Violin & Bass

By Stef

Vilde&Inga - Silfr (Sofa, 2017) ****½

Three years ago I praised ECM for having had the courage to release Makrofauna, a daring musical exploration by two young Norwegian musicians, Vilde Sandve Alnæs and Inga Margrete Aas, who met during studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music and started to play together in 2010. In autumn last year they received The Lindeman Prize for Young Musicians, a significant music prize in Norway. Despite the quality of their music and the general acclaim for their debut album, it took several years for the second album which is now released on Sofa. 

Each composition has its specific angle of attack or musical concept, which can be based on relentless and repetitive violin phrases as on "Silfr", the title track (see video below), with the bass offering some slower moaning ground tones or joining in with the frenzy. Things change on the second piece, which is more subdued, quiet and slow-paced, now with the bass laying the foundation for eery flageolet sounds by the violin. The third piece, "Urtjern", is completely built around the contrast of low and high tones, almost flute-like, sparse, precise, slightly wailing over the rhythmic throbbing of the bowed bass. "Røjkkvart" starts with unvoiced rumble and scrapings, and the occasional pluck on a bass string, capturing the attention and building the tension and it stays that way, full of expectation but it never gets resolved. "Sprø Glimmer" is a little mad and playful, with little pizzi notes jumping around like crazy, only to be calmed down by some low bass strokes. "Karbontiden" starts with slow beautiful arco, both instruments together almost sounding like an organ, with double stops on the strings, and gradually distortion sets in, with notes shifting off-kilter, timbre transforming from pure tones to scraping, but every so slightly, controlled and well-paced, until the original fluency has changed into a walk through deep mud. 

Most track titles refer to minerals and metals, including silver, smoky quartz, mercury, gold, mica, or to other ancient natural forms, such as "Urtjern" or ancient lake (which actually exists in Norway) or "Karbontiden" which is the Carboniferious period some 350 million years ago. At the same time they use words like "flimmer" (flicker), "skinnende" (shining) or "glimmer" and the choice of titles all stay within the same realm of hard and basic matter, as core ingredients whose existance creates a reflection, an intangible perception of light and lightness. The tension between the hard and the ethereal, between the everlasting and the ephemeral is what this music is all about. 

I can only recommend this very highly. 

Gunda Gottschalk & Peter Jacquemyn - E Pericoloso Sporgersi, Ma Non Prohibito (El Negocito, 2017) ****

In 1999, Gunda Gottschalk and Peter Jacquemyn released "E Pericoloso Sporgersi" (re-issued in 2009), a first duet between violin and bass, offering seventeen short improvisations, and which was awarded a prize in the young artist forum of the International Society for New Music. The title means"Leaning Out (the window) Is Dangerous", the first sentence in Italian most European kids learned when travelling the continent by train several decades ago, as did your servant. Today, they take it a step further, "leaning out is dangerous, but it's not forbidden", a title that gives a good idea of where the duo is taking us, far beyond the limits of safety. 

And that's how the album starts, with "Viaggio 1" as a staccato dialogue of bowed strings, with short bursts and physical scrapings of strings and wood, and even when Jacquemyn brings something that ressembles a pattern, Gottschalk keeps delivering short and violent attacks with her bow, relentlessly and full of raw energy. 

Gunda Gottschalk is classically trained, yet she switched quite rapidly to improvised and contemporary music, having played and released albums with Peter Kowald, who was also one of the mentors of Belgian bassist Peter Jacquemyn, a self-taught musician and visual artist. 

"Viaggio 2", the second piece is of a totally different nature. The dark tension of the first part gradually shifts to minimalist repetitive phrases, uncanny and bizarre, over which Jacquemyn sings his wordless overtone singing, learned from a Mongolian tuva singer. 

The long third piece shifts the whole time between moods, with even passages on the violin that could be labeled as melancholy or sad, or quiet and subdued, brought by a more paced and less intense dialogue, with both musicians often moving the music forward in the same direction. It offers a gentler side to Jacquemyn's playing, but one of strong interplay and joint musical vision. 

I will not go into the detail of each track - four more to go - of completely improvised music, all called Viaggio (journey" in Italian). There is no plan, no concept, just interaction in the moment, and the duo varies a lot. They tease, they battle, they walk hand in hand, they quarrel and they find beauty, only to tear it to pieces with as much pleasure it took to create it, but most of all they explore, the unearth sounds to show the other, who gets inspired to do the same or to challenge, but they travel on the same journey, they make the journey. It's not easy to be invited with them, but once you are, it's a rewarding trip, participating in the creation of music. 

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Billy Bang & William Parker – Medicine Buddha (NoBusiness, 2015) ****

By Martin Schray

The beginning is an invocation, a zen-like drone, concentration and meditation, before Billy Bang’s violin tears William Parker’s arco bass into pieces – like a hurricane does it with flags that people forgot to bring down. “Medicine Buddha”, the title track of this album”, explores variations on this hypnotic arco drone, touching on Steve Reich’s minimal philosophy as well as on a steady groove and classic free jazz aberrations for more than 22 minutes – and Parker and Bang, these brothers in improvisation (until Bang lost his battle with lung cancer in 2011), pass the ball to each other with unerring certainty.

Medicine Buddha documents one of their last collaborations at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York in the spring of 2009, the album is William Parker’s last good-bye for a lifelong friend (his liner notes are of the highest appreciation for the musician and the human being). In addition, Bang’s violin is both mournful, no matter what “abstract sound he made (it) was draped in the blues”, and joyous and vivid. Parker foils this sound with low and mumbling tones, once again you can literally feel how loud and pointed he can play (especially when he plucks).

Both musicians can also be heard on other instruments (Bang on kalimba and Parker on dousn gouni on “Bronx Aborigines” and Parker also on shakuhachi on “Sky Song”) which give the performance a certain spiritual world music touch. What remains are two Parker compositions – “Eternal Planet”, a classic piece that pays tribute to the late violinist Leroy Jenkins and which indeed sounds like a Revolutionary Ensemble piece, and “Buddha’s Joy”, which builds on a call-and-response melody that could almost pass for a danceable composition.

What’s so great about this music is the fact that you can literally listen to a friendship, to a deep emotional connection, to the contrasts of a dark and sombre bass and Bang’s violin soaring as high as it can to a single singing note. In its best moments the album is filled with absolute magic leaping off the strings, dynamic plucks, a vortex of overtones, and an enthusiastic commitment to sheer beauty.

Medicine Buddha is available on CD and you can buy it from the label.

Watch them here:

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Vilde Sandve Alnaes & Inga Margrete Aas - Makrofauna (ECM, 2014) ****½

By Stef

Sometimes ECM still amazes. Once my label of preference, it has become a little less adventurous, but then again, when you hear this music, I am forced to revise my opinion. This is adventurous music, performed by Vilde Sandve Alnæs on violin and Inga Margrete Aas on double bass, fully improvised yet with the critical quality of keeping a strong sense of focus on each piece's character and specific sound.

Just to illustrate the point, "Under Bakken", the first track has a solid foundation of a repetitive monotonous bowing tone, over which the violin plays mainly plucked sounds. The second track, "Sårand", is built around plucked bass, with the violin offering irregular scraping sounds. The other improvisations each have their own nature, and all with the same quality of almost naturally growing interactions, in a very intimate and close relationship building and developing the exploration. Probably their greatest strength lies in the creativity of the moment, with new ideas resulting not only in new timbral possibilities, but also in creating a story through it, one with feelings of anticipation and expectation, with sentiments of anxiety and doom and suprise guiding the movements.

And the next great thing is the phenomenal 'presence' of these two young musicians. There is first of all the willingness to go beyond the known, then the decisiveness of their musical vision and last but not least the unwavering power of the instrumental prowess. In short, they just go for it, no hesitation, no holding in, no shyness or not the slightest inclination to please or to go with the expectations.

And Eicher in all this? Congratulations to him, not only for his daring to give these two young musicians the opportunity, but also for the amazing quality of the recording, and his own production skills.

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Maya Homburger & Barry Guy - Tales Of Enchantment (Intakt, 2012)

By Stef  

Often in improvised music, rawness and muddiness and even some roughness and extended techniques are essential to the music. Sounds have to collide in order to form something new. On the other end of the spectrum you have classical music, with its incredible attention to the purity and accuracy of the sound.

Nobody but British bassist Barry Guy has been able to combine both in his music. The technical precision of Barry Guy on his five-string double bass (possibly only equalled by Miroslav Vitous) and of his partner in life, baroque violinist Maya Homburger, enable to unify both ends of the spectrum like few others can.

They've played together on a variety of albums, some of which were reviewed earlier on this blog. Like on other albums (Aglais, Inachis, Dakryon, Star), the compositions are either classical or by Barry Guy himself, and by doing so offer an interesting image of pure music, in which genres are no longer of importance, making the overall emphasis on feeling and esthetic even stronger.

The album starts with "Veni Creator Spiritus", a 9th Century hymn, followed by Guy's eight part "Hommage to Max Bill", a Swiss artist and designer, then follow some Biber compositions, the Swiss composer and violinist whose work is among Homburger's favorites, and she has played his oeuvre on many occasions. The central piece is by the Hungarian contemporary composer György Kurtág, around which the album's structure is mirrored.

Guy's compositions add a strong contemporary feeling to the music, full of distress, suspense, danger and anger, aspects that are often lacking in classical music, and that complete the more detached abstract compositions by Biber.

Like with their previous albums, you wonder at the absolute beauty of the playing while at the same time you can be surprised by the boundary-breaking approach in Guy's compositions-improvisations, but also by his introduction of - somewhat iconoclastic - improvised moments in the classical pieces. I'm sure classical purists will call this a disgrace and jazz and modern music afficionados will call this approach conservative, but the truth is : this is a truly great and cohesive album, regardless.

Absolutely impressive and pretty unique. In my opinion one of the best albums of the year. And even if the duo has done this before, they've clearly outperformed themselves on "Tales Of Enchantment", and the title couldn't be more precise.


Watch them play Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Rosenkranz Sonata on the video below. It is not from the album but it gives a good idea what the music is all about.


© stef

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