Something about this album grabbed me right from the beginning. Maybe it
was the fact that this is an album by two percussionists that is not
percussion heavy. Maybe it is because this is seven-part suite is one of
Jerome Cooper’s final works and recordings. Maybe it just sits right.
As of Not
consists of Jerome Cooper – formerly of the epic Revolutionary Ensemble and
sundry projects since - on drums, chirimia, balafon, and electronic tonal
activator and Kresten Osgood – Dutch percussionist extraordinaire - on
drums and piano. The percussion is there and sometimes layered but hardly
consumes the pieces. For example, it takes almost seven minutes for the
ambient electronics and piano to give way to a piano-balafon duet –
performed in frenetic unison - in the As of Not Part 1. Part 2 is a flood
of sound –chirimia, piano, and synthesized winds – opening for a steady
drum beat only half-way through, then a spirited, broken-funk free-for-all
led by Cooper’s chirimia and Osgood’s keys that take the track home. These
pieces have so much variation in sound, mood, and color. They have so much
energy – potential and realized – and always over a gathering storm of soft
but churning synthetic sound. Part 3 begins a soulful chirimia and a
sparingly deployed thud of a drum-set and, even with a gradual
intensification and the addition of the tonal activator, keeps up the 70’s
rooted meditation on a simple but deeply moving theme. Part 4 is a
whirlwind of gusty chimes lain over a steady back beat, which evolves into
a steady into a military cadence. Part 5 offers a mucky and disjointed take
blues-plagued drum-and-bass. (The blues comes in the last few minutes of
multiphonic euphony). The last two parts are shorter briefer meditations on
similar, though somewhat spacier (Part 6) and jazzier (Part 7) themes.
Among the comments of a recent post on
FJB
, there was a brief but interesting discussion about what is “new” amidst
all of this music that seems to be looking back to the paradigms of the
1970s. (That, of course, was when Cooper cut his chops with Leroy Jenkins
and Sirone.) Including As of Not might complicate that discussion,
not just because of the personal continuity Cooper embodies, but because of
how firmly it is simultaneously rooted in spiritual jazz (think Sanders,
Coltrane, and the more Egyptesque Sun Ra) rhythms and ritualism, the
Revolutionary Ensemble’s dedication to genre-blending (though in a
decidedly different form), and contemporary tendencies toward
deconstruction. I am not sure I can put my finger on what exactly is new in
all of this. But I can attest that, regardless of novelty, As of Not is some genuinely powerful music.
In 2004 the then 25-year old German guitarist Ronny Graupe started his
project SPOOM, a trio with drummer Christian Lillinger (20) and bassist
Jonas Westergaard (28). Looking back, the band represented something like a new wave of European jazz. In the beginning they focused mainly on the
Great American Songbook, but as time passed more and more original
compositions were added to their repertoire. The result was their first
release As They Are
(Shoebill, 2012), followed by two albums on Pirouet - SPOOM in 2013 and The
White Belt in 2016.
Now, 16 years after the founding of the band and following a
three-year break of not releasing any new material, Bridge Ices Before Road
is like a re-start for them, because after such a long time playing in a
trio format, Graupe decided to extend the band to a quartet. Since August
2018, alto saxophonist Christian Weidner has augmented the combo, which
adds new variations to SPOOM’s musical colour palette.
On the one hand, Bridge Ices Before Road is full of tradition (like its
predecessors), but on the other hand, it bursts of experimentation that spans
the musical generations - it lives at the vanguard of new jazz music. The
compositions present less through-composed parts, and thus imply more open
space for individual improvisation of the interpreting players, like on
“Ped Xing“, which is reminiscent of early 1960s cool jazz à la Jimmy
Giuffre. Characteristic are the melodic entanglements, saxophone and guitar
often act in unison, while the bass counters these attacks with separate
hook lines, like for example at the beginning of the opener “Launching ad
39b“. SPOOM’s sound is defined by the dense compositional structure of
Graupe’s music and the interpretation of the intricate written material. At
the same time the forms that emerge from the pieces are used for extensive
improvisation. This approach is emblematic on this album, for example on
the short “Sic Erat Scriptum“ or on the title track, on which Weidner’s
rough contributions meet with Graupe’s catchy guitar lines at just the
right, unexpected moment. The improvisations are always as smooth and
elegant as calligraphy; yet it sounds like Graupe is literally signing
these new ideas with his instrument, which can be heard on the melodic
riffling of “Merge“, which explores some of the same dusky film noir
allusions that SPOOM displayed on previous albums.
Bridge Ices Before Road is very recommendable, especially for listeners who
like music at the intersection of modern jazz and freely improvised music.
The album is available as a CD and as a download. You can buy it here:
I am not familiar with Pinkish Black, the "art rock" band that consists of Daron Beck on keyboards, and synth and Jon Teague on drums and synth. In contrast, I am very familiar with the great trio "Yells At Eels" with father Dennis González on trumpet, and sons Aaron González on bass and Stefan González on drums. We hadn't heard from this family trio for quite some time and it's great to hear them back. Both brothers are active in experimental rock music in bands of their own, and also appeared recently as members of guitarist Luis Lopes Humanization 4tet.
The combination of both bands is stellar. Heard of psychedelic jazz? Well, this is it. Heavy synth orchestration with steady rhythms and rolling sound waves over which eery trumpet tones sing their sad melodies. Other psychedelic jazz references could be "Elephant9", "Sun of Goldfinger", "Giovanni Di Domenico & Abschattungen", or "The Godforgottens". Check them out and enjoy this rare breed of music.
The González family and the Pinkish Black duo collaborate to perfection. The atmosphere is dark, hypnotic, relentless, epic and full of inherent drama. The rock-solid rhythm section, the wall of sound created by the synths and the beautiful trumpet playing by Dennis González make this very infectious and compelling music. The musicianship is exceptionally good, coherent and the ensemble playing as tight as you can expect from family members.
I have always been a great fan of Dennis González, and I even think I have all his albums. He is a musician (and visual artist) with a unique and deeply emotional and lyrical approach to music, open to many influences without ever losing his own warm voice on trumpet. From the generosity of his playing, you sense the joy he feels of collaborating in this setting.
Fans of psychedelic jazz will absolutely relish this album.
Who isn't up for a pleasant surprise from time to time? Especially these days when the surprises tend to be the less welcoming kind, The No Base Trio from Puerto Rico is definitely of the better type, and their eponymous debut is most certainly a welcome one.
They begin the album with the strum of an expectant chord and the wail of a slightly processed saxophone. The track 'EXT-I' could, in the first moments, go down a slick slide into easy listening prog-rock (is that an actual genre?) but there is something about the hints of dissonance and the rock-oriented bass figure (played on the guitar) that suggest otherwise. Indeed, for the patient listener, the increasingly dominant EWI and the deepening grit of the guitar places a Pat Metheny-like layer over a thickening groove. 'EXT-II' follows a somewhat similar pattern, though a bit darker in tone and growing rougher towards the end. 'EXT-III' begins much differently, a free interplay between the guitar and EWI that fuses into an awkward but alluring groove.
The group next explores varying sonic textures through a couple shorter tracks. 'EXT-V' is notably freely improvised, starting as a solo guitar piece with what sounds like a walking bass, but may in fact be the EWI! 'EXT-VII' offers some extreme ambient textures, while twisting deeper like a corkscrew opening a finely aged bottle of post-rock wine. The final two tracks continue to offer new ideas, but it is 'EXT-IX', which is denoted as a bonus track, that really goes deep into exploration and minimalist drones (it also clocks in at nearly a half-hour, for the hard-core listener).
No Base Trio is not a hasty album by any means, the group takes its time to make its musical statements. The album is certainly worth a listen, and mostly like, it will pleasantly surprise you with its mix of melody and exploration.
Dental Kafka is already the sophomore album of Japanese sax hero Akira
Sakata international quartet Bonjintan, following a self-titled release on
Sakata’s label Daphinia in 2017. Bonjintan features Sakata on alto sax,
clarinet, and voice, American, Tokyo-based Jim O’Rourke, of Gastr del Sol
and Sonic Youth fame, on double bass, Italian pianist Giovanni Di Domenico
and Japanese drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto.
All four musicians have collaborated before in many formats and outfits
during the last decade. O’Rourke initiated recordings of Sakata, did the
recording and mixing and produced some of his albums with the Chikamorachi
trio (with double bass player Darin Grey and drummer Chris Corsano); Di
Domenico took part in few of Sakata’s other international quartets and
recorded with him a duo album (Iruman, Mbari, 2014). He also recorded with
O’Rourke before, including with the Delivery Health trio with drummer
Tatsuhisa Yamamoto; Yamamoto played in a one-off recording of the trio
Kafka’s Ibiki with O’Rourke and his partner, pianist Eiko Ishibashi and in
other trios with Di Domenico, including one with Norwegian trumpeter Arve
Henriksen. Dental Kafka was recorded at Hoshi to Niji studio, Kobuchizawa
in June 2018.
Sakata sounds as taking a back seat in this quartet, although his voice -
literally - is still the most dominant one in this collective. Dental Kafka
opens with “Ape Huci Kamuy (God of Fire by Ainu people), a lament to the
marginalized ethnic group in Japan, Ainu, where Sakata recites an angry
text to the minimalist, tense music of Di Domenico, O’Rourke and Yamamoto.
The title-piece alternates between a fiery, free jazz piece here with
Sakata playing the alto sax and leading with a charismatic, organic flow
and with a telepathic interplay with Di Domenico, pushed by the massive
rhythm section of O’Rourke and Yamamoto, and a simple rhythmic conversation
by Di Domenico, O’Rourke and Yamamato.
The other two extended pieces stress a more intimate, reserved, and poetic
voice of Sakata, playing the clarinet. His singing solo introduces “Koro
Koro Donguri”, setting the searching tone for a quiet free-improvisation
that highlights the inventive colors of Yamamoto, but mid-piece he lets Di
Domenico, who plays the Hohner pianet, to take the lead as he did on the
title-piece, before Sakata concludes with a short, complaining speech. The
last “Bonjin” is even more introspective. The quartet plays here like a
four-headed organism, with great conviction, flowing elegance, and poetic
beauty.
That’s the beauty of Sakata’s music and his bands. At his age, 75, he does
not need to prove anything, but he will always will explore new territories
surprise even the keen listener. When you go to some wild sonic trips with
such an observant marine biologist you know that that there is a chance
that you may encounter some engaging beasts and Bonjintan is one of the
most fascinating ones.
Now a unit for 12 years, this is the fourth release of the Lisbon-Dallas
quartet of LuÃs Lopes (electric guitar), Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone),
Aaron González (bass), and Stefan González (drums). Two years ago for their
tenth anniversary, they embarked on a tour of the United States, during
which they found their way to the Marigny Studios in New Orleans. OK. So, I
am not sure that the location itself had any unique effect on these
recordings, but the liner notes make a big deal out of it and this session
took place just one month before I moved down here. To my chagrin.
The Humanization 4tet is known for its singular blending of free bop,
funeral cool jazz, heavy funk, punk and postpunk, metal and, I imagine,
pretty much any other musical influence you could associate with the
fringes of early 2000s youth culture in the US and, apparently, in Portugal
as well. In a way, they are the Iberian/American counterpart to projects
like Fire!, The Thing, and even Angles, who have one foot firmly planted in
a Holy Ghost fire-breathing folkish melodicism and the other in rock’s
fringes. Indeed, these musicians experiment with boundaries, odd
juxtapositions and juncture. Apart from Humanization, Lopes and Amado have
appeared on countless releases often with the deeply variegated Lisbon
scene. Lopes in particular has released some absolutely wild noise
balladeering most recently through his Love Songs project and his duo with
Julien Desprez. Aaron and Stefan have meanwhile been plumbing the pipelines
linking grind, heavy angular fusion, and even stranger experimental music
separately (especially Stefan in his percussion/vocals project Orgulla
Primitivo, the experimental hip-hop group The Young Mothers, and the more
classically crust Imperial Slaughter) and together (the blackened
free-psychedelia combo Unconscious Collective and the S.O.D./Naked City
love-child Akkolyte). That is, while still maintaining their
two-decades-and-running free jazz trio Yells at Eels with their father
Dennis González.
Surprise, surprise, Believe, Believe is a wonderous melting pot.
It leans towards free jazz but has unmistakably contemporary shadings.
Lopes plays his now characteristic jagged and deconstructed guitar lines,
but he converges them with jazzier runs and rhythms. Synchronic themes
piece together out of rough fragments of hard-bop melodies, which are then
shredded into scraps that the band slowly pieces back together. Amado can
play sultry. Just listen to the first minute of Ed Harris/Tranquilidad
Alborotadora, the first section a Bill-Lee-penned tribute to the great
eponymous saxophonist, the second a take on an Unconscious Collective
composition. But, as anyone who has heard
This is Our Language
or
A Historyof Nothing
already knows, he can really open up and spiral into some mesmerizingly
outre territory. The González brothers meanwhile hold clattery and off-time
but steady rhythms, like Haden and Blackwell but even less predisposed to
tradition and more interested in the heavy vamping and flailing percussion
that have found an equally fitting home in their spazzier and more metallic
undertakings.
Themes are catchy and may be ultimately rooted in bop, but the most
noteworthy elements come when the musicians avail themselves of the melodic
constraints and play on a feeling or simply on stored energy. These are the
places where the punk-rock inspiration, the just-short-of-reckless abandon
take over. And when they do, it is something to behold, even if it only
lasts for a quick half hour.
Interview with Ken Vandermark. Photo (C) Cristina Marx/Photomusix
By Paul Acquaro and Stef Gijssels
There is hardly a more hardworking musician as Chicago-based, and world renowned, woodwind player and composer Ken Vandermark. Just in the past few months he has released a large band recording, ENTR'ACTS' Soigne Ta Droite, as well as one with a new quartet, Open Border with percussionist Hamid Drake and two European colleagues, Luigi Ceccarelli on electronics and Gianni Trovalusci on flutes (review to come). In addition, he has begin releasing individual recordings that will add up to a new Consequent Duos collection (see the review of vol 1). He is also a leading figure in the music consortium Catalytic Sound, which acts as a distributor, organizer, fund raiser, label, and club house with nice benefits for its members.
Catalytic Sound Festival
The Catalytic Sound Festival 2020 is a virtual festival hosted in conjunction with Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio. The festival is this coming weekend, Friday, July 10th, through Sunday, July 12th, with sets featuring an tantalizing roster of collective artists with both US and European time-zone friendly sets.
The concerts can be enjoyed by all, with suggested donations. For more information check out Catalytic Sound's website or Experimental Sound Studio's page.
Making Music in a Pandemic
Vandermark also discusses the ways that he and his colleagues are trying to make the virtual experience more than a 'standard' webcast, and then gets into life as a working artist before, during, and after the pandemic. In fact, after getting onto the topic of streaming, we talk about Catalytic Sounds' next venture - which is indeed a streaming service. Vandermark is thoughtful not only about music, but about the state of the world and what can be done about it. He discusses the consortium's efforts to make it possible to earn a living as an experimental musician, and how they try to actively support the change they want to see.
All this and more ... enjoy the interview and be sure to check out the Catalytic Sound website and festival.
Last year, I came across Belgian pianist Pak Yan Lau, who released the phenomenal "Duo Pour 454 Chordes". Despite the fact that we're living in the same city, I never actually met her, nor did I ever see any of her performances, and the current context is not really helpful either.
Pak Yan Lau was born in Belgium, after her parents moved here from Hong Kong. She began playing the piano at the age of six ("A girl from my neighborhood was playing, and I just wanted to do the same. My mom was convinced that it was not for me as in the Chinese culture the concept of playing the piano means “sitting still like a lady and being very disciplined". Contrary to that, I was constantly running around and sitting still was something I really couldn't do. I cried for 2 days before she gave in" (Kraak, 2019). Shestarted a formal piano education at the age of nine and obtained her degree of classical piano at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, Belgium and at the 'Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espectáculo' in Porto, Portugal. After her studies she expanded into jazz following workshops by Marilyn Crispell, Stefano Battaglia, Christoph Erbstösser and others.
Like other pianists such as Magda Mayas and Eve Risser, she has left the traditional notion of her instrument as a keyboard. In her hands it has become a total instrument, with many hidden sounds and percussive possibilities. You couldn't call her music 'jazz', because it lacks the typical chord progressions or scales that are typical in the genre. Her approach is minimal in its inputs - a few notes, a few beats - that then get expanded and amplified both acoustically or electronically.
"Improvisation is like a whole world of 'possibilities'. Depending on when, where, and with who you’re doing it, it shapes the music. So, I see it as a moment of possible things. All kind of possible things, from positive and beautiful to negative and ugly or just simply blank. However, what I love about improvisation is that it's very much always the moment. So it's a very present thing, it is alive, it follows the energy and, in a certain way, focus is required. Flexibility and open ears. Always very open ears. All my music making is very much into improvisation and experimentation. I am sure I will go on to another phase of composing one day but I really love to improvise. I love this intense being when you have to let go of yourself and connect to a bigger stream", she says in an interview in Kraak in April 2019.
She has released several albums since last year, of which I will review two duo performances who of an equally high level.
Pak Yan Lau & Lionel Malric - TIOT - Live At Lastours (Self, 2020) ****
On TIOT she performs again a duo with Lionel Malric, also on piano. TIOT stands for "the impermanence of things", a philosophical concept that is found around the world and is possibly most relevant to the nature of music, it is gone before you realise it.
This album is a live recording from a concert at the Domaine de Lastours in Coursan, France in September 2017. Next to their pianos, the duo have a whole range of other instruments and materials that they use to perform their art: clavichords, cimbalom, toy pianos, synthesizers, casio keyboards, woks, old irons and electronic effects. Like on the previous album, their art gets organically structured, growing out of some initial ideas, and anchored around repeated rhythms.
The performance consists of one long improvisation of close to one hour, and it offers a kaleidoscopic use of sound, changing into a myriad of sonic elements that alter and move, hypnotic and persistent at moments, calm and plaintive at others, resonating and intimate, but always captivating and surprising, including the use of ambient sounds (such as birds singing).
The middle of the piece is quiet and minimal, with few notes and bass tones creating even more intensity and tension than the more voluminous moments. Minimal patterns grow with patient discipline and restraint, gradually building up their narrative with subtle sonic and rhythmic changes. And once you think you've understood their approach, they take the journey to an even stranger place, equally suprising and enjoyable.
Like on the previous album, the question of 'how' they do it quickly disappears (because impossible to answer) and the joy of listening remains. It is strong, compelling, balanced, inviting and unusual.
Pak Yan Lau & Darin Gray - Trudge Lightly (By The Bluest Of Seas, 2020) ****½
Her second album this year is a duo with Darin Gray, who plays double bass, preparations, objects and electronics. Gray is an American bassist who may be known from his collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, Loren Mazzacane Connors or Chris Corsano. Pak Yan Lau plays prepared piano, toy pianos, synth, objects and electronics. This album is again something else, with six relatively short pieces, quite distinct in nature and atmosphere. The album was recorded in 2016 with little preconceptions and agreed ideas. Then Pak Yan Lau reworked the material, adding and subtracting as she saw fit. A long work of post-production, but the result is worth it. The album starts almost in "in medias res" as if you've entered too late into an already ongoing performance. The approach shocks, refreshens and creates a sense of urgency. It is dark, compelling, insistent and strange ... and it is over before you realise what's happening. The second track, "Callings" presents weird deep moaning bows accompanied by flute-like sounds, the third, "Suspended Thoughts" is an intense interaction between gamelan-like percussion, rhythmic plucked strings and a deep moaning/mooing sound from the bass. It conjures up a deep sense of sadness and despair, and has a surprisingly radical ending. "Way to Walk" is a short rhythmic piece, with ever changing structure and sounds, calmly slowing down near the end. "Lost" starts with light-textured eery resonating sounds, evolving in a meditative theme played on the keys of the piano (yes), gentle and spacious, and surrounded by the mystery of fragile accompanying sonic explorations. The longer title track, "Trudge Lightly" illustrates the light/darkness contrast of the music and the title itself: the moving forward through obstacles yet in an easy way. The piece develops around a simple rhythmic pattern, played on muted strings, which resonate at the same time through other devices, creating an unusual contrast of soundlessness and clarity, that develops into a hypnotic insistent and rotating repetitiveness. Like her other albums reviewed here, this one is equally mesmerising, fresh, inventive and intense. Her sense of spontaneous composition, the inherent intensity and musicality of it as well as the sonic arrangements are exceptional. Listen and downlad from Bandcamp. It is also available as a vinyl production with booklet. I can only hope that the lockdown ends soon and that performances are allowed again. Pak Yan Lau will be high on my agenda.
New York-based experimental composer-conductor-researcher Sarah Weaver
explores distinct concepts of synchrony in her new volume of compositions.
Her fascinating, colorful sonic manifestations of the concept synchrony
serve as a metaphor for inner realization and liberation of the self and
are realized in a spectrum of modes, personal but also political ones.
Weaver’s compositions incorporate distinct kinds of notation - musical,
graphic and text notation, leave enough space for improvisation and
introduce different sets conducting gestures, some are borrowed by Walter
Thompson’s system of Soundpainting and original ones by Weaver. She is
joined by an impressive cast of innovative musicians, among them drummer
Gerry Hemingway, trumpeter Joe McPhee, sax players Jane Ira Bloom and Ned
Rothenberg, flutist Robert Dick and double bass player Mark Dresser.
Hemingway opens the first disc of this double album with “Node 111, Volumes
1-3 (2011-2016)” or solo drum-set, originally performed on Weavers’ Reality
Axis for Solo Percussion (2016). Hemingway layers dense but highly
detailed, resonating, rhythmic patterns with great control and imagination
even when these patterns become quite chaotic, but, apparently, express the
multiplicity of the self and inner synchronicity. “Symmetry of Presence
(2018), for the duo of bass trombonist David Taylor and Weaver herself on
electronics symbolizes metaphysical synchrony and suggests an open texture
about torturing but quite tangible, noisy doubts blended with exotic
Far-Eastern meditative ritual but also playful and uplifting observations.
The 40-minutes “Interhere (2017)” for the Weaver Ensemble, conducted by
Waver and featuring, among others, vocalist Yoon Sun Choi, pipa player Min
Xiao-Fen, Ira Bloom, Rothenberg, Taylor, pianist Denman Maroney, Dresser,
and Hemingway, “conceives a larger concept of ‘here’ as asynchrony and
interconnection”. Weaver carefully builds here an enigmatic tension and
theatrical drama, stressed best by the charismatic Yoon Sun Choi and the
inventive Min Xiao-Fen, throughout this complex, contemplative composition
that leaves enough space for personal contributions between the intricate,
collective orchestral segments.
The second album begins with the most engaging and emotional composition in
this volume, “Sound in Peace (2016)”, dedicated to Weaver’s reacher,
composer Pauline Oliveros, and performed by Joe McPhee, who also
collaborated with Oliveros, on pocket trumpet and Weaver herself on spoken
voice, electronics and chime. This composition-improvisation “synchronizes
healings across lifetimes” and references Oliveros sonic meditations.
Weaver chants the title as a powerful mantra while McPhee freely improvises
his own imaginative incantations. A true calling for deep, proactive
listening.
Closing this volume, the 53-minutes “Universal Synchrony Music: Kepler/K2
(2013-2019)” for the telematic NowNet Arts Ensemble, featuring in New York
conductor Weaver, Ira Bloom, Dick, Min Xiao-Fen, Rothenberg, Maroney, and
Dresser; In Chicago Stephan Moore and Kieran Maraj on electronics and in
Toronto Doug Van Nort on electronics and sonifications. This delicate,
chamber-electroacoustic-atmospheric - literally - composition was conceived
with NASA and refers to the cosmic synchrony over an extreme geographic
distance such as habitable planetary systems in deep space as explored by
the NASA’s telescope Kepler/K2 Mission. This composition incorporates
sonification of data from the Kepler’s mission on stars and planets
1000-3000 light-years away and harmonizes the cosmic sounds by creating the
perception of synchrony across local and extreme distances. A strange but
arresting journey through sounds and sonic universes.
Olaf Rupp is possibly the most renowned guitarist in the German improvised
music scene. His technique is unique, since he plays his electric guitar in
an upright position, which is inspired by Chinese pipa players. Rupp has
taught himself to play the guitar and has almost naturally included several
elements like rasgueados, arpeggios, harmonics and tremolos from the very
beginning, so his signature overtone and cluster effects come off very
natural. He’s neither interested in the ecstatic effect of free jazz nor in
creating mechanical idiosyncrasies. He has described his sounds as “analog
granular synthesis“ or “sonic pointillism“. Especially the latter term
describes his style very accurately since it refers to the idea of creating
a complex flow of sound by mixing simple (and single) notes into one
complex tonal structure. Rupp’s music weaves small electrically charged
particles together and shoots them into the billowing darkness, as if he
asked questions to the sounds he creates. Every note is of the utmost
importance in this philosophy, without it the sonic texture wouldn’t be
complete. He creates a moving sound, no melodies. In an interview he said:
“To me music is only sound in motion. And this motion should be free,
unrestricted and direct. That was my natural perception, right from the
beginning. So my roots are in abstract, free improvisation. I started with
that when I was twelve.“
Xenofox - Macondo (Farai Records, 2020) ****½
Macondo is a fictional town in the novels of Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez and a
real commune in Angola. It is also the name of an oil field close to the
Gulf of Mexico, an accident there led to the devastating black tide in
2010. A refugee camp in Vienna carries the name as well.
Guitarist Olaf Rupp and drummer Rudi Fischerlehner created the title for
this track after the recordings, no attempt was made to conjure a certain
mood in advance. One day during the mixing process Rupp wrote Fischerlehner
an email which only consisted of the word “Macondo“. The word, with its
various meanings in relation to literature, the world, political and
natural disasters, appealed to both as an image, it sounded like the idea
of an interweaving and interpenetration of art and reality.
At the beginning “Macondo“ literally bathes in a sea of stuttering drum
clicks, shimmering harmonics and reverberations. When Fischerlehner lets
the clicks fall out and concentrates on the toms, Rupp contributes dark
drones that overlap with clanging tremolos and dub-like twangs.
Fischerlehner’s percussive onslaught brings out linear qualities in Rupp's
playing; he sends jagged, gurgling chords and gnarled knots of notes
sailing over the drum clatter, sounding almost like Sonic Youth
extemporizing over a riff, the somber dissonances being somewhat elegiac.
Beyond Xenofox’s facility to create such gloomy soundscapes, there's also a
tactility to their music - the scraped guitar strings and vigorously
stabbed chords, these ghostly amplifier hums - that has a cinematic
quality, especially when the piece sinks into a vortex of hell in the last
five minutes.
“Macondo“ is also track which connects with “Zeitforschung“ from their last
album Hundred Beginnings. Fischerlehner says that they are interested in
examining “this crash of rock music reminiscences - riffs, loops and
kick-snare hi-hat grooves - but at the same time to remain structurally
flexible and multidirectional as to the improvisational communication“.
“Macondo“ is their best attempt so far.
Macondo is an 18-minute piece, a mini album, available as a download only.
You can listen to it and buy it here:
If you can afford it, please support the musicians.
Olaf Rupp / John Hughes - Plursathn ****
“The moon heard jackals howling through the deserts of thyme, - and the
sabot-clad eclogues growling in the orchard. And, in the violet woods,
Eucharis told me it was Spring.
Gush, pond; - Foam, roll on the bridge and over the woods; - black palls
and organs, lightning and thunder, rise and roll; - waters and sorrows,
rise and unleash the Floods.“
Olaf Rupp and John Hughes, an American bassist who’s been living in Hamburg
since the 1990s and who teaches at Neumünster Conservatoire, have prefaced
their album Plursathn with an excerpt from a text by French poet Arthur
Rimbaud. While Xenofox's music still has a certain narrative and cinematic
character and, despite all its structural flexibility, tends to be
dramaturgically elaborated, Plursathn, like Rimbaud’s poems, tends to be
abrupt and acausal. There are small episodes, but no longer is there
anything consistently narrative, hardly any chronology or logic. The only
red thread running through the fabric of the individual pieces is the
erratic associative power of the musicians, who indulge in an errant
fantasy.
A prime example of their music is “dezenbar“, the central piece on
Plursathn. Short runs are juxtaposed with drones, from both guitar and
bass, the players easily change sides. The whole construct of the piece is
constantly shifting in intensity and focus. We hear colliding surfaces of
low notes set against glass overtones and an almost infinite range of
surface topologies. They fade in lost bass runs and reverberant feedback.
Sound conceives the form when Rupp and Hughes scratch and rattle, echo and
drone, just to give shape to something latent - transience, instability and
changeability. They radiate energy in a surge of bowed resonance and
sparkling string work, gradually revealing finer nuances and gradations.
Rupp and Hughes use this for 17 minutes with amazing variety in a process
of constant communication - they exchange, encourage and challenge each
other.
Plursathn
is available as a download only. You can buy it here, where you can
also listen to parts of the album:
