Andrew Drury - A Content Provider

By Paul Acquaro

Brooklyn based drummer Andrew Drury is a phenomenon to watch perform as his playing often transforms the instrument itself. His kit will be disassembled during a show as unorthodox methods and unexpected equipment, such as violin bows and actually blowing into the instrument, are used to play the drums. It is little surprise then to see Drury releasing two separate albums, visually of a pairing, but musically as diverse as could possibly be - one a solo percussion piece playing out the possibilities of a single piece of percussion and the other a take no prisoners free-jazz-rock quartet.

Andrew Drury - Content Provider (Soup and Sound Recordings, 2015) ****½

How to read that title, Content Provider? Is Drury stating that he is simply providing content for consumption or is he content with the music he provides to the world? There is a lot of wiggle room in there, but, I'm going to go with both for arguments sake: with a band as versatile and virtuosic as this, how can you not be a satisfied content provider? 

Joining Drury is tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, tenor saxophonist Briggan Krauss, and guitarist Brandon Seabrook. The four create a style of music that is equal parts free jazz, modern jazz, and jazz-rock. There are strong compositional elements in each song, and the tracks breath freely - remaining fresh even after repeat listenings.

The tracks 'Keep the Fool' and 'The Band is a Drum Set' bookend the album with some solid rock inflected riffs. The former kicks off with an intro from Drury, Seabrook then ups the ante with a driving lead and the deeply syncopated groove sports some fierce playing by Laubrock and Krauss. The second track 'El Sol' is a bit more abstract, featuring fully improvised sections that lead seamlessly in and out of the composed ones. The title track is a really interesting composition, with an introduction melody possibly referencing 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' for a split second, but what follows is no Deodato. A solemn procession leads into a free exchange, giving off the feeling that no one single person is leading, no one is holding back, and everyone is providing a piece of the content. That is true of the whole album - there is no single voice that dominates, everyone has an integral part in the sound. Referencing his home borough, the composition 'Brooklyn Commune' has very interesting twisting and intertwining lines, and some wonderful free form saxophone work. 

A really excellent album that mixes free playing with some very strong heads and great ensemble playing. 

Andrew Drury - The Drum (Soup and Sound Recordings, 2015) ****

A whole album performed on one drum, a floor tom, that is used and abused in ways hithero unimaginable. Besides being one of the more arresting solo percussion albums of late, the album is really a thesis that begins with Drury stating 'The Drum', and then goes deep to prove it in as many ways as possible.

The first track, the aptly titled 'Hidden Voices', starts the drum debauchery. Drury finds every conceivable way to make his drum talk and sound in a manner that is the exact opposite of a drum solo, pulling out the most obtuse and unexpected sounds. His approach is not haphazard, uncontrolled, or random, rather it is extremely thoughtful and well practiced. In fact, when it comes to the title track,  I've listened to groups with many more musicians and instruments who produce less sound than Drury does here with just one drum. There are layers - a drone, a rattle, a pulsation that almost promises more - if possible. And it is - like 'Aluminum Donkey Dance', where the scream that begins the track then showcases the polyphonic abilities of the drum or 'Thesis/Antithesis' on which somehow Drury produces a tone that sounds like a slightly choked cello. An album highlight is 'Askew' that growls and reverberates so palpably that you feel the the friction of the fingers and sliding across the drum head.

It's hard to say that this is an album that you will listen to over and over like Content Provider. Rather, like a thesis, it's a labor of love for the researcher and certainly argues a case for the subject matter. On the other hand, listening to this album is utterly fascinating as it transcends and transforms the drum into something else entirely. 

Andrew Drury and the Content Provider band will be at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY on Tuesday, Feb 17th for a double CD release concert. 

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Ivo Perelman / Joe Morris / Gerald Cleaver - Living Jelly (Leo, 2012) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

Living Jelly is saxophonist Ivo Perelman with drummer Gerald Cleaver and guitarist Joe Morris. The group's improvised approach to the recording is described by Morris as:

... being held together by an instantaneously configured natural structure that is built on an evolving melodic and rhythmic form, made with one sound or silence at a time. There is an implied agreement of support and acceptance of each particle that is presented.

Which, judging by the album, probably means that everything just fell wonderfully into place when the absorbing drumming of Cleaver met up with the probing guitar work of Morris and interlocked with Perelman's energetic tenor.  

The trio, using unexpected intervals and imaginative melodic flights, creates engaging spontaneous compositions that breath easily and free. The opening 'In Pursuit of Pleasure' begins with Perelman blowing a bop like melody under which Morris lays down supportive and nearly straight ahead comping. Cleaver's drums are light and precise, adding pulse and texture to the improvization. The abstract components are kept tight and efficient even as the tune gets further out. Fast forwarding to a later track like 'Enigma' we find the same controlled and precise playing put in the service of a different type of song, more frenetic from the get-go, the overall tune is never lost as Morris and Perelman ping off each other's inventions. Cleaver's drumming, again, is driving and undergirding.

Living Jelly follows closely on the tails of the recently released Family Ties (which featured Morris on bass rather than guitar). Throughout the recording, which is taking an early perch on the top of my list of music of the year, Perelman's ideas flow generously and melodically. Overall, the recording is crisp and affords each instrument its own space as they interact and intertwine.

Check out the group this past December in New York:

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Tom Rainey Trio - Camino Cielo Echo (Intakt, 2012) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Camino Cielo Echo, the Tom Rainey Trio's second effort, features the same group as the debut album, Pool School, however in the intervening time, it seems the group has further developed a sound that is as improvization based as ever, but even more elastic and risk taking. As before, the group is Tom Rainey on drums, Ingrid Laubrock on sax and Mary Halvorson on guitar.

The first song is collection of small interactions and motifs. 'Expectations of Exceptions' begins quietly, expectantly, with Laubrock laying down a fluttering expanse of tones. Halvorson's guitar rings out with unique dissonant chords, while Rainey pulls them together with a pulse that weaves in and out of time, skipping beats and creating a complex foundation for the players. 'Mullet Toss' comes bursting from the speakers in a hail of distorted guitar and explosive sax work, while Rainey pours on some dramatic percussion. Then, about half way through, the saxophone transitions the song into a more subdued but still tense state. 'Mr. and Mrs. Mundane' is anything but. Starting with a rather straight ahead sax solo over the drum, the guitar soon joins with some quietly slashing chords. Gradually, the song begins to chase itself around, the guitar scattering notes and the sax both following and leading the proceedings while Rainey pushes and pulls. The title track just hovers, Laubrock's languid lines suspended in Halvorson's unusual chord voicings. Rainey provides texture below the textures, faint sounds that grow stronger as the song progresses, yet always holding back, just floating. This is then juxtaposed against the crunch of distortion of the next tune.

Overall, there is a lot going on in these vignettes. Whether they're aggressive, or quiet, or a little of each, the songs grow organically and spontaneously. The three musician's have played together now over the course of these albums, as well as in several other configurations and they have developed great synergy and sympathy -- one could almost say telepathy -- in their interactions.

Check out an appearance of the group in 2010:

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Cactus Truck- Brand New for China! (Public Eyesore Records, 2012) ***½

By Philip Coombs

It starts with a bang! A starter pistol of sorts. This fight to the death, this Brand New For China! album by Cactus Truck has begun. Weapons are chosen. Onno Govaert on drums, Jasper Stadhouders on guitars, and John Dikeman on saxophone, two from the Netherlands and one from America respectively, step into the ring to see who will come out alive holding the recording.

Track one, Aporia, gets to the heart of the matter quickly with all three members fighting for the last available sliver of bandwidth to squeeze their point of view into. Stadhouders pulls up an impenetrable curtain of sound, Govaert's use of the kick drum is like a man with a death wish searching for land mines, and Dikeman plays is if in a headlock. His sound is very purposeful from the strain in the upper registers to the distortion on the opposite end. Aporia is a wonderfully thought out track on this 31 minute record and definitely it's focal point as it gives us the roadmap that the rest of the album follows. It, over the course of its 10 and a half minute duration, gives us pure raw punk aggression, to a diminution, to a lone pleading cry from the saxophone before ramping the whole thing up again to its original fury. Some great playing here.

A band I would definitely love to see and experience live.

With some of their juvenile song titles aside, la la la la labia time!, or The snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea, which fall into their punk aesthetic, there are some very mature and experienced interactions and decisions within the tunes on this album, which definitively places it back to the jazz tradition.

On Coitiphobe, Dikeman steps back to let the rhythm section have a duo moment. If you are quick enough, the album is peppered with such moments. Whether it be the sax and drums or any other duo incarnation, (there are several really good ones on Sweet Movie) they are worth waiting for, but enjoy them because they don't last very long, as this is not the type of band that likes standing in a ring without throwing punches. Almost to a fault.

Brand New For China! reads like a calling card, unapologetically letting us know what their agenda is, from the 3, thirty second blasts of intensity, laced around the 4 longer tracks, to their choice of album cover art. They mean business, and like anyone from the punk tradition, they don't care what we think. I can't wait to see what else they bring to the table on their next effort.

Check out Cactus Truck here:


The album can be ordered directly from the label.

© stef

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Jooklo Duo & Bill Nace – Scratch (Holidays Records) ****1/2

By Tom Burris

Early last year, Jooklo Duo released a 7” record (“The Warrior” on the Northern Spy label) consisting of two bite-sized blasts that were, if not refined, then at least condensed representations of their unique take on the duo lineup.  The format lent itself to the idea that Virginia Genta (tenor sax, mainly) and David Vanzan (percussion, mainly) could lean into the noise-rock realm as readily as it had previously under the free jazz model.

In June 2011, the Italian duo toured the U.S. with NYC avant-noise guitarist Bill Nace in tow, furthering the sonic possibilities of their foray into snuff jazz.  In that same month, evidently before they set out for the boonies and burgs of the U.S. - (I saw them in Lafayette, Indiana!) – they recorded “Scratch,” an LP limited to 350 copies on multi-colored vinyl, which is a very fine representation of their stateside summer onstage collision course.

Trust me; this is not merely a buy-and-file-away collectible record.  The trio opens with a blast that is both open to any and all musical possibilities and compressed with tightly-wound energy.  When Vanzan drops out about halfway through the first side, there is a short moment of metal machine music from Genta and Nace, and then all three somehow manage to elevate the intensity, while eventually Genta emerges from the flames playing ecstatic Pharoah-type figures.

Side 2 opens with a continuation of the firestorm, inconceivably ascending to even crazier heights, before the splatter percussion drops out and Genta belts out insane pterodactyl shrieks from her sax.  Suddenly the whole thing opens up, with Vanzan – playing beautiful mallet percussion – doing a short duet with Nace before a brief moment of Genta’s bamboo flute comes floating overhead.  Then suddenly she picks up the sax for some gorgeous runs dripped in occasional multi-phonics.

The storm finally clears with Vanzan’s gentle mallet work, Genta on melodica, and Nace gently bowing the guitar strings.  Then Vanzan picks up the flute and all three swirl around in a fog that sounds a bit like the Sun Ra Arkestra’s take on a Nino Rota score.  It becomes more airy as it goes, leaving the trio to play the spaces as much as the instruments.

A surprising coda appears with Nace punching in some reverb and strumming an open chord, followed by Genta on bombarda.  Then the finish: Nace playing percussive figures on the treated guitar, while Genta’s figures spiral above and Vanzan’s mallets swagger until resolution – which sounds to these ears like the attainment of intuitive nirvana.


Listen:




Watch:




Buy:

http://www.holidaysrecords.it/

© stef

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