A Woman’s Work

An expansive eight-CD box set surveying the recent work of French double bassist and vocalist Joëlle Léandre, one of the most influential voices in contemporary improvised and new music. Rather than a single concert, the set is built as a series of distinct encounters — each disc a different grouping captured live, mostly in 2015 — that together map the breadth of Léandre's musical world. It opens with Les Diaboliques, her long-running trio with Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer and Scottish vocalist Maggie Nicols, a group often described as among the foremothers of European free improvisation, blending spontaneous playing with cabaret, humor and a satirical, feminist edge. From there the box moves through intimate duos — with violinist Mat Maneri, guitarist Fred Frith, vocalist Lauren Newton, and trumpeter Jean-Luc Cappozzo — a solo recital, and a closing quartet with Zlatko Kaučič, Evan Parker and Agustí Fernández. Issued with a sixteen-page booklet of essays and photographs, A Woman's Work stands as one of the most ambitious portraits in the label's catalog: a foundational body of work from an artist who has collaborated across the worlds of new music and free jazz, from Pierre Boulez and John Cage to the leading improvisers of her generation.