Amalgam is thrilled to present a collection of archival recordings from virtuosic multi-instrumentalist Tomchess. Despite a rich creative background that includes work with giants such as Pharoah Sanders, Butch Morris and Ronald Shannon Jackson, this is his first-ever collection of work on a label other than his own and his first guitar work presented on vinyl.

The music here is sourced from a number of live in-studio performances recorded by the renowned engineer Roy Cicala (whose credits include John Lennon's Imagine and Alice Cooper's School's Out) at the then-freshly opened Water Music studio in Hoboken, NJ in 1993, with an ensemble directed by Tomchess including free jazz legend Dewey Redman, Moroccan Gnawa master Hassan Hakmoun (a former collaborator of Don Cherry and John Cale, also involved in Peter Gabriel's Real World label), stalwart bassist Drew Gress, who has worked extensively with Fred Hersch and John Abercrombie, and rhapsodic drummer Franklin Kiermyer, known for his inventive work with Pharoah Sanders and Michael Cuscuna. All in all, an unlikely team who consistently pushes each other to new, stellar performance heights.

The first thing heard on Eyes of Moon is a sustained shriek from Redman's oboe musette, a high-pitched European double reed whose usage here calls to mind the North African ghaita. Tomchess follows, playing with a ferocity that opens up a musical space somewhere between Allan Holdsworth and Sonny Sharrock, while Redman encouragingly chirps in and out of the spaces left open amidst the onslaught. A brief excerpt of a track with the memorable title "Searching for a Horse Stolen by a Demon" serves as a centerpiece for Hakmoun. The handful of recordings of improvisers performing with Gnawa musicians typically find creative tension in the improviser reconciling their personal expressionism with the collective-centric demands of Gnawa's repetitive, loping groove and trance ritual context. This performance completely flips the script, with Hakmoun's sintir playing taking on an energy that is every bit as frenetic as Redman's piercing musette.

As a whole, Eyes of Moon stands as part of a long lineage of improvised music taking inspiration from North African trance music — one which includes Ornette Coleman's fated meeting with the Master Musicians of Jajouka, the magical Trance of Seven Colors album with Pharoah Sanders and Maleem, or Hassan Hakmoun's own work with Don Cherry. It's a tradition that has opened up a space in which musicians from every corner of the world can cross-collaborate in a manner that eschews both borders and new-agey kitsch, allowing the sounds to speak for themselves in their most undiluted form. Eyes of Moon is a spirited, much-needed addition to the canon.

- Levi Dayan, 2026