ROB MAZUREK Vinyl & CDs

Review: The first ever release on the International Anthem label came by way of Rob Mazurek, genius musician of of the Jersey and Chicago jazz "schools". The trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist turned ever more avant-garde on this two-suite album, which was dedicated to the lunar cycle and heard him forgoing his signature brass for a monophonic cornet experiment, recorded at Chicago bar Curio. Documenting the performance, which was delivered alongside Matthew Lux on electric bass and Patrick Avery on organ, IA transport us right on back into the room with the trio, letting us in on a real-live experience of sidereal drones, selene harmonics and waning delays, paradoxically featuring in a suite which, both of whose titles suggest, always waxes crescent.

Review: Spanish label and collective Keroxen once again take a break from throwing festivals in the Canary Islands to release some original music, this time from the experimental electronica phenom Rob Mazurek. Gracing their discography with a genre-defier of field recordings, spirit call chants, trumpet harmonies and circuit-bent verging on circuit-broken electronics, this is a veritable slice of eclecticism to say the least. Mazurek's M.O. going into this one was to channel the exotic and tropical surroundings he found himself immersed in while stopping over in Tenerife, during 2023's Keroxen Festival edition; the tracks are almost entirely named after the fruits that grow locally on the island's trees, representing the ripe, sodden, ambi-spheric juiciness heard bursting forth from each track.

Review: Rob Mazurek and the Exploding Star Orchestra's Lightning Dreamers is a new and eclectic mix of vignettes for jazz and beat-tronica, with its instrumental oeuvre ranging from brass and analog synths to strings to sampled electronics. In total, the album amounts to a sonic wonderland of boppy brain-ticklers, but that should only go to serve the already extensive reputation of the project's lead brain Rob Mazurek - trumpeter and 'interdisciplinary abstractivist' extraordinaire. Fashioned after a slew of experiences while the on a 3-year trip to Rio Negro, Brazil, this is a metallic and scrapy jazz opus, full of curiosities and odd twist-turns.

Review: Chicago-based composer and underground mainstay Rob Mazurek has teamed up with modular synth expert and light artist Alberto Novello for this new collaboration on Hive Mind. The music was recorded in a single afternoon at Dobialab, an experimental artist space in Northern Italy where they cooked up an immersive, improvised journey into uncharted musical dimensions. Across all the coherent pieces, Novello provides a rhythmic and timbral foundation while Mazurek weaves delicate trumpet harmonies, bells and samples to build an atmospheric soundscape. The results veer from new age to psychedelic and are truly mesmerising, like an intense space ritual that explores new realms.