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Jac Berrocal, David Fenech and Vincent Epplay return with Ice Exposure, their second album for Blackest Ever Black. A sequel and companion piece of sorts to 2015's Antigravity, its title couldn't be more apt: sonically it is both colder, and more exposed - in the sense of rawer, more volatile, more vulnerable - than its predecessor, capturing the combustible energy and barely suppressed violence of the trio's celebrated live performances with aspects of noir jazz, musique concrète, no wave art-rock, sound poetry and spectral electronics all interpenetrating in unpredictable and exhilarating ways. While there are moments of great sensitivity and even a cautious romanticism, the prevailing mood is one of anxiety, paranoia, and mounting psychodrama: close your eyes and Ice Exposure feels like a dissociative Hörspiel broadcasting from the seedy backstreets of your own troubled mind. Before he picks up an instrument or opens his mouth, Berrocal's unique and compelling presence can be felt: a combination of studied, glacial cool and anarchic, in-the-moment intensity that has served him well over a long and storied career. It was honed during his time as a theatre and film actor, and in the 70s Paris improv scene, it powered his influential Catalogue group in the 1970s, numerous seminal, sui generis solo sides, and far-sighted collaborations with the likes of Nurse With Wound, Lol Coxhill, Pascal Comelade and James Chance which have seen him come to be valorised by two generations of avant-garde agitators and eccentrics. Now in his eighth decade, it comes with an added gravitas, perhaps, but no less energy or vitality. On Ice Exposure, his lyrical, instantly recognisable trumpet playing is a key feature - see especially the ghostly, dubwise take on Ornette's 'Lonely Woman', the dissolute exotica of 'Salta Girls', and the sublime echo-chamber soliloquy 'Opportunity'. But more often it's his voice that commands centre-stage, whether casually discharging surreal poetic monologues or moaning in animal despair - a vocal tour de force that transcends language and culminates in the Dionysian frenzy of 'Why', Berrocal's half-spoken, half-howled exclamations jostling with David Fenech's slashes of dissonant guitar, over Badalamenti-ish, panther-stalk drums. Fenech's origins are in the mail-art scene of the early '90s, when he led the Peu Importe collective in Grenoble, and since then, in addition to his own recordings he has worked as a software developer at IRCAM and played with Jad Fair, Rhys Chatham and many others. Together with Vincent Epplay he is responsible for Ice Exposure's inspired arrangements and vivid, vertiginous sound design. Epplay is a visual artist and composer with particular interest in aleatory composition, concrete, and the reappropriation of vintage sound and film material. He and Fenech fashion a remarkable mise-en-scene for Berrocal to inhabit, one that embraces cutting-edge electronics while also paying homage to the best traditions of outlaw jazz and libidinous rock'n'roll ('Soundcheck' invokes the brutish spirit of Berrocal's hero Vince 'Rock N Roll Station' Taylor). On 'Blanche de Blanc', Berrocal's voice is framed by a groaning, ghoulish orchestra of industrial drones, while 'Equivoque' evokes the most humid and hostile Fourth World landscapes and 'Panic In Surabaya' lives up to its name, a hectic, pulse-quickening concrète collage that leaves you gasping for air. This is a searching and singular trio operating at the absolute peak of their powers, with an interplay that transcends studio and stage and occurs at an almost telepathic level. Ice Exposure is a triumph of that group mind, an underworld dérive as life-affirming as it is unnerving and psychologically precarious.













Panic In Surabaya

In a time when Jazz music is entering a contemporary renaissance and exciting the ears and minds of new audiences, Zombie Zombie's Étienne Jaumet offers us his unique, idiosyncratic take on the sound with the sprawling '8 Regards Obliques', his 3rd solo album with the Versatile label.

Jazz requires a certain freedom of technique, interpretation and improvisation that already matches Jaumet's own production style and sonic aesthetic as well as his playful approach towards music. The eight pieces that make up the new LP were very quickly recorded; Jaumet let himself be carried away by the atmosphere without focusing too much on fine details or the laborious aspects of the composition process. The finished article is a spontaneous collection that stands out, a true mirror image of the creative process adopted by the artist. Not surprisingly, spontaneity is one of the characteristics already present in his music, in both his recorded output and his live happenings, where he leaves much room for freedom and improvisation.

'8 Regards Obliques' was recorded at the Versatile studio in less than 3 weeks with quite a basic set up: TR 808, selected synthesizers, vocals and of course the saxophone, which is a constant presence also in his previous albums. For the mix Etienne has again appealed to the maestro I:Cube, a central figure of the Versatile story and a prdigious engineer and artist in his own right. He immediately understood that it was necessary to keep the spontaneous side alive and to not over-produce the pieces or over-edit them, being constantly mindful to retain the power in the sound and in the frequencies. From Sun Ra with 'Nuclear war', Miles Davis in 'Shhh / Peaceful' or 'Theme from a symphony' by Ornette Coleman to 'Caravan' (already quoted by many jazzmen), Etienne enjoyed revisiting classic masterpieces and paying tribute to his inspirations. He allowed himself only one personal and original composition, 'Ma révélation mystique'.

Neneh Cherry returns with Four Tet-produced LP Broken Politics

Following the release of her first earth-quaking single in 4 years at the beginning of August, counter-culture pop icon Neneh Cherry announces her fifth solo album Broken Politics, produced in its entirety by Four Tet.

Continuing her blurring and conflation of the personal and the political, the second single Shot Gun Shack tackles the link between violence and deprivation using poetic logic. The track deals with the ever-present and always-global issue of gun violence in society. The track's name was the result of inspiration that sprung from a half-remembered conversation Cherry had at the funeral of late jazz great Ornette Coleman.

Broken Politics pointedly asks the question; how do we conduct ourselves in extraordinary times In an era where the signal-to-noise ratio is more uneven than ever, what are the measures we must take to retain and remember our own personhood It searches for answers, patiently and with great care, and with a fearlessness to acknowledge that sometimes the answers don't even exist. It's a record that's equal parts angry, thoughtful, melancholy, and emboldening, as Cherry and her collaborators continue to expand her ever-widening sonic palette to craft truly singular and potent music.

Composer, filmmaker and photographer Phill Niblock is a true pillar of the New York avant-garde. In the past 50 years, he has curated over 1,000 performances at his Centre Street loft and steadfastly built a massive, multidisciplinary body of work. While his earliest musical compositions date back to 1968, Niblock waited until the early '80s to release any recordings. Nothin To Look At Just A Record, a powerful debut with densely layered trombones, would be the first to unfurl his unique approach to sound.

The second album and perhaps the most rare in Niblock's vast catalogue, 1984's Niblock For Celli / Celli Plays Niblock is a meeting of two great minds. Working with reed player Joseph Celli (a composer in his own right, who has collaborated with John Cage, Pauline Oliveros and Ornette Coleman), Niblock nimbly removes the breathing pauses from Celli's oboe and English horn to create seamless, enchanting drones.

Niblock insists that his music be played loud: only in this way can one experience the visceral ringing of these long instrumental tones through the speakers and their natural overtones generated by the room. Niblock For Celli remains deeply absorbing.

This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Alvin Lucier, Yoshi Wada and Dome.