press

“…a galvanizing player and highly original composer…superb intuition and intelligence.” ORLANDO SENTINEL

“Passion, power and pride…An unstinting drive, a bracing and uplifting incantory quality. Visionary…(Kiermyer has) landed himself in the land of jazz titans.” CMJ

"Devastatingly deep post-Coltrane spiritual jazz by Franklin Kiermyer."TOTALLY RADIO UK

"Franklin Kiermyer’s tom-toms thunder across the room as metallic shimmers slice the air, at once rapturous, restless and uncompromising. "NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

“His writing is fiercely primal and his drumming ferocious, unbridled… a journey in the Sun Ship to heights of spiritual experience through music…captures that mystical ecstasy with magnificent aplomb” JAZZIZ

“…confident, full-throttle drumming. Even the most secular ears should find Kiermyer compelling…he is a polyrhythmic whirlwind…this is the real thing…marvelous, powerfully affirmative music.”OPTION

“…a striking new voice of the jazz vanguard…a daring composer…” SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY

“Kiermyer is a give-no-quarter kind of drummer for whom the word intense would be too mild. He Burns.” THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

"love your new album…obviously…wow! let me know when you next visit London would be great to meet! Played a track on my last show!"GILLES PETERSON WORLDWIDE

“Kiermyer is a drummer who follows his own muse, creating a sound of yearning and revelation…derived from an intensely personal sensibility.” JAZZ TIMES

“Drummer Franklin Kiermyer’s Further … the intensity of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. There’s a big sense of space in this live recording and a thrilling sense of ambience.”SOUNDSTAGE EXPERIENCE UK

“Imagine if drummer Elvin Jones and Pianist McCoy Tyner had not left the John Coltrane Quartet in early 1966 and had spent another year with the great saxophonist; it might have sounded something like this.” L.A. JAZZ SCENE

“Franklin Kiermyer’s FURTHER : a relentless pulse that conveys incredible strength … a sublime spirituality that envelops the entire album”JAZZ COLOURS Italy

"A ferocious player capable of temporal elasticity and densely muscular pulses ... both transcendent and crackles with a visceral vitality…They imbue every tune with originality and a brilliant and imaginative urgency."ALL ABOUT JAZZ

“This is a monumental album…Franklin Kiermyer’s Solomon’s Daughter” VIBE

“One of the most emotionally charged recordings I’ve heard in years…packs such a punch it’s just a bit difficult to talk about with mere words…you won’t find anything better than this date.” JAZZ & BLUES REPORT

“A drummer with an Elvin Jones-like intensity, searching and extending the search. This isn’t free jazz, nor is it out jazz. This is methodically realized composition in the modal jazz idiom that reveals its unquenchable desire in every bar. (Think of Coltrane’s Africa Brass sessions with the spiritual and emotional underpinnings of A Love Supreme and you can glimpse it.”ALL MUSIC GUIDE

"Further has shaken me...art worthy of repeated contemplation, songs that function as prayers as much as they function as the catalytic altar calls. These guys bring it and those of us with ears, all throughout heaven and earth, are blessed to receive these sounds."NEXTBOP

“Drummer Franklin Kiermyer supplies Pharoah Sanders with some of the tenor man’s most memorable sideman dates of his entire career while also providing a forum for Sanders’ best playing in seemingly decades of recordings.” ONE FINAL NOTE

"Few musicians approach the music from the same spiritual wellspring that “Trane” did...Fiery, the musical equivalent of a perfect storm: It explodes and takes you for a ride. The playing is superb."MTV / VH1.COM

“…a jazz master at work…as forceful as a thunderstorm…a terrific band…” TIMES HERALD RECORD

“…commanding presence…Franklin Kiermyer is driven.” NOW MAGAZINE

“An explosive player with incredible endurance…remarkably intense.” DRUM!

“Kiermyer sounds like Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali wrapped up into a furious, thunderous package; he must be one of the most exciting and intense drummers around.” THE WIRE

"a cohesive work that is both transcendent and crackles with a visceral vitality. They imbue every tune with originality and a brilliant and imaginative urgency. Kiermyer has expanded upon his previous achievements to create a luminous work of sophisticated expression and spirited, poignant turmoil. The seamless blend of the provocative and the sacred is exquisite and borders on perfection."EXYSTENCE

"Par sa ferveur et sa sincérité, par la vibration qui parcourt toute sa musique d’un intense frisson, le quartet impose le respect. Non seulement Franklin Kiermyer est un batteur à la très forte présence, un technicien du foisonnement, mais il est entouré de musiciens qui parlent la même langue et partagent un même élan spirituel. Leur chant choral mérite l’attention : il prouve qu’à défaut de défricher des terres inconnues, l’esprit qui l’habite continue à produire des effets magnétiques." CITIZEN JAZZ France

“…pushing each other past the red-line uprising heights of ecstasy. Ecstasy is the operative word.”THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL

"Drummer Franklin Kiermyer's new "Further"...soaring beauty and soul spoken in the timeless language of 1960s John Coltrane; it's the godstruth real thing, "Transition" meets "Expression" at "Impressions."METALJAZZ

“American Ecstatic Music!!!! Thanks for all the beauty.” VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO

"Unquestionably, one of the finest recordings I have heard in years! Franklin Kiermyer has done it again!"WPRB-FM

"Moving, intense and memorable."BLUE LAKE PUBLIC RADIO

"The music is spiritual in that it reflects the vibrations of the world. I love Kiermyer's philosophy and polyrhythmic style."JAKE FEINBERG SHOW

"Master drummer and composer Franklin Kiermyer...a flowing, cosmic journey which is both calm and storm-like simultaneously...explodes with fire-breathing drums...ever tight and transcendent! If I didn't know better, I would think that this is Interstellar Space. Pretty *%)@!‡fl amazing from beginning to the end!" DOWNTOWN MUSIC GALLERY

"Drummer Franklin Kiermyer takes the legacy of the great spiritual jazz players like Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane and brings the sound into the 21st century with this excellent album of challenging and bracing jazz. The music is extremely powerful and emotionally resonant." JAZZANDBLUES.BLOGSPOT.COM

"Kiermyer is on a musical spiritual journey of grounded spontaneous discovery and transcendent rapture."CHLY-FM

"Franklin Kiermyer... one of this year's aural highlights... The drummer pulses and pushes his group... What a journey, what a view."WASHINGTON CITY PAPER

"Intense and rewards repeated listening... with a strong spiritual content."KUSP-FM

"Terrifically evocative... shows how meditative states can be achieved within the heart of a hurricane."BIRD IS THE WORM

"Sa batterie est le centre de gravité, de haute pression, d'un passage en force, d'élans et d'éjections sans cesse recommencés et exaltés, d'une urgence passionnée d'hommes que le sentiment de l'irrémédiable découverte anime, harcèle peut-être. A ce jeu qui ne laisse aux musiciens que le choix de pousser en avant... "IMPROJAZZ France

"Invokes the passionate intensity of Coltrane's Sunship... textures drawn from traditions as diverse as Mbuti singing and Native American chants balanced by Kiermyer's ecstatic drumming."RARU South Africa

"There may not be a quartet out there that best picks up where the Coltrane Quartet left off than drummer Franklin Kiermyer’s Scatter The Atoms That Remain." NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

***** "Immediately from the first song I was hit by the immediate and raw energy ... this album has everything ... Closer To the Sun is an excellent album full of honest music from a fantastic, acoustic jazz quartet." SKJAZZ