Tim Berne’s Snakeoil - Anguis Oleum (s/r, 2016) ****

By Derek Stone

The last time we heard from the masterful Snakeoil, it was on 2015’s You’ve Been Watching Me, a widely-acclaimed recording that perfectly captured the sizzling, enigmatic energy of Berne’s quartet. Anguis Oleum, their newest release, was originally paired with Berne and artist Steve Byram’s limited-edition collection of drawings and photographs, Spare. Now, it’s available for download on the Snakeoil Bandcamp page, and everyone can get a taste of what this group sounds like when it loosens the reins a bit. Anguis Oleum is not actually a collection of all-new compositions, but a live recording - it contains a couple of pieces that have previously appeared within Snakeoil’s studio output, as well as some unreleased material. As on You’ve Been Watching Me, Snakeoil consists of Berne on alto saxophone, Oscar Noriega on clarinet and bass clarinet, Matt Mitchell on piano, and Ches Smith on percussion. Guitarist Ryan Ferreira is nowhere to be found, unfortunately, but the rest of the players more than makeup for his absence.

The opening composition, “Deadbeat Beyonce,” is one of those that was previously unrecorded. It opens with a lovely run by Matt Mitchell, notes cascading over one another and gradually increasing in both intensity and complexity. After four minutes, the reeds join in with intricate figures that are instantly recognizable as coming from Berne’s compositional toolkit - minor-key, tense, and suggestive of a convoluted system of alleys in a bleak metropolis. As it unfolds, “Deadbeat Beyonce” gives way to a wild fervor; Berne is practically shooting flames from his alto, and Ches Smith pounds with an unbridled force that is particularly striking when compared to the restraint he exhibits at the beginning of the track. Even in their fiercest moments, however, the members of Snakeoil maintain a certain rigidity, a disciplined single-mindedness. The passage through the alleys may be winding, with sudden shifts and unexplained detours, but the destination is clear. At one point, it seems that the piece will close with Mitchell’s twinkling keys and Noriega’s wounded bird-calls, but that’s just a misdirect: the group come together in one last eruption, one that swells, sinks, then swells again, eventually coming to an abrupt close.

“Spare Parts” moves at a slower pace than “Deadbeat Beyonce,” taking its time to develop and stretch out. In the composition’s opening minutes, Ches Smith is on vibraphone, which is admittedly the perfect instrument to accompany the noir-ish sound-worlds that Berne constructs. As Smith taps the vibes and Noriega moves through a series of labyrinthine shapes, one can’t help but re-imagine that shadowy metropolis, steam rising from the gutters and streets perpetually soaked in rain. After some time, Smith is back on the drums, Mitchell comes in with his expressive, dramatic chord-changes, and Berne is blowing with his icy fire - a sound that is simultaneously fervent and frigid, searing and cool. “Lamé 3” is a shorter piece, but it somehow condenses the cinematic scope of the longer compositions into eight minutes - there are twists, turns, unfettered peaks, and trembling moments of tension. Also, some of the players here hit their stride: at one point, Ches Smith abandons all pretensions towards restraint and just pummels his kit. Likewise, Berne engages in a short stretch of insanity that was somewhat surprising at first; instead of that cool reservation that he typically exhibits, he practically screams with his alto saxophone, sending the track into the stratosphere.

“Oc - Dc” is the final piece here, as well as being the longest. Here, the group shows off their marvelous sense of interplay, with an almost lighthearted exchange of notes - melodies that bounce off of each other, diffract, and inexplicably change shapes as the composition moves forward. That lightheartedness is refreshing, especially in the context of Snakeoil; with this group, Berne has primarily delved into tones and textures that are on the “bleaker” side of things, and the pieces can occasionally feel airless. That airlessness is not necessarily a bad thing - in fact, it might be required in order to convey the atmosphere that the group wants us to hear. Thus, despite the fact that many Snakeoil compositions seem to work with “one note” (serpentine, minor-key, filmic), that note is played exceedingly well, and Snakeoil scratch a musical itch that no other groups can. Anguis Oleum is proof that, among Tim Berne’s manifold projects, Snakeoil is the most consistent and the most fully-developed. Now we wait for the studio follow-up to You’ve Been Watching Me!

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Two Tim Berne Duets

Matt Mitchell / Tim Berne - 1 (Screwgun, 2020) ****

By Stephen Griffith

In the May 2018 issue, Downbeat conducted a blindfold test for Tim Berne. When discussing a Zorn composition he stated, paraphrasing from memory, that John goes into the studio with specific ideas on how he wants each participant to sound in a composition unlike Berne’s approach in wanting the musicians to develop the role with their identities. I thought of that often regarding his relationship with Matt Mitchell, whether in Snakeoil and previously released duets, but particularly in this collection of solo piano interpretations of Berne’s compositions, a spellbinding reworking that still contains the stamp of the composer but gently nudges the listener to examine the lyricism in a different way.

The genesis of this recording began when Berne first encountered Mitchell in the summer of 2008 when both taught at the Brooklyn School of Improvised Music’s workshop and performed in the faculty concert. Discovering they were musically sympatico led to increasing concert interactions: a seven piece Adobe Probe concert at the Stone in January 2009, an early version of Snakeoil called Los Totopos in September 2009, and in December 2009 at the Art Alliance in Philadelphia Matt played an opening solo piano set of Tim’s songs before joining Adobe Probe for the second set, the latter of which was released by Screwgun in June 2020, the same release date for 1 which was recorded at Ibeam on June 30, 2010. This wasn't the first time they recorded as a duo but it's the earliest performance to be released. Snakeoil was Berne’s first new band after a prolonged period of one off performances and it gave him an opportunity to revisit older unrecorded compositions and expose them to younger musicians anxious to apply their imprints. One of Berne’s strengths as a composer is in balancing freedom and form and in Mitchell he found a counterpoint to his insistently probing alto lines with ambidextrous melodicism capable of generating complimentary rhythmic propulsion. In the informative liners Matt gives background info for each composition as well as unlisted pieces that they segued into. For example the second piece, “Scanners” which was eventually recorded on the first Snakeoil album in January 2011, they start so strongly and familiarly that you don't miss the clarinet of Oscar Noriega nor Ches Smith’s drums in the swirling alto and piano lines. When things wind down they transition into an earlier composition of Matt’s before ending on a Berne song which never made it to record. I find these early versions of Snakeoil compositions fascinating because they're too fully formed to call them works in progress while still subject to the pushes and pulls of further performances, not to mention differing instrumentation, to morph into something different through time. And as Berne pointed out in an interview shortly after the release of Snakeoil, different studio takes of the same songs sounded wildly different.

Two other pieces here, “Duck” and “All Socket”, ended up on this followup Snakeoil recording as “Cornered (Duck)” and “Socket” recorded in January 2013 and greatly altered with the passage of time but still recognizable in the melody. At the conclusion of “All Socket” Mitchell plays a wigged out stride-ish figure that was a strikingly unique way to close it. One other piece, “Traction” from Berne’s book of work was previously appended to “Jalapeño Democracy” on a live Science Friction recording.

Although Snakeoil was the relatively concurrent destination of these pieces perhaps it's just as useful to consider this performance as an early version of the Berne and Mitchell duo entity realized in three subsequent recordings and ongoing still. Whichever context you place it in, it's a very coherent and adventurous performance providing rewarding listening through repeated exposure.

Tim Berne / Mark Helias - Blood From a Stone (Helias Self Release, 2020) ***(*)

After the frenzied assertiveness of two musicians still in the learning curve of becoming familiar, this recording represents the opposite musical dynamic: two bandmates from the early 80s making music as an incidental part of a small social gathering over a weekend last September. They carved out two blocks of time in the studio to record these five joint compositions. Initially it sounds like Helias, a wonderfully melodic bassist, sets a rhythmic motif which Berne follows and embellishes in a somewhat uncharacteristically placidly reactive manner, although as the first track, “Throw Me A Bone” progresses the roles reverse and further trade offs occur for the duration. If the track order reflects when they were recorded, the third cut, “Physical Responsibility”, is where Tim’s playing becomes more assertive with subdued fireworks and continues accordingly through the rest of the session. It's a very relaxing musical reunion of two longtime friends.

In the Bandcamp notes, Mark credits Tim for having urged him at the beginning of his career to overcome his reticence in putting his music in front of the public by recording it prior to the usual commitment from a label and then, years later, encouraging him to make a solo bass recording; all successfully executed and received. Maybe the nature of their long musical relationship is borne out by these songs.

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Three of the Many Tim Berne Records That We Have Recently Been Blessed With

By Gary Chapin

Trying to be up to the minute with Tim Berne releases is feeling nearly as impossible as keeping up with Matthew Shipp. I’m doing it, but phew! Since I signed on to review these three, four more have come out. One is the sublime solo recording, Sacred Vowels. The other three, like so much coming out during the pandemic, are archival, never released recordings. It’s an embarrassment of riches that I celebrate.

David Torn/Tim Berne/Ches Smith - Sun of Goldfinger (Congratulations to You) ****

Sun of Goldfinger (Congratulations to You) is drawn mainly from recordings of the first concert Berne did with David Torn (guitar, production) and Ches Smith (drums, electronics). He had worked before with Torn in Prezens (with Tom Rainey on drums), and he had been working a couple of years with Smith in Snakeoil. Like Prezens, the Sun of Goldfinger (Congratulations to You) listens like a soundtrack for a film that you’re improvising in your head. Imagine a 1920s silent film house with some like James P. Johnson playing piano, and instead of the music being improvised to the images, the images are improvised to the music. That’s how I receive this. (I may have soundtracks on the brain because I’m a fan of Torn’s movie work. Lars and the Real Girl? Anyone?)

Some of the things I love about this:

1. Tim’s baritone has been sorely missed by me. He’s become an alto-only guy, which I can respect. Can’t serve two masters. But I loved his bari work and hearing it here brought me joy.
2. Torn’s guitar encourages a dirty kind of Stax-funk sensibility that used to be much more prominent in Tim’s work — possibly this is a function of the baritone, too — and Smith’s drumming is so dang heavy. (Good lord, is that a back beat I’m hearing? Oh! It’s gone).
3. The frame of this is landscape and noise. Given that this was live, the layering of sounds, ideas, and atmosphere is pretty extraordinary. There are characters, plot twists, scene setting, murders, resurrections, masks, explosions, ebbs, flows, and reflection.

What it sounds like is 50+ minutes of Torn, Berne, and Smith layering images one on top of another, withdrawing and shifting, very electric, very rock, with the sax and guitars asserting themselves melodically (and they are, indeed, very melodic) and sometimes the drums, too. Torn’s minimalism (in the form of repetition, not austerity) creates a lot of tension in partnership with Berne’s “solos,” with Smith driving the whole thing pretty hard. It’s part of the subset of music that includes Bitches Brew, King Crimson, and Blade Runner.

Tim Berne’s Snakeoil - The Deceptive 4 (Intakt 2020) ***1/2

Snakeoil has, by some reviewers, been referred to as having a “chamber jazz” sound by some, and there has been some eyebrow movement over the fact that Berne is playing on ECM, perhaps wondering if he might be compromised by that label’s perceived preciousness. Listening to the 2 disc set, The Deceptive 4 (Another obscure pun album title, huzzah!), I find the second concern to be unfounded. There’s nothing precious (in the twee sense) here, as has been true of the previous Snakeoil records, going back to the beginning. And the great sound is just … well … great. As for the “chamber jazz” idea … look, I can’t imagine Berne conceives this as chamber music, but I do actually love chamber music. The term’s derivation, from the Baroque era, is that it’s non-orchestral music played where you are close enough (in the actual chamber) to hear the distinct joys of each instrument and idea of the small group. On writer called chamber music “the music of friends.” All of that serves Berne’s music very well. There’s a separation and discrimination between the musicians that is not present, for example, in Sun of Goldfinger. It’s a different thing. Each player here — Berne, Ches Smith, Oscar Noriega (clarinets), and Matt Mitchell (piano) — takes Berne’s knotty, “rubato based” (his words) compositions, their parts, and pulls them into something wonderful. This music has its gentle moments while everyone (Noriega and Berne, especially) extend themselves into the fire, frequently. Honestly, Noriega is a goddamn national treasure, and his voice in the rogues gallery of Tim Berne compatriots stands out as something unique. Also, just a side note, is there any sound more dissonant than dissonant vibes? Asking for no reason.

Tim Berne/Matt Mitchell Duo - Spiders (Out of Your Head, 2020) ****1/2

This is a 42-ish minute set of Berne tunes (and one Julius Hemphill tune) recorded presumably in Feb 2020. The liner notes say “February 30,” which, you most likely know, is a date that does not exist, but … fine. I do love duet recordings. They are one of the great pillars of the creative music explosion of the 1960s. The conversation as a unit of measurement in jazzavantcreative music genuinely sings to me and is another form of “chamber” music that resonates with me. Spiders has a lot of space to it and Berne’s and Mitchell’s voice are each as brilliant. It is genuinely surprising how light and fleet the two can be. There are moments that, to me, code as earnest and beautiful, almost elegiac in a chamber way. There is a particularly powerful side of Berne’s work that comes through in this recording. In a podcast interview in April, Berne told the reviewer, in being compared to Roscoe Mitchell, Hemphill, and that crowd, “I’m not doing anything new.” And in a way he’s not, there are no formal or technical innovations going on. Since his style matured in the way back, Berne’s work has been structurally consistent. He creates situations within which he can converse, collaborate, or conspire with different agglomerations of creative musicians. He has a vision as a composer and improviser and it is a #thingofbeauty and #awondertobehold. The joy, the power, the wonder of Berne’s music is in the compositions he writes and improvisations he spins. Within this chosen form — creative jazz — the well of his imagination feels limitlessness. The fact that the expressions of his creativity seem to suit my temperament to an uncanny degree just makes me the lucky one. Both Berne and Mitchell are really masters, here, of the pitch based (as opposed to extended technique) improv. It’s an underappreciated asset. I say we appreciate it.

And just, in case you need a bit more before you get these gems...

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Matt Mitchell - Sunday Interview

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

1. What is your greatest joy in improvised music?
   
   Perceiving the music as it flows past in time, feeling connected, whatever that may consist of in context.
   
   
2. What quality do you most admire in the musicians you perform with?
   
   I value most when musicians exhibit singular focus, resulting from intense and continued study, to achieve something new.
   
   
3. Which historical musician/composer do you admire the most?
   
   Way too many. Xenakis, Cecil Taylor, Zappa, Miles. Bach, Chopin, Scriabin. Duke Ellington. Morton Feldman. Monk. Stravinsky. Sun Ra. Also, deep admiration is probably a prerequisite when voluntarily studying someone. Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett. Andrew Hill.
   
   
4. If you could resurrect a musician to perform with, who would it be?
   
   I’d rather frame it as getting to play with them when they were still alive but I’m “still me”. Eric Dolphy, Sam Rivers, Joe Henderson, Tony Williams, Tony Oxley. Richard Davis, Gary Peacock. Derek Bailey would have been a hoot. I feel like I’d have done well in Zappa’s band. Wayne Shorter is probably an obvious choice but he was never less than goosebumps-inducing and being in the midst of that would have been something.
   
   
5. What would you still like to achieve musically in your life?
   
   Lots of things - continuing the search for new forms and sounds, maximizing what is possible for me to do in my waking hours.
   
   
6. Are you interested in popular music and - if yes - what music/artist do you particularly like?
   
   Music often doesn’t do well when money dictates the content even a tiny bit, which in one sense is the definition of pop music - music where financial viability is part of the goal. But there is tons of pop/rock/soul/ music from the 60s to the present which I love. Metal and punk probably count as a special case since they originally had their popular/populist elements but continue today in the more underground sense, which is where most exploration of new things occurs. But creatively done music in these all these veins abounds and always has. Today’s actual *pop music* is mostly dire, though.
   
   I’d say Prince is an artist who was pretty expert at being supremely popular and incredibly creative for a very long time. I love his music.
   
   
7. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
   
   An achievable thing, like “self-improvement”, or science fiction level? It would be really cool have scores and recordings of the music I hear in my dreams, which is of course always music that my brain is improvising but doesn’t exist in waking life. Usually this is unbelievably involved music that is untranscribable. Of course sometimes dream music is really stupid too.
   
   
8. Which of your albums are you most proud of?
   
   I am very proud of every single one of my records as a leader or co-leader, they all have achieved exactly what I hoped they would, in the macro- and micro- sense.
   
   That said, my I am exceedingly happy with my upcoming solo piano album Illimitable.
   
   
9. Once an album of yours is released, do you still listen to it? And how often?
   
   I do, but not often. I’ll “check in” with an older album a little just to see how I still feel about this track or that.
   
   
10. Which album (from any musician) have you listened to the most in your life?
    
    Really tough to say, this goes back to when I was 12. Probably something between these albums. These are albums that I feel a sort of “total recall” with when I hear them again, and they are all still complete masterpieces.
    
    Miles - Nefertiti, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew
    Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch
    Herbie Hancock - Thrust, Maiden Voyage, The Prisoner
    Jimi Hendrix - Axis, Bold as Love
    Keith Jarrett - Facing You
    Weather Report - Black Market, Heavy Weather, I Sing the Body Electric
    Stevie Wonder - Innervisions, Songs in the Key of Life
    Yes - Relayer
    
    
11. What are you listening to at the moment?
    Sun City Girls, Gorge Trio, Angelwings Marmalade, Encenathrakh, Effluence, Vibrations Felt in the Void, Contagious Orgasm, Roland Kayn, David Lee Myers, Jim O’Rourke’s Steamroom series, Grant Evans, Chris Weisman.
    
    
12. What artist outside music inspires you?
    
    John Ashbery, A.R. Ammons, Clark Coolidge, Wallace Stevens, Pynchon, Nabokov, Beckett, Donald Barthelme, James Joyce, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, Michael Cisco, Brian Evenson, Matthew Bartlett. Chris Onstad/Achewood.

Articles with Matt Mitchell on the Free Jazz Blog:

• Matt Mitchell – Oblong Aplomb (Out of Your Head Records, 2023)
• Tim Berne & Matt Mitchell - One More, Please (Intakt, 2022)
• Jazz em Agosto 2022 (Part 4)
• Sara Schoenbeck – Sara Schoenbeck (Pyroclastic Records, 2021) ****
• Matt Mitchell & Kate Gentile - Snark Horse (Pi Recordings, 2021) ****½
• Anna Webber - Idiom (PI Recordings, 2021) ****½
• Mario Pavone - Blue Vertical (Out of Your Head, 2021) *****
• Ches Smith We All Break - Path of Seven Colors (Pyroclastic Record, 2021) ****
• Two Tim Berne Duets
• Patricia Brennan - Maquishti (Valley of Search, 2021) ***½
• Piano sax duo
• Tim Berne: The Vowels Have Always Been Sacred
• Three of the Many Tim Berne Records That We Have Recently Been Blessed With
• Gordon Grdina Makes Music That Is Important for Humanity
• Catching up with Gordon Grdina…again
• Mario Pavone's Dialect Trio - Philosophy (Clean Feed Records, 2019) ****
• Matt Mitchell - Phalanx Ambassadors (Pi Recordings, 2019) *****
• Anna Webber - Clockwise (Pi Recordings, 2019) ****½
• Tim Berne and Matt Mitchell – Angel Dusk (Screwgun, 2018) ****
• Mario Pavone Dialect Trio - Chrome (Playscape, 2017) ****½
• Dan Weiss - Starebaby (Pi Recordings, 2018) ****
• Chris Speed Trio – Platinum on Tap (Intakt, 2017) ***½
• Winter Jazzfest '18: New York City
• Matt Mitchell - A Pouting Grimace (Pi Recordings, 2017) ****½
• Tim Berne’s Snakeoil – Incidentals (ECM, 2017) ****½
• The October Revolution Part 2: Saturday and Sunday
• Mario Pavone – Vertical (Clean Feed, 2017) ****
• Kate Gentile - Mannequins (Skirl, 2017) ****
• Matt Mitchell - førage (Screwgun Records, 2017) ****½
• Anna Webber’s Simple Trio - Binary (Skirl, 2016) ****
• Anna Webber’s Percussive Mechanics - Refraction (Pirouet, 2015) ****
• Tim Berne’s Snakeoil - Anguis Oleum (s/r, 2016) ****
• Dan Weiss - Sixteen: Drummers Suite (Pi Recordings, 2016) ****
• Matt Mitchell – Vista Accumulation (Pi Recordings, 2015) ****½
• Mario Pavone – Blue Dialect (Clean Feed, 2015) ****½
• Tim Berne's Snakeoil - You've Been Watching Me (ECM, 2015) *****
• Rudresh Mahanthappa - Bird Calls (ACT, 2015) ****½
• Anna Webber - Simple (Skirl, 2014) ****½
• Video Sunday: Tim Berne & Keir Neuringer
• Tim Berne's Snakeoil - Shadow Man (ECM, 2013) *****
• Michael Attias – Spun Tree (Clean Feed, 2012) ****
• Darius Jones Quartet - Book of Mae'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) - (AUMFidelity, 2012) ****
• Tim Berne - Snakeoil (ECM, 2012) *****

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The October Revolution Part 2: Saturday and Sunday

By Paul Acquaro

The weekend's festivities kicked off out on the Race St. Pier, which juts out into the Delaware River at the foot of the Ben Franklin bridge. The performance was the work of composer John Luther Adams entitled "Across the Distance", specifically written for a couple dozen french horns.

Saturday afternoon, Race St Pier and Fringe Arts

A member of Orchestra 2001 performing John Luther Adams' Across the Distance

Dozen's of french horn players from Philadelphia's Orchestra 2001 were making their way slowly up and down the Race Street pier. Cars and trucks on I-95 sped by and the commuter rail up on the Ben Franklin bridge passed by with a clatter, but down on the pier a reverential quiet blanketed the otherwise noisy space. Through this atmosphere, at seemingly random intervals, the wandering musicians would play short sequences of notes. Soon, another horn player would begin a similar sequence, and maybe on the other side of the pier, a third voice joined. The overlapping arpeggios and sustained notes created a calming and hypnotic effect, and against the flow of the river, the flow of the traffic, and the deliberate flow of the musicians, a full day of music began.

Son of Goldfinger: David Torn, Ches Smith, Tim Berne

The festival moved back inside Fringe Arts - kind of a welcome reprieve from the unseasonably hot day - and guitarist and soundscapist David Torn took the stage with percussionist Ches Smith and saxophonist Tim Berne under the group name Son of Goldfinger. A small enthusiastic crowd gathered to luxuriate in the guitar tech wizard Torn's live sound manipulations and Berne's obtuse and complex melodic creations. However it was Smith who kicked things off by cuing up an electronic frequency which prompted Torn to unleash the theremin within. Striking, muting, and tapping the strings, he pulled and pried sounds of his guitar and looming cabinet of technology. The group picked up in intensity and Berne, playing a solid stream of melodic ideas, began buzzing in the mid-register of the horn and Torn began tearing it up. The trio interspersed long meditative sections and blistering attacks, of which the noisy parts were the most interesting. Smith took a solo towards the end that wove odd metered and unresolved patterns into a MC Escher like illusion. A rather inconclusive ending came in the guise of a blown amp, but overall a neat set paving the way for Tim Berne's own group, Snakeoil, appearing later in the afternoon.

Zena Parkins and Brian Chase Duo

Harpist/sound manipulator Parkins' harp is much more than a harp - in fact, I wonder if harp is even the right word for it. It's a controller, hooked up to a wild assortment of electronics and finally into an amplifier. As she and drummer Brian Chase kicked off their set, it sounded like she was playing bass. Also to note, she was playing the frame of the instrument, not the harp strings themselves. Chase, with mallets in hand and at a conventional kit, kept it simple, that is until he began to disassemble pieces of his high-hat to get some other percussive sounds. The duo was intense, Parkins provided a mix of tone and attack as she looped her sounds into an impressive stack. Chase's playing was responsive and provided a strong pulse, if not time. There is a bit of theater attached as well in Parkin's lunging and rhythmic swoons at the harp, and here working both the physical and the musical, they reached an apex. They continued through several other improvisations and the range of sounds Parkin's can create is mindboggling: digging into rhythmic strums, pulling out stinging single notes, and scratching out synthesized tones. The two work quite well together and their mid-afternoon set was a highlight.

Tim Berne's Snakeoil

Snakeoil has been Berne's main vehicle for his compositions over the past several years. A spate of albums on ECM have ranged from excellent to even more excellent, the most recent Incidentals is a masterful album, the second featuring the group augmented by guitarist Ryan Ferrier, who was not playing with the group today. The line-up in addition to Berne: reeds player Oscar Noriega, pianist Matt Mitchell, and drummer Ches Smith. Smith again kicked things off, this time with a bunch of small percussion, while Noriega readied his Bb clarinet and proceeded to play a gentle melody along with Mitchell. Only after a good stretch, Berne came in, while Smith provided some contrast on the vibraphone. Noriega switched to bass clarinet and he worked a melody together with Mitchell, the group pulled together in all their complexity. One complaint is that Mitchell's acoustic piano could not cut through the group 's sound strongly and some of the bass' function was lost, causing the music to float a little more than usual. However, the upshot was that Smith's unusual work on the timpani and vibraphone gained some extra prominence. To my ears, the strength of Berne's compositions is how he sets up his musical contraptions, whose components always come together to create beautifully challenging musical jigsaw puzzles.

Saturday Night, Fringe Arts

Art Ensemble of Chicago

This was it, the event that everyone had been talking about. The Art Ensemble of Chicago, which had been started in Chicago in the mid-to-late 1960s has grown and changed over the years, and as this concert proved, is still a relevant and important force in finding and pushing the edges of the avantgarde. The current version is founding member Roscoe Mitchell on woodwinds; Hugh Ragin on trumpet, flugelhorn and piccolo trumpet; Tomeka Reid on cello; Jaribu Shahid and Junius Paul on double-bass; and Famoudou Don Moye on drums. 

The group came out on stage and faced east. Mitchell played a single note, they took their playing positions, and Paul launched into an extensive bass solo. He was then joined by Shahid and Moye for a brief interlude, and then the second bassist took over. Ragin took a quick turn on the piccolo trumpet as Mitchell readied his soprano sax. As the focus shifted to Mitchell, he let loose a torrent of squeals and squeaks in the extended range of the instrument. Coupled with circular breathing, the effect was both jarring and soothing in some manner. He kept this theme going after cueing in the group, adding more notes from the lower register. Ragin took over next, for an extensive solo, and then it was Reid's turn. She really stood out as she spun a engrossing fast paced passage full of double and triple stops. In fact in a few conversations with concert-goers afterwards they basically said they were utterly smitten with her playing. The quality of the music only increased over the course of the set. Towards the end, Moye's received some spotlight, and the drummer who had moved between hand percussion and kit over the course of the set, led the group energetically into their closing theme. The group came back for a short encore and the audience was left on a wonderfully disoriented high - the hour set seemed to have passed in mere minutes.

Mike Lorenz Trio

Serving up a sweet digestive after the heavy meal, the Mike Lorenz trio (Lorenz  on guitar, James Collins on organ, and  Kevin Ripley on drums) took over the small corner stage of the Le Peg restaurant located in the front of the Fringe Arts building. With people filtering in an out of the biergarten, the group played music from the book of Sonny Sharrock. An unusual cover band for sure, and they shaped the guitarists woolly compositions into a neat trio format. Quite a night!

Sunday Afternoon, Fringe Arts

Saturday's heat became even more oppressive on this rainy Sunday, and an equatorial (or at least Floridian) humidity saturated the air. A performance on the Pier scheduled for noon was cancelled and the show began inside Fringe Arts with the sax and drums duo of Jim Sauter and Kid Millions.

Jim Sauter and Kid Millions 

Sauter is one of the saxophonists from the heavy noise/jazz group Borbetomagnus and Millions (Jim Colpitts) the drummer of rock band Oneida. The two together were a force of nature - and it was loud - from the opening blat of Sauter's sax, nothing but energy poured forth from the duo. The extreme feedback from Sauter's towering amplifier, to the string of pedals he ran his instrument through guaranteed hearing damage for those without ear plugs, but between the textures of his sounds and the structure in Million's patterns, an interesting - though not for the faint of heart - music emerged. It was certainly a jolt of energy in the early afternoon.

Sunday Afternoon, Old City

After the opening event, the action shifted up into to old city. Just a quick walk up Race St, under the thunder of I-95, the old city is a mix of buildings and homes from the 18th century and modern glass monstrosities from the 2017's. How Betsy Ross' home fits into this changing landscape is interesting to ponder as one walked towards Christ Church - founded in 1695 - through the streets teeming with art galleries, book shops, cafes and tourists attending the old city festival. 

Mike Reed's Flesh and Bone

Drummer Mike Reed's septet Flesh and Bone performed in an attic hall of one of Christ Church's outer buildings. Set up against the backdrop of projector screens, the group played an excellent mix of avantgarde/contemporary jazz laced with passionate spoken word. The group, an assemblage of Chicago musicians featured Greg Ward on alto saxophone, Tim Haldeman on tenor saxophone, Jason Roebke on bass, Ben Lamar Gay on cornet, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Marvin Tate on vocals, and Reed on drums. The group recently released their eponymous album which was inspired by an incident in Poland where Reed ran into a Neo-Nazi rally. Underscored by the recent unravelling of America, the incident caused a great deal of reflection on life for Reed and he tried to capture it in music (and words) with the group. The concert was an absolute joy - with Stein and Ward possibly taking top honors. Though I have always been a fan of Stein's bass clarinet playing, his solo performed against the backdrop of crude computer animated vectors ran the gamut of the instrument's capabilities and set a bar for the group. Rooted in traditional jazz and blues but searching for new sounds and open to all ideas, Reed has crafted an exciting concept which was brought to life by the group. In fact, in the second piece a deep bass groove over a straight ahead beat and tandem improvisation from Stein and Ward would have been good enough for me the whole show, but bring in the octet and Reed's contemporary, but timeless arrangements, and it was a sensory feast.

Cortex:  Gard Nilssen, Ola Høyer, Kristoffer Berre Alberts, Thomas Johansson

This quartet of bad ass Norwegians have released several albums on Clean Feed, one of the more recent ones was from a concert at iBeam in Brooklyn from a few years back, and it caught the band's energy well, but nothing compares to seeing them in a several hundred year old church with its aged acoustics and connotations of freedom and revolution. Trumpeter Thomas Johansson, saxophonist Kristoffer Berre Alberts, bassist Ola Høyer, and drummer Gard Nilssen did not let the concert goers down, their precise playing and concise melodic heads gave way to fierce improvisations, showcasing some rare talent - Alberts playing seems to embody the spirit of Brotzmann coupled with jaw-dropping technical proficiency. While Alberts and Johansson are powerhouse improvisers a lot of credit should go the writing - crystalline and punchy, it features the exciting interplay and somehow has a synergistic effect where the two horns can fill a room - a church even - with sound. Nilssen and Hoyer root the group. They are dependable and never let a beat slip, providing a solid underlayment that no doubt lets the two horn players do what they do best.

Burton Greene  (press photo)

Hunched over at the baby grand piano at the front of the church, Burton Greene played a lovely, albeit short, set. His playing was excellent, energetic but patient. Moments of calm and placid notes were punctuated by bursts of rapid tonal clusters. The 80 year old had a youthful air, introducing compositions and pieces with stories laced with details and still had a lot of fight left in him for exploited musicians, yuppies driving up the cost of housing, and the state of politics in the US (as seen from an Ex-pats eyes). His impromptu lecture after the set was as riveting as his song dedicated to Sun-Ra ('Space is Still the Place') and a Monkish be-bop piece he's been working over for 60 years dedicated to Bud Powell. Greene also performed at the original October Revolution festival in 1964, making his appearance here of both historical and musical importance. A real treat.

Ballister: Dave Rempis, Paal Nilssen-Love, Fred Lonberg-Holm 

I was highly anticipating Ballister's set. The trio of Chicagoans Dave Rempis (sax) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), and Norwegian Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) is powerhouse of noisy jazz. In fact, from the first hit, Rempis tore into his sax and PnL was thunderous presence, nearly drowning out Lonberg-Holm's effect laden cello work. That is, until a sudden break where Lonberg-Holm's non-cello sounding cello sounds erupted into electronic shards and splinters. Ballister isn't all power however, dropping the dynamics, Rempis pulled out some yearning melodic lines to play with the cellist, whose instrument's acoustic properties mixed with the crunch of his pedals congealing into a sharp and delicate sound. The band spent a but of time tossing about small interactions in reserved tones, which helped make the next time they went full throttle that much more intense. Between the ebbs and flows, Rempis and PnL slowly brought the music back to boil, while Lonberg-Holm rearranged the audience's ear-drums. When Rempis switched to the baritone sax, the next storm was approaching. 

Perhaps drawn to the pleasures of the old city festival or exhausted from the incredible stretch of music starting on Thursday night, it was a smaller but dedicated crowd. After the Balllister show, the festival returned to Fringe Arts for the performance of local artist Moor Mother and then So Percussion. However, after bidding goodbye to folks outside Fringe Arts, I too headed back to my car and to the reality of the coming week. 

Overall the festival was an incredible survey of of experimental and avantgarde musicians and music. Curated with care and attention paid to details, the whole event was a pleasure to attend and I look forward to seeing how Ars Nova builds on its success. Long live the revolution, I'm looking forward to it coming around again!

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Tim Berne's Snakeoil - Shadow Man (ECM, 2013) *****

By Paul Acquaro

Saxophonist Tim Berne's compositions are never what you expect -- or rather they are totally what you expect if you are hoping to be led to an unanticipated destination in a circuitous manner. Yet, no matter how unique each adventure is, you know that you'll arrive safely, if somewhat addled.

Snakeoil's first release was a highly lauded event, it topped many critics polls and certainly thrilled me too. Back when it came out, I wrote "right from the first tune there is an assuredness in the intertwining melodies and ever evolving musical ideas. Quiet passages are contrasted by intense ones, and the ebb and flow throughout is seamless",  which stands true, and then some, for this new offering, Shadow Man.

The recording starts out on the quiet side with "Son of Not So Sure." The track takes its time as Matt Mitchell's piano and Ches Smith's vibraphone create a dramatic and somewhat pensive atmosphere. The follow up track 'Static' picks up at a fast clip with melodies and counter-melody climbing and intertwining. Then, over a rather steady piano riff, Berne's sax becomes towering. As I listened, I somehow felt like I wandering around the base of rocky spires in a national park in southern Utah, layers of sound rising up like multihued formations reaching into the crystal skies above. It leaves you panting for air, wondering how something so delicate and beautiful is hewn from such basic elements. 'OC/DC' is a track you can get lost in. Surrounded by the wonderous peaks of saxophone and pathways blazed by the piano, the percussion provides obtuse but delightful trail markers. The dark tension that Oscar Noriega creates on his bass clarinet is captivating, and when the rest of the group picks up, the track 'Sockets' becomes yet another highlight.

Shadow Man is another excellent addition to Berne's discography. Check out a recent clip of Snakeoil's appearance at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington, DC (courtesy of Kevin Reilly):

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Tim Berne & Matt Mitchell - One More, Please (Intakt, 2022)

By Gary Chapin

Tim Berne and Matt Mitchell are one of the great duets of “this kind of music.” It is strange how memory telescopes. You follow music for decades, and then you notice someone new on the scene. Matt Mitchell in Tim Berne’s Snakeoil, for example. Then a decade-ish passes and you’re still thinking of Mitchell as “the new guy,” except there’s this amazing alluring body of work featuring him and Berne together.

One More, Please is the fourth duet record for these two, which, along with seven Snakeoil recordings, makes Mitchell one of Berne’s most thoroughgoing co-conspirators—and finding co-conspirators to embody his compositions is something that Berne has a talent for.

One More, Please continues a trend that I noticed on Spiders in which Mitchell creates a field that is … I’ve been struggling to find the word. His harmonic language reminds me of Kurt Weill, art song, and Sondheim. The opening track, “Purdy,” is introspective and intense and beautiful. Berne, as he does in a lot of these drumless settings, seems more ardent and less fervid. His improvisations are, for the most part, pitch-based provocations.

To my mind these are songs, and I listen as though these were words—just in a language that does not denote. In fact, I would be completely okay if a post-modern poetic Jon Hendricks came along to write lyrics for Berne-song. There are stories here. I just don’t know what they are. They aren’t chained to meaning, yet.

“Number 2,” by Berne mentor Julius Hemphill, fits right into this thesis of mine. It is a chamber setting that brings to mind “Parchment,” played by Hemphill’s partner, Ursula Oppens. It may be just that I have “Parchment” on my mind, which I do, but the thought of a connection is plausible. Especially at around 6:15, when Berne and Mitchell seem to take gentle flight. Like a bird gliding, taking in the landscape.

The rest of the disc is Berne compositions. “Rose-colored Missive” continues the anxious, lovely, emotion that I’ve been hearing. Both it and “Purdy” are genuinely beautiful out-jazz. “Middle Seat Blues:Chicken Salad Blues” starts in a gospel blues vein right from the first chord. I really want to see someone choreograph an improvised dance to this music. Listening, I keep making connections to other art in my head. Dance. Poetry. Cinema.

“Motian Sickness,” I’m going to guess, is a tribute to Paul Motian, a friend and someone who played on Berne’s first European tour (I think I got that right). “Rolled Oats:Curls” closes on the discs strengths. It is spacious, and the notes write on that space with clarity. The conversation between Mitchell and Berne gains intensity. Mitchells chords—and that left hand!—and Berne’s melody intertwining, gaining speed, filling space, venting its emotion. It’s really something.

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Tim Berne's Snakeoil - You've Been Watching Me (ECM, 2015) *****

By Paul Acquaro

Tim Berne's Snakeoil has already released two excellent albums on ECM. These efforts - the eponymous debut and the follow up Shadow Man were the works of an acoustic quartet and on the new You've Been Watching Me, alto saxophonist Berne expands the group to a quintet and introduces electric elements to the mix, expanding the textures and possibilities of this already virtuosic group.

Electronics are introduced by way of pianist Matt Mitchell, whose new sounds can be heard as the album begins, and by Ryan Ferreira, who comes to Snake Oil with electric guitar and a bag of effects. His distorted textural guitar playing underscores the group work on 'Lost in Reading' and helps take the tune from the slow build to its climax. None of this takes away from the acoustic sounds of Berne's keening alto and Oscar Noriega's bass clarinet as they traverse the intricate arrangements. Percussionist Ches Smith plays a pivotal role as well, and on a track like 'Small World in a Small Town' the absence of his drums is counterbalanced by his judicious use of the vibraphone.

Compared to earlier output, You've Been Watching Me is an evolution in the group's sound and it's interesting to hear how the compositions are growing and changing. Listen to Mitchell's electronics darting about Noriega's rich lines on 'Lost in Reading', or Berne's extensive passage on 'Small World in a Small Town' where the supporting harmonies are quite simple but underpin much complexity. On You've Been Watching Me, with the larger group and more expansive palette of sounds at his disposal, Berne's use of subtleties really comes to the fore.

It tempting to think that Berne has reached his peak with Snake Oil, but then again work from his previous group's like Big Satan and Bloodcount (just to randomly pick two others) were also career highlights, which suggests You've Been Watching Me is most likely just a new high.

Listen and read liner notes here.

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Tim Berne’s Snakeoil – Incidentals (ECM, 2017) ****½

By Chris Haines

This is the fourth album by Tim Berne’s Snakeoil, with the usual quartet of Oscar Noriega (clarinets), Matt Mitchell (piano, electronics), Ches Smith (drums, percussion), and Berne (alto sax) being augmented by the guitarist Ryan Ferreira, which along with David Torn’s production and additional musical treatments gives the band’s sound an extended palette of additional colours and textures from previous releases.

The backbone of the album, and not only because it’s programmed right in the middle of the running order is the piece ‘Sideshow’, a 26-minute long flight of fantasy full of daring, intrigue, and musical delights. The piece starts with Mitchell at the piano, whose playing throughout the album is an absolute wonder, pulling all the other elements together as well as combining a very rhythmic and percussive style, at times reminding me of the British improvising pianist Howard Riley. Starting with a syncopated and circular melody in the left hand, this is quickly joined by a complimentary pattern the pianist plays in his right hand forming a delightful texture that’s not too dissimilar to Conlon Nancarrow’s studies for player piano. From here the piece moves through a variety of musical ideas including whole band unison melodies, grooves, growling guitar, a section with Noriega’s clarinet and Mitchell’s piano that offers shades of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of time, atmospheric sounds including carefully placed bowed cymbals, a very free passage for piano, percussion and guitar which develops into a wonderful atonal lead line (again Mitchell’s playing really pins this section down), pointillistic percussive textures, Torn’s screaming guitar sound combined with ceremonial drumming and all this before we even mention Tim Berne’s sax playing. This he thoughtfully adds throughout to enhance the overall composition of the piece often doubling-up with other instruments to form powerful and strong melodic phrases that soar above the complex musical fabric. With such a long piece and with the strong variety of ideas contained within, in lesser hands this could have sounded like the musical equivalent of a patchwork quilt, but there is no chance of that here, the linearity is so smooth and fluid that the musical direction flows in an unhindered and silky way. Surprisingly this piece is the other half of ‘Small World In A Small Town’ from the You’ve Been Watching Me album, the two pieces having been combined into one gigantic composition when played live.

Fear not those who are wanting to hear Berne’s freewheeling sax playing as there is plenty of this on the rest of the album, such as on ‘Incidentals Contact’, a real collage of sound from the band whilst Berne creates virtuosic lines which twist, intersect and writhe over the top, before joining a groove with the rest of the band and allowing Noriega’s clarinet to bubble-up from out of the resulting mix. Both the wind instruments combine again on ‘Stingray Shuffle’ to imitate the sustained guitar sounds with their Siren-like calls. After the atmospheric and restrained chamber music beginning to ‘Hora Feliz’, the album’s opening track, the piece arrives with a chromatic melody played in unison before really opening up with some great free solo improvising with Berne leading the way.

As one would expect from an ECM release the production is highly slick, but more than that is the way the music has been put together by Berne as the leader, and also from this group of musicians who have executed the ideas with clarity and precision. Incidentals provides us with a compositional masterclass in the use of colour and texture, which for me, comes across as a really strong aspect, or dare I say, a focus for the album from a listeners point of view. Unlike the product from which the band derive their name there is no fraudulent substances here, nor any merchandise of dubious quality to be had, instead we find a very well crafted and rich tapestry created from carefully selected auricular elements.

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ECM 50 years - Catalog Favorites (part III of III)

We continue our celebration of the 50^th Anniversary of ECM with  three favorite ECM recordings from each of our writers. Please note, there is no order to sequence of writers...


Lee Rice Epstein

Lester Bowie

The Great Pretender (1981)
All the Magic! (1983)
I Only Have Eyes For You (1985)

Channeling, honoring, and spoofing Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and Fats Domino in equal measure—with lineups ranging from solo to his boldly deranged Brass Fantasy—jazz's court jester and master magician reached, arguably, the peak of his career with his first three albums for ECM.


Martin Schray

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble - Towards the Margin (ECM, 1997)

On the Ensemble’s first album each member of the original Evan Parker trio (Parker plus Barry Guy and Paul Lytton) was given a technical/musical partner (Walter Prati, Marco Vecchi, Phil Wachsmann) who would process their acoustic sounds electronically. “Towards the Margins” is a programmatic title and it’s as adventurous today as it was 22 years ago.

Paul Bley - Open, to Love (ECM, 1973)

Bley’s solo piano album brings two worlds together: angular dissonance and meditative, pointillistic melody - a sound which helped to define the label’s sonic philosophy. It’s like a matrix of what was to come later on. Just listen to “Closer“ and “Ida Lupino“. To die for.

Jack DeJohnette - Special Edition (ECM, 1980)

Usually known as a drummer DeJohnette also plays piano here and is joined by David Murray (sax, cl), Arthur Blythe (sax) and David Warren (b). It’s mainly DeJohnette’s passionate, high-voltage homage to Eric Dolphy (‘One For Eric’) that will knock you out.


Olle Lawson

Michael Formanek - Small Places (2012)

Beauty, mystery, depth: Small Places – the second album from Formanek’s quartet with Tim Berne, Craig Taborn and Gerald Cleaver, definitely has a slight edge over the first (the impressively atmospheric The Rub and Small Change , 2010) – there is something hypnotically immaculate about the composition and playing. Sophisticated urban tension.           

Billy Hart Quartet – All Our Reasons (2012)

Quite possibly Billy’s greatest recorded document. There’s something deeply moving about how the quartet – a generation younger – moves with what is being constructed – nurtured, even – from the drum kit. I went to NYC to find Billy on the strength of this recording. A modern classic.

David Virelles – Mbókò (2014)

I couldn’t decide between Craig Taborn Trio’s trance-inducing Chants; Formanek’s epic, leviathan Ensemble Kolosuss –The Distance; Bobo Stenson Trio’s luscious Cantando or Ches Smith’s utterly unique, oblique narrative strangeness on The Bell – so I chose Virelles’ Mbókò.

Mbókò may have the honour of being the only true spiritual ceremony on ECM.
Subtitled: Sacred Music for Piano, two Basses, Drum Set and Biankoméko Abakuá, to really state its Afri-Cuban heritage – Mbókò takes the listener to an actual space other records may not even acknowledge exits. After years of deep listening, there are still new dimensions to be found here. Incantatory.


Paul Acquaro 

What my colleagues on the blog said is true, it is really hard to pick 3 albums from the ECM catalog to call out, so I focused on guitar based recordings ... but that only went so far as you can see I'm missing Bill Frisell (In Line blew my mind, subtly), Raoul Bjorkenheim, Jakob Bro, Steve Tibbets, Bill Connors, and so on ...

David Torn - Cloud About Mercury (1986)

One of my first ECM records. I picked up this progressive rock-y, soundscape-y recording replete with time-bound synth sounds and scintillating electric guitar on a whim, and like the best serendipitous finds, it grew on me. Mark Isham's trumpet and synthesizer work, Tony Levin's Chapman Stick and synth bass, and Bill Bruford's electric drums and percussion make for an appropriately other worldly setting for the experimental guitarist.

Gateway - Gateway (1976)

John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, and Dave Holland came together on three Gateway albums, all on ECM. I always enjoyed the flow of the playing, and the fact that they would build up to some intense moments.

Ralph Towner - Solstice (1975)

Guitarist Ralph Towner's 1975 release featured the work of Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, and Jon Christensen. The expressive bass and sharp drumming mixes sublimely with the flat tone of the sax and the wonderful textures of the 6 and 12 string guitar.

Steve Griffith

Kenny Wheeler - Music for Large and Small Ensembles (1990)

For every long road trip I take, this gets packed. When things start to drag, I put in disc 1 and Norma Winstone's soaring vocals over the controlled surges of the charts make the highway not quite as endless. Then I'm ready for the more intricate charms of disc

John Abercrombie- Timeless (1979)

Who'd have thought a best of list would include something with Jan Hammer, but his keyboard work perfectly fits what the guitarist and Jack DeJohnette contribute. Forty years later this still sounds fresh, like the title suggests.

Hal Russell NRG Ensemble - The Finnish/Swiss Tour (1991)

One of Steve Lake's most inspired decisions was to give one of music's most unique characters, and his band of future Chicago stalwarts in progress, an international platform for three wonderful releases of sheer raw honking joy. Either one of the releases would fit, but this was the first and most ear opening. Plus it was live so more infectious fun. Assuming none of you pranked the site, Wikipedia said People magazine included this as one of the top 5 albums of the year.


Phil Stringer

Charlie Haden/Carla Bley - The Ballad of the Fallen (1983)

Well worth playing this loud and it all comes to an amazing climax on the final track. A terrific band in co let unit of purpose. Politically and emotionally charged music that is as relevant now as it it was in the 80s.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Full Force (1980)

They always sound so much more than the sum of the parts and that is the case on this album. A playful, riotous joyous collection. The feeling that I get is that they had a lot of fun making this music and for me, it simply makes me glad to be alive. Another album that was relevant yesterday, is relevant today and will be relevant tomorrow.

Paul Motian - Conception Vessel (1973)

This is less riotous than my other two choices but doesn't lack in energy, it's of a different kind. An album that conceptually and emotionally hangs together. There is a brilliant solo track from Paul Motion and the final track, 'Inspiration from a Vietnamese Lullaby', features an utterly transporting contribution by Leroy Jenkins.


Antonio Poscic

Vijay Iyer / Wadada Leo Smith - A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (2016)

A collection of subversive and musically intricate piano/trumpet duets by two contemporary greats. Freely improvised, the music often finds itself in quiet spots, but even then it burns with an achingly bright fire, a fierce meditation.

Mette Henriette - Mette Henriette (2015)

A most impressive debut by the Norwegian saxophonist who leads us from chamber jazz to freer forms through 35 short and shorter pieces, all of them equally interspersed with silence and negative space. Especially neat are the shifts in approach as Henriette transitions from a trio to a larger ensemble.

Tim Berne's Snakeoil - Shadow Man (2013)

Tim Berne, Matt Mitchell, Oscar Noriega and Ches Smith endulge in a game of patience and explosions, controlled gradation and feverish intensity. Beautifully introspective and, at times, quite dark music

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