skirl records

Hi there, we are an artist-run label based in Brooklyn .Release date for Skirl 008 Andrew D'Angelo's Skadra Degis is JAN 31! Andrew's debut as a leader features Trevor Dunn and Jim Black, and it's a scorcher. Gay Disco posted!All of our CDs are available at Skirl Records , Downtown Music Gallery (NYC) , Amazon and Wayside , and we're distributed by North Country and Carrot Top .The Clarinets Skirl 001
...create an acoustic ambient music of unusual grace and beauty. Improvisation is the basis of their music, which bypasses predetermined strategies to concentrate on the organic, seamless, sound of the trio as a single entity. The players have the experience, poise and selflessness to keep the attention on this group dynamic, and to tease it out into compelling and highly cohesive pieces. The album was recorded in a resonant old church (in upstate NY) surrounded by nature, an environment that inspired the music's subtle shifts in timbre and pitch, enhancing the dreamy yet intense mood throughout the trio’s eight pieces.Ted Reichman, “My Ears Are Bent” Skirl 002
Instrumental rock music by Ted Reichman, playing everything except accordion with longtime collaborator John Hollenbeck and hotshot young guitarist Mary Halvorson. “My Ears Are Bent” combines blues piano, hip-hop, dub, free jazz, and no wave to create a new hybrid, heavily influenced by the people, places, and sounds of New York City. Best known as an accordion player, on “My Ears Are Bent” Ted Reichman features his original instrument, piano, along with a wide range of other instruments including guitars, electronics, and percussion. Reichman also mixed the album in his home studio, aided by co-producer Anthony Burr.Curtis Hasselbring, “The New Mellow Edwards” Skirl 003
A Pixies number, a 1941 Fats Waller tune and nine originals by trombonist Curtis Hasselbring add up to The New Mellow Edwards. In the failsafe company of reedsman Chris Speed, Bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer John Hollenbeck, Hasselbring shimmies gracefully through Black Francis’s “Ana” and engagingly through Waller’s “Mamacita.” His own material embraces both amiable jauntiness and confident probes into abstraction. Dunn and Hollenbeck get seriously tricky with matters of rhythm and tempo. Speed plays mainly tenor, with occasional welcome reminders of his highly appealing clarinet tone. Hasselbring is supple, robust and expressively accented. It’s all a lot of fun and beautifully played.
-Julian Cowley THE WIRE (UK)Hilmar Jensson TYFT, “Meg Nem Sa” Skirl 004
Finding common ground somewhere between Iceland and Brooklyn, Hilmar Jensson's crunching-metal guitar, Andrew D'Angelo's howling reeds and drummer Jim Black's lumbering pulse collide in a three-car pileup of rock, jazz and noise.
-Shaun Brady Philadelphia City PaperShelley Burgon/Trevor Dunn, “Baltimore” Skirl 005
Wavering between patient meditation and maniacal catharsis Dunn and Burgon mine the narrow fissure between pure improvisation and through-composed chamber music, slashing at the extreme interplay between steel, string and wood. Strings are beaten or jimmied with clothespins, the harp alternately caressed and throttled. The sonic equivalent of a Joseph Cornell box, the duo has a haunting, cinematic quality that is both staggeringly complex and achingly beautiful.
-Tim Duroche Human Feel, "Galore" Skirl 006
After about a decade-long hiatus, Human Feel are back with a vengeance and arguably their best album yet. Members Chris Speed, Andrew d'Angelo, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Jim Black have not remained idle during that time and the experience they have garnered undoubtedly helped improve this communal project. They perform rhythmically and melodically varied material penned by each of the musicians as well as a piece by guitarist Hilmar Jensson, whose aesthetic fits the band like a glove. At first, what grabs the attention as well as provide the adrenaline rush are their sonic assaults. Saxophones roar and squeal over angular guitar riffs and thrashing drums. The foursome, however, is most impressive when it tones down the volume. The magnificent and swirling "Cat Heaven" is a truly innovative piece, while the delicate "Serenade" or the rock ballad "Allegiance" efficiently complement the playful and raucous compositions. Finally, an epic centerpiece works as a suite that summarizes the group's intentions and captures the various moods that inhabit the session. This influential and turbulent quartet has spawned a number of bands that weld the complexity of jazz with the raw energy of rock, but none has been as successful and fully realized as this one.
-Alain Drouot, All Music Guide Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone, "On and Off" Skirl 007
Mary and Jessica take their unlimited vision of creative music in surprising directions. Shocking string dissonance gives way to soothing vocal harmonies. Unhinged bursts of improvisation morph into rigorous structure. Unidentifiable electronic noises flow out of warm acoustic tones. Thanks to their work with Anthony Braxton and many others, their avant-garde credentials are ironclad, but Mary and Jessica extend the creative music tradition into directions that on the surface might sound more like indie-rock or avant-folk music. Their music reflects a new generation's disdain for the traditional categories that have divided musicians. All musical structures are at play here: songs, improvisations, advanced compositions. Mary and Jessica make it all work, along with a healthy dose of youthful insouciance and charm. After five years of relentless work- writing, recording, and touring in Europe and the US - "On and Off" shows these two young artists at the peak of their powers as individuals and as a band. Andrew D'Angelo, "Skadra Degis" Skirl 008
Over the course of his 20-plus year career, D’Angelo has established himself as a shocking improviser and brilliant composer. His continued assault on musical boundaries and his iconoclastic musical ideas (documented most notably in the bands Tyft, the Matt Wilson Quartet, and Human Feel) have been powerful inspirations to his peers and to a new generation of improvisers.On Skadra Degis, D’Angelo pays tribute to the inspirations of his youth while maintaining his ruthless individuality, creating a deeply personal, ultra-modern record of finely crafted, passionate, swinging jazz. With JIM BLACK on drums and TREVOR DUNN on bass, Skadra Degis is a remarkable trio record, moving seamlessly between haunting ballads, frenetic psycho free-blasting, and reasonably straight-ahead swing.