Vinnie Sperrazza – a drummer of both swing and color, one whose “tones travel on and on,” according to The New York Times – releases Apocryphal, his fourth album as a leader or co-leader, on Sept. 9, 2014, via Loyal Label.
Apocryphal, a masterpiece of art-house jazz that blends cinematic atmosphere and rock edge, features a kindred-spirit quartet of Brooklyn-based musicians, with the drummer-composer joined by tartly lyrical alto saxophonist Loren Stillman, very electric guitarist Brandon Seabrook and deeply musical double-bassist Eivind Opsvik, all notable figures on the 21st-century New York creative music scene.
The Brooklyn studio sessions were recorded by top indie-rock engineer Bryce Goggin (who has been behind the board for artists from Pavement to Antony & the Johnsons) and produced by Geoff Kraly, a member of rock duo Paris Monster as well as a longtime friend and musical collaborator of Sperrazza. Opsvik mixed the album.
The music of Apocryphal has such far-flung touchstones as Tony Williams and Paul Motian, Frank Zappa and Spalding Gray, not to mention plainchant and post-rock, jazz chops and studio manipulation, buried secrets and revealed truth.

01. Apocryphal
02. Thanksalot
03. Spalding Gray
04. Plainchant
05. Mendicant
06. Floor Phrase

Loren Stillman- alto saxophone
Brandon Seabrook- guitar
Eivind Opsvik- bass
Vinnie Sperrazza- drums

All compositions by Vinnie Sperrazza, Spanomusic (ASCAP)

Produced by Geoff Kraly
Recorded by Bryce Goggin at Trout Recording, October 2012
Mixed by Eivind Opsvik at Greenwood Underground, May 2013
Mastered by Fred Kevorkian at Avatar Studios, June 2013

Cover Design By Espen Friberg (Yokoland)
Photography By Michelle Arcila

Press:

The New Yorker
"highly satisfying début album as a bandleader"

Downbeat
"The whole record is a stunner, definitely of jazz, but something altogether its own world of sound. " 4 out of 5 stars

Something Else Reviews.com
"where the worlds of jazz and anti-jazz are created and regularly collide with each other. It puts Sperrazza’s formal debut in a far corner of jazz that’s rarely occupied with so much moxie. . "

All About Jazz
"Certainly amongst the year's most auspicious debut recordings, Apocryphal is also the sort of album that literally provokes further listening, and lingers in the brain long after its over"

Salt Peanuts.eu (N)
"denne innspillingen er moderne, spennende og vital, og innimellom låter det som om Ornette Coleman var 28 år igjen og relativt ny på jazzscenen i New York. Nok en positiv overraskelse fra Brooklyns fantastisk spennende jazzmiljø."

Bird is the Worm
”The album ends with “Floor Phrase,” a drone that moves stealthily into a thick din before the floor drops out, initiating a return to peacefulness. If it represents anything about the album, it’s that it sounds like nothing that precedes it and was equally unexpected."

El Intruso
"Toda obra musical posee, en sentido metafórico, propiedades expresivas que se asumen como la exteriorización de la conciencia del artista; y eso no sólo nos permite contemplar lo que vio, sino también su manera de ver las cosas. Y la manera de ver las cosas que manifiesta Vinnie Sperrazza en Apocryphal actúan como metáforas de inteligencia, ingenio y buen gusto.."

All About Jazz Italia
"Quella contenuta in Apocryphal è musica che si spinge in territori di confine difficile da etichettare, avventurosa e sorprendente. ."