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Interview: Marc Ribot
Photo: David O’Shaughnessy Guitarist Marc Ribot‘s been around. Beginning in the early ’80s, he’s balanced his own skronky, avant-garde-ish solo work with sideman and session gigs for half the rock and...
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Anne Mette Iversen
Bassist Anne Mette Iversen (that’s her in the black, above) has been leading a quartet featuring saxophonist John Ellis, pianist Danny Grissett and drummer Otis Brown III for nearly a decade, through...
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Wadada Leo Smith
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has been extremely productive in recent years, issuing single- and multi-disc sets at a furious clip through a few trusted labels, Cuneiform, TUM and Tzadik in particular....
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Best Jazz Of 2014: 20-16
Our week-long countdown of the best jazz releases of the year continues with #s 20-16. Let’s go! 20. Wadada Leo Smith, Red Hill (Buy It) and The Great Lakes Suites (Buy It) Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith...
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Milford Graves & Bill Laswell
Bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Milford Graves have recorded a studio album, Space/Time Redemption, for the Finnish TUM label; it’s out now. (Get it from Amazon.) The disc contains five lengthy...
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Simulacrum
John Zorn‘s latest group, Simulacrum, has come out of the gate fast and hard. They’ve released three albums so far this year—a self-titled debut in March, The True Discoveries of Witches and Demons in...
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Shining
Much is made of Norway’s Shining (not to be confused with the Swedish band of the same name) and their blending of extreme metal and jazz. There is often an attempt made to link them to the black metal...
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Best Jazz Of 2015: 25-21
It’s time for our annual countdown of the 25 best jazz albums of the year. In 2015, there was really only one Big Story in jazz, and that was the rise and crossover success of saxophonist Kamasi...
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Kurushimi
Kurushimi are an Australian collective whose music blends jazz, metal, dub, prog rock and hip-hop. Their self-titled studio album was released in February on the Art As Catharsis label. Get it from...
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Brain Tentacles
One can almost imagine a trio of scene veterans forming Brain Tentacles with the explicit goal of antagonizing metal purists. Featuring Bruce Lamont of Yakuza and Corrections House on horns, vocals,...
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The Bug vs. Earth
Photo: Phil Sharp Long before he was The Bug, blending dancehall, dubstep and industrial noise into a floor- and wall-shaking bass assault, British musician Kevin Martin was blending free jazz energy...
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Seven)Suns
by Phil Freeman Violinist Earl Maneein used to be in the group Resolution15, a metal band where his instrument played the role a guitar would typically assume. (Read a 2013 interview with Maneein...
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John Frum
by Todd Manning Combining death metal with a distinct jazz influence is often treated as a radical notion, but if the metal community is being perfectly honest with itself, these two genres have been...
View ArticleAzonic
by Phil Freeman In 1994, instrumental dub/metal power trio Blind Idiot God hadn’t made a record in a couple of years; their most recent release, 1992’s Cyclotron, had only come out in Japan, on John...
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BA Podcast 5: Matt Hollenberg
Burning Ambulance has launched a podcast series, which will feature interviews with artists from the realms of jazz, modern composition, metal, noise, and whatever else interests us—much like the site...
View ArticleCleric
by Todd Manning Only a few short months have passed since avant-garde death metal outfit John Frum released their stunning debut A Stirring in the Noos and now their guitar player, Matt Hollenberg...
View ArticleInterview: Jamie Saft
by Brad Cohan It’s summertime in bucolic and peaceful Kerhonkson, New York, and Jamie Saft—the intrepid piano and electric keyboards titan and John Zorn and Bad Brains collaborator—is deep in his...
View ArticleArditti Quartet
by Phil Freeman The Arditti Quartet, founded by violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974, is one of the foremost ensembles devoted to performing 20th century and contemporary works. Unlike the Kronos Quartet...
View ArticleStarebaby
Metal musicians have been calling out their jazz influences for decades now, but until recently (with the exception of John Zorn and his cohorts), this has been mostly a one-way street. In the last few...
View ArticleInsurrection
Insurrection (get it from Amazon) is the debut album by a band of the same name, assembled by John Zorn, who composed all the music but does not play on the record. The group features three of his...
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