Akuphone is proud to present Fuji-Yuki’s latest masterpiece, "One Butoh". A musical immersion into the most exciting avant-garde dance style of the past century. Created in Japan in the 1960s by Tatsumi Hijikata, butō is the "dance of the obscure body". It broke with the traditions of classical Noh and Kabuki Theater, which, at the time, seemed outdated in the national context. Nourished by a European artistic avant-garde, butō stands out as a mirror of the socio-political turmoil of a post-World War II Japan. One Butoh resonates as a perfect acoustic introduction to this subversive art and propels the listener deep into his own soul.
Fuji-Yuki is a Japanese vocalist who uses her voice like an instrument. With special vocal techniques, glossolalia and electronic pedals, she creates a wide variety of sounds. Inspired by the spirits of Buddhism and Shintoism, she creatively transforms her vocals into an ambient drone or prayers resonating in a church-like space. Her live performances are always different, depending on the place and space they take place in. She is also known as the vocalist of the experimental band Sarry.

2020/2021. More than 18 months without being able to make a gig. This space of time, this imposed "pause", was used to prepare a new album, a group album, as we had not realized for a long time.
Following the creation of a new line-up in 2020, we once again offered musicians to bring songs, Christian Vander never having made the deliberate choice to be Magma's sole composer. But in fact, none of the dozens of musicians who participated in this adventure had offered a new song for decades !
After "ZËSS", which hinted at a rather gloomy future, this bright and resolutely optimistic new album is the result of a collective work, an "Operation Kartëhl".

The Source is Kenny Barron’s first solo album to be released since his landmark 1981 recording Kenny Barron At The Piano (Xanadu). Like that initial, auspicious solo outing, The Source consists of Barron-penned originals (“What If,” “Dolores Street,” “Sunshower,” “Phantoms”), Thelonious Monk tunes (“Téo,” “Well You Needn’t”), Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn compositions (“Isfahan,” “Daydream”) and one standard from the Great American Songbook (“I’m Confessin’”). And, just like its predecessor of 40 years, The Source serves as a direct emotional connection between Barron and the listener, abandoning all sense of pretense and serving as a fountain of honest, intimate gestures that unfold organically, one right into the next; there are no canned goods for sale here, and nothing forced. The music draws from a seemingly bottomless well of stylistic perspectives under Barron’s command — including straightahead jazz, swinging standards, canonic classical music, barrelhouse blues, bossa nova and free improv — revealing exactly why the 79-year-old DownBeat Hall of Famer has long been esteemed as a master of his craft who thrives in any setting, whether playing solo, leading a trio or accompanying a featured artist. Barron’s every statement on The Source is expressed with uttermost elegance and virtuosity. The album could alternatively be titled Kenny Barron: All The Things You Are, as the NEA Jazz Master crafts a loving ode to jazz and its closest relatives using all the source materials that have made him who he truly is.

Leonard Slatkin has a special affinity for Russian music, and he conducts these Tchaikovsky performances with great authority and passion. The Fifth Symphony, despite its popularity, has proved an elusive piece to record really well. The problem lies with the finale, which can sound inflated and artificial after the moody music that precedes it. Slatkin paces the music to perfection, keeping up momentum and allowing time to savor the music's many attractive details. The slow movement rises to a climax of great intensity, without a trace of false hysteria. The Tempest is a gorgeous tone poem that ought to be better known that it is. Its inclusion here adds to the disc's attractions.

The Power of Rome is a strange work – thoughtful and seemingly with a profound philosophical message. It has some weird pages such as the Holstian fog that is the section from 6:00 onwards. Children’s March in this version has parts for four tenors and four basses rather than the orchestra alone version neatly enunciated by Boult on Lyrita. This is a quick march before tiredness has set in and is as much a jiggy dance as it is a march. As usual with Grainger there are some surprises, skirls and expostulations along the way. Bell Piece is a salon farewell – a touch Puccinian - rather pleadingly sung by James Gilchrist who is caught very early in his career.

Not much is known about the life of Tomaso Albinoni. He was the eldest son of a wealthy Venetian paper merchant. The family was very well off, and in his adult life Albinoni was financially independent. He thought of himself as an amateur musician. Although completely trained in his art, he did not seek professional employment in music. He was a fine performer on the violin, and one of the most prolific writers of the violin concerto in the high Baroque. Initially Albinoni attempted to compose church music, but did not meet with much success. However in 1694, with the publication of 12 trio sonatas and the production of his opera Zenobia, Regina de Palmireni, Albinoni had found his milieu.

Ronnie James Dio is one of the most beloved figures in rock history. His gifts, both as a singer and songwriter, are instantly recognizable, whether he was with Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell, or leading Dio. Sadly, Dio lost his battle with stomach cancer in 2010, but his towering voice and legacy live on. To celebrate one of rock’s most powerful voices, an all-star group of his friends and fans recorded 13 of their favorite tracks for a tribute album that will raise funds for the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund (diocancerfund.org). Produced by his longtime manager and wife Wendy Dio, the album includes contributions by such metal heavyweights as Metallica, Motörhead, Scorpions,Anthrax, and Rob Halford, as well as appearances by many of the musicians who performed with Dio over the years.

The chromatic harmonica is an instrument still finding its footing in the world of modern jazz music. Yvonnick Prené’s mission is to put the harmonica in its rightful place in the pantheon of instruments used to improvise. He makes a convincing case on his new recording, Listen!, as he eschews the trumpet in the classic jazz quintet setting and replaces it with the chromatic harmonica.

Ronnie James Dio is one of the most beloved figures in rock history. His gifts, both as a singer and songwriter, are instantly recognizable, whether he was with Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell, or leading Dio. Sadly, Dio lost his battle with stomach cancer in 2010, but his towering voice and legacy live on. To celebrate Dio's life, an all-star group of his friends and fans recorded 13 of their favorite tracks for a tribute album, entitled "This Is Your Life," to raise funds for the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund.

Op haar derde album trekt de Franse bluesrock gitarist Laura Cox de stijgende lijn van haar vorige twee albums moeiteloos door.

When José James released No Beginning No End 2 (2020), a collaborative effort that paired the forward-looking vocalist with a global all-star cast including Ledisi, Aloe Blacc and Laura Mvula, it was apparent that the genre-defying artist was back to stake his claim as the jazz singer for the hip-hop generation. In that light his new project, On & On, finds James throwing down the gauntlet on the past 100 years of jazz singing while charting a path forward for the culture.

Ricky Warwick comments: “As we get older, sadly we start to lose the ones around us who we love, having lost both my parents and some dear friends in the last few years I’ve started to question and look at my feelings on my own mortality and morality. I’ve come to realise that death is a part of life and even in the darkest days (that we all get sometimes), I’ve come to understand that every aspect of life should be an intensified experience and never taken for granted.”

On A Short Diary, Sebastian Rochford leads from behind. The jazz drummer’s first release under his own name for ECM is unquestionably informed by recent events in his own life, yet Rochford—a former member of Sons of Kemet and Polar Bear who also works with Brian Eno and Andy Sheppard—settles into a restrained, secondary role. Pianist Kit Downes is the main animating force on an album where the two celebrated British players coexist in a gentle place clouded by melancholy.

Eight years after her double-length self-titled ECM debut, the Norwegian Sami tenor saxophonist Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg has returned with an album of brief musical haikus, introductions and unfinished thoughts—shadowy free jazz/contemporary music meant to provoke endings to her short moody statements. While half of her debut featured a big band, Henriette is now joined only by a pair of players, both of whom are leaders in their own right: pianist Johan Lindvall (who appeared on that first album) and versatile Australian cellist Judith Hamann.

The creative partnership of bassist Anders Jormin and singer/violinist/violist Lena Willemark has brought forth special music over the last two decades.It was first given exposure on ECM in 2004 with the album In Winds, In Light, in 2015 the bassist and the folk singer-violinist introduced a new project with koto player Karin Nakagawa on Trees of Light. Now, with the addition of drummer Jon Fält, Anders's long time comrade in the Bobo Stenson Trio, the group has expanded its improvisational range.