So I've been redoing these openings basically every year, and recently that's settled into happening around this time. The reason I do it is simple: I prefer to present my thoughts here in chronological order — meaning that the most recent entry is at the end — & don't want this page to become too long, or for the opening remarks to become too dated. Of course, that leaves me looking for something new to say to introduce this project every year, and so I generally end up repeating much of what I said the previous year. (There's thus a whole series of intros, for anyone who likes intros!)
And when I started this project, I didn't have a clear idea of what I'd discuss, but it's become almost entirely reviews of album releases. In turn, that leads to various thoughts on criteria by which I might choose what to discuss: My original (& ongoing) motivation here has to do with social interactions, and so I'm generally interested in trios or somewhat larger groups. (Sometimes I say "two is company, but three brings the world..." — while in larger groups, it doesn't always seem that everyone's participation is important.) That said, particularly compared to earlier years, there've come to be far more albums being released that fit interests I've (already) expressed here, such that I'm also often needing to pick & choose.... I do come to feel a sense of guilt about this too, with worthwhile releases being neglected, such that I've also come to find myself noting more releases without really reviewing them.... I guess that fits with the sort of tangents-filled style I tend to develop here anyway.
I also try to drive myself to seek different sounds & projects, although of course I find many familiarities too.... So such an impulse can lead to discussing various exploratory releases, musicians searching for new sounds & interactive ideas, more so than necessarily coming to a finished product.... (That's part of improvising.) So I do try to interrogate usefulness as well, i.e. how the music might function in my life (or that of others...) in some way (including prospectively). This project is then part of a decolonizing project as well, and so a remark on the meaning of "jazz" seem warranted: As noted, I started in this space relatively unsure of how I would proceed, but jazz as a term is clearly grounded in specifically African-American musical creativity, while I now also hear its original "decolonizing" impetus proceed more broadly & into a post-jazz world.... (So sometimes I think I should change the title here, but sometimes I think it's perfect. Labeling is always fraught anyway, at least for anything worthwhile.)
Focusing more on recordings over the years (as I'm often more tired these days, and don't get out as much...) has also meant that almost everything I hear for this space is already mediated by electronics. It's part of the recording process. And then I've also come to rely almost exclusively on listening to music, i.e. without visuals: I confess I don't tend e.g. to watch most of the videos available. I'm increasingly sound oriented, and don't tend to read comments either until after I've heard something. (I mean, there're things to learn from watching, and it would probably answer some questions I have sometimes, but it just hasn't been much of a part of my process. I don't enjoy staring at screens. While I'm writing something like this, for instance, I regularly look away to collect my thoughts....) And yes, I feel self-conscious about so much first person writing too, but it does seem to be the nature of an intro....
Anyway, here are also the links I usually put here for some of my other (theoretical, knowledge project) writing — e.g. the big Postmodern Aesthetics (2019) & the still ongoing Decolonizing Tech serial (2020-) — as well as to my list of favorite albums in this space. (The latter is relatively short, ordered chronologically. Anything I mention here is generally worth hearing, though....) So hopefully some of this will continue to be useful....
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org>Back in February, I reviewed Behenii I from a trio out of Barcelona: I was especially distracted at the time with the pending move of my residence (now in the past...), and so wrote a relatively brief review. Then I decided there was more to discuss, and while I sometimes write a second review under those circumstances, in this case I decided to await the presumed Behenii II.... Well, I still anticipate that second (implied) volume at some point, but two of the performers from Behenii — El Pricto (modular synthesizer) & Vasco Trilla (drums, percussion) — have already recorded (this past January) a new duo album together, eiπ + 1 = 0. They also already named their duo General Ludd, and its first album (Snow Crash, from way back in 2020...) is rather different, with Pricto still playing saxophone (modified with electronics, plus additional programming at times...), but also involving various rock evocations, swells etc. And the rock influence is still audible at times for Behenii I (or at least its echoes...), there alternating with "smoother" sound-based articulations (as e.g. already explored by Trilla on the stark Implositions, a trio album with Matthias Müller released by Orbit 577 in Brooklyn, but recorded in Barcelona by Pricto & reviewed here back in June 2021...), together becoming transfigured or transformed through the program.... That shift or development continues strikingly for eiπ + 1 = 0 (Euler's identity) then, with little invocation of genre — & coming soon after. Regarding the "rock" genre though, it's probably worth citing specifically "heavy metal" here: I'm not especially familiar with the intricacies of sub-genre history for these (late 20th century) popular music branches, but metal (per se) sounds feature prominently throughout (& e.g. for Trilla's solo work too, most recently The Bell Slept Long In Its Tower, released on Sweden's Thanatosis Produktion...), so the label can be rather literal. I might then compare Pricto & his work in general (including as a producer...) with Weasel Walter's: There's a lot of metal (if "no wave" in Walter's case...), a lot of speed, and generally a fascination with technology & darkness (i.e. the occult). (It might be fair to describe Walter's image as intentionally "too much" & similar comments may apply here. In Pricto's case, I've also started thinking of Venezuela & e.g. Gabriel García-Márquez....) Actually, I should immediately pair "darkness" with light here too, because Pricto (aka Andrés Rojas) explicitly evokes gnosticism at times. And so there's a broader "occult" sense at work as well here that music might be a means of tapping directly into power (or else feel like an expression of such power...). The new duo album even takes on the immanence-transcendence dual explicitly, both in its track titles & its conception of indistinction between the players. (I.e., what is self & what is non-self?) There's also — perhaps consequently — a sense of spatial exploration here, i.e. spacey (post-industrial...) in some also-broad sense, pace e.g. my recent review of One Third Of The Sun (in July), involving as well senses of smoothness (& perhaps even "metal" there too, specifically from Lebanese bassist Raed Yassin): Perhaps the conflation or intertwining of immanence & transcendence by Pricto et al. figures more an "inner space" then. (I'm indeed feeling my own associations around "space" being rewired of late....) As indeterminacy between players also already suggests, there's a broad sense of hybridity & extension forged here as well: There're various senses of anticipation, a little less mechanical intricacy (than the trio on Behenii I, with Don Malfon...), but often a sort of rumbling quasi-hocket, maybe a little funky or halting at times, but yielding a relatively focused sound stream (even, once again, a sense of floating...), seemingly even becoming plaintive at times (as the synth can sometimes sound like one or more horns...). The overall sound often suggests more mystery than aggression then. Yet, there's still the rush of metal, e.g. tinkling accents for a rumbling, flowing stream.... [Euler's identity] can thus be a little thin (or focused) in the typical ways that duo albums can be scarce on (e.g. rhythmic) inputs sometimes, but there're some great interactions too, and apparently developing along an arc forging a new & distinctive post-metal/industrial voice....
10 September 2024And then Udo Schindler continues to be one of the most prolific horn players in this space: I'd only just reviewed his Disturbed Terrains in July (& right before that, noted Ephemeral Locations with Paul Rogers, with whom Schindler will also be releasing a new duo album on Confront...), but do want to add some thoughts already on the new trio album Soundforge Laboratory, recorded live this April in Munich with Karina Erhard (flutes) & Noid (cello) (& with Schindler entirely on clarinets...). From my perspective, Soundforge Laboratory is a followup to Dense Bushes with Delicate Chirps (reviewed here in February this year) already with Erhard plus Irene Kepl on violin. The switch to the lower register cello alongside the woodwinds yields a much longer album then, roughly twice the length, various held tones & drones extending passages & figures temporally. (The lower register of the cello also involves fewer textural clashes than violin, i.e. both less "density" & a greater sense of space & resonance.) However, even without the "dense bushes," the "delicate chirps" do often remain, slowly shifting textures involving as well lines that maintain their continuity, sometimes at quite leisurely paces. The pregnant, quasi-lyrical opening immediately captivates me though, and there're then plenty of other fine, textural-line interactions throughout the album, which does nonetheless come off as exhaustingly long sometimes.... In any case, as noted around other recent Schindler releases, he often prefers duos, and in this case, already published (on Bandcamp in July) a duo album with Noid (aka Arnold Haberl of Vienna, b.1970), Sound Forge Dialogues (recorded the day before the trio): That album can seem rather tentative to start, but does tauten & intensify around similar dynamics, i.e. austere drones against more cheerful quasi-melodic snippets & extended continuities.... (Adding flute seems like a perfect plan, actually!) And then Erhard — who, pace my earlier comments regarding Eric Zwang Eriksson, is specifically one of Schindler's main trio partners — had already returned (after Dense Bushes with Delicate Chirps, recorded in September 2023) with Oscillating Soundscapes (recorded in October 2023) with Korhan Erel — the latter mentioned here already with Schindler for the trio Sound Energy Transformation (with Sebi Tramontana, as reviewed February 2018): Their prior trio album Surfiction (from 2022) does seem more coherent.... I hadn't noted Noid here previously, though. And then per Dense Bushes with Delicate Chirps, there's quite a bit of naturalism evoked by Soundforge Laboratory, but also more variety of open & flowing textures (maybe almost spacey, pace foregoing thoughts here...). I'm also particularly appreciating the place (i.e. register) of the cello: Schindler has been recording regularly with a series of double bassists (i.e. in his Low Tone Studies series, often involving low horns himself as well...), and then of course there was violin recently, but the tenor (middle) range for a string interaction appears to prompt some wonderful new textures & (sometimes inverting) vistas.... (The "sound installation" experience from Noid also seems to be a welcome factor, particularly in the resulting probing of acoustic space. An "indoor" vibe thus contrasts with e.g. the zoomimesis of other passages, sometimes even leading to some jazzier sequences....) So what are the political implications of a project such as this? For one, exploring new ways (including tunings) for interacting musically is, at least in principle, decolonizing. And then there's the feel for line that Schindler in particular brings to his playing, senses of continuity & movement, a kind of history (or historical enactment, I might say...) that quite simply never gets "stuck." (Time itself could even be said to dilate here instead....) In this music, there're consequently always paths forward — so many in fact, that they still need much (laboratory...) exploring!
11 September 2024The quartet of Tomeka Reid, Taylor Ho Bynum, Kyoko Kitamura & Joe Morris — now calling itself "Geometry" in production credits — is back with its fourth album for Relative Pitch, Geometry of Phenomena, recorded at Firehouse 12 in September 2023: All four albums have apparently been studio albums (& I don't know if the quartet ever performs live...), with the first, Geometry of Caves (recorded back in December 2016) immediately catching my attention (pace a June 2018 review). Besides the instrumentalists, who've all already been leaders in their fields (& Morris across multiple instruments these days, but he's been exclusively on guitar for Geometry...), a defining factor in my appreciation has certainly been Kitamura's vocalizing (& singing per se...), continuing with much of the style she's developed with Anthony Braxton (especially as documented on 12 Duets (DCWM) 2012...), but I've also appreciated e.g. how Ho Bynum has been able to use cornet (along with flugelhorn here) to enhance background textures too. (Those two are sometimes intertwined on Geometry of Phenomena, producing e.g. slow composite "screams" that can be highly affective....) And then Morris seems often to engage in these sorts of ongoing quick string duo exchanges, as he does here with Reid, and had e.g. with Brad Barrett on Geologic Time — also featuring Ho Bynum, as it happens. (And I don't know the full performance history of Ho Bynum with Morris, but e.g. I'd reviewed them together with Next in July 2011. Or it might be more accurate to say that I briefly discussed my confusion around their idioms....) The latter album, recorded four months prior, did also just make a tremendous impression (at least on me), so it feels strange to be reviewing (& enthusiastically!) another album with the two of them so soon after (& with Reid on cello in a somewhat similar role...), but of course there are differences: Barrett is more centered on Geologic Time (with both of these albums being well over an hour...), with a technical string praxis oriented more around slack & bent tones, a sort of "outdoorsy" ease perhaps, sometimes figured in windswept passages.... But then Geometry is more quick & even fractured (or brittle?) in its exchange of figures — & of course involves voice — but with various prior influences sounding through as well, including indeed (especially from Ho Bynum) those sorts of Western landscapes.... (Ho Bynum has been very much expanding his "background" articulation techniques across these interactions with Morris....) Collective timbres continue to be explored & expanded too, including e.g. briefly sounding like a piano to open the album, senses of noise, senses of austerity too (& perhaps even some of that new age "floating" vibe that I've been mentioning...). And as these remarks might already have suggested, I've particularly enjoyed Geometry of Phenomena as well, making for a strong impression right from the beginning: It greatly extends Geometry of Caves (which did make a big impression too...), and overcomes what I might call some of the limits of the intervening (yet worth hearing) Geometry of Distance (reviewed December 2019) & Geometry of Trees (already a post-pandemic recording, reviewed here May 2022), both of which can seem a little more focused around a member of the quartet. The release of Geometry of Phenomena does reaffirm the quartet's "acceptance of communal responsibility and creation" in words however, and seemingly does so more in sound too. (So perhaps I should go on to remark explicitly on my habit of including a single musician's name along with albums on my "favorites" list: It's an old-fashioned practice, but I've felt as though the alternative — i.e. not including anyone's name — is simply "less" for the reader. Or I guess I could list everyone and have a bulky list.... And often it's clear that if there's to be one name, which one it should be, but that wasn't the case for the first Geometry, and isn't the case here — whereas for the second and third albums, I'd've listed Ho Bynum & Kitamura respectively. And so here I've defaulted to Morris as the senior participant... although Reid is actually listed first elsewhere for both. And even now, I'm finding Reid's quasi-ubiquitous contribution on Geometry of Phenomena to be impossible to summarize, so maybe that's a sign of real leadership....) And then whereas this could be figured as a vocal album in general — & so e.g. compared to recent favorites L'âge de l'oreille & Rune Kitchen (& maybe even to Light air still gets dark in some more quiet & "throttled" sections...) — there're various points where the instrumental trio does drive the music as well. Perhaps it's fair to observe then that there's simply more, at this point anyway, to this ongoing quartet than there is to even some other favorite trio albums... as after all, there're four trios within every quartet — albeit rarely explored simultaneously. (And perhaps I should remark too on the general phenomenon of reviewing the same ensemble in subsequent albums: There're fewer opportunities to do so in this space than might be anticipated, but of course it's always tempting to review a followup album with reference only to the ensemble's own output — i.e. a strong urge to compare them to themselves. There's thus a more insular quality to this sort of discussion, elaborations of group style almost seemingly needing to be matched by elaborations of descriptive language....) And then this is also Geometry's first high-def recording — with more of an "electric" cover, and with Morris also using some effects at times, but this isn't really an electroacoustic album, at least not in a relative sense.... There's perhaps more of a sense of mystery cultivated for this fourth outing, though (& there'd always been senses of players hiding behind others at times...), spatial at times as well, flowing, figuring narrativity (presumably as glimpsed through the ongoing track titles... but also via playing with senses of tempo) too, and then ending abruptly.
16 September 2024English physicist turned saxophonist John Butcher is also back with three new albums. After releasing a series of LPs on Ni Vu Ni Connu from the November 2019 John Butcher Festival at Ausland (as reviewed here in February 2022), there's now the quartet Unlockings (recorded in London in April 2022). So particularly given the release history, this new quartet album appears with some fanfare, including similar comments as those around Fluid Fixations (recorded in 2021 & reviewed this April) regarding composition & choosing of collaborators. Unlockings is a smaller ensemble, however, and seemingly more preliminary in its expressions: Joining Butcher are Angharad Davies, Mark Sanders & Pat Thomas — all from Fluid Fixations (as were also e.g. John Edwards & Ståle Liavik Solberg, to appear again below...) — with Davies already appearing in various similar contexts with Butcher (e.g. Nodosus, reviewed April 2022...), Thomas appearing quite often lately, and then Sanders more often in "jazzier" settings. (I can still pick out e.g. some of the latter's characteristic hand drums in a few passages, but percussion here is usually much more about rubbed metal & smooth articulations....) For Davies & Thomas, collaborating with Butcher also goes back to Common Objects — whose quartet release Whitewashed with Lines (reviewed here June 2015) presents something of a similar ensemble interaction (albeit with harp instead of drums) — which only became a quartet for its second release by adding Davies, then later Thomas as well for the sextet (now doubling both violin & electronics...) Skullmarks (reviewed February 2019). So Unlockings does seem like a new project, i.e. taking some of Butcher's previous interactions & seeking to pare them down & intensify them, but does also take up prior collaborations. Consequently it can be austere, not that the individual sounds (e.g. high twittering...) can't be wild, but they're generally framed within a quiet tapestry, spaced & presented in a measured approach, i.e. cultivating a sense of timbral dimensionality & mapping. (And as it happens, this is exactly the image I summoned for Ernesto Rodrigues's Coluro, reviewed July 2018: I talked there of "spanning" space with "independent" vectors of timbre....) In Butcher's case though, this comes off as more about psychoacoustic space, i.e. not simply as physical, but around human response & personalities as well. (There's also a simultaneous release of a series of duos with Butcher on Ni Vu Ni Connu, Lower Marsh, recorded on the same day with the same musicians, plus a couple of duos with Edwards recorded already that February. Perhaps Edwards was desired for Unlockings too then? The bass register ends up being handled more by drums & sometimes electronics....) There thus seems also to be quite a bit of coordination already existing within this quartet, and even a sense of taking turns. Rarely is the sound very dense, not a lot of simultaneity (as each figure is usually given/establishing space, i.e. as basically a subset of the larger "sonic dimensionality" on Fluid Fixations...), but there's often a sense of anticipation, pace e.g. a variety of calls at odd angles. Sometimes the vibe is a sort of spacey noir. There's thus also a sort of overall (preexisting?) calm, but not much calming per se.... Shall we expect more in this direction? Unlockings seems to be a (new?) beginning.
And then the new trio albums, The Glass Changes Shape (recorded in Köln in September 2023, released by Relative Pitch) & Volatile Object (recorded in London in January 2023, released by Trost) seem to be less about "striving" specifically in the broad "new music" arena, and more about hearkening to classic free jazz albums, or rather forging another potent new mix.... The latter reprises the trio — with Thomas (now on jazzy piano to open the album, but back on spacey electric keyboards for the second half...) & Solberg from Fictional Souvenirs (reviewed here May 2019), tricky rhythms & agitations, then becoming more atmospheric & mysterious.... (And do note that I'd cited Fictional Souvenirs & Last Dream of the Morning — the latter being Butcher's trio with Sanders & Edwards — in the same sentence for my April review of Fluid Fixations: As it happens, Last Dream of the Morning's second album — featuring e.g. primitivism around hand drums — Crucial Anatomy, was also released by Trost, in 2020....) And then the former presents likewise the second album by a trio around Butcher, also more hybrid (& not represented in these earlier productions...), with guitarist Florian Stoffner & Chris Corsano joining Butcher again to reprise their (recorded in May 2022, released in 2023) Hat Hut album, Braids (& with this new album not officially releasing until October...): Jazzier passages alternate with smoother/slower passages, again cultivating a sort of noir vibe or even a nocturne style at times, again senses of dimensionality & varying material, including into some electric (e.g. bent tone) weirdness, a kind of "comings & goings" style at times too, gathering momentum — but still proceeding more via contrast & alternation, including some noisier passages (including some rather jazzy sax), more traditional drumming, etc. (Stoffner had actually appeared here most recently with Na Parede, from quartet The Wall, reviewed January this year as a subscriber album from Catalytic Sound.... And I haven't heard as much from Corsano lately, although he's been prolific in the past, most recently reviewing here his duo with Christine Abdelnour, Quand fond la neige, où va le blanc?, also from Relative Pitch, back in May 2019....) A potentially worthwhile comparison here with another Butcher trio album then concerns Induction (recorded in June 2019, and included in the first Butcher series from Ni Vu Ni Connu...), generally more transfigured (i.e. no jazzy alternations...) around shimmering metal & extended senses of animation, long calls & elemental continuities... so almost outdoorsy again. And those sorts of "acoustics" explorations do figure a lot of my ongoing interest in Butcher & his work, but some jazzier & more angular articulations — as with these recent trios — can have an appeal of their own. Perhaps (versus the more exploratory Unlockings...) they can still even be heard as protest music. (And then I guess I should remark that it can be challenging to get a picture of what Butcher is doing when releases appear years later & out of order: The relatively hybrid The Glass Changes Shape is the most recently recorded album from this double entry....)
17 September 2024As I do keep referring to larger productions this week anyway, I also want to discuss the new Marconi's Drift from soprano sax legend Evan Parker's "Trance Map+" project, here called Transatlantic Trance Map. Beyond the size of the ensemble (a 13tet overall), Marconi's Drift is then also an exploration of the trend for distance recording, with Parker & six other musicians in Faversham, UK while six different musicians were at Roulette in Brooklyn, "together" via software on one date in December 2022. (Another recent example of this distance recording trend, again coming soon from Relative Pitch pace the previous two entries, is the duo album Band Width from Jon Rose & Mark Dresser....) Transatlantic Trance Map thus continues Parker's Trance Map duo project with Matthew Wright (turntable, live sampling & processing) — originally with their Trance Map duo album (released in 2011 on Psi) & with a new duo album supposedly forthcoming also from Relative Pitch, per the project page for Marconi's Drift... — documenting the largest such ensemble yet: After the original duo album (which I didn't notice at the time...), they released two Trance Map+ albums, the quintet (made explicitly for falling asleep...) Crepuscule in Nickelsdorf on Intakt (as reviewed here August 2019) & the trio Grounded Abstraction on FMR (reviewed October 2022), although their accompanying discussion here does state that they've been engaging in "streamed and networked performances" since 2020 (with the pandemic surely having played a major role...). So, Marconi's Drift — released on the False Walls label, originally (twenty-some years ago...) in Chicago, but relaunched in 2021 from the UK, and already having released a duo album with Parker & electronics artist Henry Dagg in 2022, Then Through Now... — documents a new (or at least new to me...) step in complexity for this project. But the Trance Map+ project is also seemingly converging with Parker's longtime Electro Acoustic Ensemble: The latter's most recent album, Warszawa 2019 (a 10tet, released after a gap of nine years...) does already include Wright (although Trance Map has not included Paul Lytton, a defining participant of the Electro Acoustic Ensemble...) as well as e.g. prominent trumpet & piano. But whereas the Electro Acoustic Ensemble is more live-processed, Marconi's Drift involved extensive post-production from Wright. (Parker states that the post-production brings out aspects of the sound that were not audible on the live date.) There're also other collaborators to note (all of whom were already known or well-known): Pat Thomas (so prolific lately, albeit often in jazzier settings than I typically review...) is on live electronics in the UK, joined by Peter Evans on trumpet, Robert Jarvis (from Grounded Abstraction) on trombone, Hannah Marshall on cello (also from e.g. Fluid Fixations...) & Alex Ward (clarinet). On the US side, Mat Maneri & Craig Taborn are back already from (the unrelated) Lifetime Rebel from Joëlle Léandre (just reviewed here this July...), plus Ned Rothenberg on woodwinds (paralleling Parker, who's in shadow behind Rothenberg for the cover...) & Sylvie Courvoisier (piano & keyboard), and then more live electronics from Ikue Mori & Sam Pluta. So how much of this is really audible? I guess that's what the post-production is about, but whereas Parker's characteristic swirling/circular soprano features in the single track program both early & late (followed by a "mysterious" metallic/industrial/echoing coda...), in the long middle sections there're a wide variety of timbral combos & interactions, generally less coherent (than Warszawa 2019...), i.e. with a lot of skulking (waiting...) through the first half, then more into hocketing passagework for the second (announced with a "traffic" swell/vibe...), eventually into a sort of horn choir in longer tones, back then to Parker as noted.... So I'd say the first half lacks some gravity, with players obviously trying to get their bearings (& a sort of "distant radio transmissions" vibe maintaining, for obvious reasons...), but I expect it was a good learning experience as well. Is this sort of production really going to be a trend? I have the feeling that this might be how Parker (& others?) are doing larger groups in the future.... (This project does seem to be Parker's creative focus these days.) And as noted in the new intro above, I don't generally favor larger groups, but there's actually plenty to hear in this investigation (e.g. various details that arise...), including around what does seem to be a broadly emerging trend toward more (technologically) distributed playing (& in turn toward more post-production...?).
[ And the new Trance Map duo album, Horizons Held Close, has appeared — indeed from Relative Pitch (pre-release already on Bandcamp...) — before I've even managed to write the next entry here — as has a quadruple album of Parker solo performances, also from False Walls, The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc.! And the former can suggest considerable continuity with the latter, in fact, particularly since Parker plays with acoustic delays & resonance in his solo work: The duo interactions on Horizons Held Close do seem to reflect an almost generic interfacing of Parker's more intimate solo explorations with the outside world, and so in turn with broader ensembles (& hence wider ideas...) via the Trance Map+ project. - 10/04/24 ]
18 September 2024The (as yet) unnamed trio of Marcello Magliocchi (drums & percussion), Adrian Northover (soprano sax) & Bruno Gussoni (flutes) recorded their first album The Sea Of Frogs back in 2019 (i.e. before the pandemic, reviewed here January 2020...), and now return with at least their fourth release, Scant (recorded across two days in studio in Monteggiori, Italy this past July). I'd reviewed their third album (assuming I've noticed them all...) The House On The Hill in November 2023, that release from London's Shrike Records, but now want to go on to note the increasingly intricate collective interaction on Scant — again with a variety of shorter, titled tracks. As the album title suggests, there's also an air of minimalism to the interaction, but it's not especially minimal (except perhaps as concerns dynamics...), with a variety of (often metallic) percussion chiming subtly or (e.g. skins) shaping proceedings alongside winds that are articulating relatively longer tones, i.e. exploring layered resonances, but also developing quasi-melodic figurations. (A natural comparison is then with ongoing spectral explorations from Udo Schindler, e.g. Soundforge Laboratory from last month, also a trio with reed & flute....) There's generally a quiet quality to Scant then (& perhaps the recording, self-released on Magliocchi's Bandcamp, would benefit from more presence...), but involving a sophisticated (& relatively assertive) sense of material that might also suggest a reduction from more classic jazz quintets (or the not quite "classic" — but with Northover & Magliocchi, plus Neil Metcalfe on flute — Runcible Quintet, e.g. per Four, also being an entirely pre-pandemic series...): I'd noted of Runcible (back in the first review, May 2017) how Magliocchi served as the focal point for two interlocking trios, and similarly here, we have basically two simultaneous horn duos — with the horns also buoying each other in turn via intertwining resonances. So there can be a sense of primitivism overall, and of course this is a world without strings or chordal instruments..., including e.g. some twittering zoomimesis (& bent tones across the ensemble...), but also close "acoustic" attention, breathy at times, again becoming quasi-melodic between the winds.... (Tracks tend to build, so the track breaks return to a quieter foundation for a restart. A lively quality continues to emerge....) And then to update connections, Northover had only just appeared again here with Salute To The Rabid Raspberry (reviewed in July, only a few days before Scant was recorded...), while I still don't know Gussoni from anywhere else.... Meanwhile Magliocchi released recently a followup to his Leocantor Trio album from earlier this year (from FMR) — adding church organ to his duo with violinist Matthias Boss from Schnellissimo, the latter as reviewed here January 2023... — adding a second organist for the self-released Sacre de l'été (recorded this August): There're increasingly distinctive & creative textures (at times) from that group, although I wouldn't say that their albums are (as yet) especially coherent overall.... (And besides Boss, Magliocchi has made multiple albums with violinist Stefania Ladisa as well, including e.g. the 2023 FMR release Dall'Introspezione all'Interazione in trio with Northover.... So combos with violin must appeal to him.) However, it's the trio with Northover & Gussoni, now with Scant, that seems to be exploring especially fertile territory — even if its releases remain relatively obscure.
7 October 2024Another ongoing formation is then the "trombone trio" from Der Dritte Stand (reviewed here May 2022): Matthias Müller, Matthias Bauer & Rudi Fischerlehner are back with Spontaneous Live Series 015 (from Dragon Social Club's Spontaneous Live Series from Poznan, Poland...), recorded October 2023: The single track is a little shorter than their previous multi-track album (released by Not Applicable), while generally maintaining a degree of continuity, i.e. moving through some more minimalist textures, but also involving some deep growling & furious spinning intensity at times — ending in rousing applause. And I'd previously noted Der Dritte Stand for its exploration of a basic "free jazz" configuration, which is of course not new to them (pace e.g. BassDrumBone, which recently released its 11th album, Afternoon...), and so also involves a little more "inside" than typical here.... (For more of an "outside" tapestry then, let me also mention the new Shift #1, an EP from Ictus recorded in October 2022 and featuring US trombone master Steve Swell with electric guitarist Elliott Sharp & percussionist Andrea Centazzo: The result is an almost opposite sort of twittering, metallic jungle — almost orchestral via electronics.) There's certainly a sense of e.g. frustration & release here (sometimes itself rhetorical...), but also sometimes more atmospheric explorations around (sometimes more procedural) continuity, generating some unique textural passages.... So I did want to note this followup from Der Dritte Stand, including so as to note the label (which spun off from the more established, but quiet lately, Multikulti Project...), which did release another album with Fischerlehner at the same time too (as many of their releases seem to be in pairs...), Spontaneous Live Series 014 with Marta Warelis & Florian Stoffner: Both are highly prolific lately as well, but Stoffner in particular seems suddenly to be "everywhere," including a new trio album on Wide Ear, Die Exorzistin with Rudi Mahall & Michael Griener, i.e. right on the heels of The Glass Changes Shape (as reviewed here only last month...). And then Müller continues to appear in more places too, (here) most recently with John Butcher's Fluid Fixations ensemble (as reviewed in April), while Bauer was back with the next Dis/con/sent quartet album, München (as reviewed here December 2023), not long after Fischerlehner with "guitar trio" Puna last November.... In any case, even if it made less impression than the original release, I appreciated hearing the live sequel from Der Dritte Stand: The entire Spontaneous Live Series catalog has appeal....
8 October 2024Relatively early in this project, I encountered Jan Klare's quartet "1000" & reviewed their third album Shoe in May 2012. (They're thus a longer running band than the two trios with albums just reviewed above....) The name of the group refers to a millennium of musical repertory, selections from which were arranged by Klare for jazz treatments, and I did enjoy the resulting polyphony-rich approach (for obvious reasons, per some of the "early music" influences...). 1000 also came to incorporate inspirations from traditional world music, but was more compositions-based than I ended up prioritizing here (& also with more originals, versus continuing to draw straight from older repertory...), and so I did lose track of them: It turns out that there's e.g. a sextet version "2000" (with Steve Swell & cellist Elisabeth Coudoux, the latter most recently appearing here with Pascal Niggenkemper's Beat the odds, in an April 2023 review...) that released Plant in 2019, and then a post-pandemic album Eintausend spielt OCJ (recorded in 2021) that returned to a quartet (again with Bart Maris, Wilbert de Joode & Michael Vatcher) but now playing more intricate "contemporary jazz orchestra" repertory. And both trends continue with the new Unrepeatable (recorded in September 2022 & released this month on Umland Records) from related quintet "3000," i.e. with Klare on alto sax & flute & trombonist Swell returning, the music now apparently entirely improvised: The two tracks were recorded across two different sessions on the same date, and do feature slower sections, e.g. gatherings of forces or more intimate reductions, but also (still) various wonderfully polyphonic passages between the horns (with the double brass & flute combo being especially appealing...) across what is basically a "free jazz" sort of ensemble dynamic. The different senses of timing (& sometimes longer articulations...) between the lines are especially sophisticated too (perhaps almost recalling an older, New Orleans-esque revelry at times...), often lending the feel of open textures, i.e. despite the intertwining lines & sometimes boisterous activity. (The slower sections even seem in hindsight to have been functional, as I'm ultimately left listening to my own thoughts once the music subsides....) And then I haven't heard much from most members of 1000 in the intervening years, although de Joode is an exception, being e.g. a fixture with Achim Kaufmann & Frank Gratkowski & their augmented bands... (first being named here only with that trio's own fourth album, Geäder, in a January 2015 review...) — while Swell sometimes seems to specialize in being an "addition" to existing bands (e.g. already with the Carlo Costa Quartet & Sediment, per a March 2015 review...) & in fact had just been noted here (tangentially) in the previous entry with Shift #1! In any case, the many years of interactions, involving a wide range of material (with references coming to be much less explicit too...), have obviously given the core quartet a strong foundation for collective improvising, leading to the long form (& often textural, flowing...) tapestries of Unrepeatable.
11 October 2024