Searching amalgamations of contemporary jazz, traditional Korean music and pure sound. Group founders saxophonist/clarinettist Sungjae Son and guitarist Suwuk Chung are joined by pansori singer Yulhee Kim and drummer Soojin Suh, in five originals and three traditional pieces.

Engrossing, luminous, abstract pianism from Evan Parker, Roscoe Mitchell cohort.

‘Music, its forms and rituals, has the power to bring us close to distant civilizations. Armenia offers a special case: a sacred culture that was preserved and presented at its fullest flowering through the work of one man, the scholar-monk Soghomon Soghomonian, known under his religious name as Komitas.’
Duduk, blul, santur, tar, saz, dap, kamancha, kanon, oud…

Nicolas Masson (tenor saxophone, clarinet), Roberto Pianca (guitar), Emanuele Maniscalco (drums).

Armenian sacred music from the fifth to nineteenth centuries — chants, hymns and sharakans — in settings for choir and piano.
‘Extraordinarily beautiful… Hamasyan uses the characteristic, Eastern-hued Armenian modes to summon up an ancient world. It’s very different to Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble’s million-selling Officium, but if you like that, you’ll love this’ (The Independent).

The Armenian pianist in a quartet setting, meditating on ancient folk melodies (including a couple of compositions by Komitas), between jazz and ambient.

Duets by trumpet, or French horn, and guitar.

‘The ghosts of Armstrong and Handy smile down as Trovesi’s octet roars through a programme that cross-references the spirit of New Orleans with Italian popular song and European classical music.’

A village banda take on tunes from Italian opera — knees-up, sublime, lovely.