By Sammy Stein
Apeiron is the new project by double bassist and composer Jacopo Ferrazza and pianist and composer Sebastian Marino, released on CD and digital formats on Teal Dreamers Factory.
The press release says that on the album, ‘double bass, piano, and experimental electronics coexist without hierarchies, generating a sound environment in which timbral origins often become indistinguishable.’ But a listen reveals this is not quite true. The timbral origins of the instruments and the electronics are distinguishable, with the deep body of the bass providing a definitive, characteristic timbre that no electronics can replicate. What does happen, however, is that the sounds of the double bass as it is played with the bow, or pizzicato, the piano, and the electronics of the mini-Moog, synth, and Hammond, intermingle and entwine, creating an effect akin to multi-instrumental music, yet the nuances and sonic elements of bass and piano are discernible. The electronics act as an extension of the instrumental dialogue through which the two musicians expand the possibilities of listening and interaction. Interestingly, the music circles around a poem:
Close Your Eyes
And Step Beyond the Edge of What You Know
There Is a Flame Inside You
Ancient Patient Waiting
It Has No Name
It Has No Beginning
It Is the Breath Before the First Word Was Spoken
Feel It
Rising Softly Through Your Spine
Like Liquid Gold in the Dark
You Are Not the Body
You Are Not the Thought
You Are the Pulse Beneath the Silence
Let the World Dissolve
Let the Noise Fall Away
There Is Only This Moment
This Warmth This Sacred Unfolding
Whisper to Yourself: I Remember
Because You Do
You Have Always Known
And Now the Flame Awakens
Each track is titled as a line from the poem, so both the concept and the music create a whole. The music is divided into two macro blocks, the first ten tracks form Epanastasi (Repetition) and the second eleven form Oneiro (Dreams). The title Apeiron is Greek and means boundless or undefined, and is apt for the music, which sees the musicians create landscapes of sound ranging from gentle whispers of entreaty to forceful, expressive density. Each track forms its own encapsulated narrative yet is linked to the rest of the music in subtle ways. The relentless repetition of the piano note on ‘Close Your Eyes’, surrounded by experimental, explorative sounds, is intense, yet somehow compelling as it leads to the short, intense forty-six seconds of ‘And Step beyond The Edge of What You Know’, which melds itself into ‘There is A Flame Inside You’, which feels almost ecclesiastical with its organ lines and vocal electronics. The bass swells in glorious tones out of the generous mix of sound, and the piano gently calms the madness that appears to be present in the music. You can almost feel the intention of Ferrazza, which, he describes as creating music, “where bass, piano and electronics function as a single evolving system.” There is a sense of the instruments feeding each other ideas, snippets to develop and run with, or shifts in mind and direction.
The lines of the poem as track titles offer concepts but rarely fit the atmosphere of the track to which they are assigned – but here the poem is a tool to weld the music together and give a route to follow, whether that is strictly or using diverse routes. The music unfolds, it is dynamic and, in places, terrifyingly beautiful in its fragility. Like on ‘Ancient Patient Waiting,’ where Ferrazza’s bass rises, its voice a gorgeous solo, its timbre palpable, the sounds swirling around the wooden body of the instrument and emerging smooth and warm, or the gentleness of both piano and bass on ‘It Has No Name.’
There are several standout tracks, including ‘It Has No Beginning,’ with its otherworldly atmosphere, which merges seamlessly into ‘It Is The Breath Before The First Word Was Spoken’ where deep electronics and synth lines give this a seventies prog vibe.
Both musicians have classical groundings, and this reveals itself in their harmonies and naturally evolving chordal episodes on some tracks, including the dynamic and emotive ‘Feel It.’
I found nothing but good in this music; the evolution of sounds is dynamic and interesting, so that even someone who is not fond of synth or Hammond found it incredibly engaging. The minds of these two musicians come together through their instruments to make music that is astonishing in the many ways it manages to engage the listener.
Both musicians have space to shine – like the bass rising on ‘Like Liquid Gold In The Dark’ and ‘You Are Not The Body,’ where Ferrazza finds endless elements of the instrument, or the piano on ‘You Are Not The Thought.’
Some tracks are an entity of their own, while others merge into each other, broken not by a change of tempo but a change of direction, slight then deliberate and divergent. Like from ‘You Are the Pulse Beneath the Silence’ to’ Let the World Dissolve.’
The second block of tracks (dreams) seems like one narrative, with different chapters, the music a changing dialogue. There are more electronic sounds in this block, and on ‘Whisper to Yourself I Remember,’ there is a sense of a hellscape as voices and strange electronic background sounds make the music rather than instruments.
Interestingly enough, truculent piano, swooping bass, and weird electric sounds work a treat, like on ‘You Have Always Known.’ The final track sees a return to piano and bass playing at its best and most expressive.
This is a different step, as Ferrazza says, from his previous work. The album was fully improvised and recorded in a single session with no editing. The music unfurls through listening, tension, silence, and real-time transformation, moving between free improvisation and a more textural, electroacoustic space.
Ferrazza said he felt this might resonate with my interest in exploratory and boundary-crossing music, and he was right, but this music will resonate with many listeners because it is energetic when it needs to be, quiet when this is called for, and the music seems to follow an exquisite rhythm that somehow is defined and sits beautifully in the mind of the listener.
It is a testimony to how good musical dialogue becomes when musicians have a long association, such as the fifteen years of working together behind Ferrazza and Marino. I cannot recommend this album more.
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