Gordon Grdina & Russ Lossing: Turnpike
There are many strands to the music of Vancouver-based guitarist and oud player Gordon Grdina, and while some of his projects lean more towards jazz, indie-rock, Arabic classical music or free improvisation than others, each is an essential part of his expressive vocabulary. This set of duos with pianist Russ Lossing, one of three releases from Grdina’s Attaboygirl Records in March, evolved out of a Polish concert by his quartet with Lossing, saxophonist Oscar Noriega and drummer Satoshi Takeishi. Having almost exhausted their repertoire but faced with an insatiable demand for encores, Lossing and Grdina stepped out for an impromptu piano and oud duet. With sufficient potential for both players to want to explore this rarest of instrumental pairings further, they worked up a body of material before booking some studio time in November of 2022.
Long-time listeners will know that both Grdina and Lossing share a mutual connection to the late Paul Motian, and while they only play one of the drummer-composer’s pieces it’s fair to say his spirit runs silently through the album. Fittingly, it’s a delicate reading of Motian’s oft-recorded Etude which opens proceedings, the pair carving lyrical filigrees that seem to overlap like the natural patterns of waves lapping against a shore. Lossing’s Uh Huh takes a more volatile turn, parallel lines colliding, and after a frantic opening the improvised Off Ramp eventually alights on more stable terrain. Grdina’s Luglio and Lossing’s profoundly lyrical Drench look east for inspiration and are amongst the standouts. The eccentric rhythmic gameplay of Twist is a delight, and the explosive title track is perhaps best described as a spasm of creative energy. The record signs off in style with Grdina’s Breezy, its sense of space and inner romanticism suggests a connection to Motian’s former boss Bill Evans.
A beguiling and truly one-of-a-kind-collection. On a purely technical note the crisp, almost three-dimensional sound engineering is as good as I’ve heard, capturing every detail of the contrasting but ultimately complementary qualities of the two instruments.
Discography
Etude; Uh Huh; Off Ramp; #4; Luglio; Twist; Drench; Turnpike; Breezy (49.00)
Grdina (oud); Lossing (p). November 2022, Warren, NJ.
Attaboygirl Records ABG 12
Dave Harrington with Max Jaffe and Patrick Shiroishi: Making Colors
Any new release from forward-thinking West Coast label AKP Recordings will always grab my attention. A melting pot of different experimental strands of “new music”, the label has an open-eared ethos that’s probably exemplified in Peter Walker’s Arthur King ensemble and its multi-media Unknown Movie Night series. Taking a similarly widescreen approach is this improvising super trio of guitarist-producer Dave Harrington, saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi and percussionist Max Jaffe – all leaders in their own right. Making Colors is their second release for the label in as many years.
Harrington is still perhaps best known as one half of the electronica duo Darkside, with Nicolas Jaar, but having relocated to Los Angeles in 2019 after a decade energising NYC’s downtown scene, he has found many new creative outlets. Shiroishi is another artist who pushes beyond the limitations of his primary instrument. His poignant electro-acoustic soundscapes examining the US’s troubled 20th century relationship with Japan drew richly deserved critical acclaim. Percussionist and composer Max Jaffe, meanwhile, is a very gestural player known for his embrace of sensory technology and his recently released You Want That Too! (Colorfield), featuring guitarist Jeff Parker, is a whip-smart set of jazz-electronica.
With the group sounding more focused and balanced than ever, the seven soundscapes in this new collection build on the strengths of 2024’s relatively impromptu Speak, Moment (AKP) and its live spin-off Zebulon! (Maximum Overdub). Open is exactly as its title suggests, a vast borderless space of disparate textures, while the more claustrophobic Six Acting Orange introduces a harsher and more industrial edge. The percussive abstraction of Steal From Walgreens leads directly into the elegant ambient jazz of Sweat Street, while the warm harmonium-like loops of Need Buy In reminded me of Stephen Vitiello. Fractal Hash may not be quite as wild as the post-Sharrock mash-up Ship Rock from the group’s debut but it climaxes in a withering hail of skronk, while the amorphous forms and chill ambience of closing track TrackerKeeper reveal deep strata of hidden textures and colours. Highly recommended.
Discography
Open (4-a); Six Acting Orange (aaaaa); Steal From Walgreens; Sweat Street 7-QS_ZBN9_; Need Buy In (17-b); Fractal Hash; TrackerKeeper (39.53)
Harrington (elg, kyb, elec) with Shiroishi (as, elec) and Jaffe (d, pc, elec). 2 April 2024, Los Angeles.
AKP Recordings AKP047
Christoph Irniger & Marc Perrenoud: New Lines
Musical radicalism can come in many different forms, but an album of standards and classics is perhaps not the first thing you’d think of. Yet for a musician like Swiss saxophonist and composer Christoph Irniger, an avowed modernist who has operated at the sharp end of contemporary jazz for over two decades, the idea of stepping out of his usual comfort zone to explore music from eras past is at the very least a surprising gambit.
While it must be stressed that this set of duos with pianist and fellow-Swiss Marc Perrenoud is not a collection of standards per se, it is easily the most traditionally leaning entry in either artist’s discography to date. It traces its origins back to 2022, when the two first met in private to rehearse a selection of classics. Developing an oblique approach that they acknowledge is indebted to Lennie Tristano, they set about superimposing new melodic lines onto existing harmonic frameworks. With enough material for an album, they ventured into the studio in September 2025. The result is this fast-moving and intricately complex collection of new inventions.
Amongst the duo’s most striking acts of revisionism are Dry Sensation, based on Parker’s Confirmation, Bluesetto, a cousin of Toots Thielemans’ Bluesette, Fast Finish, which tackles Coltrane’s Countdown, and Déja Vu, a piece rooted in Bill Evans’ Time Remembered. Spinning intricate latticeworks of intersecting harmonies and rhythms, they leave just enough of each song to create a breadcrumb trail back to the source. Several of the originals are more contemporary in feel, suggesting a direction they may wish to explore further in the future, standouts including the deep cobalt-blue shades of Luce Oscura and searching finale The Unit, where the scaffolding of history fully falls away. Irniger’s long-held belief that what matters most is not so much the material as the way it is played has seldom been so thoroughly tested, and with their easy chemistry and sharp musical intellects both he and Perrenoud make a persuasive case.
Discography
Dry Sensation; Bluesetto; Luce Oscura; Fast Finish; Abandoned Eggs In A Pan; Belle; Hold Up; Déjà Vu; Gizmo; Night Owl; The Unit (38.45)
Inrniger (ts); Perrenoud (p). 13-14 September 2025, Studio Ernest Ansermet, Geneva.
Unit Records UTR 5288