Browse by Artist: VERT

Artist:	VERT
Title:	The Köln Konzert
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 012CD

"The Köln Konzert was directly inspired by Keith Jarrett's recording of the same name. Featuring five parts, it was recorded live at the White Noise Bar in Köln on May 6th, 1999. Throughout jazz, there has always been a fundamental problem: to get the music onto the disc without losing the vital spontaneity it has when you are there while the artist is creating. This is the thing about live music -- when it is right, you have the overwhelming feeling that at every moment there are more imminent surprises, more imminent delights. It is this quality that caused Jan Thommert, a longtime student of jazz music and a longtime listener of Vert, to say that live music should be heard only once -- when it is played. But the special quality of Vert is to overcome this very real thing that Thommert was talking about and to breathe into his mosaic that kind of life that lets you hear it anew every time. We may listen to this album enough to memorize every nuance, but it still sounds fresh. I don't know what does this, I don't know how Vert achieves it, and I doubt whether even he knows. All I know is that it is in there. 'An artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind theirs,' Edgar Varèse once said. Here's our chance to catch up."

Artist:	VERT
Title:	9 Types Of Ambiguity
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 017CD

". . . first there was the punch-up at the classical music section, then, to read that one would inevitably encounter things in the quest for the absolute: well, Adam Vert was beside himself. However, now he understood the music, the sounds, the tones of natural beauty, the function of coupling, the methodology of inversion, and the loneliness of the orchestra music stand with its solid wooden music rest . . . 'Music plus noises, then? No, the noises have liberated themselves and no longer merely annoy; rather, they enhance the tonal body comprising melody, nostalgic evocations of disrupted beats and the ornament of clef symbols.' And yet it sucks and slurps, distorts, explodes and seethes, just like blowing into a lava flow through a straw.' Bla bla bla. Every noise is capable of being music, and all music is capable of being noise. It all depends on dramaturgical positioning?These dilapidated hover-trains made of mildly distorted harmonies, the ticker-licker Wall of Sound, Hacker-Jazz; but then there's reggae-style bottom-end from the deep: Hancock's wah-wah funk and Brighton beach at dusk. People like Reilly and Reich can put away their fishing rods. Finally, tonal-haiku with interference -- there's always something disturbing you . . ."

Artist:	VERT
Title:	Small Pieces Loosely Joined
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 030CD

"The masterful sound design of Vert's third Sonig album creaks and splutters, rumbles and rocks, breaks and blows from all sides and every angle. Despite complexity, British exile and resident of Cologne Adam Butler grooves with the best of them. Small Pieces Loosely Joined comprises both flirty come-ons in pop's direction and short sketches, apropos of its title. Using accordion, Rhodes, lots of piano, and a dense tissue of electronica, the tracks approach musical themes, toy with them, view them from different angles, and then move on to new pastures. The listener is by no means swept away in a maelstrom of sonic events, but rather engaged by the pace of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. You simply can't not listen. Vert conjures up tension and dissolves it by turns in a wonderfully charming, articulate and unpredictable manner. This string of loosely, even randomly connected musical clippings contains a clear thread of musical rigor, embedded deep down in the complex arrangements, traceable throughout the entire album."

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