini-opera "Renard the Fox". The boundaries were wide.

Three horns and a piano is already unusual, but add Benjamin's post-psychedelic guitar work and Roger's occasional "wall-of-piano" stylings, and things definitely stepped out of any traditional ensemble setting. Gentle melodies bump up against atonal bebop. Tightly structured forms contrast immediately with open improvisation. Wailing horns blaze over contained piano ostinati.
In a few months the band put together this repertoire, a testament to focus and extreme creative activity. If they only played two shows and lasted only a very short time, the connections into the future were many. Included here are two songs by Roger that would later appear on the first Birdsongs of the Mesozoic record: "The Transformation of Oz" and "Winter's Dream" - the latter name changed to "Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous" by the time it graced Birdsongs' freshman release. Their friend Rick Scott who recorded this session and later became a member of Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, used the same Braun 1/2 track that Martin Swope would use for tape loops in Mission of Burma. And if Roger's adaptation of "The Rite of Spring" for Birdsongs was more ambitious than his arrangement of "Renard the Fox", still, here is where that idea began.

By 1977 punk rock had kicked in, and Laurence (guitar) and Benjamin (alto sax) went back to their rock roots and joined the Detroit punk band Destroy All Monsters which included Ron Ashton from the Stooges and Michael Davis from the MC5. In 1979, Roger co-formed Mission of Burma in Boston, which went on to be influential on the indie rock movement.

Give this a listen. Music from a pivotal time period. That expanded not long afterwards.

 
pre-order CD and/or digital on Bandcamp:


CD also available via WaysideMusic.com  
OUT NOW! 
Released MAY 28, 2021:



JACK O' THE CLOCK

LEAVING CALIFORNIA


Street Date:  May 28, 2021
File Under:  AMERICANA / AVANT PROGRESSIVE / AVANT-GARDE / ALTERNATIVE ROCK
Label: CUNEIFORM RECORDS
Catalog #: Cuneiform Rune 477
Format: CD / Digital
UPC: 0-45775-04772-0


“One of the most original and compelling groups I know, playing some amazing compositions that seem to tread effortlessly between Van Dyke Parks and folk music from an as-yet-unidentified culture, while making all the things you've always thought of as difficult sound as effortless and natural as breathing...
Amazing production. Extraordinary compositions. You need to hear it.”  

– Fred Frith

 

listen / share via SoundCloud: "Jubilation":

                       Jack O' The Clock reveal their deep musical roots on
                    Leaving California, a wide-ranging musical adventure
                                                       six years in the making.

 

Jack O' the Clock‘s Leaving California is a highly-detailed musical adventure that reveals new layers with repeated listens, from the opening strums of “Jubilation,” which introduces the record with whimsical folksy fanfare, to the angular harmonized violin lead on the closing track, “Narrow Gate.” Throughout, the songs of bandleader Damon Waitkus recall artists such as David Sylvian, Fairport Convention, and Elliott Smith, while creative musical arrangements showcase the band’s high-level compositional and instrumental chops. Upon first listen, Leaving California offers plenty of hooks, but this is music that truly reveals its depth upon the scrutiny of repeated spins.

In the title track, “Leaving California,” the album’s most direct and emotional song, Waitkus grapples with environmental and cultural themes that surround his experience in California while also revealing a personal dimension that informed the album. Waitkus and violinist Emily Packard, who are married, made the decision to move a few thousand miles away from the Bay Area to Brattleboro, VT in 2019, thus separating themselves from the rest of the band with whom they’ve been playing since 2007. Ultimately, the song “Leaving California” provides a mission statement for the album amidst lush acoustic guitar and string arrangements and a supple groove driven by bassist Jason Hoopes and drummer Jordan Glenn.
 

Elsewhere on Leaving California, the message is more enigmatic, which is reflected by the music on tracks such as “The Butcher,” where windy riff-age leads the song’s verses into a dramatic chorus. The song’s ever-shifting feeling settles into the jazz-inflected instrumental sections that develop through refined group interplay. It’s here and on tracks such as “You Let Me Down” and “Narrow Gate” that reveal Jack O’The Clock at their most progressive.
 

The group initially met as students at Oakland’s Mills College and since 2013, Hoopes and Glenn have played in the Fred Frith Trio with their former professor and one of the original visionaries of British progressive rock. Waitkus initially conceived the band as an acoustic songwriting group, but a wide range of influences — from jazz and free improv to folk musics from around the world — and his own experiences as a contemporary classical composer helped create what he has referred to as “majestic junk folk.” Since Jack O' the Clock’s first record — 2009’s Rare Weather — Jack O' the Clock has become a tight and formidable ensemble whose music has evolved through a prolific stretch of releases.
 

Despite their steady release schedule, the songs on Leaving California have been gestating for about six years of rehearsals and performances up and down the West Coast, and Waitkus knew the time had come to document this music before he and Packard left for Vermont. The result is a set of songs performed at the height of the band’s collective powers, recorded and mixed by Waitkus from between 2018 and 2020 and mastered by Myles Boisen. Leaving California is a testament to Jack O ’The Clock’s patient and committed process and it encourages listeners to keep coming back for more for quite some time.

 
“It’s like hearing some of my favourite 'Old Timey' fiddle and guitar records...updated with compositional ideas worthy of a Stockhausen or a Boulez.”
  – The Sound Projector


Damon Waitkus – vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, keyboards, hammer dulcimer
Emily Packard – violin 
Jason Hoopes – bass 
Jordan Glenn – drums 
Thea Kelly – vocals 

Ivor Holloway - clarinet on track 3 and saxophones on track 7 
Josh Packard - cello on track 4 
Myles Boisen - pedal steel on track 5 

Produced, recorded, and mixed by Damon Waitkus in Alameda and Oakland, CA and at Orchard Hill Studio, Brattleboro, VT, 2018–2020. 
Mastered by Myles Boisen.


order on Bandcamp:

OUT NOW!
Released APRIL 23, 2021 


DESERTION TRIO

NUMBERS MAKER


File Under:  JAZZ / ELECTRIC JAZZ / AVANT GARDE / BRUTAL JAZZ
Label: CUNEIFORM RECORDS
Catalog #: Cuneiform Rune 479
Format: CD / Digital
UPC: 0-45775-04792-8

Street Date:  April 23, 2021

 
"[Desertion Trio] hits the sweet spot between Neil Young's exploratory
     Crazy Horse jams and a spaghetti western soundtrack."
– NPR

 
listen to / share "Albion" via SoundCloud:


Philadelphia's fiery Desertion Trio
throw down in front of 
a live studio audience
on the 
thrilling new Numbers Maker,
taking edgy, dark cues from spy guitar themes,
electric-era Miles Davis, and much more.





JOHNNY DEBLASE – bass
JASON NAZARY – drums 
NICK MILLEVOI – guitar            

All songs by Nick Millevoi except “Taboo” by Margrita Lecuona & Al Stillman.





buy on Bandcamp:

“...the band’s tunefulness and delicate touch—even during its most punishing passages—have a universal profundity..." – Chicago Reader
SNEAK PEEK!

COMING OUT
JULY 23, 2021
on CUNEIFORM RECORDS:


digital releases of three albums from '90s NYC by 
alternative rock / art rock / avant-progressive band

NO SAFETY
featuring CHRIS COCHRANEZEENA PARKINS & more

–––

SPILL


listen/share the track "Sad" from Spill via Soundcloud:

–––


LIVE AT THE KNITTING FACTORY


listen/share the track "Take Me" from Live at the Knitting Factory via Soundcloud:

–––


LIVE IN ITALY


listen/share the track "A MONKEY DEFINITION" from Live in Italy via Soundcloud:

CUNEIFORM ARTISTS ON TOUR

2021 CALENDAR
In an evolving and recently re-surging COVID-19 world, these dates are ALL tentative. Please check with venues, close to the concert date, to confirm. We look forward to live concerts resuming AS SOON as it is safe to do so.
Regarding online 
Thank you. 


See also the Tours Page at Cuneiform Records.

GHOST RHYTHMS
A remarkable, eclectic and electric "Jazz and beyond" large ensemble, Ghost Rhythms perform across France in 2021, celebrating new discs, including Live in Yoshiwara, their fourth release and their first on Cuneiform.

 
 _________________________
 
September 28 - Les Disquaires - Paris, France 

November 12 - La Péniche Antipode - Paris, France

December 10 - Le Sunset - Paris, France

Listen to & buy: LIVE AT YOSHIWARA

THE GREAT HARRY HILLMAN

The exuberant Swiss jazz/ pop/ beyond group - named after the American triple-Gold Medal winner at the 1904 Summer Olympics - are one of the most active groups on the European festival and club circuit, top-notch live performers ceaselessly honing their skills.

August 7 - BeJazzSommer - Bern, Switzerland

October 7 - JazzChur - Chur, Switzerland

October 9 - Zoglau 3 - Reut, Germany

October 24 - Saxstall - Pohrsdorf, Germany

Listen to & buy: Tilt

HENRY KAISER

Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

THE HENRY KAISER MONTHLY SOLO SERIES, presented exclusively on the CUNEIFORM RECORDS YouTube Channel

 When Covid pandemic lockdowns began in 2020, Henry Kaiser began curating & presenting a weekly series of pre-recorded music videos exclusively on Cuneiform's YouTube Channel for music lovers isolating at home. These "live" concerts are taped beforehand and not streamed - Henry discusses the process in a Guitar Moderne interview, "The New "Live"".  Many videos in the series depict duets and larger bands, despite the program being called the "Henry Kaiser Weekly Solo Series".  While many depict new or recent performances, other videos in this series are vintage footage of performances not available elsewhere (The Valentines' 1994 concert in the Fukuoka Dome).

In April 2021, after lockdowns began to lift, the series celebrated its one-year anniversary and converted to a monthly format. All 52 videos from the Henry Kaiser's Weekly Series and everything in the current Monthly Series are archived & available on Cuneiform's YouTube Channel.  We invite you to visit Cuneiform Record's YouTube Channel to see the videos that Henry present on the first of every month. The video posted on June 1, 2021/Monthly Solo #3 is Walk My Way: The Singles Collection.


 


Listen to & buy:
Albums by Henry Kaiser & Friends  on Cuneiform


A Love Supreme Electric [Vinny Golia / John Hanrahan / Henry Kaiser / Wayne Peet / Mike Watt]:
A Love Supreme Electric: A Love Supreme and Meditations 


Yo Miles!: Henry Kaiser & Wadada Leo Smith: Sky Garden & Upriver
   

Five Times Surprise [Henry Kaiser / Anthony Pirog / Tracy Silverman / Jeff Sipe / Andy West]: 
Five Times Surprise


Henry Kaiser & Ray Russell: 
The Celestial Squid


Henry Kaiser: Lemon Fish Tweezer;
Fred Frith & Henry Kaiser: Friends & Enemies 
  

Healing Force [Vinny Golia • Aurora Josephson • Henry Kaiser • Mike Keneally • Joe Morris • Damon Smith • Weasel Walter]:
Healing Force:  The Songs of Albert Ayler              
       

V.A.: 156 Strings: Nineteen Totally Original Acoustic Guitarists

THE ED PALERMO BIG BAND

"Twenty-first century big-band music doesn’t get more exciting
and impressive than this."
– Jazz Times

An astounding 18 piece jazz ensemble of five woodwind players, four trumpeters, three trombonists, two keyboardists, guitar, violin, bass and drums, led by arranger, composer & saxophonist Ed Palermo, one of America's most singular arrangers who draws on jazz, pop and rock tunes for his top-notch band. There are a number of ensembles performing the music of Frank Zappa, one of the greatest American composers of the 20th century, but no one does it with the ease, skill and originality that Ed and his band do!
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
[To accommodate Covid restrictions, Ed is performing these shows with a septet – “Eddy’s Chemistry Set” – and not the Big Band]

June 5 - The Falcon - 1348 Route 9W - Marlboro, NY 12542
"Eddy's Chemistry Set": Ed Palermo/ Bruce McDaniel (back from touring in Todd Rundgren's "Clearly Human" Virtual Tour!) / Robbie Mangano/ Ray Marchica/ Paul Adamy/ Ted Kooshian/ Bob Quaranta 

 


Listen to & buy:
Ed Palermo Big Band albums on Cuneiform:

The Adventures of Zoyd Zundgren
The Great Un-American Songbook Vols. 1&2
One Child Left Behind

Oh No! Not Jazz!!
Eddy Loves Frank
Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance

               

 

RICHARD PINHAS

One of France's major experimental musicians and a key figure in the development of electronic rock, guitarist and electronic musician Richard Pinhas will perform in 2021 in France and beyond in various groupings.
_______________________________

June 24 - Sonic Protest Festival - Paris, France 
 

Listen to & buy releases by Richard Pinhas & friends on Cuneiform:

Process and Reality
Desolation Row
Metatron
Metal/Crystal
Tranzition
Event & Repetitions


               

Richard Pinhas & Oren AmbarchiTikkun
 

Richard Pinhas & Merzbow:  
Keio Line / Rhizome / Paris 2008

         

Schizotrope (Richard Pinhas & Maurice Dantec):
 The Life & Death of Marie Zorn

 

SCHNELLERTOLLERMEIER


"Schnellertollermeier marries brutality to avant-garde rock and jazz. A classic power trio from Switzerland, the band plays with punk fury and dazzling technical dexterity to create booming, bone-rattling music that stalks, confronts and astonishes."
– The Wall Street Journal

Brutal-jazz power trio Schnellertollermeier doesn't compromise. Their fresh and uncompromising mix of jazz, punk, rock, sound and free improvised music, combined with great musicianship, interplay and intense energy, has awed audiences at festivals of jazz, rock, pop and experimental music worldwide. In celebration of their new release on Cuneiform, the album 5, they tour Northern Europe this coming Fall 2021.

_____________________________

October 1 - ISC Club - Neubrückstrasse 10 - Bern, Switzerland

October 2 - Le Singe - Untergasse 21, Biel, Switzerland

October 9 - Guten-Morgen-Eberswalde - Eberswalde, Germany

October 12 - Dexter - Vindegade 65 - Odense C, Denmark

October 14 - Rotondes - Rue de la Rotonde - Luxembourg, Luxembourg

October 15 - LantarenVenster - Otto Reuchlinweg 996 - Rotterdam, Netherlands

October 16 - LOCH - Bergstraße 50 - Wuppertal, Germany



Listen to & buy:
5
,
Rights & X

  
 
To set up press and radio interviews with Cuneiform Artists while on tour or at home, please contact:

promo@cuneiformrecords.com
SUMMER HAS ARRIVED in the
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE!!


And here in DC, the 17 Year Cicadas have arrived. Their otherworldly, all encompassing and LOUD sonic drone forms the soundtrack to our days.

CELEBRATE WITH THE CICADAS,
and take part in 
CUNEIFORM RECORDS'
ACTIVITIES ONLINE !


Summer 2021 has arrived, and thanks to the increasing availability of vaccines, we're gradually emerging from the dark pandemic tunnel, removing our masks in outdoor sun, not unlike the 17 Year Cicadas now blanketing Washington DC.  Part of Brood X, these cicadas live underground for 17 years before emerging from the earth en masse. Exposed in sunlight, they shed bland shells, unfurl irridescent wings, open scarlet eyes and fly to trees. In the trees, they  climb to the skies to drone, to sing, to party like its...YEAR 17. 

Humans are more aware of our tenuous position on this planet than the 17 year cicadas are of theirs. 
Now, with the vaccine and herd immunity within sight, it's important to be mindful and not throw caution to the wind. Be patient; the pandemic is not yet crushed.  Live concerts are slowly resuming, with precautions; outdoor activities are flourishing. Until concerts and other activities resume fully in your town - and afterwards - we invite you to visit us online and enjoy the music and videos we present for your enjoyment!  
Music can make a positive difference in our lives, and help us survive prolonged weird and tumultuous times.  Until concerts calendars  fully resume, we can enjoy music at home.  You can explore tracks from over 400 recordings released by Cuneiform Records since 1984 on our website, or on Bandcamp, SoundCloud or YouTube, and also watch recordings of recent and vintage concerts that we regularly post on YouTube. 

Cuneiform Records has a treasure chest of interesting music to serve as soundtrack, inspiration and solace during these challenging times. We have a mammoth catalogue of releases by some of avant music's most esteemed icons as well as young rising stars, available for purchase at the Cuneiform Records Bandcamp store and at one of our sister companies, Wayside Music. Your purchases support indie musicians, indie labels, and small business. 


• Discover new music on Cuneiform Records' BANDCAMP PAGE :  support our artists & our indie label by purchasing music.  

• Visit our internet store, WaysideMusic.com (established 1980!), to purchase  music from ALL your favorite labels! 

We also have a ton of FREE entertainment for your enjoyment on several online platforms:  

• Enjoy hours on Cuneiform Records' YouTube CHANNEL:  free music videos, videos of live shows, & samples from 400+ adventurous releases!   And we've expanded our video content during the pandemic, most notably with an ongoing video series curated  and produced by guitarist Henry Kaiser. 

• Enjoy and share samples of music by releases of countless Cuneiform artists on the Cuneiform Records' SoundCloud Site.

• Visit & Like & Follow our Facebook PAGE for Cuneiform Records.

• Join our Facebook GROUP: Fans of Cuneiform Records.

 Follow @CuneiformRecord onTwitter

• Visit the CuneiformRecords.com official WEBSITE for extensive information on the artists and recordings on our label,  upcoming concerts & much more.

• Media professionals: find music to LICENSE from Cuneiform for movies, ads etc via our sister site TheMusicOutpost.com.

• Were you forwarded this email from a friend?  If so, make sure you sign up for the Cuneiform NEWSLETTER to  get this monthly newsletter in your email box, in addition to receiving notices for Cuneiform's weekly "$5 Friday" offers – Cuneiform selects a special album from its archive each weekend,  to be sold in download format via Bandcamp, that weekend only,  for $5.

 
WE LOOK FORWARD TO SPENDING THIS SUPER-SPECIAL SUMMER 
WITH  THE  SEVENTEEN-YEAR  CICADAS AND WITH YOU, ONLINE!  
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Washington, DC // Silver Spring, MD

Our mailing address is:
Cuneiform Records
P.O. Box 8427
Silver Spring, MD 20907

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