Organik Mechanix • Organik Mechanix

The entire record was recorded in 2 weeks. We recorded everything to adat LIVE. there were no overdubs, its all played live & recorded. (actually, the vocals for the track Iconoclastik was overdubbed at a later session, prior to mixing the album). I should also note that about 70% of the album was mixed in surround sound (it was a trend back then... lol). even though graham & I mixed the album, Graham went with many of my specific directions for the entire mix. the album was released on ION Records (such a dope ass label in the mid-late 90's) BUT, it was originally commissioned by Alan Douglas (Douglas Recordings, Jimi Hendrix, the Last Poets etc...), Alan thought he was hip & in the NOW, but our styles were way too wild for him to even think about how to market the project, so he shelved it for about a year or so, then with the aid of Bill (Laswell), we were slid over to ION & Norm was very open with the project & released it. I also did all the graphics of the CD.

I wrote the lyrics (to Icon O'Clastik) as a homage to the legend known as the RAMMELLZEE, which, when I wrote it, was fully immersed in his theories of disease language, words as weapons, & the downfall of humanity from the incomplete document called the dictionary.
In his passing, I can only say that through his abstract symbolism's, his self-initiated mythologies & his ever so elusive style, mystique & fantastic methods of creating & sharing the story of graffiti writers culture through this 7th dimensional lens with the rest of the world, we all benefit from his legacy of Gothic Futurism.
D.J. Spazecrafte

1. Candyland
2. High Cloud Steppa
3. (Om)
4. Hicloud Re=Prise
5. ....Diffused...Interference
6. Madd Minimal
7. Icon O'Clastik
8. Lullaby Galactus

Graham Haynes • cornet, Tibetan horn, sound effects
Acustyk • synthesizer
D.J. Spazecrafte • flute, clarinet, programming
Sonik Professa • vox (?)

Produced by Graham Haynes and D.J. Spazecrafte

Label: Ion – IN 2006-2
Format: 320
Country: US
Released: 1999
Genre: Electronic
Style: Future Jazz, Experimental, Ambient

Graham Haynes • Tones For The 21st Century

Cornetist/composer Graham Haynes is discreetly becoming one of the most original voices in the last decade of jazz's first century.
Forging energetic, musically challenging, emphatically involving, genre-bashing recordings that seem to ellipse far above the heap of corporate-driven placebos, Haynes' distinctive flair for tuneful melodies, infectious rhythms, and sharply inventive musical concepts has afforded him a handful of stirringly original recordings that will undoubtedly be revealed as some of the best jazz discs of the '90s. Tones For The 21st Century issues Haynes' most personal, florid, and abstract statement. Both ambitious and alarmingly quiet, Tones For The 21st Century is the B-side to his 1996 sonically devastating Transition. Oblique, hallucinogenic, murky, yet surprisingly peaceful and at times utterly beautiful, this latest venture finds Haynes floating through the anti-gravity soundscapes of ambient music. Sparsely complemented by wordists Tracie Morris and DJ Spacecraft, African harpist Steve Neil and techno programmer Joseph Briggs, Haynes has masterfully crafted six compelling sketches that seduce the listener not with funky basslines, thrustful rhythm, or knotty solos but through the mystical powers of simple legato melodies.
From a cursory listen, there seems to be an over-abundance of mindless keyboard samples and loops and not enough jazz lingo. But the hauntingly beautiful melodies Haynes whispers through the swirling kaleidoscope of soft keyboard washes and lurking chords on "Millennia" are some of his most gorgeous playing on record.
The transportive "Nameless River" also illuminates Haynes' gentler side as his drifts blissfully across the soothing rhythms of African harp and the hypnotic droning of a didgeridu. The spoken words of Tracie Morris on "Out of Phaze/Spirit World" and DJ Spacecraft on "Millennia" may prove to be self-indulgent and distracting to jazz snobs and cynics. But simply stated, Haynes' offering of Tones For The 21st Century has provided the ambient music's In A Silent Way in the most carefree way.
By John Murph

1. Millennia
2. Nameless River   
3. Out Of Phaze / Spirit World
4. Sadguru
5. Simplicity
6. Solo

Graham Haynes • Cornet, Flugelhorn, Keyboards, Tibetan Trumpet
Steve Neil • African Harp (2)
DJ Spazecraft • Spoken Word (1) Didgeridoo (2)
Tracie Morris • Spoken Word (3)

Engineer, Programmed and Mixed by Joseph Briggs
Produced by Graham Haynes

Label: Antilles – 314 537 692-2
Format: 320
Country: US
Released: 1997
Genre: Electronic, Jazz
Style: Abstract, Future Jazz, Ambient

Gary Thomas, Christy Doran, Mark Helias, Bobby Previte • Corporate Art

This quartet date by guitarist Christy Doran, bassist Mark Helias, drummer Bobby Previte, and saxophonist Gary Thomas may have been recorded in Europe by Stefan Winter, but its feel is utterly New York. Doran's playing is far more on the jazz-rock than avant tip here, giving the entire proceeding a feeling of that beautiful, edgy walk between composition and improvisation. Thomas -- normally an outside player -- reins himself in as a soloist in order to focus on the sometimes wondrous ensemble playing at the heart of the disc. Each member of the band writes on this set and it's obvious that the groove comes from within. It's knotty, sometimes intense, and often complex, such as on the opener "Blood Sugar," and on Doran's "Heitere Gelassenheit," where staggered arpeggios intersect with scalar riffs to form a kind of contrapuntal melody line. But there are wonderfully elegiac and gently swinging tunes as well, such as the flute-driven swing in Thomas' "Chiaroscuro" or the languid tempos of Helias' "21" and "Bass Minotaur." Helias also offers a jazz-funk workout with "Skin," with furious basslines driving riffed-up guitars and a bleating saxophone that stays in the pocket. The album closes with Previte's beautiful nocturne "Theme for W.," where Thomas and Doran weave around one another slowly and purposefully to erect a floating melody that seems to float and hover while actually moving toward a complex harmonic architecture with a controlled dynamic.
AMG

1. Blood Sugar 360 Degrees
(Bobby Previte)

2. 21
 (Mark Helias)

3. Mutations
 (Christy Doran)

4. Skin
 (Mark Helias)

5. Chiaroscuro
 (Gary Thomas)

6. Heit Ere Gel As Sen Heit
 (Christy Doran)

7. Bass Minotaur
 (Mark Helias)

8. The Same But Different
 (Christy Doran)

9. Theme For W.
 (Bobby Previte)


 
Gary Thomas • Tenor Saxophone, Flute

Christy Doran  • Electric Guitar
Electric Bass • Mark Helias
Bobby Previte • Drums

Engineered by Adrian Von Ripka
Produced by Stefan F. Winter

Label: JMT Productions – 849 155-2
Format: 320
Country: Germany
Released: 1991
Genre: Jazz
Style: Contemporary Jazz

Paul Schütze • New Maps Of Hell

Thematically and psychologically similar to The Annihilating Angel (even to the apocalyptic religious imagery of the titles), this CD occasionally looks ahead to Schütze's later work as leader of Phantom City. The title of the CD's longest track is in fact "Topology of a Phantom City," and on this piece, there are strong echoes of the wild electric funk of Miles Davis circa 1975, with strong, groove-oriented percussion supporting the broad smears of De Haan's trombone, and Schütze doing some remarkably strange things with his keyboards, producing unearthly (hellish?) and tormented electronic squeals, howls and groans over the heavy, sinister percussion. Several subsequent tracks have a rhythmic foundation, but most are languid and dreamlike, with a dissonant, uneasy quality, often tinged with melancholy, that pushes them toward the realm of nightmare. The music is hauntingly beautiful but without resolution; it projects a feeling of claustrophobia and entrapment, as if there is no escape from the reality which it represents. The final track, "A Soul Reports," simply drifts off into a nothingness of murmurs, whispers, cavernous echoes, muted gongs and icy drones. Schütze enhances the disquieting atmosphere with an impressive background collection of skillfully integrated sound samples -- guttural and/or demented voices, sounds of thunder or earthquake rumbling, dripping water and jets of steam. Call it what you will -- ambient, industrial, gothic funk (it is all of these and more) -- New Maps of Hell is music of great subtlety and power. by William Tilland AMG

1. The Eraser


2. Topology Of A Phantom City


3. The Velvet Horizon


4. Eating The First Map


5. Sacred Agents

6. Doubts About Waking


7. The Mutant Beautific


8. All That Was Solid*

Paul Schütze • Keyboards & Percussion
Simone De Haan • Trombone


Mark Stafford • Guitars


Bill McDonald • Bass
Peter Jones • Drums


François tétaz • Percussion


Peter Neville • Percussion




Liner Notes Biba Kopf

Composed and Produced by Paul Schütze

*Originally released by Extreme, 1992. 

Replaces track "A Soul Reports" with "All That Was Solid".

Label: Big Cat UK Records – ABB 104 CD
Format: 320
Country: UK
Released: 1992/96
Genre: Electronic
Style: Ambient, Experimental

Gary Thomas • Kold Kage

The struggle is apparent on saxophonist and composer Gary Thomas' 1991 album, The Kold Cage, reissued in 2004 as part of label auteur Stefan Winter's remastering of his JMT label titles. Thomas is a consummate tenor man and flutist. His frustration with what had become standard jazz discourse in light of the new, influential (very narrow-minded) traditionalism ushered in a decade earlier by Wynton Marsalis and cultural conservative Stanley Crouch is obvious here. Thomas employs everything from turntables to electric guitars, synthesizers, and even rap to combat the stasis, while remaining a jazz player. From his knotty forceful compositions "Threshold" and "Gate of Faces," which open the album, Thomas engages extrapolated notions of jazz harmonics and contrapuntal considerations while relying heavily on electronic keyboard textures, and electric guitars (courtesy of Kevin Eubanks and Paul Bollenback) to stretch the margin of that engagement. But on "Intellect," the tension cracks and splinters. Here Thomas' flute and saxophone are shored up by pianist Mulgrew Miller's funky modal statements while rapper Joe Wesson pops along the synth basslines and indicts everything around him in old-school Sugarhill style -- likewise on "Infernal Machine," where Michael Caine's synths paint an off-kilter basis for baseline rhythms to underscore and jump off of. Wesson's tough street rap about faltering neighborhoods, dope, and the strength of the "black mind" introduces a chillingly futuristic series of overdubbed horn lines in the gaps. And on it goes for the rest of the hour, feinting and darting before active confrontation with the myth and magic of jazz in an attempt to make it speak outside of its historical truth and into the current cultural one. It's an exhausting but compelling and rewarding listen. It messes with those classicists in a big way by sitting on their shoes while, at the same time, pulling the tradition into the current vernacular for its validation and assertion as popular music. Far from academic, this is fire-breathing music, one that forces not only confrontation but, from any open-minded music listener, a reexamination of the jazz terrain as a once, present, and future music. ~ Thom Jurek.

1. Threshold
2. Gate Of Faces
3. Intellect
4. Infernal Machine
5. The Divide
6. Peace Of The Korridor
7. First Strike
8. Beyond The Fall Of Night
9. The Kold Kage
10. Kulture Bandits (To Be Continued)

Gary "GTX" Thomas • tenor saxophone, flute, synthesizers, and rap vocals (7,9,10)
Joe "BMW" Wesson • rap vocals (3,4,7)
Kevin Eubanks • guitar (1,3,6)
Paul Bollenback • guitar, guitar synthesizers (2,5)
Mulgrew Miller • piano (2,7)
Tim Murphy • piano, synthesizers (3,4,5,9)
Anthony Perkins • synthesizers (8,10)
Michael Caine • piano, synthesizers (1,6)
Anthony Cox • acoustic bass
Dennis Chambers • drums
Steve Moss • percussion

Produced Stefen F. Winter


Label: 1991 JMT/Polygram 849 151-2
Format: 320
Country: US
Released: 1991
Genre: Jazz
Style: Jazz Fusion

Paul Schütze • New Maps of Hell II: The Rapture of Metals

The title of this CD might erroneously suggest something heavy, abrasive and industrial, but The Rapture of Metals is in part an elegant homage to the metallic gongs of the Indonesian gamelan orchestra. The title track is the most overtly Indonesian, with electronic drones and effects enhancing a traditional gamelan gong pattern. But on several other tracks, Schütze further personalizes his use of gongs, capturing the dreamy, otherworldly quality of Indonesian court music not just by "Westernizing" Indonesian motifs but by blending gamelan sounds and scales with his own rather haunting musical vision. Elsewhere on the CD, Schütze utilizes keyboard synthesizers and sophisticated electronic processing to create thick, ambivalent atmospheres which explore the boundaries between madness and ecstasy. "The Rapture of Drowning" has a viscous, aquatic texture and bursts of nightmarish discord, but nonetheless suggests a transcendent experience of some sort. And the final 20-minute piece, "Sites of Rapture on the Lungs of God," is a series of elongated musical inhalations and exhalations, comprised of cathedral organ chords, sonorous drones, intriguing dissonances and various strange electronic treatments which add another level of dislocation to the music.
by William Tilland AMG

1. The Rapture Of Concealment
2. Rapture Of The Drowning
3. The Rapture Of Ornament
4. The Rapture Of Metals
5. Rapture Of The Skin
6. Sites Of Rapture On The Lungs Of God

written, performed and produced by Paul Schütze

Label: Big Cat UK Records – ABB 105 CD
Format: 320
Country: UK
Released: 1993/1996
Genre: Electronic
Style: Experimental, Ambient

Conjure • Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon

The second release from the rotating ensemble under Kip Hanrahan's direction, Conjure once again unites author Ishmael Reed's trenchant and sometimes hallucinatory words with a wide range of musical styles. Among the large and varied cast one finds musicians as diverse as erstwhile soul stylist Bobby Womack, Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli, and avant trumpeter Olu Dara. As on the first album, the song structures are essentially blues- and pop-based, ably supported by both a contingent of extraordinary Latin percussionists and the gorgeous electric bass work of Steve Swallow. On the whole, the compositions aren't quite as striking this time out, but there are a couple that really stand out: Allen Toussaint's "Running for the Office of Love" with a ravishing vocal by Clare Bathe is easily imaginable as a fine pop hit, and Carmen Moore's "Bitter Chocklate" is indeed both bitter and beautiful. If this release doesn't quite possess the crackle of its predecessor, it remains a funky and enjoyable session, well worth hearing by fans of almost any genre.
by Brian Olewnick AMG

1. The Author Reflects On His 35th Birthday
(Reed, Swallow)
   
2. Loup Garou Means Change Into
(Harris, Reed)
   
3. 'Sputin
(Toussaint, Reed, Hanrahan, Nocentelli)

4. Nobody Was There
(Reed, Dara)
   
5. Medley: General Science / Ish / Papa La Bas
(Reed, Hanrahan)
   
6. Running For The Office Of Love (Prelude)
(Toussaint, Reed)
   
7. My Brothers
(Pullen, Reed)

8. Running For The Office Of Love
(Toussaint, Reed)
   
9. Petit Kid Everett
(Saunders, Reed, Hanrahan)
   
10. St. Louis Women (Excerpts)
( Reed)

11. Bitter Chocklate
(Moore, Reed)
   
12. Beware: Don't Listen To This Song
(Murray, Reed)

    

13. Minnie The Moocher
(Calloway, Mills)

Vocals

Bobby Womack, Clare Bathé, Diahnne Abbott, Grayson Hugh, Ishmael Reed, Robert Jason, Shaunice Harris, Tennessee Reed

Elysee Pyronneau • Electric Guitar

Leo Nocentelli • Electric Guitar
Johnny Watkins • Electric Guitar
Don Pullen • Organ, Vocals
Allen Toussaint • Piano
Olu Dara • Trumpet, Vocals, Harmonica
Hamiet Bluiett • Baritone Saxophone
Lenny Pickett • Tenor Saxophone
David Murray • Tenor Saxophone, Vocals
Eddie Harris • Tenor Saxophone, Vocals
Steve Swallow • Electric Bass
Fernando Saunders • Vocals, Electric Bass
Frisner Augustin • Congas
Manenquito Giovanni Hidalgo • Congas
Milton Cardona • Congas
Ignacio Berroa • Trap Drums
Robbie Ameen • Trap Drums
Carla Blank • Vocal Coach
Carman Moore • Conductor

Produced by Kip Hanrahan

 

Purchase

Label: American Clavé – AMCL 1015
Format: 320
Country: US
Released: 1988
Genre: Funk / Soul, Jazz
Style: Soul-Jazz, Jazz-Funk