URUK - Âme (Iive at Artacts) (Trost, 2022) ****

By Eyal Hareuveni

Uruk is the free-improvising quartet comprised of two duos - partners in life and music, French vocalist-clarinetist Isabelle Duthoit and Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger (who plays here the quarter-tone trumpet) and long-time comrades, master percussionists Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake, who began collaborating as a duo already in 1990 and since then perform the winter solstice concert in Chicago. The quartet was recorded live at Artacts Festival in St. Johan, Austria, in March 2020 during a short European tour.

Uruk was one of the most important cities in ancient Mesopotamia, and the debut album of Uruk offers four timeless and imaginative rituals that navigate freely between ancient traditions and contemporary, free music. This short set begins with the title piece and sounds like an irreverent shamanic ritual. Duthoit vocalizes enigmatic and urgent spells and incantations in a wordless lingo as if she was possessed by ancient magic. Her vocalizations were immediately abstracted into intoxicating melodies by Hautzinger while Drake and Zerang introduce hypnotic rhythmic patterns on the congas and frame drums. The following “Enkidu”, titled after a legendary figure in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, a wartime comrade and friend of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, suggests another kind of mysterious ritual, beginning as free-form improvisation but gently the brief breaths of Hautzinger and the sensual moans, sighs and cries of Duthoit match the sparse percussive patterns of Drake and Zerang, then the interplay transforms into a poetic and seductive groove, with Drake adding his own wordless chants.

“Gilgamesh” begins as a twisted meditation comprised of subtle noises produced by the extended breathing techniques of Hutzinger, the pixie-like vocal juggling of Duthoit, and subtle percussive touches of Drake and Zerang. Later it morphs into an exotic and hypnotic, snake-charming melody, led by Hautzinger and Duthoit with her urgent and wild pixie-like songs. The final “Inanna Ishtar”, titled after the Akkadian goddess of war and sexual love, completes this sensual ritual with a touching, traditional African song sung by Drake, and beautifully ornamented by Hautzinger, Duthoit on the clarinet, and Zerang. This is one of the performances that you wish to experience in person, to feel the magical healing vibrations of these sonic rituals close as possible to the four inspiring musicians.

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This Friendship Is Sailing – Live on Curious Ear Radio (Beartown, 2021) ****½

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

This amazing, cassette only, release, came to my attention through the total randomness of searching through the internet for new, improvised music. Same goes for the eclectic catalogue of Beartown records, a small label definitely worth checking out. It’s funny, though, that the totally improvised nature –and the DIY aesthetics of it- of this recording matched perfectly my internet endeavor for new music.

This short lived, up until now at least, quartet consists of David Birchall on banjo, Spanish guitar, various amplified objects and flutes, Great Buitkute and Maggie Nicols on various voices and sounds and Sam Andreae on alto saxophone, electronics, whistles and voice. It is a recording of live concert broadcast as part of the Curious Ear series of radio shows. Each side of the cassette is covered by the two sessions recorded.

Live on Curious Ear Radio is a treat, something that anyone who has been drawn to the weird, eclectic and edgy sounds of modern British improvisation shouldn’t miss out. Actually, to be more exact, anyone interested in modern improvisation. The origins of this music, if that has any historical significance for the here and now of all of us, come from the early days of British improvisation and everything (like the Company nights that were curated by Derek Bailey) that happened around the radicalism of Incus Records.

There’s an obvious thread, a historical lineage that links this cassette with the urgency of those, now, old days. You can track down the same feeling of outsider music, of a music that knows no boundaries, has limited technical means and a few will listen too. Does it deserve more? You bet it does, at least if you are interested in any kind of audio challenging stuff.

I’m going to complain a bit by stating a general remark that the medium here, the cassette, is not 100% adequate for a music that needs your attention in order to grasp it’s foolish seriousness, it’s murky sounds that are totally unwilling to present themselves to the easy listener. If vinyl is out of the question financially (and it probably is, no reason to get into that right now), maybe the cd is more suitable for This Friendship is Sailing.

In any case, the music is great. Both sessions, on both sides, are refreshing attempts on anything goes free collective improve, a mix of older generation improvisers (like Maggie Nicols who has been a pioneer working with a lot of important musicians) and a newer generation of improvisers. The pairing is amazing, because they share the same ethos in music making, one that it seems that has never died but still remains alive within the wide variety of musics that can be called free improvisation.

Both sessions feel like long stories that follow a thread that comes into being at the spot. Gurgles and voices, homemade junk (either be it “real” instruments or electronics), reed noises and a constant chatter of ideas and irony. One the best albums I’ve heard in a while. Don’t get fooled by the comparisons to the past, I only tried to provide an aesthetic lineage. This music stands on its own and is, absolutely necessary to be heard.

A link for the release: https://www.beartownrecords.com/product/this-friendship-is-sailing-live-on-curious-ear-radio

@koultouranafigo

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Gui Duvignau, Baden (Sunnyside Records, 2022)

By Jim Marks

Born in France, raised in Brazil, and currently residing in New York, double bassist Gui Duvignau here celebrates the music of the acclaimed Brazilian composer, guitarist, and singer Baden Powell de Aquino (and his collaborators) with a core quintet of Billy Drewes on saxes and clarinet, Laurence Fields on keyboards, and Jeff Hirshfield on drums; Drewes and Hirshfield were also on Duvignau’s previous recording, 3-5-8 (2021). Bill Frisell plays guitar on four of the dozen tracks, and the legendary Ron Carter joins Duvignau on one track for a duo performance.

As the lineup—featuring neither nylon-stringed guitar nor vocals—indicates, Baden is an homage rather than an attempt to recreate the Brazilian guitarist’s sound. According to the liner notes, the approach here “uses Powell’s beloved songs as a foundation for explorative interpretations and improvisations.” Thus, while Baden Powell’s themes are immediately recognizable, the arrangements distance the performances here from the tropicalia context. The result, while especially rewarding for those familiar with the source material, is a thoroughly enjoyable modern jazz album with a strong sense of melody and breezy feel.

The tracks with Frisell demonstrate the cleverness of Duvignau’s choice to enlist a guitarist whose sound is so far removed from that of the Brazilian violao. Frisell often plays off of Drewes, the two having a substantial history of playing together. The reed player, probably best known for his work with Paul Motian in the 1980s, has a breathy tone well-suited to the material.

The lineup allows for a nice range of sounds with various combinations of players. For example, while the quintet with Frisell provides a full reading of tunes like the well-known “Canto de Ossanha,” “Lapinha” changes things up with a trio of Drewes, Duvignau, and Fields. The keyboardist also shows range by occasionally employing the Wurlitzer, as on “Canto de Lemanjá.” For “Tristeza e Solidão,” Duvignau forms another trio with Frisell and Hirshfield. The duo with Carter on “Bluese Preta/Asa Branca” is a real treat for aficionados of the lower end, and the one solo piece by Duvignau, “Berimbau/Consolacão,” a medley of two Baden Powell compositions, is a moving, almost spectral realization of the melodies.

A couple of Duvignau’s compositions in Baden Powell’s style round out the collection of tunes. “Mata Adentro” is a lovely, spare ballad, and “For Bill & Baden,” another blues piece, brings the proceedings to a gentle but satisfying conclusion.

Released in January, Baden arrived in the middle of the Brazilian summer and is the perfect antidote to winter for those in temperate climates looking forward to sun and warm breezes.

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Satoko Fujii and Joe Fonda – Thread of Light (FSR, 2022) ****

By Troy Dostert

If there’s a silver lining to the many ways in which COVID has challenged the musical community, it can be found in the opportunities it has given musicians to rethink the creative process. Case in point: pianist Satoko Fujii and bassist Joe Fonda decided in early 2021 to make a duo album that would be jointly improvised, but made asynchronously, with Fujii’s parts recorded first at her home in Kobe, Japan, and Fonda’s contributions laid atop Fujii’s later in New York.

The nature of this project raises interesting questions about the dynamics of free improvisation, particularly given that Fonda acknowledges having “studied” Fujii’s tracks extensively before adding his own parts to the mix. A spirit of spontaneity and risk can no longer be fully present under such circumstances—but does that render the final product any less “free”? Should the fact that these duets are so well-calibrated and precise (and the music here is very technically accomplished, as one would expect from these superlative musicians), without the pauses, hesitations, and mis-connections that are always a byproduct of even the finest freely-improvised outings, lead us to regard this music as somehow less valuable or noteworthy than “conventional” free recordings? While these are certainly questions to ponder, they take nothing away from what is by any reasonable estimation fifty minutes of excellently-played music, crafted with care by two masters of their respective instruments.

Fonda and Fujii are no strangers to one another, having released three duo albums (Duet, Mizu, and Four) just since 2016, in addition to a variety of projects in other formations. It’s not a surprise, then, that Fonda has such a keen appreciation for Fujii’s aesthetic and how to respond sympathetically to it. Whether on languid, deliberately-paced reflections like the opener, “Kochi,” or the cascading phrases that make up “Fallen Leaves Dance,” Fujii’s piano could easily stand on its own—but Fonda unfailingly determines how best to complement it, adding something inherently valuable in each instance. Importantly, Fonda doesn’t overplay here: the mysterious abstraction of the nine-minute closer, “Between Blue Sky and Cold Water,” leaves plenty of room for silence, and Fonda respects it, using his perfect arco technique as the ideal foil for Fujii’s spartan musings and her exploration of the piano’s innards. But on a more animated track, like the sprightly “Sekirei,” Fonda matches Fujii’s exuberance with plenty of his own energy, with back-and-forth gestures that remind us that what is taking place is, after all, a dialogue, albeit an atypical one among musicians who would much rather be having their conversation together, in the same room and in the moment.

Thread of Light may not be the optimal setting for these first-rate improvisers—hearing them in a spontaneous encounter will remain this reviewer’s preference—but the beauty of the music is undeniable, and Fujii and Fonda deserve kudos for seeking a new outlet for their irrepressible creativity.

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Soul and Fire

By Lee Rice Epstein

As a certain high profile artist touts his own foray into prog rock, these small groups recently released albums featuring their own proggy jazz. Each of these features guitars and/or synths in the foreground, but the individual approaches of the groups shows just how much variety there is in the wide world of fusion.

Android Trio - Other Worlds (Cunieform Records, 2021) ****

It’s been five years since their debut, but seeing bassist Eric Klerks, guitarist Max Kutner, and drummer Andrew Niven on Cunieform is like finding that perfect thrift wool cardigan to replace your decades-old one. (No? Just me?) For those new to the group, Android Trio is trippy, heady, and heavy. Primarily a guitar-and-synths-driven trio, they jam hard, drawing from a well of influences that includes Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, King Crimson, and Yes, while also dipping into the ‘70s and ‘80s heyday of jazz fusion, nodding to groups like Weather Report and Soft Machine. That’s a lot of names to live up to, and probably the most exciting part of Other Worlds is how original Klerks, Kutner, and Niven’s music sounds. Funk, blues, and math-rock swirl together in a riot of time signatures and mind-bending changes. Despite a slight pandemic disruption, Klerks, Kutner, and Niven found some advantages to using the studio, layering themselves in multiple tracks and bringing in a half-dozen guests. It takes a lot to make prog jazz, it takes Android Trio to make it danceable and fun.

Inclusion Principle - the 4, the 8, the 10 (Discus Music, 2021) ****

With a foot planted more firmly in the Soft Machine, Weather Report, Return to Forever side of things, Martin Archer and Hervé Perez’s Inclusion Principle is a brilliant electroacoustic project going on more than 15 years. Their latest, the 4, the 8, the 10, is a beautifully languid album, with beats rising and falling throughout the buildup to the centerpiece: a 35-minute suite, “Ornament of Light.” Referring to ­jñānālokālaṃkāra (“The Ornament of the Light of Awareness”) a sūtra referenced in the album’s liner notes, the suite plays like a sonic translation of the concepts explored through the sūtra. The credits list sopranino, soprano, alto, and baritone saxophones, shakuhachi, clarinet, flute, recorder, chimes, organ, electric piano, synths, field recordings, sound design, beats and keys programming, electronics, and software instruments, plus samples of percussionist Walt Shaw. Perhaps most crucial to Inclusion Principle’s sound but unmentioned in the credits is silence. For as layered, dense, and exciting this album is, it is equally patient and restful, a glorious tribute to space and sound.

Plastic Dogs - Ivert (R-Records, 2022) ****½

If Android Trio is a fiery star and Inclusion Principle an aural map of space, then Plastic Dogs is a white dwarf, wickedly dense and a thrill to catch sight of. A quartet featuring Ono Ryoko on sax, Muto Yuji on “grind-guitar,” Hayashi Tsuyoshi on “heavy-guitar,” and Ueji Kota on drums, Plastic Dogs packs a ridiculous amount into songs that run, at most, five minutes. Muto and Hayashi are guitar dynamos (with great senses of humor, see https://www.youtube.com/user/ryokoyr/featured ). Ono, Muto, and Hayashi turn from unison to counter-melodies on a dime—listen closely to “Agapanthus” for one of the most brilliant, high-wire examples of this, but it’s a hallmark of Plastic Dogs music, like torch juggling but with saxophone and guitars (and less dangerous?). The result is 45 minutes of joyful metal-jazz that easily sit next to some of the wildest 1980s Zorn music.

Dan Rosenboom, Jake Vossler, Tina Raymond - Trio Subliminal 2: Cinema Infernale (Orenda Records, 2022) ****½

Trio Subliminal dropped their debut in 2019, having recorded a set of short improvisations towards the end of the previous year. Following the eons of pandemic isolation. Trumpeter Dan Rosenboom reassembled the trio in his home studio, and guitarist Jake Vossler and drummer Tina Raymond responded with enthusiasm and amped-up energy. After a couple years in isolation, Rosenboom, Vossler, and Raymond are ready to stretch out, and they do so on three lengthy improvisations. Raymond’s making a huge splash this year, between Trio Subliminal and the upcoming Esthesis Quartet debut. Her playing here is more winter winds than sunny SoCal, with shades of Ivar Loe Bjørnstad and Teun Verbruggen, as she and Vossler settle into several incredible duo sections. For years, Rosenboom was a leader in tightly composed works, richly layered in the prog vein. Recently, he’s embraced improvisation as a vehicle for strengthening his musical relationships and opening up communication pathways between musicians. If that sounds mystical, that’s exactly the point. While Trio Subliminal is superficially noisier than Archer and Perez’s Inclusion Principle, Rosenboom, Vossler, and Raymond reach the same transcendent planes together, channeling each other’s energy and generating some truly awesome sounds. This is a powerful record that goes to some emotionally deep places, simultaneously cathartic and rejuvenating.

Carla Diratz & the Archers of Sorrow - The Scale (Discus Music, 2021) ****

More Martin Archer here, but this is truly a Carla Diratz showcase. And this album just straight up rocks. Archer and Nick Robinson coined a term for this particular thread of music, “improg,” which so perfectly captures the feel of the album, adding too much commentary risks spoiling the vibe. Drummer Adam Fairclough and bassist Dave Sturt kick the album off with a romping stomp, and Diratz floats in with one of the most dazzling, captivating vocal turns on the album. An incredible singer, Diratz is featured on albums by another Discus mainstay, Eclectic Maybe Band. Here, her rhythmic dexterity melds beautifully with Archer and Robinson’s compositions. The amazing trumpet player Charlotte Keeffe rounds out the band, along with Julie Archer and Jan Todd on backing vocals. Diratz leans into vulnerability, and Keeffe amazingly plays with a stunningly emotional deftness. The Scale feels very much like a song cycle for our times, with heady lyrics that explore modernity, motherhood, childhood, loss, glee, and, most often, wonder. Prepare to spend hours with this one, to uncover layers, yes, but more importantly to escape into its soundworld.

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Binker and Moses - Feeding the Machine (Gearbox Records, 2022) ***½

By William Rossi

London musicians Binker Golding and Moses Boyd on saxophone and drums respectively have been making a name for themselves in the jazz scene over the last few years, Boyd going as far as being nominated for a Mercury Prize for his solo album in 2020 and Golding leading his quartet and participating in a trio with John Edwards & Steve Noble. When their solo careers aren't keeping them too busy they collaborate as the Nu-Jazz duo Binker and Moses.

While most nu-jazz takes major inspiration from funk and hip-hop this album showcases the couple choosing a different path, opting to pick their contaminations from the British electronic music scene, dub and breakbeat mainly.

After 5 years since their last duo effort they've finally decided to come back for this new release, assisted by Max Luther on tape loops and electronics. Feeding the Machine is a remarkably easy album to listen to. The first track "Asynchronous Intervals" is a blissful meditation, with Binker's saxophone chasing after itself through a soundscape of processed sax and atmospheric drums. His playing is very lyrical, bluesy and straightforward, clearly inspired by the greats we're all familiar with, never letting itself be bogged down by pointless flash: he rarely plays "outside" or makes use of extended techniques, only choosing to do so sporadically. Some of the more demanding listeners could dismiss this kind of playing as unadventurous but knowing what Binker is capable of in different contexts I'm confident this was a deliberate choice in order to keep the album anchored to the Jazz tradition in contrast with the modern contaminations, contaminations that take center stage on "Active-Multiple-Fetish-Overlord", in which the dubby effects morph all the instruments almost beyond recognition or on "After The Machine Settles'', where Max Luthert's tapes and manipulations turn the signal fed into them into a primordial soup of echoes and reverbs where even a single snare hit is made into a glitchy electronic scream.

Luthert's contributions aren't limited to being so overt and can be much subtler, like the sub-bass on "Accelerometer Overdose" that provides a foundation for Binker's sax solo or the rhythmic modular synth on "Feed Infinite" that plays off Moses' drums to create a polyrhythmic canvass for the duo to shine, and shine they do: on "Feed Infinite" the drumming really takes center stage and Moses shows off his chops, an exercise maybe at its apex on "Accelerometer Overdose", which lives up to its name with newfound physicality and energy, the drums exploding into a breakbeat worthy of an Aphex Twin track.

There's hints of a narrative throughout the record: it starting out with clearer classic jazz influences and the electronics becoming more and more prominent throughout, culminating on the first half of "After The Machine Settles" from which the duo emerges with novel confidence to embrace their more bop and blues identity, the last track "Because Because" being very similar to the first one in mood and structure, ending with its sax almost sounding like birds chirping at dawn welcoming you to a new day.

What this narrative implies is open to interpretation, at least to me: it could be about life's cyclicality, the unstoppable growth of industry (not synonymous with progress), the need for different cultures to influence each other to evolve into something better, positive and negative interpretations that depending on the audience's mood at the time of listening could trump the others but none that feels definitive; all you know when finishing the album is that it ended way too quickly and while the machine might have been fed you're not even close to being done with trying to absorb all this great album has to offer and you just press play again.

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Dell Lillinger Westergaard & Maneri - Monuments (edition niehler werft, 2022) ****

By Martin Schray

DLW is a music collective consisting of Christopher Dell (vibraphone), Christian Lillinger (drums) and Jonas Westergaard (bass), which likes to augment itself with another musician. In other words: it works as a plug-in structure creating space for guests, who bring their specific character of playing into the band’s sound - as the promotional text puts it. Among others these have been John Tchicai (saxophone), Evan Parker (saxophone), Tamara Stefanovich (piano) and Johannes Brecht (electronics). For Monuments they chose the American viola virtuoso Mat Maneri, with whom they have collaborated for several years. Despite the different sound colour Maneri adds here, the most important characteristic of DLW’s music is also highlighted here: the field of conflicts of a given compositional precise framework, which presupposes their joint playing, and the complete freedom of improvisation. Form and substance, structure and content, concreteness and abstraction.

The result is that the music on Monuments is like a restless sea, whose waves swell up and down, an uncertain expanse that is turbulent and calm at the same time. For us listeners this means that we are hardly able to escape the intensity of the playing. Musical cornerstones are purposefully set, like buoys they serve as orientation. The music shows great attention to detail, which in turn forms an exciting whole. In “Monument 13“, a central piece, Dell’s chords on the vibraphone resemble pure heavy metal, organised like blocks against the wild lines of Mat Maneri’s viola. When Dell breaks up these chords into runs, the music fizzles like a henhouse invaded by a fox - nervous, mad, scurrying. Lillinger’s ultra-brutally fast drumming, which Dell then rivals, meets Westergaard’s stoic bass and Maneri’s tones at the threshold of pain.

Seven longer pieces, “Monuments", make the core of the album. Around them miniatures are grouped, so-called “Voids“, which dispense with everything incidental. They’re stripped to the bare, which means that repetitions, patterns, grooves and sound structures become recognizable. They allow you a glimpse to the work itself, the permanent rehearsals, performance strategies and finally even the mastering. The “Voids“ are the icing on the cake, like the 35 seconds in “Void 6“ with their cymbal crescendo and the viola notes tugging at the nerves, or the 41-second “Void 7“ dominated by Lillinger’s barrage, which prepare the listener for the calm, concluding “Monuments 16“. My favourite are the 77 seconds of “Void 4“, which culminate in an alienation of the drums towards the end that seems almost ghostly.

A bit earlier this year, it was announced that Christopher Dell will receive the Hessian Jazz Award 2022. The jury justified this by saying that he “is an exceptional musician (who) allows a unique complexity to emerge in the music with his analytical eye and structural way of thinking.“ They also praised his “expressive virtuosity and (his) fine feeling for the band sound“, saying that with him “rhythmic abstraction and the art of perfect harmonic phrasing are sometimes only mallet strokes apart.“ In particular, the importance of his Dell/Lillinger/Westergaard trio was mentioned. There is nothing to add to this.

Monuments is the second recording in the new retroactive series of Dell’s label edition niehler werft (enw). In 2015 the session was engineered at the Berlin Funkhaus-Studios, it was mastered in 2021.

Monumens is available on vinyl, CD and as a download. The vinyl version only contains 8 of the 15 tracks.

You can order the album here: https://www.christopher-dell.de/en/dlw-maneri-monuments-new-release-pre-order-now/

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Sothiac feat. Paul Jolly - Superluna (with 'phase 3,' vinyl release) (33Xtreme, 2022) *****

By Sammy Stein

I reviewed Superluna in 2020 after the first two phases were released. Now the trio - Pat Moonchy, Lucky Liguori featuring Paul Jolly has decided to release a vinyl version, with an additional phase. This is a good thing. Vinyl captures the sounds of this experimental trio somehow in a purer form, suiting their intricate, delicate nuances, which are more apparent.

Vocalist Pat Moonchy has performed across the globe as a solo artist and with various collaborators, including Tod Tobias, Alfa Neu, and more. Her activities with The Moonshine Pub and art, her study of shamanisms, and discovery of the tanpura are documented in my earlier review Sothiac feat. Paul Jolly - Superluna (Sothiac/33 Jazz Records). She and Multi-instrumentalist and electronic sound creator Lucio (Lucky) Liguori form an experimental, explorative combination known as Sothiac. They are known for their experimental creativity.

In Paul Jolly, they have found a kindred spirit, and since first meeting at The Vortex Jazz Club, Dalston, London, the trio have played together at several events in different settings. Paul is well known as a reedsman and free jazz advocate, playing in the incredible free jazz combo the People Band with Terry Day, Davey Payne, Charlie Hart, Tony Edwards, and others and supporting many musicians through the 33 Jazz label.

The previous release, Superluna, consisted of just two tracks – one of twenty minutes or so and the other of just over eight minutes, and for the vinyl release, the third phase has been added.

Lucky approached me with this release and told me, "The Superluna album was conceived thanks to the willpower to make something new when everything stopped due to lockdowns. The making of Superluna has been a synergic work that engages everyone in an inner exploration aimed at bringing the listener into another dimension where they could find something apart from reality. The work inspired us to consider the relationships of the moon with the Earth."

The trio worked with visionary artist Lino Budano who directed the Superluna video, which was selected to be shown at the prestigious art gallery San Vidal – an arts organization based in Venice and a biennial exhibition called the Biennale Venice.

On 13^th February, Superluna was shown at the Victorian Wardown Museum on the outskirts of Luton, UK, and sold out.

Since Sothiac joined forces with Paul Jolly, the three musicians expressed a desire to continue their association once things began to get back to normal. Their next date is on 9^th April at the Hundred Years Gallery in London and on 24^th April at the Vortex Jazz Club for the Mopomoso experimental event, instigated by the late John Russell. The album is dedicated to John, and The Vortex is where the trio met for the first time. More dates are due to be announced soon.

Listening to the album again, phases 1 and 2 have lost nothing of their effect on the first listen. The atmospheric vocals, crazily developed sonic textures and spiritual essence are very effective and utterly engaging.

'Phase 3,' added to the vinyl release, opens with multi-layered sonic effects over which the vocals enter, Moonchy's distinctive tones adding even more atmosphere on top of those already evoked. But it is the bass clarinet that is key to the eleven plus minutes of this third phase, creating a deeply textured background, over which the vocals and instrumental lines glide and softly weave tones of sonic bliss. The Banshee-like intonations of Moonchy's exquisite voice are of such delicacy that they might have been eked from the mist. Percussive effects add timbres and cleave sounds from the very air, offering tonal contrast to the vocals.

The clarinet sings and sighs, its voice at times steady and sonorous; at others, it works in the flexibility of melodic themes which last for a moment or several moments – their placement intuitive and deft.

For this listener, returning to Sothiac and Superluna is something I should have done a while ago, and the music has lost nothing of the effect it had on the first, second, or third listen. Deeply emotive, evocative, and coming from a place none of us knew existed until the combination of this voice, this guitar, and this bass clarinet made it materialize for us.

Personnel:

Pat Moonchy -voice and sound art
Lucky Liguori­­-prepared cithara, guitar, and gongs
Paul Jolly ­­– bass clarinet

Out 4/1/22 and available for pre-order from 33 jazz records 33Jazz Records

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Damon Smith/Balance Point Acoustics Roundup, Part 2

By Nick Metzger & Lee Rice Epstein

Featuring Damon Smith

A continuation of the conversation between Lee, Damon Smith, and myself talking about the recent Balance Point Acoustics releases among many other things. Also be sure to catch Smith on tour this April & May in a trio with Jason Stein and Adam Shead whose new album Volumes & Surfaces we discuss below. 

 

Sarah Ruth Alexander/Damon Smith - God Made My Soul an Ornament (Balance Point Acoustics, 2021)

Another standout in this roundup is “God Made My Soul an Ornament” from the duo of Smith and singer, multi-instrumentalist Sarah Ruth Alexander. The diverse array of instruments and traps Alexander utilizes makes for a full and heady listening experience, while her vocals add a much appreciated lyrical dimension. Smith provides a perfect complimentary aesthetic that sees him mining his range of sounds and techniques. - NM

DS: I went to Texas in I think, 2017 or something for a family health situation, and my girlfriend was at Harvard working on the Bauhaus show, the Bauhaus Centennial Show, and so she had that to do and when I didn't have gigs, I was pretty free. And I've been teaching remotely for years already by that point. So I could just go to Texas. So I went to Texas to kind of take care of her mom and be with her mom after she just got out of the hospital and stuff. And I brought my travel bass so I could practice because I was there for like two and a half weeks. The first time Stephan Gonzalez had a music series and Stephan wasn't available Sarah took it over and got in touch with me, found out I was there, and I didn't know when I went down at this time that I'd be able to play at all. She organized some concerts for me in Denton and in Dallas then I met and heard her on one of those nights. Then we got to know each other, she's got a lot of similar interests, there's a lot of similarities, and she gets a lot from literature and visual art and other things like that. And there's a lot of similar tastes that we have and then a lot of different tastes, which makes it interesting. But the fact that a lot of her influencers are coming from these other art forms was a really great place for us to connect. So we did several duo concerts, and then we made this duo recording, like two in the morning at North Texas State and it had been sitting for a while, and we wanted to do it.

She had been reading the Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, which is a big one for me, and it turned out one of the interesting things is that my very first bass guitar teacher (Chris Daniels) was a student of Jaco Pastorius, which I thought was cool. But then I sort of lost touch with him, and then when I got in touch with him again, it turned out that he had learned Portuguese from working in kitchens and became one of the primary translators of Fernando Pessoa’s Heteronyms. He's got two books out and he gave me a Pessoa translation. I thought that was really exciting. It's a bold title in a way and I don't necessarily have a spiritual practice. I'm more like Barre Phillips who said, my religion is bass. I feel like art is a place where we can try to hover above our humanity and petty human squabbles rather than wallowing in them. I guess that can be thought of as a spiritual place, but I think of it as more of a subconscious space or whatever. So I'm not so much into God or souls necessarily, but I love this title. Ernesto Montiel is also a great musician, and he had all this beautiful artwork. And again, someone who I've talked to a lot about art and music and literature and these other things, and we are able to get this sculpture from him for the cover. So the design and the title of this one, not just the music, I love the music. Playing with Sarah, it's different every time. And more than anything, it embodies the concept that Bill Dixon used to talk about where he said each person is their own Orchestra. There's this architectural breadth between her and I where it's almost like anything could happen. There's the percussion and other instruments that she plays, like the dulcimer. But of course, it's really grounded in her beautiful voice, this pure classical voice, and everything hangs off of that thread, on this purity of the voice that she brings, it's so striking. But she doesn't overuse it either. I think there's just this breadth of playing with her in a duo that I feel like I feel like you've probably done ten or twelve concerts together by now as a duo, maybe more, maybe less, but we did a little tour last summer, and that's a lot for improvised music, and then each one is completely different and has a different range and a different way of doing things together. We've got some things planned for this year hopefully. We're talking about doing some stuff.

NM: This is another album that stands out like the Eternity Cult, it’s a lot different than the other ones. And to your point, she does a great job with all the different instruments and voice and contraptions and things. For it being a duo album, there's a lot of information there.

LRE: Going back to Kowald for a minute, he seemed to never stop exploring different modalities, different groups. He was constantly trying working with new players and creating work for dance, obviously, also. You also seem similarly interested in exploring new sounds that are exciting to you. Because I agree with Nick, this album. It was sort of interesting to put this one on and be like, wait a minute…(laughs)

DS: Yeah, definitely. When I heard Sarah for the first time, I was like, yeah, this is somebody doing original work. I want to play with her. It was the same kind of feeling as when I heard Sandy, honestly. She's got some great recordings, which I would recommend tracking down. There's one called Words on the Wind. It's about the Panhandle of Texas. It's amazing out, super bleak and beautiful. When I heard her. I was like, well, this is original work, and this is something that's important.

Mitchell/Ewen/Smith/Walter - A Railroad Spike Forms the Voice (ugEXPLODE, 2021)

Brilliant improvised set, with Mitchell in particularly fine form. Driving, grooving, swinging—whatever you expect, this is not what you expected. It’s much, much more. - LRE

DS: That whole thing happened because of Sandy. One of the last things I did in the Bay Area was a collaboration with a dancer named Micaela Gardner and a filmmaker Darren Hawk. And that's on YouTube somewhere. But we did these outdoor bass and dance pieces with the filmmaker kind of involved as an equal partner. And when I got to Houston, there was a dance film festival, and somebody knew that I had this film. I forget who it was. It was someone in Houston. And they said I should apply for this festival with that film, so I did and I got onto the festival. And then Sandy has a long term project with a belly dancer named Yet Torres, so I first saw her on film. I hadn't met her yet. And I was like, Whoa, that's original. I want to play with her. And so we started to play together in Houston, she was much younger than me. She's much younger than me. I think she's twelve years younger or something. But I started improvised music in my 20s, and she started it in high school. She had Keith Rowe workshops in high school. She was already a lot more experienced than your average person in her mid 20s at this music. When I started to work with her in Houston it was basically side by side. We were organizing things together, we were doing projects together, and of course I had a few more connections because I've been out in the world a little longer and stuff like that. I knew Roscoe just from being at Mills. I wasn't at Mills, but he had an Orchestra piece and Steve Cowert, one of the Mills professors, brought in Weasel and I to play in this Orchestra. He said ‘hey, do you want to come play in this Roscoe thing?’ and we're like, yeah! (laughs) And the funny thing, the other piece on the program was In C, and Weasel did the marimba parts for In C, and he did a fantastic job. And that was also an eye opening moment with Weasel. We had been working together for a bit, but then watching him just kill it on the In C part, even though it's fairly simple, it was still like Weasel Walter. It just expanded what we could do together. Roscoe came through Dave's organization, Nameless Sound, David Dove's organization and there was a workshop, and what we do in Houston, the workshops are free, and we'd all do it no matter who it was. We'd all come to the workshop because it was a musical thing, but it was also a social thing. We're all friends, and we're all going to come and come together at the Roscoe Mitchell workshop. So we're doing the workshop, And he's not really impressed with anyone except Sandy, he really loved what she was doing. And he said to a saxophone player, why don't you listen to her and try to play something like her? I could listen to what she's doing all day. So he heard what everybody else hears. So then after the workshop he said, hey, is there a beer around? So I get him a beer, and we're having a beer together and then he asked, what are you and Weasel doing? I said, oh, we just did an album with this guitar player. And he said, well, I'd love to hear that. We sent him the album, and he really liked it. So, Sandy is the reason why Roscoe knew me and Weasel and wanted to work with us. Obviously, he spent a lot of time talking to us, and there was a nice personal connection and everything, but there was no sense that Weasel and I were going to play with him until this.

And we got a gig at a place that has a really great chef. Paul Canales has a restaurant called Duende. It just reopened in Oakland, and he's been a huge fan of the music. He made dinner for Giani Gebbia and I in the 90s, like a big fancy dinner with Pigeon and all this great stuff. And he's a really cool guy, and I'd run into him at Amoeba buying CDs, and he's just this superstar chef that is really into this music. And then I said, hey, man, if Roscoe will play with us, will you pay him? And he said, oh, I know exactly what he'll want. And we'll pay him. It'll be great. So I asked Roscoe. And he said, yeah, that'd be great. And then we had it recorded. This concert was interesting because we had a bit more responsibility to present our music to Roscoe rather than to try to interface with his concept, if that makes sense. And that was kind of an exciting moment, because when I got to play with Cecil Taylor and things like that, you really want to get inside Cecil's music. That's the whole thing. You're trying to do that, and it's a great thing, but it's often harder in some ways because you're going outside yourself. The whole thing was that all of Sandy's playing on that album actually makes it a bit more than what it would be if it was me and Weasel. It wouldn't be bad, but I think she adds this whole other element. It's almost like an intersection of Sun Ra and AMM in a way. Working with Sandy and Weasel, these are also people that I'm friends with and I don't always like to push that, because I think one of the things folks used to always say is this is not about friendship. It should be about the music. But with Sandy and Weasel, they're definitely people I can get projects done with. So I know if I start a project with either or both of them, it's going to happen. It's going to get over the finish line, we can work together in all these other aspects of getting something done, which is why we’ve made so many albums together, things like that. In a certain way, I feel like Sandy and I have not made enough albums together for how much work we've done together. We've done some stuff that's important, but I think we could use a few more because we've just done a lot of things together. We've got a new duo that we recorded last year or the year before that, that I'd like to get out at some point. It was really beautiful and we got to some special places. And then we just recorded a couple of recent things, we just did a quartet project with Lisa Cameron, afantastic drummer, and Alex Cunningham, great violin.

LRE: This seems like Roscoe has come back to some of this long form improv.

There's been a lot of albums like Bells for Southside and Splatter, where it's almost compositional, but it's kind of exciting in a way to hear him sort of back in a real, long form kind of improv space, developing ideas over a much greater duration. I mean, I just love him. Just love him.

DS: Well, yeah. He's one of the greatest. in the Art Ensemble. I was saying that Odwalla the Juice Company is a name from the Art Ensemble, and they would pay to bring the Art Ensemble to the Bay Area every year. So I got to see the original quintet, I got to see the quartet formations, and I got to see that group a bunch of times. So they were just huge for me, and I got to see them. I saw the Art Ensemble before I was even involved in actually trying to play this music, back when I was still trying to have a Minutemen type band. One of the cool things about that Roscoe show was being able to listen to his music up until then and really dive into Roscoe Mitchell's music. One of the really exciting things is I went to my local record store in Houston, Vinyl Edge, and I found this LP. Do you guys have this one? (holds up Roscoe Mitchell, Tony Marsh, John Edwards LP Improvisations, otoroku, 2013)

(NM and LRE shake heads yes)

DS: Yeah. And that's another one where he's doing improvised music on a long form double LP with the great Tony Marsh and John Edwards, who I'm a big fan of. And so that’s kind of exciting. And in that time period, there wasn't a lot of that when I first started to do this music. If you wanted to know what the new releases were, you went to the record store and you looked.

It was one of the first times in a long time where I found an incredible album that I didn't know about in the record store that was relevant to what I was about to do. So it was a big moment to find that record, there's very few times since then.

NM: One more question on the Mitchell album. When you play with somebody like Roscoe Mitchell, who has led so many groups, and then kind of he's had all his orchestrations, he's done conducting, how does he communicate? Did you talk beforehand about what you wanted to do? You said that you were going to be more geared toward what you all play?

DS: Well, we knew that he liked the album, and that's why we asked him to play. And we didn't discuss that with him at all. He got out of stopwatch and used it a timer, and that's why it's a CD length. So I think we knew he was planning to play all the way to the end. I don't think he said it. We just knew. Maybe he said it, but there was some information whether he said it or whether it was there, that we were going to do one long piece. That was something we knew. And then when you know that, what's pretty cool is you can settle in and work with it. This goes into something that's a bit like thinking about what I think about as far as the audience. I don't ever want to compromise my music. And the kind of lucky thing for me is that's what my audience expects of me. My audience is not expecting me to please them. Right. I think you have to make these considerations about taking your music out of your bedroom and into the world. And the sculptor Lawrence Weiner, who I'm a big fan of, said you only make work for the public, so you have to think about them to a degree. One of the things I think about is that if possible, especially at a concert, my ideal concert would be a local series that has two 20 to 25 minutes sets. I think what you can give an audience is brevity if you're not working with scale. That's the way I always like to put it. If you're not working with scale, make things concise. But in this case, scale was part of it. We knew we're going to make one long piece. Right. So we know we're working with scale. And sometimes you just start working with scale. It's not discussed. It just happens. But like Feldman, when he knows he's going to write a four hour piece or whatever, he's working with that scale, he's trying to deal with long form decision making and stuff like that. And I think that's what happens in a concert, like with this quartet or recording with this quartet, we knew we were making a long form piece. We knew we're going over. We're kind of working with that time frame.

Ewen/Rowe/Smith + Gooseberry Marmalade - Houston 2012 (Balance Point Acoustics, 2021)

A terrific double CD that combines a set from the trio of Ewen, Rowe, and Smith and Ewen’s Lady Band - working under the moniker Gooseberry Marmalade here) - with a set from the trio alone. of Ewen, Rowe, and Smith. The former was recorded live at 14 Pews, and the latter a couple of days later at KUHF. Both discs are excellent, very much in the spirit of Scratch Orchestra and the more subtle AMM releases, but also very different. Despite the large group, the Gooseberry Marmalade set is measured, even pointillist, as the band works its way through several scores selected by Rowe, Ewen, and Smith. The trio improvisations, likewise, are reserved pieces of sound art that detail how differently Ewen and Rowe approach prepared guitar, smith filling in the gaps with long bowed tones or animated grima. - NM

DS: Scale is something that Keith had often worked with in AMM. Keith is really influenced by Cage and also Rothko and the abstract expressionist painters and things like that who are dealing with scale and looking at scale in that way. And one of the things I did once it came up that would be possible to play with Keith is I would go to the Menil Collection in Houston, which definitely has some of the best artworks in the world that live there. Like, there's a 60 foot long Cy Twombly painting in Houston. It's the most work of his in America, and I think the most work in one place, and it's free. You can walk in there and look at this Cy Twombly anytime you want. And so I'd go sit in front of the 60 foot long side Twombly painting for like an hour, just working on my sense of scale and my concentration on the painting, looking at the painting and things like that. This is also something that was very much driven by Sandy in a way. Keith had come to Houston to do a concert for Dave Dove’s organization, Nameless Sound. And Texas has these great things called Ice Houses where you basically sit outside and drink beer. And there's a really iconic one called the Alabama Ice House. And we were there with Keith and that Ben Patterson exhibition was up, and I had done the Ben Patterson piece, and Keith was really excited and had a duo with Ben Patterson. I don't know if there's any recordings of that, but Patterson played an electric upright duo with Keith Rowe, and Keith was really into the connections between Fluxus and Scratch Orchestra and stuff. And so we're drinking and talking about that. Sandy was there and he knew her from before, he'd been coming to Houston for a while. They've done workshops and stuff like that. And obviously Keith is the first one to really put the guitar flat and have that as the primary working method. A crucial difference, but an important difference is he tests the guitar totally flat on a table, and then he has his objects on the table, and the guitar is rigid. Right. And one of the things about Sandy is the guitar is on her lap, and she uses her legs to move the guitar and to move the objects on her guitar, so some of it is coming from her legs as well. Almost like a drummer but it's not really percussive, but it's a whole body concept. And the fact that it's on her lap is an important part of the concept. That's not obvious. Like, you might just think I was just there because it's flat but also her legs come into the movement and the rhythms and the sounds that are happening. So her hands come into it and her legs under it are moving it and I think that is an important aspect of that. And then hearing her with Keith, you can kind of hear there's a different type of movement in her playing versus his.

I found out from the Keith Rowe film What is Man and what is Guitar, one of the things I took from that film was that he first put it on the floor, which is an interesting idea. I didn't know that he was thinking about Pollock working above the canvas on the floor, and putting the guitar on the floor. There's that connection with Sandy and Keith. But then the other connection was that Sandy had made this all female ensemble that changed his name every time. And it was always a name involving fruit and they came up with a new name every time. And then they would make up their own little pieces and things like that. And it was very much in the tradition of Scratch Orchestra in a way, even though she wasn't thinking that at all, if she knew about the Scratch Orchestra, it was in passing. She was around enough hardcore improvised music nerds that knew the history that I'm sure the Scratch Orchestra was mentioned in her presence at some point, but this was all her idea, to do this group with the women. She just felt like not enough women were present on the scene. And so it was open to people who were musicians or not. They didn't have to be musicians. They just had to be interested. There was a choir in the Bay Area called the Cardew Choir. And their thing was, if you're interested, you're already qualified. Okay. So we made that connection. We asked Keith to restage some Scratch Orchestra pieces with her all female ensemble, and that sort of brought the whole thing together. And we brought a Cy Twombly book of the paintings in Philadelphia, the 50 Days at Ilium, into the studio. We used that as a graphic score, but not really. It was just there. And then I was able to get photos from the Cy Twombly Foundation, liners from Brian Olewnick, and then from Rebecca Novak.

 

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Damon Smith/Balance Point Acoustics Roundup, Part 2b

Novak/Kamins/Ewen/Smith/Bryerton - Groundwater Recharge (Balance Point Acoustics, 2021)

Billed as “improvised music for quintet (+trios)” this is an excellent example of what’s meant by collective improvisation. All five players (six with Aluana Rubin joining on clarinet for one track) are given, and give, space to explore and collaborate. - LRE

DS: Groundwater Recharge is a window into what we were doing in Houston at that time. If Dave Dove was on that record, it would be even more of a clear window of what we were doing. But that was something where we had access to a really good studio, and Byerton came to town, and then these were the people that were there, Sandy and Rebecca Novak, who was in the Gooseberry Marmalade and wrote those liner notes. Sandy and Rebecca and Danny Kamins and I were doing a lot of different things together at the time and maybe even getting together and playing, which I don't do as much. It's just when I've got concerts, I feel like it's more important for me to practice at home and be ready for those concerts than to sort of do private sessions. I don't do a lot of that because I think it becomes, at a certain point, also work-life balance. If I've got concerts on the books and I'm practicing and then I'm listening, then it might be more important that I have a bike ride that day. I do get together and play with people privately. It's just important to make sure that you're ready in different ways. Rebecca Novak is a really interesting and important improviser in Houston, and she has a degree in French Horn and took that to a really high level in orchestral playing and classical music. But she's always been interested in this music. I believe she was roommates with Tim Mulvana who was the original drummer of the Vandermark Five in Chicago at a certain point. And then she took time off of music to really develop a visual art practice. It was primarily as a sculptor. And now she brings those things together in a lot of ways with installations and things like that. But also in concert, she'll have these objects like glasses and other objects in addition to Cornet and piano. But of course piano is such a hard thing because there's not a piano at every venue, but there was a piano in the studio. So she was able to play some piano on this album. But it's good to get that out because she's a really important musician and artist in Houston and because of the way that her music sort of overlaps with visual art and back, it's not super easy to document exactly what she does. When I was in Houston last, she was doing a really incredible installation at Project Row House, which I felt really captured the whole picture of what she works on. She’s an amazing person to work with. And then, of course, it's got a cover by Bryerton, a painting by Bryerton. I think it's really beautiful, and Rebecca came up with the titles for this one, too. So the titles have to do with her work in environmental justice.

Gregorio/Smith/Bryerton - Room of the Present (Balance Point Acoustics, 2021)

A must have recording of Smith and Bryerton in a trio with the great Argentine reedsman Guillermo Gregorio. Mainly trio improvisation, Gregorio conducts on “Moholy 2”, a graphic score he wrote inspired by the life and art of László Moholy-Nagy which is reproduced inside the cover. This is an exceptional release and really one of my personal favorites as I’ve returned to it numerous times. The trio is phenomenal and this album is just as patient in its small interactions as it is in its more explosive parts. The liners also give the listening notes for how the score was interpreted, as well as providing some insightful information on Moholy-Nagy himself. - NM

DS: Of course, Bryerton and I have been working together for many years. And if we talk about this album with Gregorio, Bryerton, and I had been working with Wolfgang Fuchs in a trio, Bryerton was living in Chicago and these recordings were done in 2006 and 2007, I believe, or 2007 and 2008, something like that. And one of the most interesting musicians who was in Chicago at that time was Guillermo Gregorio. I don't know if you know, do you know his Hat Art albums and things like that.

NM: Yeah, I own them.

DS: It's just fantastic. And I really love his music and I love his compositions and I love his concepts. And again, an original voice. And I love the intersection of this kind of Fluxus avant-garde thing, which was the Argentinian movement was called Madi Madi, and it was kind of a constructivist Fluxus thing that was really incredible. But then he also has a cool jazz-like way of playing and thinking, which is fantastic. And what's nice there is the Moholy pieces are prior to that. Our first duo recording is actually on this. And Gregorio is conducting, and my girlfriend Melissa Venator did the liner notes. She is a Moholy scholar, actually. And one of the chapters of her dissertation was on Moholy, and when she was at Harvard, she got to activate the Moholy’s light prop, which the Room of the Present is in reference to the title. And she wrote liner notes that are analyzing the visual aspects of the score in relation to Moholy’s work, which is really cool. And then the other interesting thing about this is we get a pretty fiery performance out of Guillermo on the improvisations, which is really exciting. And another interesting thing is right before this call, I just confirmed a concert of this group in May in upstate New York that Clifford Allen's putting on. So that's going to be pretty exciting as well. This group will be able to work a little bit.

Bryerton/Smith Duo - There Must Be A Reason for Generating Sounds (Balance Point Acoustics, 2021)

 Bryerton and Smith are powerful foils for each other, each one as restrained and fiery as the other, in this intense, touching, and searching tribute. - LRE

DS: We dedicated this to Wolfgang Fuchs, Bryerton and I had done a lot of different things with great players beforehand, actually the earliest recording of Bryerton is on one of my earliest recordings is called Sextessence with John Butcher and Henry Kaiser. On that album, we're doing John Stevens material and trying to improvise them. The first figure that we both work together with closely as a rhythm section or whatever you want to call what we do. John Cage used to have this saying that you don't have to call it music if the term offends you, so you don't have to call Bryerton and I a rhythm section of the term offends you. (laughs)

NM: I did watch some of your videos on your YouTube channel. I think you had at least one from Minneapolis, right? Yeah, it was really good.

DS: Yes, that was a great trio. And we could just set up and we could play anywhere and play that music. And it was such an important experience to work with Fuchs. And Fuchs is such an important figure. Not 100% forgotten, but I would say he's not in the front of everyone's mind about this music. But I think he's one of the very important figures in this music. And he was very serious. He had a great sense of humor, but his attitude towards the music was a little too serious for some people. And he could be a bit of a hardliner about improvisation and stuff like that and a bit spiky, kind of offended a lot of people. And the titles are things that he said, which were all really funny things. But he was close friends with the artist Max Neumann, who did all of his FMP covers. And we were able to get four drawings from Max, which is really nice. Four drawings from Max, which this album has a gatefold and all that with these drawings, which is really great.

NM: Yeah. I didn't realize that he and Newman were friends.

DS: Yeah, right. The cover to the first King Ubu, not the LP. It's like a more kind of a drawing, black and white. But the first CD with the two figures on it, and then also Fuch’s solo on FMP, those are so iconic and so amazing. So it's great to get those for the covers. And the CD comes with the bookmark, which I'm really excited about. It's kind of funny to me at this point in my work, and I'm just excited that I was able to make a bookmark, but I'm always looking for a bookmark, and I don't have one. And now I have all these bookmarks with this banner on it that Fuchs made. There must be a reason for generating sounds. And I think that's kind of a great thing. I'm using them in all kinds of books. It's a very useful item. This is something we did last year. Bryerton is in Chicago. I'm in St. Louis now.

 

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