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About the Artists
Presspectives

Inward Traces Outward Edges

Jason Alder, Thanos Chrysakis, Charlotte Keeffe, James O' Sullivan

Duration 47.27 | Released January 2025

Jason Alder | contrabass clarinet | sopranino saxophone |

Thanos Chrysakis | laptop computer | synthesizers |

Charlotte Keeffe | trumpet | flugelhorn |

James O’Sullivan | electric guitar |

 

Recorded at OneCat Studio in London

on the 19th of December 2022 by Jon Clayton.

About the Artists

Jason Alder is a low clarinet specialist and holds degrees in clarinet performance (Michigan State University- US), bass clarinet performance (Conservatorium van Amsterdam- NL), creative improvisation (Artez Conservatorium- NL), as well as post-graduate study in the application of the advanced rhythmic principles of South Indian Karnatic music to contemporary Western classical and jazz music (Contemporary Music and Improvisation through Non-Western Techniques). He is currently conducting PhD research on the sonic possibilities on the contrabass clarinet (Royal Northern College of Music- UK). He is well-established as a performer of contemporary music and frequently works with composers to develop and premiere new works either as a soloist, with his flute-clarinet Shadanga Duo, the Four New Brothers Bass Clarinet Quartet, or in a variety of other formations. As well as composed music, Jason regularly performs internationally as an improviser, electroacoustic musician, and in world music and jazz bands. He is often found performing, lecturing, or on panel discussion at festivals around the world, including the International ClarinetFests, European Clarinet Festivals, Istanbul Woodwind Festival, American Single Reed Summit, Netherlands Gaudeamus New Music Festival, Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, Havana Festival of Contemporary Music, and Leeds International Festival of Artistic Innovation. He is also sought after as a recording engineer for many classical and jazz musicians around Europe. Originally from metro-Detroit, Jason has lived in Europe since 2006 and is an endorsing Artist for Selmer clarinets, D'Addario reeds, Behn mouthpieces, and Silverstein ligatures.

Picture of Jason Alder

"He burrows into the inner life of sound and extracts elemental qualities that capture and convey its intrinsic dynamism."

Julian Cowley / The Wire

Thanos Chrysakis is a Greek composer, musician, producer and sound-artist. He is best known for his work in electronic and contemporary music, improvisation, and electro-acoustic music.

With several albums to his name his work has appeared in festivals and events in numerous countries, including CYNETart Festival, Festspielhaus Hellerau - Dresden, Artus Contemporary Arts Studio – Budapest, CRUCE Gallery – Madrid, Fylkingen – Stockholm, Relative (Cross) Hearings festival – Budapest, Festival Futura – Crest - Drôme, FACT Centre – Liverpool, Association Ryoanji – Ahun - Creuse, The Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale — Hanover - New Hampshire, Areté Gallery — Brooklyn - New York, UC San Diego – California - San Diego, Berner Münster – Bern, Fabbrica del Vapore – Milan, Grünewaldsalen – Svensk Musikvår — Stockholm, Splendor – Amsterdam, Logos Foundation – Ghent, Palacio de Bellas Artes – Mexico City, Műcsarnok Kunsthalle – Budapest, Spektrum – Berlin, Susikirtimai X – Vilnius, Festival del Bosque GERMINAL – Mexico City, ДОМ – Moscow, Oosterkerk – Amsterdam, KLANG ! – Montpellier, Nádor Terem – Budapest, Utzon Centre – Aalborg, New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theatre – St. Petersburg, Center for New Music – San Francisco, Västerås Konstmuseum – Västerås, Störung festival – Barcelona, BMIC Cutting Edge concert series at The Warehouse – London.

His music was among the selected works at the International Competition de Musique et d'Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges 2005, in the category oeuvre d'art sonore électroacoustique, while received an honorary mention in 2006 at the 7th International Electroacoustic Competition Musica Viva in Lisbon (the jury was constituted by Morton Subotnick (USA), François Bayle (France), and Miguel Azguime (Portugal).

 

He operates the Aural Terrains record label since 2007 where he has released part of his work until now, alongside releases by Kim Cascone, Franscisco López, Tomas Phillips, Dan Warburton, Szilárd Mezei, Michael Edwards, Wade Matthews, Dganit Elyakim, Edith Alonso, Luis Tabuenca, Jeff Gburek, Philippe Petit, Steve Noble, Milo Fine, Liam Hockley and David Ryan among others.

 

He has written music for musicians of the Hyperion Ensemble, the Stockholm Saxophone Quartet, the Hermes Ensemble, the Nemø Ensemble, the Konus Saxophone Quartett, and the Shadanga Duo among others. Close collaborations with Tim Hodgkinson, Vincent Royer, Chris Cundy, Yoni Silver, Lori Freedman, Jason Alder, Julie Kjaer, Henriette Jensen, William Lang, Wilfrido Terrazas, Philippe Brunet, Wade Matthews, Ernesto Rodrigues, Ove Volquartz to name but a few.

Picture of Thanos Chrysakis

Musician, trumpeter and flugelhorn player Charlotte Keeffe wears her love for freely improvising, free jazz and abstract music-making on her (brightly coloured) sleeve. Whether performing regularly as a soloist (Sound Brush), or leading a variety of different ensembles, including her RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW Quartet, with Ashley John Long on double bass, Ben Handysides on drums and Moss Freed on guitar, she meticulously carves out spaces for the free movement of ideas and individual expression.

 

Keeffe’s debut album ‘Right Here, Right Now’ is where you’ll find her exhibiting a passion for vibrant soundscapes from solo to orchestral. Released in 2021, on Discus Music, she earned international critical acclaim carving out a niche on the imprint. Her 2nd album, ‘ALIVE! in the studio’, features her RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW Quartet (with Ashley John Long on double-bass, Ben Handysides on drums and Moss Freed on guitar) performing a live set in Goldsmiths University Studios, London. ‘ALIVE! in the studio’, was released in September 2023 on Discus Music. Receiving rave reviews, it landed on several Best of 2023 Album Releases lists/charts, including Reader’s Digest.

 

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW’s recent performances include Cheltenham Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, Café OTO, Lancaster Jazz Festival (Keeffe was Lancaster Jazz Festival’s 2024 Artist in Residence), Manchester Jazz Festival, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Jazz North East and more. Keeffe’s recent international performance adventures include; Switzerland’s Ear We Are Festival, Vienna’s/Wien Modern Festival, Poland’s/Poznan’s Spontaneous Music Festival and SWIATLODZWIEKI Festival, Graz’ STIO Festival, Switzerland’s JazzChur Festival, Belgium’s Free JazzBlazzt, Saarbrücken’s Free Jazz Festival, plus several other concerts, festivals and studio sessions in Belgium, Holland and Copenhagen.

 

Inspired by abstract painters, Keeffe refers to her instruments as ‘Sound Brushes’.

 

Picture of Charlotte Keeffe

James O'Sullivan is a London-based experimental guitar player and improvisor who employs a playful but meticulous approach to the instrument through the bringing-together of physicality, resonance, detail and dynamics. He seeks to co-create a rich, layered and engaging music that entwines the excitement of the moment with a creative, focused exploration, shaping an enduring document of the guitar's potential.

His interest in improvisation, recording and performance has led him to record and perform across the UK and internationally, both solo and with numerous improvised music groups. More long-standing groups include Muster, with Dan Powell (electronics), a duo with Paul May (percussionist), the improvising trio Found Drowned, and, most recently, LUFT, a trio with Chris Hill and Alan Newcombe. His playing also features on several releases on the Aural Terrains imprint. He has released three solo albums, feed back couple, (2011), IL Y A, (2017) and Lovely Error (2022). Recent releases include Repetition Disguises, an electric guitar duo with Nathan Moore, CHORD, with Ross Lambert, Nathan Moore and Eddie Prévost, and the eponymous LUFT (Hill/ Newcombe/O'Sullivan), released in March 2024.

Picture of James O' Sullivan

Presspectives

Nick Ostrum — Free Jazz Blog — 07.05.25

Inward Traces Outer Edges is the latest release from Thanos Chrysakis and his Aural Terrains label. On it perform label stalwarts such as Jason Alder (in an odd paring of contrabass clarinet and sopranino saxophone) and Chrysakis himself (laptop and synth) in addition to the British trumpeter Charlotte Keeffe and guitarist James O’Sullivan, both of whom have been distinguishing themselves in the London and adjacent scenes over the last several years.

From the first sounds, one notices that this is different from other Chrysakis and Aural Terrains productions. It is busy, heavy on the buzzing electronics and O’Sullivan’s manipulated guitar clink. Then comes the huff and heave of Keeffe and steady bombinations of Alder, as Keeffe switches to strained fanfares over the emerging stormy front. When composed, Chrysakis’ music seems to blend sounds, evoking dark organ music, and relying on singular and overlapped droning for effect. Here, however, the quartet seems driven more by quest for different currents of energy and the potential for new sonic interactions that more open contexts such as this allow. The music smolders with the electro-acoustic intensity of an overgrown field at dusk. Nothing shouts too loud, but the sheer range of textures and timbres evokes that type of vibrant and diverse natural variation. At times, a windy and strained trumpet catches one’s ear. Then, Alder’s low tones and, on sopranino, sharp bites and jaunty (maybe even jazz) arpeggios. Then, the listener’s ear wanders to what sound like muffled voices and electric chains, synthesized drones (this is Chrysakis, after all) and glimmering plonk of the electronics and guitar.

It is strange to hear this configuration of musicians and Chrysakis, an accomplished composer, in such a setting. I have been assured there was no score or direction beyond “Don’t hesitate to linger on what is emerging,” which is such a wonderful and telling instruction. Inward Traces Outer Edges maintains some of the long-tone aesthetics and deep listening that characterize Chrysakis’ compositions. Still, I would not have placed this among his output had I not already known of his involvement. There is just too much clatter, which, in the hands of Alder, Keeffe, O’Sullivan and Chrysakis himself, is a good thing, as they do it with such intention and control, to pleasingly coarse and unconventional results.

Ken Waxman — Jazz Word — 28.April.2025

With a new collection of associates and limiting himself to synthesizer and electronics, Greek composer and sound artist Thanos Chrysakis has created another program of rare and remarkable music. Chrysakis, who over the years has collaborated with everyone from the Hyperion Ensemble to Ernesto Rodrigues, is joined on this five-part work, by three other UK-based musicians. Trumpeter/flugelhornist Charlotte Keeffe leads her own group and has played with Paul Dunmall plus others. Detroit native Jason Alder who plays contrabass clarinet and sopranino saxophone, is in ensembles like Four New Brothers and the Bass Clarinet Quartet. Guitarist James O’Sullivan has recoded with Eddie Prévost among others.

To be honest, although sometimes upfront in the later part of the improvisation, O’Sullivan’s contributions are usually limited to succinct distinct plinks and brief individual frails. Throughout then, the piece’s progress rests on tonal build up from Chrysakis’ electronic instruments which infrequently escalate to surge over the group’s spatial architecture, invariably throbbing and jiggling beneath each sequence, but .sometimes limiting the others’ contributions

That means the contrapuntal balance between reed and brass textures becomes most prominent. Usually playing trumpet, Keeffe builds up from half-valve slurs and inner tube squeals to ascending stutters without losing linear advancement. Meanwhile mostly playing contrabass clarinet, Alder’s basement level split tones reach widening breaths and blustering scoops as a definite foil to the trumpeter’s pointillist strains and mouthpiece suckling.

The horns maintain this intermittent antiphony during the protracted “Part III” and “Part IV” finally combining as the synthesizer’s organ-like washes get louder. Eventually Chrysakis draws back enough so that brass plunger tones, guitar string shakes and sopranino saxophone twitters can be heard. As horn projections speed up with high-pitched brass blasts and low-pitched reed tongue stops and smears become recognizable, buzzsaw voltage oscillations tighten at the same time.

Before fading away, a climax of trumpet puffs, reed flattement and string snaps unite with harsh electronic buzzes to attain a horizontal group drone that confirms the connection and creativity of the program. With this achievement, one wonders what Chrysakis will design next.

https://www.jazzword.com/

Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg — Orynx — 02.03.2025

Les albums produits par Aural Terrains et Thanos Chrysakis proposent autant des musiques de compositeurs « contemporains » que de l’improvisation radicale, chaque fois réalisées en collaboration avec des instrumentistes et improvisateurs Britanniques. Parmi eux, le clarinettiste Jason Alder, ici la clarinette contrebasse et au sax sopranino, la trompettiste Charlotte Keefe, aussi au bugle et le guitariste James O’Sullivan, avec Thanos Chrysakis crédité laptop computer et synthétiseurs. Rappelons que Thanos est aussi compositeur et curateur des albums purement « musique contemporaine » ; citoyen Grec, il vit à Brest en Biélorussie. Inward Traces Outward Edges comporte cinq parties intitulées PART I, PART II jusque PART V pour des durées de 10 :16 – 04 :24 – 12 :42 – 12 :12 – 07 :53. Si les sons des instruments électroniques joués discrètement par Thanos Chrysakis évoluent sous forme de drones et de sons parasites en suspension, James O’Sullivan s’intègre dans le flux électronique avec des effets, de lents glissandi et de minutieuses griffures dans la marge de l’instrument menant parfois à un bruitisme minutieux. On entend d’ailleurs les deux musiciens émettre un faisceau d’ondes collectives s’unissant comme une seule et même voix dont la hauteur oscille interminablement. Par-dessus ces sonorités électriques Charlotte Keefe improvise librement dans l’embouchure en éclatant colonne d’air dans le pavillon. Tout comme le fit autrefois le regretté Wolfgang Fuchs, Jason Alder manie alternativement son énorme clarinette contrebasse et le court saxophone soprano. Durant ces cinq morceaux, le quartet fait évoluer les paysages sonores et les souffles de manière tout à fait avantageuse. C’est un très bel essai d’interactions – juxtapositions de sons, mouvements, effets sonores, bruissements qui mène à la fascinante PART IV. À ce stade, les quatre improvisateurs sont parvenus à une véritable méta-musique, de combinaisons sonores peu soupçonnables, voire rarement ouïes nous entraînant dans une écoute approfondie. Dans PART V , le décor et les effets sonores, l’art de la répétition offrent une toute autre perspective, l’électronique devenant plus prépondérante, forçant Keefe à jouer comme dans un rêve . Depuis le début (PART I) on est passé du terre à terre à une absence de gravitation qui libère l’imagination spontanée dans les PART IV et V. Une tentative réussie de redéfinition de l’improvisation libre sans idée préconçue. Remarquable.