With their multi-disc opus „Zaireeka“ (four CDs meant to be played simultaneously on four different players), the Flaming Lips radically expanded the scope of their melancholy psychedelia, as pop tunes became modernist soundscapes, part-Pink Floyd, part-John Cage. Obviously, the experience greatly influenced the band's direction, because on „The Soft Bulletin“ the Lips again scrap the guitar-bass-drum rock standard, sculpting instead a huge hi-fi record akin to a post-modern pet sounds with the vision of a humanist OK computer.

Calefax is an internationally acclaimed ensemble of reed players renowned for performing their own arrangements and newly commissioned compositions for the unique combination of oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bass clarinet and bassoon. Switching genres and periods with consummate ease, this adventurous new release for PENTATONE from the reed quintet Calefax is a superb collection of well-honed arrangements of less familiar works, all played with the ensemble’s customary verve, passion, and mellow sound. From the frothy virtuosity of Corelli and Locatelli to the haunting beauty of Gesualdo, Satie, and the heartfelt introspection of Nina Simone, it’s an astonishingly varied and intriguing programme.

Per Oddvar Johansen has played a huge part in Norwegian music over many years and has worked extensively with such ground-breaking figures as Helge Lien, Christian Wallumrød and Petter Wettre. He brings his own imaginative drive to everything he does and his debut album as a leader Let‘s Dance on Edition Records shines a spotlight on a musician who has deserved the attention for a long time. Let s Dance is in-demand Norwegian drummer Per Oddvar Johansen s most mature musical statement yet.

Subterranea is the debut album from six piece ensemble Mosaic, led by 2015 Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize winner and British vibraphonist Ralph Wyld. A musician of real depth and creativity, Ralph Wyld has been described by Jazzwise Magazine as ‘one to look out for’ and has been praised by the FT for this ‘rhythmic accuracy and panache’. Produced by fellow vibraphonist Jim Hart, Subterranea not only marks Ralph’s arrival onto the UK scene but also anticipates what will inevitably be the start of a glowing career as a vibraphonist and composer.

The Space Between is the second album from longtime friends and guitarists Stuart McCallum and Mike Walker, who express their mutual abiding love of melody and space, their friendship, respect and the multifarious sounds and timbres that their instrument has to offer. The Space Between finds Walker and McCallum developing extra gravitas than in the past, focussing on McCallum's originals written especially for the duo. In addition they include two exquisitely chosen standards: Bacharach and David’s Alfie and My Ideal, also covered by Sonny Rollins, that sit perfectly in the set, balancing the flow.

‘Setembro’ is the brilliantly conceived and executed album from three supremely gifted and creative musical minds in Portuguese pianist Mário Laginha, English saxophonist Julian Argüelles and Norwegian percussionist Helge Andreas Norbakken. Their combined maturity and vision has produced an album of sublime beauty and personality distinguished by effortless and flowing creativity. With propulsive grooves, complex but ever-lyrical melodies, and open-minded interaction ‘Setembro’ demonstrates the vitality and importance of what is great about contemporary jazz in Europe.

If New Orleans was the first city of jazz; New York, the city that never sleeps: the home of bebop; Paris the city of 50s cool, then, arguably, that dynamic, cosmopolitan, constantly self-reinventing megacity London is the jazz burg of the 21st century. To a visitor, London is overwhelming – a monster that consumes all in its path, grimey, overcrowded and intense. But it’s been said that London is a collection of villages and to the resident, subtle differences emerge between boroughs, within districts, even along streets. The yearly cycle brings its own complexity. The constant movement of people, wealth and cultures within the smoke create new patterns that are ever changing but are hugely influential on Londoners in obscure and cryptic ways.

Godspeed is the hi-octane, heavyweight new album from Danish keyboardist Morten Schantz. As the founding member of the Danish group, JazzKamikaze, Morten Schantz returns with a new band under his own name featuring long-term collaborators Anton Eger on drums and Marius Neset on saxophones. With a wealth of keyboards at his disposal, the music on Godspeed is full of life, vibrant and bold. With a strong sense of friendship, warmth and an overriding sense of joy, Godspeed is impressive and represents some of the most vital new music bursting out of the European scene from some of the most important performers.

Over the last few years Aki has quietly been building a name in the international jazz world both as a leader and as a sideman. With Amorandom, he delivers his most authoritative work to date. There’s a fluidity in his playing and a boldness in his composing that deserves widespread praise and real recognition for one of the finest young European pianists. Described by Downbeat as a ‘rising star around Europe, Amorandom is the work that will introduce Aki Rissanen’s startling new talent to a global audience.

British jazz saxophonist Tim Garland and an all-star British band celebrate some of the music and the musicians that have inspired Garland over the course of his career. The title is a nod to his breakthrough 1995 album Enter The Fire which brought Garland to the attention of Chick Corea. I met Tim Garland through his original Enter The Fire and I wanted some of that fire in my band, thus our long musical friendship began. This Return to the Fire shows Tim, his beautiful compositions and the band’s prowess completely. Thanks to Tim and his compadres for keeping the music fires burning brightly.

Last summer in Elliott Sharp's recording studio in Manhattan, New York guitarist Sharp spent a day with guitar colleague Mary Halvorson and another with Marc Ribot, legendary guitarist of Tom Waits, The Lounge Lizards and Marianne Faithful. The result was a series of recordings that could only be created by friends. They represent the great art of guitar playing by three exceptional musicians looking for new sonic adventures in search of the sound of our time. "I hear in their playing both a step into an unknown future and wild growth from a deep past," says Elliott Sharp. "The contradiction is resolved in improvisation - the transcendent sonic path of the now."

The trio with Ellery Eskelin, Christian Weber and Michael Griener presents an extraordinary album: on Sensations Of Tone the New York saxophonist, the Berlin drummer and the Swiss bassist play Free Music as well as Traditional Jazz. "We dug more deeply into our improvisations and looked directly at this shared affinity for early jazz", Ellery Eskelin writes in the liner notes. The Eskelin-Weber-Griener trio does not fuse the individual ways of playing, it alternates and contrasts. Each of the beautiful standards «Shreveport Stomp», «China Boy», «Moten Swing» and «Ain’t Misbehavin’» is followed by free improvisations.

The album „To Roy“ dedicated to trumpeter Roy Campbell, who died in 2014, is the first collaboration between saxophonist Oliver Lake and double bass player William Parker – two important pioneers of contemporary jazz, two great musicians of the USA and two masters of composition and improvisation.

Three ‘heavy weights’ of American jazz Oliver Lake, Reggie Workmann and Andrew Cyrille make up the band Trio 3. For their 6th album on Intakt Records they have added pianist Vijay Iyer to the line-up. The 43 year old musician is after Irène Schweizer, Geri Allen and Jason Moran the fourth guest piano player cooperating with Trio 3.

The composers whose music is featured on the present album lived and worked in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars, and their fates were afflicted by the monstrous Nazi regime. Viktor Ullmann, who before WWII held the post of Kapellmeister at the New German Theatre, wrote Quartet no.3 while he was detained at the Theresienstadt ghetto-camp. Hans Krása completed the Theme and Variations in 1936, yet he only saw it performed in Theresienstadt, along with his children’s opera Brundibár. Erwin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces reveal his zest for rhythm and dance, as well as his evidently having been inspired by the music of the Viennese salons, Italy and Spain. Pavel Haas’s Quartet no.2, dating from 1925, serves as vivid proof of the claim that the composer was the most gifted pupil of Leoš Janáček.