MEDIA, THE PRESS, AND OTHER WRITING
Tim Reinert on new series at the Painted Ship and Chill X
The Infidels will launch two new jazz series later this month: one a week from today on August 15th, featuring the Chris Davis Quartet at the Painted Ship in Kitsilano; and another on Wednesday, August 23rd, featuring Atley King’s Four at a space called Chill X in Mount Pleasant.
Both events start at 8:00 PM; admission to the Painted Ship will be $10, find Chill X ticket info here.
The Painted Ship opened earlier this year, and Chill X is effectively a brand-new space. In an interview I asked Tim about the plans, the bands, and the current state of launching these two new Infidels series.
Record Review: KneeJerk: Blind Painter
KneeJerk is an improvising trio featuring pianist Brian Horswill, bassist Karlis Silins, and drummer Kenton Loewen who released their first album Blind Painter via The Infidels label on June 16, 2023.
Silins and Loewen are longtime collaborators from improvising ensembles like Gordon Grdina’s Box Cutter (two albums: UnLearn and New Rules for Noise), and in recent years they have deep ties to Tim Reinert’s Infidels presentations.
Together, they played in the second-ever Frankie’s After Dark band; Loewen played on the first Infidels label release, It Becomes Us.
Record Review: Viviane Houle, Unsung Songs: Graphic Scores
Viviane Houle’s Unsung Songs: Graphic Scores project on The Infidels label is a diverse magnum opus by the vocalist, spanning 14 tracks of improvisation with many collaborators. Each other improviser appears twice on the album.
Around the release date, Houle played at The New Thing at Tyrant Studios’ jazzfest edition, as well as a near-midnight festival set featuring this project at the Granville Island Revue Stage.
Percussionist Sylvain Darrifoucq is the first interlocutor on the short opener “Bilateral” and then on the memorable “Herein Lies”, with the title mantra set against rumbling, low strings. You feel all the permutations: Herein Lies, Here In-Lies, Here in Lies. Hearin’ Lies?
Record Review: Noah Franche-Nolan: Portraits from the Interior World
Noah Franche-Nolan released two albums of ambient electronic music, Portraits from the Interior World I and II, in June 2023 via The Infidels label.
The output is remarkable for Noah, who is also releasing a new jazz piano trio album on Cellar in September. He is the first person, bandleader or side musician, to record for both The Infidels and Cellar. That trio album is called Within the Stream: here I suppose is him outside that stream.
On the first album, “Arid Landscape” featuring Dan Pitt on guitar has rumbling and rhythmic picking and an overdriven lead guitar melody over quiet, clean threads. There’s a slam of distorted guitar and a hum down to a slow, chiming end. It’s an engaging start to a thorough journey, almost an hour per album.
5 things to know about the Infidels, a new Vancouver record label
The host of the Infidels weekly podcast is well aware that there are more than a few grains of truth in that tired joke. But that isn’t stopping the Vancouver-based jazz head from taking his dream to the next level.
The well-researched and entertaining show logs in its 100th episode next week. This week, the Infidels record label launch was announced. Its debut recording, It Becomes Us, is a duet album featuring drummer Kenton Loewen and trumpeter J.P. Carter performing a program of free improvisations as well as “classics” from jazz music’s outer reaches such as guitarist Sonny Sharrock’s As We Used to Sing and Wayne Shorter’s Orbits.