Back in the 90s, producer Stefan Winter got to know and appreciate drummer Jim Black as a JMT sideman of Tim Berne and Uri Caine. 20 years ago, the young drummer fulfills his dream of releasing his first leader album on the label that is also home to the recordings of Tim Berne, Uri Caine and Paul Motion. For the anniversary of WINTER & WINTER, Jim Black compiles his personal selection of the recordings of his group AlasNoAxis: Music for open ears, for explorers of the unusual and unconventional. The musicians of AlasNoAxis combine jazz elements, new wave and grunge to create their very own sound. Stefan Hentz writes: “...atmospheric songs in which the saxophone sings while bass, drums and Hilmar Jensson's peculiarly motionless guitar shred the familiar and pile up new energies with the fragility of dissolved harmonies, the power of their power chords or even with true feedback orgies.”
The Chicago Reader describes the Jim Black Trio with Thomas Morgan and Elias Stemeseder "one of the best bands in Jim Black's busy career". In the HardStudios Winterthur the trio recorded this new album over two days. It is their fourth album as a trio and their second release on Intakt Records. Drummer Jim Black has one of the most immediately recognizable styles in Jazz - his wonderful unhinged playing bears the mark of the rock backbeat, but he adds a clanking disruptive quality that forces his collaborators to sharpen their reflexes. "They find their own space", writes Kevin Whitehead in the liner notes. "Stemeseder is an original. It's not that he never backstops a right-hand melody with left-hand chords - he just does it less than most jazz pianists. He can feather the pedals or get stabby percussive, but never over-plays. The space he leaves around the piano's sound is an invitation: he creates room. Like Stemeseder, Thomas Morgan has the confidence to do nothing where another accompanist might fill all the holes. His bass tone is ringing and clear, his attack has propulsive bite, and his lines sing. He provides a through-line when the other guys fracture."
