☰
Kobe Van Cauwenberghe - electric guitar, nylon string guitar, bass guitar, synths, voice
Frederik Sakham - double bass, electric bass, voice
Elisa Medinilla - piano
Niels Van Heertum - euphonium, trumpet
Steven Delannoye - tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
Anna Jalving - violin
Teun Verbruggen - drums, percussion
Recording: at Werkplaats Walter, Brussels
Mixing: Nicolas Rombouts (Studio Caporal)
Mastering: Uwe Teichert
Production: Kobe Van Cauwenberghe & Rogé for el NEGOCITO Records
Art work / Title images: Anthony Braxton, courtesy of Tri-Centric Foundation
Lay-out: Jan De Wulf
Band photo: Kobe Wens (Rainy Days - Luxembourg, 2021)
In loving memory of Hugo De Craen (1951 – 2021), friend and friendly experiencer.
Available on double CD / double Vinyl
release double CD June 2, 2022
release double Vinyl suspected January, 2023
(ENG)
Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music lets you step into a ritual, guided by a melody without beginning or end, a stream of consciousness that serves as the central track leading into the unknown. The Ghost Trance Musics are specifically designed to function as pathways between notation and improvisation, between past, present and future, unifying Braxton's entire fascinating musical universe. It allows for a plurality of musical practices to join forces, a trance-idiomatic arena in which Braxton helps curate intuitive experiences for both performers and listeners.
Recognising the uniqueness and almost unlimited potential of Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music system, Belgian guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe made it a personal mission to come to a deeper understanding of GTM and its implications for the interpreter. After his acclaimed solo album (Ghost Trance Solos, ATD10), Van Cauwenberghe invited a group of musicians to take a collective deep dive into Braxton’s musical wonderland of the Ghost Trance Musics and explore its unique communal aspects. In the summer of 2021 this Ghost Trance Septet recorded four GTM-compositions, covering the entire spectrum of the four different ’species’ of the GTM system. The result is the present double album.
The musicians of this Belgian-Danish septet have excellent reputation, whether in the art of improvisation, the interpretation of new music, or both. Braxton's work is made for exploratory instrumentalists with such expertise. After the Ghost Trance Septet's performance at the rainy days Festival on November 13, 2021 in Luxembourg, the composer (who was booked for a trio concert at the festival) was sitting in the audience and could hardly contain himself with emotion and excitement. Understandably so. I dare say he had never experienced his GTM concept from the listener's perspective as varied, elaborate and fluid as on that day.
The Ghost Trance Septet does everything right on this production. Whereby "right" is not meant in the sense of correctness, which Braxton dismisses in his recommendations to performers above, but in the sense of astonishing creative, daring, lustful, sensitive, and thrilling. How to play Braxton? Whoever holds this album in his hands can put a very convincing answer on the record player. Over and over again.
- - Excerpt from Timo Hoyer’s liner notes
Timo Hoyer is author of the book Anthony Braxton – Creative Music (Wolke Verlag, Hofheim 2021)
Press
FREE JAZZ BLOG'S TOP 10s of 2022 (25/12/2022)
"...a festival of creativity, joy and surprise."John Sharpe, All about Jazz (23/12/2022) ***1/2
"Absolutely superb on all levels." Bruce Lee Gallanter, the Downtown Music Gallery NY (02/12/2022)
"Så tillige varmt at anbefale: It's alive." TS Hoeg, Jazz Special Denmark 182, side 61 (09/2022)
"Alle ingrediënten, plus het indrukwekkende improvisatievermogen van de vier Belgen en drie Denen, zorgen voor bijzonder rijke muziek die Braxtons muziek zeker naar de geest uitvoert (een mooie referentie naar de Ghost Trance Music). Het is een vurig pleidooi voor een oeuvre dat veel vaker het podium zou moeten bereiken." Herman te Loo, Jazzflits nummer 382 (12/09/2022)
"The Ghost Trance Septet have created a blueprint in how to play this music. More crucially, by emphasizing each member’s talent as well as Braxton sequences, they’re come up with an original piece of work true to themselves and the composer." Ken Waxman, Jazzword Canada (08/08/2022)
"Kobe Van Cauwenberghe's Ghost Trance Septet remembers both a Braxton future and a Ghost Trance past." Mark Corroto, All about Jazz (28/07/2022) ****
"Each of the four pieces, spread out over two CDs, is packed with detail and quick-blink episodes, delivering such densely crafted journeys that I hope others will follow suit and give Braxton’s pieces the treatment they deserve." Peter Margasak, The Best Contemporary Classical on Bandcamp: June 2022 (30/06/2022)
"[…] exceptionally rich music that certainly performs Braxton's music to the spirit. It is an ardent plea for a body of work that should reach the stage much more often." Tim Rutherford-Johnson, The Rambler (06/06/2022)
"Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton is one of the best interpretations of Braxton’s music yet by an ensemble not including Braxton himself. Very well done." Mike Borella, Avant Music News (04/06/2022)
"The Ghost Trance Septet have created a blueprint in how to play this music. More crucially, by emphasizing each member’s talent as well as Braxton sequences, they’re come up with an original piece of work true to themselves and the composer." Ken Waxman, Avant Music News (04/06/2022)
"The recording feels like an immersion; the music washes over the listener in waves, cleansing and pure. It is a stream of consciousness that emanates from the musicians, serving as a guide between that which is known and the unknown. Clear guidance to form is tempered beautifully with an allowance for freedom that this kind of music gives. There is a sense of connection to the past, a sense of being very much in the present and with the future. Listening to this music is an experience, not an act, and Braxton creates a sense of endless potential." Sammy Stein, The Free Jazz Collective (23/05/2022)
Tweet
SIDE A
composition 255
SIDE B
composition 358
SIDE C
composition 193
(+ 108C + 48 + 6F)
Anthony Braxton - 24:47.226
SIDE D
composition 264
total time - 95:22
eNR105 © 2022
Double CD digisleeve
+ 16 page booklet
or
limited Gatefold Double Vinyl
coming January 2023
we'll send you the digital music at purchase
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