CLARA LAI – corpos

CORPOS

 

Artist : Clara Lai

Release Date : April 7th 2023

Label : Phonogram Unit

Format : CD

Recorded at Rosazul, Barcelona, by Jan Valls Miralles on April 11th and 12th, 2022
Mixed and mastered by Jan Valls Miralles. Graphic Design by Tània Gumbau. Cover photo by Hernâni Faustino. Band photo by Alexandra Garzón. Produced by Clara Lai. Executive Production by Phonogram Unit

Buy album:

corpos is the first album by the Barcelona-based trio, formed by pianist Clara Lai, double bassist Àlex Reviriego and drummer Oriol Roca.

 

The music of this album explores collective construction in trio format, visiting different sound zones, compositional possibilities and improvisational languages. Music that is energetic but also contemplative, aleatoric, some noise and silence, coexist with melodic sketches.

Pieces as sound bodies that find unity through embracing their diversity.

 

Clara Lai – piano
Àlex Reviriego – double bass
Oriol Roca – drums

 

All compositions by Clara Lai. Music by Oriol Roca, Àlex Reviriego and Clara Lai on tracks 1 and 3

 

www.phonogramunit.com

 

ORIOL ROCA TRIO & LYNN CASSIERS – LIVE AT JAZZ CAVA

Live at Jazz Cava

 

Artist : Oriol Roca Trio & Lynn Cassiers
Release Date : February 11th, 2023
Label : Underpool Records
Format : Vinyl /Digital

Recorded live at Jazz Cava Vic on May 7th 2022 during the 24th Vic Jazz Festival.

Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Sergi Felipe.

Photos by Joan Cortès. Design and Cover by Pepon Meneses.

Go to ORIOL ROCA TRIO & LYNN CASSIERS

 

Buy album:

Oriol Roca’s Live at Jazz Cava featuring himself alongside his regular trio with the addition of singer and soundscaper Lynn Cassiers. The album is a co-production of Festival de Jazz de Vic and the UnderPool Label. It was recorded live at the emblematic club Jazz Cava de Vic.

 

For this recording Oriol Roca is reunited with pianist Giovanni Di Domenico and double bassist Manolo Cabras, partners from countless other projects over the last 20 years. Together they have elaborated a common language which has gone on to receive abundant praise and recognition.

 

Live at Jazz Cava features the collaboration of singer and soundscaper Lynn Cassiers, one of the most remarkable voices on the current European scene. She is a natural addition to the group and enriches their sound spectrum, making herself a noteworthy contribution to the evolution of this project.

This is an immense group of musicians, each of them capable of transcending the role of their instruments in order to travel freely to unexpected places through improvisation. The music here is a testimony to their musical sensibility, energy and abundant personality.

 

Oriol Roca’s music on this album describes a vital moment, referencing emotions, and posing questions that have no answers; we glimpse new horizons and dreams evoked through the melodies of this most admired drummer.

 

The vinyl edition of this album kicks off the UnderPool label’s activity for 2023. The year also finds the label celebrating its 10th anniversary. In these 10 years UnderPool has become a reference point among independent labels by featuring locally produced contemporary jazz and it has in turn greatly contributed to the art form’s visibility.

 

 

Lynn Cassiers – Voice and Electronics

Giovanni Di Domenico – Piano

Manolo Cabras – Double Bass

Oriol Roca – Drums

 

All compositions written by Oriol Roca. Lyrics by Lynn Cassiers (except The Mutilated, translated from Gabriel Ferrater‘s poem El Mutilat).

 

www.underpool.org

Album review by Georges Tonla Briquet on Jazzhalo.be

 

“Opening with a song title like “What’s The Point?” testifies the vision and attitude that characterizes this foursome. They put the world into perspective and constantly question themselves. The contrast of freedom versus connectedness also emerges. Musically, that is a fact that fits this group like a glove. They know each other through and through, as a result of which both concepts are continuously magnified by each other. The freedom is guaranteed to improvise to your heart’s content, but this is done within the limit of mutual uniformity.”

 

 

Album review (****) by Jean-Claude Vantroyen on Le Soir

 

“Oriol Roca is a drummer and composer from Barcelona. He regularly came to Belgium, accompanied by two of the best musicians and improvisers on the Belgian jazz scene, Giovanni Di Domenico on piano and Manolo Cabras on double bass, two Italians based in Brussels. Their music is based on their complicity, which thus weaves natural, melodic, harmonic improvisations, full of sensitivity. For their performance at the Vic Jazz Festival in Barcelona, ​​in May 2022, they enlisted the exceptional voice and inventive electronic landscapes of the Belgian Lynn Cassiers. This concert at the Jazz Cava was fortunately recorded. This is what is offered today. And these are 43 minutes of beauty on the music of Oriol and the words of Lynn, which are the starting point for poetic improvisations. I love Lynn’s way of creating soundscapes, of painting sometimes elegiac, sometimes mysterious paintings with her airy voice, slightly transformed by electronics. I also love his liveliness in creating sound effects, layers, echoes to support the music. And what about Oriol, Giovanni and Manolo, who intertwine harmonies and melodies in the most lively and beautiful way to support Lynn’s lyrics? This very personal, very original album arouses emotions, leads to dreams, broadens horizons. The group is on April 28 at Sounds in Ixelles.”

 

 

Album review by Candido Querol on B!ritmos

 

“Oriol Roca, Barcelona 1979 is a composer and drummer of what we can consider European free jazz. And I say European because his formations have musicians of different nationalities. While he maintains his trio Tàlveg, together with Marcel·li Bayer (sax) and Ferran Fages (guitar) or MUT trio with Miguel Fernández (sax) and Albert Juan (guitar), all Catalan and interested in improvisation like him. In this case, he returns to his “European” trio with the Italians Manolo Cabras (double bass) and Giovanni Di Domenico (piano) with whom he had already recorded MAR (El Negocito records, 2017). And with whom he has other duet recordings. In fact, he already met Di Domenico at the Conservatory in The Hague twenty years ago and immediately began to play together united by that fondness for improvisation that they still practice. In this Live at Jazz Cava (UnderPool 2023) the trio is joined by the singer soundscaper Lynn Cassiers, for some the most unique vocalist in Belgian jazz and improvisation. On first listening to the album (I’ve had a few) it reminded me of the work of Rebekka Bakken (vocals) and Wolfgang Muthspiel (guitar) on the wonderful Daily Mirror Material records, 2000. But let’s go with the compositions of this Live at Jazz Cava, recorded by UnderPool live at the Jazz Cava in Vic. The first theme is “What’s the Point?”. Drums entrance, original start showing arms. And the voice and the double bass twinned in a line of work. Cabras rises above the rest and the first electronic dalliances mix fluidly with Cassiers’ voice and the soundscape takes shape in my head. The music is signed by Roca and the lyrics by Cassiers, but immediately improvisation prevails and everyone works on that sound layer that we like so much. “I should be going”. Now it is Di Domenico’s piano who introduces the theme, close to the old spirituals, the first two minutes are for him. Cassiers joins in, what a beautiful voice! But Cabras takes the bow (I suppose) and the “irreverent” sounds take over the situation. Suddenly a world of “antichrist” appears to cover up the old spiritual sounds and that change makes the song turn 180 degrees, leaving the last two minutes for Di Doménico to reintroduce them all back to the church. “Low”, now it’s time for Cabras to start, a hurtful pulsation, perfectly combined with the rest who aren’t looking for melodies either, all creating tense environments that force us / allow us to imagine where we are going. Another formation in which Roca collaborates comes to mind, the Piccola Orchestra Gagarin with the Sardinian Paolo Angeli (guitar) and the Russian Sahsa Agranov (cello) and specifically a concert in which they accompanied Mariola Membrives, stuffed in those astronauts (because of Gagarin). But let’s get on with the record. “The Mutilated” is an adaptation of the poem El Mutilat by Gabriel Ferrater (Reus, 1922). It is interesting to read the poem to see how Roca’s composition has managed to enter into that state of mind of the words that Ferrater left us. The instruments know how to respect the rhythm of the singer and Cassiers knows (very well accompanied by the piano) rise and fall in waves of emotions. Interchangeably using song and narration as required by the text. “No time”, suggests a traditional song to me. With that piano accompanying the narration, that voice that rises like the one telling a story. “No hard feelings” is a beautiful ballad, improvisation and free for a moment have left a space for the jazz trio and a beautiful voice to let us get excited from the most “classical” jazz. A bit like those paintings by abstract painters, in which people exclaim, see how they also know how to paint! As the hand strikes, then gives a flower… to finish “Carousel,” which once again bets on the freedom of execution, Roca sets a rhythm of “whoever wants to follow me” and the whole group launches into playing freely. As said, an album to listen to many times and enjoy more and more.”

 

 

Concert review by Martí Farré on Núvol

 

“One of the most remarkable merits of this encounter was the style of the proposal itself, difficult to categorize, which is no small thing: straddling pop, contemporary jazz, song, electronica… The other was the convergence between two aesthetic universes, that of Roca and that of Cassiers, with a long, fruitful and experienced trajectory separately. And what at first could seem like a superimposition of sound layers – the trio of Oriol Roca and the spectral voice of Lynn Cassiers, supported by tricks and electronic effects – immediately became an extraordinary complement to two bands: Cassiers said and the others pointed out, even embellished – above all the pianist Di Domenico – and all together with a route that sometimes progressed by palpitations or, even, by leaps and bounds. Surprising was, in fact, the combination of fragments of high energy voltage with others of almost balladic calmness, of studied slowness. Songs, in the long run, dressed in a different aesthetic, with a very similar climatic tone – there was almost no counterpoint, no sudden turn of the script – but with a thousand and one details of excellence, with moments of brilliance individual, by everyone, and solos and accompaniments that were taught like who doesn’t want the thing.” 

 

 

Concert review by Xavier Castillón, El Punt Avui

 

“On Sunday evening, the Sala Galà in Cassà de la Selva became, thanks to the Jazzà concert series, a small refuge of peace and beauty, of music not forcedly friendly or built to please the masses or the algorithms, but made with passion and respect by musicians used to traveling and conquering the hearts of listeners step by step, without rushing. Precisely, the respect was what the Barcelona drummer and composer Oriol Roca (1979) thanked the audience present in the hall, at the end of the concert, on behalf of his colleagues: the Roman pianist Giovanni Di Domenico (1977) and the Sardinian double bassist Manolo Cabras (1971), who complete his stable trio between Brussels and Barcelona, and the Belgian singer and sonic landscaper Lyn Cassiers (1984), brilliant vocalist who truly creates unique sound spaces with her voice, the microphone that he moves closer or further away from his mouth and the machines that help him sculpt the syllables he emits like just another instrument. As Roca explained after the concert to the spectators who wanted to share an informal chat with the musicians, the album they presented in Cassà, Live at Jazz Cava, is the result of a co-production between the Vic Jazz Festival and the active label Underpool, which makes possible an old desire of Roca: to add the musicality of his trio to a vocalist, preferably Cassiers, with which had already coincided with the jazz scenes of the Belgian capital, where Cabras and Di Domenico are also installed. During the rehearsals prior to the recording of the disc in Vic, last May 7 – in fact, the first public performance of the quartet–, Roca was taking to Brussels the compositions to which Cassiers incorporated the lyrics, with the only exception is The Mutilated, which adapts and translates into English a poem by Gabriel Ferrater, which talks about emotional mutilations. Since May, the four musicians have not been on stage again until the series of concerts in Catalonia that ended on Sunday in Cassà, but their good work and their great understanding became evident during the hour in concert: a superb demonstration of contemporary jazz at this Jazzà, which thanks to the collaboration between the Culture department of Cassà City Council and Underpool is becoming an essential jazz oasis.”

 

 

Album review on New Music Jason

 

“Oriol Roca is a drummer and bandleader from Spain. He has been recording and performing with his Trio for over twenty years. Their latest album, Live At Jazz Cava, pairs them with Belgian vocalist Lynn Cassiers, for a seven-song set at Barcelona’s Jazz Cava de Vic. It’s dark and moody, with Cassiers’ beautiful and altered voice projecting an air of mystery. The album closes with Carousel, giving all involved a chance to show off their improvisational prowess. Go cats, go!” 

 

 

Album review on Warmth Highest

 

“Belgian jazz vocalist, and master of electronics, Lynn Cassiers, makes avant garde singing emotionally relatable on this exceptional album. It’s ethereal, dreamy, and romantic. And very human and comforting as well. The band is so incredibly outstanding. Even Cassier’s electronic accompaniment with her own voice is stellar and compliments the vibe. On all counts, it feels like she’s leading the band and boy oh boy are they quick on their toes putting forth unbelievable accompaniment. Sometimes bassist, Manolo Cabras, puts forth some initial landscape but Cassiers explores it at her own pace and pleasure and with extraordinary and pleasing confidence. Giovanni Di Domenico’s piano playing is heavily showcased on I Should Be Going but then the song takes a wild left turn into the avant garde and he comes out of it sounding something like Keith Jarrett. But he also plays in an impressionistic manner that channels Debussy. This is especially true when he’s quick on the draw to find the perfect accompaniment to Cassiers. And obviously the percussion is huge since Oriol Roca is the band leader. He and Cabras have a very intuitive relationship but he’s also impressionistic like Giovanni Di Domenico. It’s kind of odd to think of a percussionist like that but he drives the band with a dreaminess through his peculiar pace and rhythm. It’s also big. His percussion adds layers of texture in the same way electronics do in other music. Enjoy this great album.”

 

TÀLVEG – Arbori

ARBORI

Artist : Tàlveg

Release Date : June 27, 2020

Label : Bandcamp

Format : Digital LP

All music by Marcel·lí Bayer, Ferran Fages and Oriol Roca

Recorded by Santi Careta and Adrià Serrano on December 19th and 20th, 2019 at Santa Eugènia de Relat, Spain.

Mixed by Juan R. Berbín.

Mastering and cover photography by Marcel·lí Bayer.

Album design by Josema Urós.

Produced by Tàlveg.

Go to TàLVEG

Buy album:

Barcelona based TàLVEG is a collaborative trio installed in an incessant search for new textures, chasing the light behind dark atmospheres and desolate landscapes, combining a palette of super-saturated colors with lyrical passages. The music unfolds in the form of an oratory building a narrative flow from the combinatorial possibilities that they explore as a trio.

 

Arbori is Tàlveg’s first long play album, a 10 piece oratorio which comes after Ses-Sens, their first 4-track EP debut.

 

Marcel.lí Bayer: baritone saxophone

Ferran Fages: electric guitar

Oriol Roca: drums

 

 

“Tàlveg is one of the most interesting new trios on the European avant-garde scene. A must purchase for anybody interested in contemporary avant-garde.”  Maciej Lewenstein (PL)

 

“Thinking that Arbori is their first full album as Tàlveg, the listener gets the feeling of urgency and importance.” Fotis Nikolakopoulos, The Free Jazz Collective, Freejazzblog.org (INT)

 

“These guys know exactly where they are and what they’re doing – they know the architecture and ambience they’re creating: the vast halls of silence illustrated by a single harmonic, the groaning bari-ous vistas, the flocks of cymbals across a distant sky, the brutal (dis)storms… They know exactly where they are. Their world. Their landscape. Created, filled, and offered with a yin/yang gesture of grace and ugliness.” Dave Foxall, ajazznoise.com (UK)

 

“The memories of the best years of Sonic Youth in New York rumble in our ears.”  Andrzej Nowak, Spontaneousmusictribune (PL)

 

“The depths of the guttural are explored. And finally everything is heading for an eruption.”  Ferdinand Dupuis-Panther, Jazzhalo.be (BE)

 

“The notes seem to come into existence only to live a life of torture and agony, flowing between realms as fluidly as luminiferous æther. The result is an entrancing and bewildering forty-minute experience you ought to live for yourselves!” Dæv Tremblay, Canthisevenbecalledmusic.com (USA)

 

“Tàlveg explores mysterious and unsettling, cinematic soundscapes, and often opt for sparse, implied gestures that leave enough space – literally – for breath and imagination.” Eyal Hareuveni, Salt-peanuts.eu (NO)

 

“They expand the musical palette without detracting from the trio’s signature sound. Because of the often restrained tension, the listening experience is an exciting one. Beautiful album.” Gert Derkx, Opduvel.com (NL)

GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO & ORIOL ROCA – Ater

ATER

Artist : Giovanni Di Domenico & Oriol Roca

Release Date : May 1, 2020

Label : Bandcamp

Format : Digital

All music by Giovanni Di Domenico & Oriol Roca

Recorded in Studio Grez, Brussels, november 2016

Additional recordings done at The Nest Cellar, Brussels, march/april 2020
Recorded, mixed, mastered by Giovanni Di Domenico

Go to: GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO & ORIOL ROCA

Buy album:

Oriol Roca and Giovanni Di Domenico have been playing music together for 20 years already (and coulting!)

Now, after the studio album “Sounds Good” (Spocus, 2012) and the live one “Live in Centelles” (Whataboutmusic, 2015) they bring you Ater, their 2° studio album together.

In this one they focused on minimal touches and slow unfolding structures, fluxes of psychedelic layers superimposed on a mesmerizing drums and cymbals forest.

70’s ECM rules!

 

Giovanni Di Domenico: piano, Fender Rhodes, organ

Oriol Roca: drums, percussion

 

TÀLVEG – Live Series I

LIVE SERIES I

Artist : Tàlveg

Release Date : October 15, 2021

Label : Bandcamp

Format : Digital EP

All music by Marcel·lí Bayer, Ferran Fages and Oriol Roca

Recorded by Eric Ruiz
Mixed and mastered by Marcel·lí Bayer

Cover photography by Alexandra Garzón
Design by Josema Urós

Produced by Tàlveg.

Go to TàLVEG

Buy album:

Tàlveg presents LIVE SERIES: a selection of the best moments of their concerts, dropped now as a digital EP. These sonic documents are and will be the live testimony of the trio’s musical research, based on the artistic freedom and the assymetries that the oratorio musical form allows them to develop. Small doses of truthful music where you will listen and appreciate the natural essence of Tàlveg’s sound.

 

LIVE SERIES volume I: Excerpts from Tàlveg’s Expanded live show from December 17th, 2020 at Cine Alhambra La Garriga during the “9è Festival de Jazz de La Garriga”

 

Barcelona based TàLVEG is a collaborative trio installed in an incessant search for new textures, chasing the light behind dark atmospheres and desolate landscapes, combining a palette of super-saturated colors with lyrical passages. The music unfolds in the form of an oratory building a narrative flow from the combinatorial possibilities that they explore as a trio.

 

 

Marcel.lí Bayer: alto and baritone saxophone

Ferran Fages: electric guitar

Oriol Roca: drums

 

 

“Tàlveg is one of the most interesting new trios on the European avant-garde scene. A must purchase for anybody interested in contemporary avant-garde.”  Maciej Lewenstein (PL)

 

“Thinking that Arbori is their first full album as Tàlveg, the listener gets the feeling of urgency and importance.” Fotis Nikolakopoulos, The Free Jazz Collective, Freejazzblog.org (INT)

 

“These guys know exactly where they are and what they’re doing – they know the architecture and ambience they’re creating: the vast halls of silence illustrated by a single harmonic, the groaning bari-ous vistas, the flocks of cymbals across a distant sky, the brutal (dis)storms… They know exactly where they are. Their world. Their landscape. Created, filled, and offered with a yin/yang gesture of grace and ugliness.” Dave Foxall, ajazznoise.com (UK)

 

“The memories of the best years of Sonic Youth in New York rumble in our ears.”  Andrzej Nowak, Spontaneousmusictribune (PL)

 

“The depths of the guttural are explored. And finally everything is heading for an eruption.”  Ferdinand Dupuis-Panther, Jazzhalo.be (BE)

 

“The notes seem to come into existence only to live a life of torture and agony, flowing between realms as fluidly as luminiferous æther. The result is an entrancing and bewildering forty-minute experience you ought to live for yourselves!” Dæv Tremblay, Canthisevenbecalledmusic.com (USA)

 

“Tàlveg explores mysterious and unsettling, cinematic soundscapes, and often opt for sparse, implied gestures that leave enough space – literally – for breath and imagination.” Eyal Hareuveni, Salt-peanuts.eu (NO)

 

“They expand the musical palette without detracting from the trio’s signature sound. Because of the often restrained tension, the listening experience is an exciting one. Beautiful album.” Gert Derkx, Opduvel.com (NL)

TÀLVEG – Live Series II

LIVE SERIES II

Artist : Tàlveg

Release Date : February 3, 2022

Label : Bandcamp

Format : Digital EP

All music by Marcel·lí Bayer, Ferran Fages and Oriol Roca

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Quim Pugtió, Kato

Cover photography by Alexandra Garzón
Design by Josema Urós

Produced by Tàlveg.

Go to TàLVEG

Buy album:

Tàlveg presents LIVE SERIES: a selection of the best moments of their concerts, dropped now as a digital EP. These sonic documents are and will be the live testimony of the trio’s musical research, based on the artistic freedom and the assymetries that the oratorio musical form allows them to develop. Small doses of truthful music where you will listen and appreciate the natural essence of Tàlveg’s sound.

 

LIVE SERIES volume II: Excerpts from Tàlveg’s live show from November 7th, 2020 at Milano Jazz Club during JAZZ I AM (International Jazz Meeting)
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Quim Pugtió, Kato

 

Barcelona based TàLVEG is a collaborative trio installed in an incessant search for new textures, chasing the light behind dark atmospheres and desolate landscapes, combining a palette of super-saturated colors with lyrical passages. The music unfolds in the form of an oratory building a narrative flow from the combinatorial possibilities that they explore as a trio.

 

 

Marcel.lí Bayer: alto and baritone saxophone

Ferran Fages: electric guitar

Oriol Roca: drums

 

 

“Tàlveg is one of the most interesting new trios on the European avant-garde scene. A must purchase for anybody interested in contemporary avant-garde.”  Maciej Lewenstein (PL)

 

“Thinking that Arbori is their first full album as Tàlveg, the listener gets the feeling of urgency and importance.” Fotis Nikolakopoulos, The Free Jazz Collective, Freejazzblog.org (INT)

 

“These guys know exactly where they are and what they’re doing – they know the architecture and ambience they’re creating: the vast halls of silence illustrated by a single harmonic, the groaning bari-ous vistas, the flocks of cymbals across a distant sky, the brutal (dis)storms… They know exactly where they are. Their world. Their landscape. Created, filled, and offered with a yin/yang gesture of grace and ugliness.” Dave Foxall, ajazznoise.com (UK)

 

“The memories of the best years of Sonic Youth in New York rumble in our ears.”  Andrzej Nowak, Spontaneousmusictribune (PL)

 

“The depths of the guttural are explored. And finally everything is heading for an eruption.”  Ferdinand Dupuis-Panther, Jazzhalo.be (BE)

 

“The notes seem to come into existence only to live a life of torture and agony, flowing between realms as fluidly as luminiferous æther. The result is an entrancing and bewildering forty-minute experience you ought to live for yourselves!” Dæv Tremblay, Canthisevenbecalledmusic.com (USA)

 

“Tàlveg explores mysterious and unsettling, cinematic soundscapes, and often opt for sparse, implied gestures that leave enough space – literally – for breath and imagination.” Eyal Hareuveni, Salt-peanuts.eu (NO)

 

“They expand the musical palette without detracting from the trio’s signature sound. Because of the often restrained tension, the listening experience is an exciting one. Beautiful album.” Gert Derkx, Opduvel.com (NL)

TÀLVEG – Ses-Sens

SES-SENS

Artist : Tàlveg

Release Date : June 4, 2020

Label : Bandcamp

Format : Digital EP

All music by Marcel·lí Bayer, Ferran Fages and Oriol Roca

Recorded by Santi Careta and Adrià Serrano on December 19th and 20th, 2019 at Santa Eugènia de Relat, Spain.

Mixed by Juan R. Berbín.

Mastering and cover photography by Marcel·lí Bayer.

Album design by Josema Urós.

Produced by Tàlveg.

Go to TàLVEG

 

Buy album:

Barcelona based TàLVEG is a collaborative trio installed in an incessant search for new textures, chasing the light behind dark atmospheres and desolate landscapes, combining a palette of super-saturated colors with lyrical passages. The music unfolds in the form of an oratory building a narrative flow from the combinatorial possibilities that they explore as a trio.

 

Marcel.lí Bayer: baritone saxophone

Ferran Fages: electric guitar

Oriol Roca: drums

 

 

 

“Sens-Sens is a memorable first encounter with the trio, which musically sounds as if they have known each other for years and in which each puts their individuality at the service of the common goal of making exciting improvised music that is not dominated by individual excesses but through the teamwork.” Gert Derkx, opduvel.com (NL)

 

“Tàlveg is one of the most interesting new trios on the European avant-garde scene. Their debut recording “Ses-sens” contains 4 beautifully intense and intensely beautiful short tracks and is an unquestionable revelation. A must purchase for anybody interested in contemporary avant-garde!!” Maciej Lewenstein (PL)

 

“Tàlveg explores mysterious and unsettling, cinematic soundscapes, and often opt for sparse, implied gestures that leave enough space – literally – for breath and imagination.” Eyal Hareuveni, salt-peanuts.eu (NO)

ORIOL ROCA TRIO – MAR

Mar

Artist : Oriol Roca Trio
Release Date : September 15th, 2017
Label : el NEGOCITO Records
Format : CD

Recorded at Studio Grez, Brussels February 18th 2017

Mixing & Mastering: Manolo Cabras 

Production: Oriol Roca & Rogé Verstraete

 Artwork & Photography: Àlex Juan 

Go to ORIOL ROCA TRIO

Buy album:

***  MAR Best Jazz Album 2017 Award  ***   XX Premis de la Música Catalana / Enderrock  

 

The Barcelona percussionist Oriol Roca has performed alongside some of the best improvisers and composers of creative music in Spain, as well as collaborating with figures like the Italian Paolo Angeli and Norwegian Jan Bang. But this is the first time Roca leads and writes music for his own band. He is accompanied by two old comrades, the pianist Giovanni di Domenico and the double bass player Manolo Cabras, two Italian musicians based in Brussels.

 

The natural communication between them – built after more than fifteen years playing together – is the perfect canvas for Roca’s music, that demands subtlety and a strong musical personality. The pianist Giovanni Di Domenico (Nate Wooley, Arve Henriksen, Jim O’Rourke) and double bassist Manolo Cabras (Charles Gayle, Erik Vermeulen, Enrico Rava) are two of the most personal voices on the European jazz and improvisation scene. Together they form a trio built on complicity, risk and friendship.

 

Oriol Roca is now débuting as leader and composer with a record of high emotional intensity, sometimes serene and at others volcanic, where north is always the melody. The debut album Mar is released by Belgian label el NEGOCITO Records, a Ghent based label focused on alternative and improvised music.

 

GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO: piano

MANOLO CABRAS: double bass

ORIOL ROCA: drums

 

 

MAR Best Jazz Album 2017 Award – XX Premis de la Música Catalana / Enderrock

 

“Oriol Roca is an excellent drummer who offers us a sober and deep album which opens an infinity of doors for the future of this trio, which we will follow with interest.” Improjazz (FR)

 

“Oriol Roca is a drummer with a simmering sensitivity that does not lack muscle. His playing has continued to send us back to one of the greatest percussionists known to free music, the huge Barry Altschul, whose Oriol appears today as the obvious successor.” Focus Vif (BE)

 

“A slow, placid and involving work, which requires careful listening.” Tomajazz (ESP)

 

“It’s an uneasy serenity Oriol Roca settles into on his new recording Mar. All of the ingredients necessary for a strong dose of tranquility are present: melodic fragments suggestive of possible endings, the murmur of percussion like slow, easy breaths while dreaming, and highly-charged, vivid imagery. But the drummer, along with his trio of pianist Giovanni Di Domenico and double bassist Manolo Cabras achieve a tone that is subtly ominous and reveals a strange beauty.” Dave Sumner, Bird is the worm (USA)

 

“The magnetizing and extremely minimalistic playing leads to an almost mystical listening experience where every feeling of time and space disappears. A surprising listening trip” Jazzhalo (BE)

 

“Oriol Roca is one of those drummers who demonstrate to us, by this great sensitivity that characterizes him both as a musician and as a composer, that the art of percussion consists in emphasizing the impulse of a music. ‘Mar’ is an album bursting with ephemeral pleasures, a music that takes the time to be concise, to get to the point and say things once.” Citizen Jazz (FR)

 

www.elnegocitorecords.com

 

 

MUT TRIO & MASA KAMAGUCHI – My Ship

My Ship

Artist : Mut Trio
Release Date : April 15, 2017
Label : Fresh sound Records
Format : CD

Recorded at Dry Town studios, Barcelona on March 15th 2016

Recording engineer: Dave Bianchi

Mixing and mastering: Josué Pascual

Artwork: Alex Juan

Producer: Mut Trio

Executive producer: Jordi Pujol

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On the Barcelona scene (and beyond) the leaderless MUT Trio has a unique and idiosyncratic voice. It’s a voice that combines sparse structures and eloquent improvisation. A voice in which space and silence are equal partners alongside the instruments. It’s a voice that continues to evolve on this, their forth recording.

 

The MUT sound still features Miguel Fernández’s agile tone and minimal, fragmented phrasing, Albert Juan’s infinite textures and melodic refraction, and the cymbal-infused percussive landscapes of Oriol Roca… but with the addition of occasional live collaborator Masa Kamaguchi on bass, the sonic palette has broadened a little. Yet in bringing this deeper timbre, Kamaguchi is at home with the ‘less is more’ MUT philosophy and adds a variety of string-rattling subtleties without the slightest injury to MUT’s trademark mesmerising flow and cliché-free clarity.

 

MUT Trio is about melody. Often partial, splintered even; tuneful shards are repeated, turned over, given fresh response, pushed through the looking glass, creating unpredictable journeys for the listener. From the precision and pace, to the hint of the souk, or the folk-ish roots of their music… some possibilities only become apparent (or possible) once in motion, and MUT are in constant motion.
It’s been said before – notably by Ornette Coleman – that you cannot intellectualise music without diminishing it in some way, what really matters is the emotional response. MUT Trio’s music is primarily an emotional endeavour: curiosity, melancholy, joy (from quiet to fierce), liberty, wonder, and warmth, this is music alive with feeling.

Text by Dave Foxall

  • Miguel Fernández: tenor and soprano saxophones
  • Albert Juan: guitar
  • Oriol Roca: drums
  • Masa Kamaguchi: double bass

 

www.freshsoundrecords.com

MUT TRIO – 2395

2395

Artist : Mut Trio
Release Date : March 16, 2012
Label : Moskito Records
Format : CD / Vinyl

Recorded & mixed at KAY Studios by Marc Marcé on Dec. 19th, 2011

Mastered at Musikart Studio by Mikel F. Krutzaga

Design & Photography by Arkaitz del Río

Produced by Carlos “Tato” Gracia

Executive Producer: Gorka Reino

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Second studio album by MUT TRIO that includes original compositions, short improvised pieces and revisited versions of Gershwin‘s Oh Bess, Where is my Bess? and Something’s Coming, from Leonard Bernstein‘s West Side Story.

 

  • Miguel Fernández: tenor and soprano saxophone
  • Tito Juan: electric guitar
  • Oriol Roca: drums

Press

 

Hace unos años y como fruto de unas sesiones sin otra finalidad que la de tocar por diversión, Fernández, Juan y Roca decidían prolongar la vida de aquel encuentro y formar el trío MUT. En 2010, elnetlabel Whatabout Music publicaba en su web y en descarga libre su primer trabajo, el mini LP 1374 apenas un cuarto de hora de música pero en la que ya se vislumbraban las principales características de su música. El presente trabajo, segundo y de mayor duración, prosigue el trayecto exploratorio del anterior, profundizando en algunas cosas que tan sólo quedaban apuntadas en su predecesor, y aportando nuevas perspectivas al quehacer del conjunto.
Una de las primeras cosas que hay que señalar de ellos para aquellos que no los conozcan es que se trata de una formación integrada por tres músicos de distinto pelaje. Por ejemplo, el navarro Miguel Fernández es un saxofonista eminentemente bopero. Su toque es claramente pos-coltraneano, y desde ahí sabe plantarse en esos terrenos indómitos que requiere el trío en muchos pasajes (cosa que no saben hacer muchos de su misma y exigente escuela, nacionales y extranjeros), y estoy pensando en sus caracoleos en el tema Deimos. El guitarrista Albert ‘Tito’ Juan, es un tipo que se mueve en un terreno estético escurridizo: me fascina su toque cool, pero lo es sólo a medias (¿cool reluctante?). Y finalmente Oriol Roca, baterista aunque mejor sería decir percusionista, del que siempre he pensado que tiene una gran inteligencia instintiva (escuchen sino su disco en solo La Tomba dei Giganti, también en descarga libre en Whatabout Music), que naturalmente aquí también aplica, y que jamás reniega de género o recurso alguno.
2395 es una confitura de frambuesa (¡más fruta roja!), oscura pero dulce. Tiene unsurrealisme faible, leve y suave; música que parece estar urdida más con ideas extramusicales que con plantillas jazzeras. Y, no obstante, lo que escuchamos es jazz; un jazz en su acepción más contemporánea (no hiramos susceptibilidades). Ahí tenemos esa original versión que hacen de Oh Bess, Where Is My Bess, de Gershwin, o algunas de las fabulosas (de fábula) composiciones de Juan, como Apaga el cielito lindo o Insider, o la introspectiva Mutea de Fernández. Pero, más allá de esto, es esa yuxtaposición de modos que mencionaba antes lo que da al MUT Trio ese toque tan particular, tan interesante y tan sugestivo. Tan de ellos (y permítaseme aquí hacer un inciso, y es que es en sus directos donde lo dicho hasta ahora cobra todo su relieve: cosa que podemos apreciar aquí en parte en los tres capriccios, totalmente improvisados). Germán Lázaro, Cuadernosdejazz (April 2012)

 

Este trio de música improvisada, así es como se definen, se adentra en una faceta poco habitual del jazz. Tenemos ante nosotros el segundo trabajo de este singular trio formado por Miguel Fernández al saxo tenor, Albert Juan con la guitarra eléctrica y Oriol Roca a la batería. “Mut” significa mudo en catalán, imagino que algo tendrá que ver este significado con el misticismo libre de este álbum. El trio se formó en el año 2009. Y de los esporádicos ensayos surgió la idea de registrar esta música. La utilización de recursos literarios como medio de inspiración para la improvisada formación, es uno de los pretextos principales de “MUT trio / 2395”.

Los tres componentes de este trío llegaron a las puertas del sello bilbaíno Moskito Records. Allí aceptaron esta atrevida propuesta, la cual yo tampoco dudaría en apoyar. Con los tiempos que corren, las discográficas se lo piensan más de dos veces antes de editar un disco. Desde aquí les lanzo una propuesta: “apoyen los vinilos, que jamas se fueron y que ahora recuperan adeptos día a día”. Creo que son la solución, por este motivo MUT trio /2395 también se edita en vinilo, pero no es un vinilo cualquiera, es un vinilo blanco.
El resplandeciente trío, utiliza el trampolín del free jazz despiadado, para llegar a una optimización de su música, con la intención de que los jazzmans de a pie se sientan cómodos y sensibles, a los kafkianos acordes.
Hace ya unos cuantos años, Ornette Coleman pasó por los escenarios del norte de España. En un primer concierto, apenas habían 30 personas, la excusa fue que no se entendía lo que tocaba. Unos cuantos años más tarde, se supo que el posible causante de todo era la ignorancia, Ornette Coleman pasó a ser moda. El free jazz, hay que escucharlo y desgranarlo, analizarlo sin buscar más allá. Es como el arte abstracto, que te gusta o no te gusta. Con una sugerente carátula este nuevo álbum de MUT trio, denominado 2395, ha sido grabado más para ser escuchado, que para ser tocado. Por cierto, la numerología que da nombre al disco, “es muy significativa para nosotros”, nos comenta Miguel. Lo refleja la frase de la contraportada escrita por Jack Torrance: “Bajo el manto salado, tras los campos cereza, una es dos, también tres lo fue”. Saxsounds Magazine (March 2012)

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