By Nick Metzger
Incredible music here from the Belgian duo Poor Isa - augmented this time round with Evan Parker on saxophones and Ingar Zach on percussion. This is the third release from the duo who work mainly in banjos and woodblocks following “let’s drink the sea and dance” in 2019 and “Dissolution of the Other” in 2023. It may sound like a meager palette, and it is, but the duo work serious witchcraft with these tools. Their sorcery spans the gamut from knobby twang to scratchy percussive to eerie daxophonian and to some quietly introspective and surprisingly meaty nodules in between. The players are Frederik Leroux and Ruben Machtelinckx , both prolific collaborators and both primarily of the guitar persuasion. Here their surreal avant-folk project (for lack of a better term) is transported to a different plane altogether with the addition of Evan Parker and the prolific Norwegian drummer Ingar Zach . The elements they bring to bear make for a remarkable listening experience, one full of unique soundscapes and novel amalgamations that feel veritable and emotive in their revelations.
The album is split into five very different pieces with Poor Isa providing their broadest recorded stylistic variations thus far. The first track is called “Clearing” and it begins with eerie floating tones that overlap and dance, seemingly exchanging words. The piece is sparse and warm, slowly building a warbly stasis that Parker interrupts with some of his most careful and probing playing to date, each note feeling properly considered and carefully placed so as not to scare away the fish. On “Ply” Parker plays in popping, honking, squawking birdsong against a spare mixture of shifting rhythms and skeletal, chiming folk drawl. There’s a sharp, simple melody played by one of the banjos that recalls the abrupt toll of a grandfather clock, with the patter of preparations and woodblock sounding like clockwork.
Zach provides sparkling percussive elements as accompaniment for a simple and sombre banjo melody on “Untitled 7”. This whole album is steeped in a heady melancholy that is embodied remarkably well on this piece. Its contemplative pacing yields some headspace to the listener and sets up a quickening on the next track. For “Two way” Poor Isa goes full clawhammer over an understated, yet propulsive rhythm from Zach. The chicken scratching rolls like a river without restrain, coursing in alternating melodies and scuffed drumming. Then Parker joins in and the thing becomes truly extraordinary. Some carefully considered language again from the master reedsman, showing just how versatile and acquiescent his playing can be. The final piece makes up a third of the runtime and is called “Hewn”. Parker starts off delicately with bright serpentine passages played at a half, and then full speed, rousing the banjos into wispy, fingerpicked melodies that Zach accents with bells and chimes. The track is a languid exploration of the sounds on tap for this fellowship and closes the album in careful and pensive fashion.
It’s an excellent record and a unique listen that I’ve been hard pressed to find a good contemporary for. All things said it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard this year. It all works so incredibly well that the disparate elements arrive as multiplicity rather than discord, although there’s still plenty of the latter to be had herein. If I have a single complaint it’s the run time which is a lean 29 minutes - however, the damage done in this brief interval is so evident that the gripe is a very minor one. In fact, had any more meat been on the bone the essence may not have come through as richly as it does here. This doesn’t feel pre-conceived at all and has the energetic drive and personal stylistic deviations that are the very signposts of a group completely lost in the magic of their creation - the quartet huddling close to protect the flame. Highly recommended.
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