DAVID TORN — What Means Solid, Traveller (1996-2004) Unofficial Release | APE (image+.cue), lossless

David Torn's last album for CMP is a collection of rock-oriented ambient guitar pieces. Torn has always been more interested in atmospherics than in guitar pyrotechnics, although he is certainly capable of blistering rock leads, shown most ably here on the tribal piece "Particle Bugs." Torn sings on a few of the pieces, such as the country-blues solo piece "In the Sand of This Day" and the title track, but his vocals tend to be processed and embellish the guitars rather than step into the foreground. His guitar playing and processing is superb. Many of the songs set up an atmosphere of drones and loops, to which he adds all kinds of guitar leads, from Middle Eastern-tinged fast melodic lines to slide guitar riffs to heavy metal distortion. Drum and percussion duties are primarily from samples, which Torn put together into loops and otherwise processed. The most rock-oriented pieces are "Spell Break," which opens with quiet ambient drones and chants but then kicks in with a careening slide guitar, and the live solo "Til You Are Free," which has a loud, distorted melody over a very simple rhythm. Torn closes the album with the beautiful ambient piece "Elsewhere," bringing to the foreground the loops and drones that otherwise lurk in the background. Torn is a consummate stylist and instrumentalist, but this album -- one of the clearest solo statements from this master musician -- also shows him to be a composer and studio wizard. Caleb Deupree
Tracklist :
1    Spell Breaks With The Weather 5:49
 Composed By – David Torn
Loops [Drumkit Loop] – Will Calhoun
Vocals [Little Spoken Vocal] – Cannonball Adderley
2    What Means Solid, Traveller? 6:52
 Composed By – David Torn
Loops [Drumkit Loops] – Gota Yashiki
3    Such Little Mirrors 7:22
 Composed By – David Torn
Loops [Drumkit Loops] – Gota Yashiki
4    Tiny Burns A Bridge    8:41
 Composed By – David Torn
5    Gidya Hana 7:27
 Composed By – David Torn
Acoustic Bass, Electric Bass [El Bass] – Fima Ephron
Loops [Drumkit Loop] – Steve Jansen
6    Each Prince, To His Kingdom, Must Labor To Go    3:58
 Composed By – David Torn
7    Particle Bugs @ Purulia Station / In The Sand Of This Day 7:41
 Composed By – David Torn
Acoustic Bass – Fima Ephron
Loops [Drumkit Loop] – David Ruffy
8    In The Sand Of This Day I Will Not Be Free...    3:00
 Composed By – David Torn
9    ... Til You Are Free 4:23
 Composed By – David Torn
Loops [Drumkit Fill] – Mitch Mitchell
Loops [Drumkit Loops] – Gota Yashiki
10    Elsewhere, Now Than Waving    10:10
 Composed By – David Torn
Credits :
Drums – Mitch Mitchell
Producer, Engineer, Mixed By, Guitar [Guitars & Guitar-like Thingies], Loops [Textural & Rhythmic Loops], Sampler [Samples], Voice [Voices], Performer [The Pink Lark, Kotar], Percussion, Viola [Cody's Viola], Bass [Elijah's Bass], Mandolin [Mandolina] – David Torn

MANU KATCHÉ - Playground (2007) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Drummer Manu Katche's sophomore effort for ECM is, in some ways, an extension of his nearly brilliant debut Neighbourhood, issued by the label in 2004. The former recording listed such ECM standard bearers as trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and veteran saxophonist Jan Garbarek on the front line and a rhythm section comprised of pianist Marcin Wasilewski and bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz (from Stanko's group). Playground keeps the rhythm section intact, but Mathias Eick and Trygve Seim, on trumpet and saxophones respectively, make up the front line. While there can be no denying the lyrical power of the former unit, this one feels more like a band. Seim is a leader in his own right, having released three fine recordings under his own name and been part of numerous ECM ensembles. He and Eick played together in Iro Haarla's band for the wonderful Northbound recording. The trumpeter is also an integral part of guitarist Jacob Young's group whose ECM debut, Evening Falls, was one of 2002's best jazz releases. Manfred Eicher likes to keep it in the family when he's producing, and he hasn't been wrong for a long time. This set was recorded in New York, and though it retains the trademark ECM "sound" in some ways, it's warmer, too. Separation and space abound, but the dynamic reach of this group transcends that at times.

Guitarist David Torn helps out on the opener, "Lo," and third cut "Song for Her." Interestingly, they are two of the quieter cuts on the set, and Torn's support work is largely atmospheric. The symbiotic communication between Eick and Seim is something to behold. Drummer Manu Katche's sophomore effort for ECM is, in some ways, an extension of his nearly brilliant debut Neighbourhood, issued by the label in 2004. The former recording listed such ECM standard bearers as trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and veteran saxophonist Jan Garbarek on the front line and a rhythm section comprised of pianist Marcin Wasilewski and bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz (from Stanko's group). Playground keeps the rhythm section intact, but Mathias Eick and Trygve Seim, on trumpet and saxophones respectively, make up the front line. While there can be no denying the lyrical power of the former unit, this one feels more like a band. Seim is a leader in his own right, having released three fine recordings under his own name and been part of numerous ECM ensembles. He and Eick played together in Iro Haarla's band for the wonderful Northbound recording. The trumpeter is also an integral part of guitarist Jacob Young's group whose ECM debut, Evening Falls, was one of 2002's best jazz releases. Manfred Eicher likes to keep it in the family when he's producing, and he hasn't been wrong for a long time. This set was recorded in New York, and though it retains the trademark ECM "sound" in some ways, it's warmer, too. Separation and space abound, but the dynamic reach of this group transcends that at times.

Guitarist David Torn helps out on the opener, "Lo," and third cut "Song for Her." Interestingly, they are two of the quieter cuts on the set, and Torn's support work is largely atmospheric. The symbiotic communication between Eick and Seim is something to behold. The wonderfully tender ballad "Lo" contains the kind of restraint and reliance on gentleness that's difficult for two horn players -- these days anyway -- to hold together as a unit; one usually comes off sounding more dominant than the other. But Katche's pace, with so many subtle fills, and Wasilewski's bridge between the horns is sturdy and moves the melody forward allowing them to hold steady. There are numerous ballads on this set, which is unusual for a drummer, but Katche is nothing if not a lyrical composer. His subtlety is one of his great strengths -- check the quietly insistent brushed hi hat trills in triple time on "Emotions." "So Groovy" is nothing if not modern-day soul-jazz. A skeletal, funky backbeat with Katche playing breaks everywhere relies heavily on Kurkiewicz's bassline to not only keep the pulse, but also to keep it moving. The head in the tune is loping but stays tight. Eick's solo simmers as Katche's percussion and kit work quietly push him even as Wasilewski fills the space with some angular but in-the-cut chords. "Morning Joy" alternates between improvisational sketch and gently swinging mid-tempo ballad. One has to wonder if the solo drumming at the beginning of "Motion" is not a sort of homage to Paul Motian, it replicates his notion of pulse and swing nearly perfectly while keeping Katche's unique snare work his own. The post-bop head in the tune would also seem to suggest that, but the tune moves over a couple of times into other territory without ever straying from that theme too much, and becomes more harmonically complex as it goes. There is also a beautiful bluesy funk element here, that never leaves the realm of controlled tension, but is so seamless it's easy to initially miss the many changes it undergoes -- and there's a killer little solo by Wasilewski.

"Snapshot" is a modern-day glimpse of the classic Blue Note sound of the early to mid-'60s. The themes and solos (particularly by Seim) are modern, but the deep blues and even slightly bossa feel in the rhythms touch on that territory. Katche is at his very best here, dancing like Billy Higgins but deeper in the lower registers of his kit. Them other ballads here, such as "Project 58" and "Possible Thought" are all transformed, chameleon-like, into other things as these wonderfully airy but complex compositions shimmer, slip and slide through the ear. Katche's drumming is quiet but so knotty. He's everywhere, traveling around the band with Kurkiewicz as his foil, guiding this band through his tunes (check the terrain "Inside Games" covers from front to back). The sophisticated urban groove of "Clubbing" is one of the hippest songs Katche's written, with a rolling piano line in the lower register in the head, the drummer breaking and shifting grooves on the bell of his ride cymbal. The solos begin with Eick, and he moves form post-bop to slightly outside, never losing his sense of time or melody. Seim follows suit, but moves to the edges more quickly; his bop phrasing also goes into a kind of modalism around the blues before Wasilewski, becomes a machine, hitting arpeggios insistently and percussively as Katche answers breaking his beat all around him filling that center space. The interplay between the two men is never better than it is here and could have gone on far longer. The set closes with a variation of "Song for Her" that feels more like a reprise than anything else. The first version is so utterly beautiful it seems almost superfluous. In all, Playground is a step ahead of its predecessor; namely because Katche's compositions, while they are more complex, have lost none of their inherent lyricism. The two new front line players have brought with them the experience of playing together and this rhythm section has worked together for a while. They fold into the mix of the ensemble rather than simply standing out on their own. Playground is an exciting new chapter in Katche's evolution as a leader; but more than this, bodes well for the future of jazz: it never loses sight of itself, but moves the various threads of its subgenres further without stretching any of them to the breaking point.
>This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa'<
Tracklist :
1    Lo 6'25
(Manu Katché)
2    Pieces Of Emotion 4'13
(Manu Katché)
3    Song For Her 6'24
(Manu Katché)
4    So Groovy 5'50
(Manu Katché)
5    Morning Joy 5'27
(Manu Katché)
6    Motion 5'14
(Manu Katché)
7    Project 58 6'13
(Manu Katché)
8    Snapshot 4'53
(Manu Katché)
9    Possible Thought 6'03
(Manu Katché)
10    Inside Game 5'06
(Manu Katché)
11    Clubbing 7'03
(Manu Katché)
12    Song For Her (Var) 6'22
(Manu Katché)
Credits :
Manu Katché - Drums
Mathias Eick - Trumpet
Trygve Seim - Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone
Marcin Wasilewski - Piano
Slawomir Kurkiewicz - Double-Bass
David Torn - Guitar 

DAVID TORN | GEOFFREY GORDON - Best Laid Plans (1985) WV (image+.cue), lossless

It was not until his subsequent outing, Cloud About Mercury, that pioneering electric guitarist David Torn would make a noteworthy splash in the fusion/avant rock scene. Hence, Torn possessed a sound and style on guitar that set him apart from many of his peers. In fact, the artist was and still is a noteworthy proponent of digital technology; however, Torn succeeds where others fail, thanks to his deft expressionism and deeply personalized phraseology. With the opening "Before the Bitter Wind," Torn establishes a paradigm for the remainder of the set, largely due to his grainy-sounding crunch chords, ethereal atmospherics, and rippling harmonics. Here and throughout, Geoffrey Gordon serves as the catalyst, whether executing African-style tom-tom fills, steady beats, or a series of oscillating undercurrents. At times, Torn seems to be inflicting pain upon his axe of choice via an abundance of ominously stated passages and bone-crushing licks. On the contrary, he cyclically mitigates the proceedings down to a near halt, thanks to his diminutive chord progressions and shrewd utilization of volume-control techniques. Recommended. Glenn Astarita  
Tracklist :
1    Before The Bitter Wind 6'38
(Geoffrey Gordon, David Torn)
2    Best Laid Plans 7'05
(David Torn)
3    The Hum Of Its Parts 3'39
(David Torn)
4    Removable Tongue 1'52
(David Torn)
5    In The Fifth Direction 6'16
(David Torn)
6    Two-Face Flash 7'07
(Geoffrey Gordon, David Torn)
7    Angle Of Incidents 8'40
(David Torn)
Credits :
David Torn   Guitars
Geoffrey Gordon   Percussion

DAVID TORN - Cloud About Mercury (1987-2019) APE (image+.cue), lossless

“Everything is in a state of transition,” David Torn explained. “Mercury is an element that captures the essence of change.” The changing soundscape of improvisation in the mid-1980s informs the textures and colours of Cloud About Mercury, whose sonorities are closely related to progressive rock (the rhythm section is half of one incarnation of King Crimson) and to the experimental end of ambient music. Drummer Bill Bruford’s affection for this album is undying: “To this day, Torn’s guitar on ‘Three Minutes of Pure Entertainment’ from Cloud About Mercury makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.” ecm
Tracklist :
1    suyafhu skin... snapping the hollow reed 8'21
(David Torn)
2    the mercury grid 6'33
(David Torn)
3    3 minutes of pure entertainment 7'09
(David Torn)
4    previous man 7'55
(Tony Levin, Bill Bruford, David Torn, Mark Isham)
5    network of sparks: the delicate code 4'52
(David Torn)
6    network of sparks: egg learns to walk - ... suyafhu seal 10'25
(David Torn, Bill Bruford, Mark Isham, Tony Levin)
Credits :
David Torn   Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Mark Isham   Trumpet, Piccolo Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Synthesizer
Tony Levin   Chapman Stick, Synthesizer Bass
Bill Bruford   Simmons Drums, Synthesizer Drums, Percussion   

DAVID TORN - Prezens (2007) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Prezens is the first recording guitarist and producer David Torn has recorded under his own name for ECM Records in the 21 years since his Cloud About Mercury was issued. His sonic explorations have always been at least as much an interest to him as his playing. As a result he has stretched to the limits of what the guitar can, or even perhaps should, do in realms where it sounded like he was playing anything but his chosen instrument. Most recently, Torn has performed in Tim Berne's Science Friction and Hard Cell ensembles and played with Drew Gress and Dave Douglas. Torn enlists Berne and the other members of his Science Friction band: keyboard wizard Craig Taborn and drummer Tom Rainey, minus guitarist Marc Ducret. The end result, while wildly adventurous and full of astonishing improvisations, is also full of some of Torn's most "inside" playing. The opener "AK" begins with a Frippertronics phrase hypnotically asserted by use of a digital delay before giving way to a mutational Delta blues riff, repeated endlessly before opening up to a kind of muted question mark phrase. Rainey's cymbals enter along with an extended line by Berne while Taborn digs into the B-3 with the guitar riff playing under the mix as a guide; the band takes off, exploring the edges of the open chord, never leaving its rhythmic pulse behind for long. Taborn's soloing is deep in the pocket, reminiscent of John Patton, and Berne begins to play all around the blues, his sense of time perfect. Rainey shuffles around them all, stuttering cymbals and snares. When Torn comes back in with the riff, it's a sick distorted mess worthy of a solid heavy metal intro and he layers a screaming minimal solo on top of that. Whoa! The brief "Rest and Unrest" with its spoken word vocal walks the line between Ali Farka Touré's guitar sound and Torn's own mitigated soundscape world once more echoing the blues.

Mutant synth lines and layered and stretched voices become a rhythmic interlude. "Structural Foundations of Prezens" begins with Berne blowing soft and low with a pulsing electronic sound behind him as Torn enters on both electric and acoustic guitars, manipulated of course to accent the atmospheric "ballad" until all hell breaks loose at just under seven minutes. Here Rainey's triple-timed drumming is sampled back as loops playing breaks and Torn and Berne interplaying with one another take the track into uncharted territory. Nothing is what it initially seems here. Each track begins as one thing and ends as quite another. Improvisation is at a premium, though all of it comes out of established heads: blues and other folk forms initiate proceedings and Torn deals out as much atmosphere as he does leadership in the directions he wants to go, which is why most of these cuts (all but four, actually) have co-writing credits. Check out "Sink" and "Neck Deep in the Harrow" for prime examples. The open spaces of "Even More Other" present music as an "other" to sonic manipulation, yet it all comes out structured somehow, tempered into a cohesive whole thanks to Rainey's big tom tom work. The slide acoustic guitar Torn uses on "Miss, Place, The Mist..." is Eastern in mode and both Rainey and Taborn treat it as such with distorted loops, sampled strings, and overdubbed slide lines as Berne enters and winds it all around at the nadir. The set concludes with "Transmit Regardless," which is a kind of anthem for this band in the sense that while Torn is listed as the leader, and there is no doubt about his mark as a creative director, this group plays like a band throughout, no matter how abstract and strange things get. Rock, jazz, electronica, formal sound sculpture and strategy are all woven into a wonderfully expansive collective mind of improvisation. Deep listening, careful attention, and willful abandon to the process of creation are all present in spades. Prezens is one of those recordings where free improvisation and composition find an uneasy but cooperative working relationship making for one compelling listen after another.
(This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa')
Tracklist :
1    Ak 9'19
Composed By – Taborn, Torn, Berne, Rainey
2    Rest & Unrest 3'44
Composed By – Torn
3    Structural Functions Of Prezens 10'56
Composed By – Taborn, Torn, Berne, Rainey
4    Bulbs 6'18
Composed By – Taborn, Torn, Berne, Rainey
5    Them Buried Standing 2'43
Composed By – Torn
6    Sink 7'14
Composed By – Taborn, Torn, Berne, Rainey
7    Neck-Deep In The Harrow... 12'32
Composed By – Taborn, Torn, Berne, Rainey
8    Ever More Other 4'12
Composed By – Torn
9    Ring For Endless Travel 2'23
Composed By – Torn
10    Miss Place, The Mist... 5'45
Composed By – Torn, Chamberlain
11    Transmit Regardless 7'20
Composed By – Taborn, Torn, Berne, Rainey
Credits :
Alto Saxophone – Tim Berne
Drums – Tom Rainey
Drums [Additional Drums] – Matt Chamberlain (pistas: 10)
Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes], Organ [Hammond B3], Mellotron, Electronics [Bent Circuits] – Craig Taborn
Executive-Producer – Manfred Eicher
Guitar [Guitars], Sampler [Live Sampling], Effects [Manipulation], Producer – David Torn    

DAVID TORN - Only Sky (2016) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

David Torn – ever-intrepid guitarist, producer, improviser, film composer and soundscape artist – returns with only sky, an album that explores the far sonic edges of what one man and a guitar can create, a solo recording of almost orchestral atmosphere. It is Torn’s first ECM release since 2007’s acclaimed prezens, a full-band project, with Tim Berne, et al., that Jazzwise described as “a vibrating collage full of shimmering sonic shapes, a dark, urban electronic soundscape – a potent mix of jazz, free-form rock and technology that is both demanding and rewarding.” Many of those same descriptors apply to only sky, with its hovering ambient shadows and vaulting flashes of light, its channeling of deep country/blues memories and Burroughsian dreams of North Africa. Recorded in the acoustically apt hall of the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in upstate New York (and then sorted and mixed in Torn’s own mad-scientist lair), only sky is an album to get lost in, over and again. ecm
Tracklist :
1    at least there was nothing 7'48
(David Torn)
2    spoke with folks 6'46
(David Torn)
3    ok, shorty 3'18
(David Torn)
4    was a cave, there… 12'40
(David Torn)
5    reaching barely, sparely fraught 8'11
(David Torn)
6    I could almost see the room 13'25
(David Torn)
7    only sky 9'15
(David Torn)
8    so much what 5'22
(David Torn)
9    a goddamned specific unbalance 9'13
(David Torn)
Credits :
David Torn - Guitar, Electric Oud