Free Jazz Music

It is that simple. He could be the Daryl Strawberry of sax players. He can create sounds and expression that is very rare but then can walk through a song or a set without knowing that you are at a concert or out getting brunch with a jazz band. This album is more about the former. He puts together a beautiful and powerful performance. Cyrille is on drums and seems a little bit back in the mix. Johnny Dyani is hot on bass. Highly recommended.

If you like the "cutting edge" of jazz this is for you. Briggan and Company have the uncanny ability to transcend the mundane and bring you a "different" listening experience. Briggan is and individual voice on the saxaphone and is worthy of more exposure. ENJOY!!!!!

I saw these gentlemen live in Paris a year ago. THey were outstanding. Incredible technique (especially Workman). Great inventiveness. And they really listned and responded to each other. ANd so was Leroi Jones! Wise, powerfull stuff. Ovations lasted for 20 minutes.

This is one horrible CD! I am a major fan of the AEC, Ornette and Air. There are great musicians here who were once a cohesive outfit, These musicians have now created an awful release . Amiri needs to remove himself from the mainstream of existence. His work here is sophmoric.

Please save your hard earned money and stay away from this!

This review is intended to function as a corrective. The last reviewer contends he is a fan of NYAQ, Coleman...in short, a fan of avant-garde jazz, free-jazz, outside jazz (what Leroi Jones in his flawed but necessary work "Black Music" refers to as the new thing).

To be honest, I find this hard to believe. I listened to this album driving home from a night class yesterday evening. I was blown away. Indispensable when you're stranded on an urban island. As for Baraka, it's somewhat fashionable to criticize his poetry as dated, as, in retro.spect, sophmoric. I strongly disagree. His voice was important then, and not a damn thing has changed to make it irrelevant. A beautiful, moving album. Grab it while you can hungry souls.

Sure, this re-creation of the great New York Art Quartet comes decades after the group's inception, and aesthetic concerns have changed. But Amiri Baraka's in great form--hollering his poems over the bedrock of John Tchicai and Roswell Rudd. The band is a blowing gale, brassy and fat in the trombone and slippery and warm in the saxophone. Never mind any one-star reviews of this; it's gem-like in its complex refraction of the '60s avant-garde and that music's relevance beyond its time.

I don't believe that Mark Cutler was a member of the New York Art Quartet...

One of the reasons why I liked 1-3, albeit weird, is that all of the albums all fulfill their numeric palindromes (ie* 0:11=1, 0:22=2, 0:33=3. The same holds true for 4.

The Music itself is very toned down & very focused. The Standout track for me even though it is relatively short is 4.7 (2:06). I am amazed that this music is improvised, because there is a lucid & structured quality.

I just hope that they come to the chicagoland area so I can see them in their natural element.

I hope to visit Norway someday, along with the other artic european countries someday. I believe they draw their music from their surroundings, in this it's Norway.

I assume that my review will be out of place because it seems like the only people that are interested in this music are the ones predisposed to finding it amazing. I, on the other hand, found it to be a joke. It was just a bunch of noise for an hour. I will obviously be bombarded with phrases like "you just don't understand this music," and that's fine because I don't understand it at all. But I extend a warning to all those who read a good review and decided to try it out (like I did). Only those passionately into bizarre avant-garde self important static will find this album worthwhile, for the rest of us law-abiding citizens this is a clear miss.

Supersilent is a band consisting of Helge Sten, Jarle Vespestad, Ståle Storløkken and Arve Henriksen. This is their second album, their debut a triple-cd with the engaging title '1-3'. The music created is more spectacular, like a modern Naked City, with refined musicians that has the key to the coveted vault of fine taste. Immersing themselves deep into intricate patterns and furious energy they utilize drums, occasional trumpet and the always present audio virus that is what they label their electronic help as. From moment to moment they can change from hardcore noise to industrialized passages before they depict the most beautiful ambient parts I've heard. Free improvisation all the time, never a minute of planned music, this group can only be recommended for adventurous ears that appreciate high quality music. Deliberately placing themselves beyond all borders and genres Supersilent emerges as one of the most exciting new groups that we have. ECM is now distributing Rune Grammofon and that should make Supersilent's albums more readily available. Even better are their just released third album ('5') that contains excerpts from live recordings. Buy. **** on the barometer.

Group improvisation is a modern concept. The mechanics of improvising -- playing what's not on the page -- have been around since the beginning of time, hardwired into our brains and muscles. But musical improvisation has traditionally been narrowed down with strict sets of rules that define basic group roles, which notes to play and avoid (scales), and how long it all should last.

As avant-garde and early electronic music began to solidify in the mid 20th century, many of the conventions governing improvisation were brought under academic, even spiritual scrutiny. Born from these heady days were the quickly diverging threads of "free" jazz and experimental avant-classical modes of improvisation, which eschewed traditional temporal and harmonic limits while placing the burden of art on the moment of execution rather than the pre-prepared score.

Supersilent, a quartet of Norwegian improvisers, ties these loose threads of jazz and "academic" improvisation back together. The group's music is a profoundly unique blend of electronic and acoustic elements, and it's rigorously improvisational. In fact, the mysterious group refuses to rehearse or even discuss their music amongst themselves.

As the title suggests, this is their sixth CD of material, following the three-CD 1-3, 4, and 5, all released on Norway's fine Rune Grammofon label. As their name might imply, Supersilent do their best to dissolve completely from the process and presentation of their music: track titles are numbered (6.1, 6.2, etc.), the groupmembers' names are not listed anywhere, and their album art has consisted of a series of monochromatic templates.

The group's music follows suit, attempting to draw full attention to the collective output and none to the individual musician's contributions. Historically a "lead" instrument, Arve Henriksen's trumpet is usually so heavily processed (in real time; Supersilent also disdain most aspects of postproduction) that it blends in seamlessly with Helge Sten (often referred to as Deathprod) and Stale Storlokken's synthesizer manipulations. Similarly, Jarle Vespestad's percussion is comprised more of pure sounds and textures than rhythms, often employing both extremes of volume to further distort and disorient the drummer's place in the ensemble.

The lack of obvious genre conventions within Supersilent's sprawling, electro-acoustic model makes their coherent, suite-like mentality all the more impressive. The group take on '70s Miles, Varese-worthy experimentalism, and proto-ambient texture with equal verve, but the reflective tone on 6 occasionally threatens a quasi-New Age sensibility that softens the group's wonderful edges.

Such an open-ended music, where each track's constituent elements and feel are entirely unique, should betray the tendencies and personalities of the individuals involved. Amazingly, these kinds of ego-illuminating maneuvers are entirely absent. Although the music is improvised and entirely unplanned, Supersilent move as a singular entity, with the predetermined clarity and elegant cadence of formulated composition. The group's unedited process revels in the startling, "perfect imperfections" of selfless group improvisation.

Ben Sterling...

This is some wonderful music. The two players work in tandem to create purposeful improvisations full of beautiful melodies and strikingly vivid textures. They have an uncanny knack for building to effective climaxes. Great listening. But $35.99? In the era of music pirating and iTunes? I got this one from my local library for free.

Braxton and Frank ("Franks" is a typo) compliment each other beautifully. This CD provides a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.