PRESS

The Wire Magazine: Review - September 2024 Issue "A singular compositional voice is manifested at all times" - All Of the Colours Are Singing" (AKP Recordings)

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Chicago Reader: March 2024 "Honolulu guitarist Jessica Ackerley meets Chicago’s improvised music community for the first time"

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The Wire Magazine: Feature - October  2023 Issue: Feature 

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Pitchfork: 2022 Review "While they work steadily toward a blended identity, they frequently veer off into a series of fascinating side conversations." 

- "Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster" (577 Records, 2022)

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The Wire Magazine: September  2022 Issue "Jessica Ackerley is one of the most exciting guitarists to have emerged from the US free music scene in recent years" 

- "Across Water," "A Maneuver Within," and "Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster" triple album review

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The Wire Magazine: November 2021 Issue "Jessica thinks and and plays fast when they feel like it, throwing knotting balls of notes here and there and strumming furious chords" 

- "Friendship: Lucid Shared Dreams and Time Travel" with Daniel Carter (577 Records, 2021)

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The Quietus "They start with nothing, but most of their careful, meticulously etched exchanges and dialogues are surprisingly tender, illuminating heightened listening and camaraderie." - "Friendship: Lucid Shared Dreams and Time Travel" with Daniel Carter (577 Records, 2021)

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Neu Guitars "One of the best albums of this sad and breathless 2021. Jessica Ackerley is one of the names to follow in the coming years. Highly recommended." - "Morning/mouring" (Cacophonous Revival, 2021) 

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Free Jazz Blog "a rich array of guitar music styles, ranging from deliberate arpeggios to ebullient single-string firecrackers, in other words, a beautiful rush of plink-plonk and tasteful tonal clusters." - "Morning/mouring" (Cacophonous Revival, 2021)

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Dusted Magazine "in their attention to tone, harmony, velocity and structure, these pieces speak as much to intellect as to emotion." - "Morning/mouring" (Cacophonous Revival, 2021)

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The Wire Magazine: January 2020 Issue "For Ackerley, this session is a revelation; her playing here is much more aggressive than the jazz-rooted compositions heard on the albums she sells through her Bandcamp page.” - Bill Meyer - "Exremities" with Patrick Shiroishi (Notice Recordings, 2020)

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Avant News Now  "The result is an endearingly unclassifiable mix of indeterminacy and pattern, restraint and liberation, and intellect and emotion. Like so many people in modern creative music circles in this era, Ackerley and company are completely comfortable in between multiple genres. And that, along with stellar musicianship and writing, is what makes A New Kind of Water so compelling." - "A New Kind of Water" (s/r 2019)

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All About Jazz "With the delightful Coalesce, Jessica Ackerley asserts her artistic identity. Her work demonstrates her independence and refusal to conform, yet it is rooted firmly in that which has influenced her. If she maintains this course Ackerley has a brilliant career ahead of her."- "Coalesce" (s/r 2017)

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Jazz Right Now - "Coalesce showcases Ackerley’s ability to paint with sound, using the guitar as her medium." -"Coalesce" (s/r 2017)

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