Michael Bisio & Kirk Knuffke – Row for William O. (Relative Pitch, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

Following last year’s excellent Accortet, Michael Bisio and Kirk Knuffke are back together in the Relative Pitch catalogue—this time as a duo—with Row for William O. Better known in the jazz canon as Bill Smith, the clarinetist, composer, and teacher (Bisio’s) to whom the album is dedicated also holds parallel status in the modern classical world, where he identifies as William O. Smith. This strictly demarcated either/or divide between jazz and classical is perhaps belied by Smith’s association with the both/and Third Stream genre (for example his “Schizophrenic Scherzo,” composed for the Dave Brubeck Octet). A sense of balance and blend surfaces here not in style of the music but in the playing itself, which is as consonant as the album title’s rhyme and evocative of its image: Bisio and Knuffke both “rowing” with equal effort to keep the course true.

I’ve been in love with Bisio’s playing since first seeing him live with Matthew Shipp a few years ago. His approach to the bass has an energy and versatility that suits it well to the responsibility and attention required of and afforded by the duo (or even solo) setting. Whoever he’s with, Bisio is an intensely focused and deliberate musician, which allows him to achieve and maintain a profound sense of presence on his instrument. In some places, this means letting single tones hang and decay, as in the middle part of the title track. In others, as in his solo on “Oh See O.C.,” it means deploying a relentless barrage of notes (in this case building toward an obligatory but pleasingly deft “Lonely Woman” quote). His arco playing can be rich and densely textured at one moment and nimbly syncopated the next—for evidence see the album’s final track. Bisio’s ability to shift fluidly and convincingly from any one of these modes to another is part of the captivating magic of listening to him play. And yet for all his virtuosic capability and improvisational prowess, it should be noted that Bisio isn’t too proud either to lay down a straightforward walking line—which he manages to make as absorbing as anything else, the way great drummers can outplay technical show-offs with simple quarter notes on the ride.

In theory, this is where Knuffke has room to step in, but in practice, he finds his own openings. His cornet tone is intimate, almost dry, but not without bite, leaning sometimes towards the tactile (“December”), sometimes towards the lyrical and outright jazzy, as on the theme of the opener, “Drago,” or on the cathartic heights during the Neruda-inspired “I Want to Do to You What Spring Does to Cherry Trees.” A solo spotlight at the beginning of the final track “To Birds” further highlights Knuffke’s playing nicely. Ultimately, though, while the possible gradations of interactive dynamics in improvisation are many, my favorite moments on Row for William O. are those that ground the album’s overarching principle of tribute and influence on a concrete, fundamental level. These are the moments, again, of consonance, mutual reflection, and “rhyme,” where Bisio and Knuffke pay homage not only to Bill Smith (and to Ornette, and to Neruda, and to…) but also, in their sensitive interactions, to each other.

Row for William O. will be released on May 20.

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Nine/Two at Constellation (Constellation, 2015) ***½

By Eric McDowell

The title of this compilation album refers to nine short duo sets recorded at Mike Reed’s important Chicago venue on September 2, 2015. With eighteen different local musicians of varying prominence in intimate pairings—some improvising through first-time meetings, others playing familiar compositions—the album’s risk is that its advantages and drawbacks can look (sound) alike. Last year, Makaya McCraven’s In the Moment (also recorded live in Chicago and featuring several Nine/Two contributors) enjoyed the benefit of culling the best moments of a year’s worth of gigs yet lost points in some people’s books for the resultant sense of fragmentation and incompletion. Though its premise is fundamentally different (many musicians playing one night vs. one musician playing many nights), Nine/Two is likely to run into similar combination of praise and criticism: the parts are solid, but the whole may be scattered. As a sampler, it’s fantastic—but does it amount to more than that?

Whoever compiled the nine tracks was smart to capitalize on the inherent variety and diversity available to give the album shape. (It’s also possible that the tracks are presented in the order they were played in, which would mean the musicians themselves were responsible for interacting not only with their immediate partners but also with the other duos—I suppose this is true to some degree in any case.) Either way, considering the whole over the parts highlights the contrasts between the sets, for example from guitarist Oscar Jan Hoogland and drummer Ryan Packard’s weird and frantic three-minute improvisation (track four) to bassist Katie Ernst and clarinetist James Falzone’s lyrically graceful ten-minute back-to-back pair of compositions (track five). Or compare Katherine Young and Amy Cimini’s awesomely eerie bassoon and viola improvisation, full of inventive textures and smoldering tension, to the follow-up composition by pianist Dan Pierson and bassist Charlie Kirchen, rhythmically playful and harmonically satisfying.

None of the above is to undersell the compilation’s individual highlights. The usual suspects of the Chicago scene don’t fail to deliver—see the opening set between Joshua Abrams and Dave Rempis, Keefe Jackson and Jason Adasiewicz’s in the middle, or Mike Reed and Jeff Parker’s towards the end. But I suspect that ultimately my favorite use for Nine/Two will be as an entry point into the work of some musicians whose names are new to me. In addition to some musicians already mentioned, Steve Marquette and his Derek Bailey-inspired guitar playing (in duet with drummer Charles Rumback) will go on my list of players to look out for. And perhaps my favorite duet of all comes from Ben LaMar Gay (trumpet/vocals) and Will Faber (guitar/electronics), a soulful, probing improvisation that speaks to a history of collaboration together that promises to reward exploration. Whereas the beauty and intensity of some of the tracks on the album comes in part from their fleetingness, even at eleven minutes this duet feels too short, leaving the listener tempted to go start looking for more and save the rest of Nine/Two at Constellation for later.

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Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey – Buoyancy (Relative Pitch, 2016) ****½

By Troy Dostert

Recorded at the end of a 2014 US tour, Buoyancy is the second duo release from saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey, a team who have collaborated on so many recordings that it’s really gotten hard to keep track of them all. Last year they played together on at least three records, including Laubrock’s Ubatuba project  and the under-recognized trio album Hotel Grief  (with Mary Halvorson). What’s clear in this more intimate format is the undeniable rapport Laubrock and Rainey possess, as their lines and ideas weave and develop through close conversation on each of these four freely-improvised tracks. Although the album feels relatively brief, at just under 45 minutes, there’s a lot of fine music on hand.

Laubrock is someone who seems to become more compelling with each recording. She has more than enough chops to hold her own with any of the fire-breathers, but she also brings a vital musical sensibility to her playing, with well-crafted phrases that always reveal a thoughtful logic. Listen to her bluesy sound at the opening of the title track, for instance: self-assured, languid lines that subtly begin to dance over the top of Rainey’s supportive contributions on the ride cymbal. And as Laubrock gradually moves into a more rhythmic, punchy mode, Rainey is right there to follow, creating an almost martial pulse as he elevates his volume and dynamism to match Laubrock’s. The ebb and flow of the track, whether in its quieter moments or in its more pulse-quickening ones, is always informed by the players’ impeccable sense of purpose and intuitive knowledge of what “fits” – clearly the result of years of shared music-making and a well-honed musical vision.

Other moments on the record are startling in their understated minimalism and delicacy: listen to the opening of the second cut, “Twenty Lanes,” as Rainey goes to his bag of tricks (crumpled paper, perhaps, and/or brushes) to make some unsettling sounds on the snare while Laubrock teases out long, sustained, barely-there notes. Or the album’s closer, “Thunderbird,” ironically titled as the track consists largely of Laubrock’s breathy, low-register drones, with Rainey offering only the most subdued support on brushes again, along with the occasional strike of a cymbal or a drum or two. It takes confidence to produce music that is so restrained and comfortable with space and openness, and it’s a tribute to these superb musicians that these moments seem so seamlessly integrated with their more feisty ones. This is a wonderful recording, well worth repeated listenings.

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Five Days of Duos

The duo, as we have ruminated on before, is an intimate and risky act. There isn't room to shirk responsibilities - one must listen, one must be patient, one must be proactive while being reactive. One pushes and the other pulls. One must be humble and supportive while at the same time, be an assertive leader. Ahh whatever ... we hope you find much to enjoy with the Duo series this week!

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Demierre/Dörner/Kocher Trio, Teatar &TD, Zagreb, Croatia; 4/7/2016

Jacques Demierre, Jonas Kocher, Axel Dörner (L-R). Photo by Damir Žižić

By Antonio Poscic

The recent concert in Zagreb by three European masters of free improvisation, pianist Jacques Demierre, trumpeter Axel Dörner, and accordionist Jonas Kocher, was one of those rare occasions when ordinary, oft explored and experienced objects and loci take upon alien and almost incomprehensible qualities. Take the semicircular hall of the Teatar &TD theatre in which the trio’s concert took place. Having lost count of the many great performances I’ve witnessed there, I didn’t think it was possible for the venue to surprise me ever again. Yet, I’ve never felt it’s claustrophobic presence and absorbing, black hole-like nature as clearly as during Demierre, Dorner, and Kocher’s 50 minutes of improvisational genius. As if the hall’s specific acoustics and the pitch-black walls threatened to swallow the music but, instead, accentuated each phrase, catalyzed each interaction.

The start of the performance - subdued, anchored in meticulously woven microtones - seemed to specifically benefit from the chamber’s qualities. Emerging from a vacuum of their own, not quite here or there, minute, barely perceivable, yet strangely aggressive sounds emanated from Demierre’s piano while Dörner and Kocher followed with similarly muted hushes, whispers, and incisions. Each musician was scratching the surface of a body of music hidden in their minds, both individual and collective, and creating an overpowering sense of constant tension between the instruments and the permeating crescendos of silence. The trio’s game is a patient one, not so much trying to reach a goal, rather concentrating on the “here and now,” on listening to one another. Reacting and negating. Requesting and responding. The odd flashes of compositionally recognizable, familiar arrangements appeared and disappeared so quickly that they only seemed timed and premeditated. Signs of a fantastic synergy and understanding. The hallmarks of what we might call instant composition.

From the freely improvised segments arose harmonies, destructive resonances, and even bolts of melodies and rhythms. All of these elements discovered almost by accident. And when the three musicians finally converged and peaked through these imperceptible exchanges of ideas and careful explorations, they lunged into expressive, explosive improvisations made of harsh, violent sounds and contrasted with fragile and subtle microtonal touches. The room again played its part: the creaking of the floorboards peculiarly augmented Demierre’s gentle brushes on the strings and keys of the piano. On another occasion, the trio’s pummeling fortes were tortured and suffocated by the rumble of a train passing outside. Reacting to these stimuli, whilst the environmental noise subsided, Dörner and Kocher held prolonged, droning expressions and tones while Demierre smashed the piano’s keyboard with his arm. A statement ever so clear.

As much as it was interesting to observe the musicians’ interplay, the individual, instrumentally subversive performances were just as mesmerizing. Each of the musicians seemed physically confined to his own world, never even glancing at each other. Communicating, instead, using some form of calculated telepathy while finishing each other’s phrases and sentences. During these interactions, Kocher often imitated electroacoustic sounds and entertained tones that felt synthesized and artificial. Simultaneously, Dörner used his fascinating breathing and playing techniques to create white noise-like loops. Finally, Demierre explored the gamut of his piano’s sounds, including extremes that turned it into a purely percussive or string instrument, scraping the strings with nails, caressing the keys with his palms.

In the final minutes of the performance, there’s an acute period of silence. Unlike many other punctuating silences that came earlier during the evening, this one is heavier, deeper, and longer. It suggests that the music is closer to stopping than continuing, but the outcome has not yet collapsed into a state and the next step has not yet been decided. The music continues. It follows me to this day.

Jonas Kocher, Axel Dörner (L-R). Photo by Damir Žižić

 

Axel Dörner. Photo by Damir Žižić

 

Jacques Demierre. Photo by Damir Žižić

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Starlite Motel - Awosting Falls (Clean Feed, 2016) ****

By Derek Stone

Awosting Falls is a 65-foot waterfall located at the Minnewaska State Park Preserve in New York. Upon searching for images of the waterfall on Google, it became clear that it goes through a range of states, a multiplicity of moods - sometimes it comes out in a trickle, with the whole resembling a gauzy sheet. Sometimes, it roars and churns, transforming from a gossamer layer to a grandiose display. In the winter, it’s a long, frozen tongue, ensnared in ice. Like its namesake, Starlite Motel’s newest recording also skips through an array of modes, and it does so with a fiery, dynamic glee that is hard not to love. Starlite Motel consists of some players you’ve probably seen mentioned on this website before: bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, drummer Gard Nilssen, Kristoffer Berre Alberts on both alto and tenor saxophones, and Jamie Saft on a multitude of instruments: Hammond organ, Whitehall organ, Moog, and lap steel guitar. This fascinating configuration makes for an equally fascinating listen, one that toes the line between improvisational jazz and psychedelic rock with dexterous abandon.

“A Beautiful Nightmare” comes to life with Saft’s horror-movie organ, Alberts’ feverish saxophone wail, Nilssen’s driving rhythms, and Flaten’s murky, percussive bass. Flaten’s turbid guitar-work is even more pronounced in the next piece, “Starlite” - it roils and bubbles, a caustic soup in which the other instruments are submerged. “The Art of Silence” starts with this same abrasive brew, but quickly erupts into a psych-rock workout, with Saft’s glorious organ comprising the beating, bloody heart. A few words about Saft’s organ-work: it’s a pleasure to hear! It lends these tunes a B-movie vibe, sure, a bit cheesy and histrionic - but it’s this same pseudo-spooky ambience that distinguishes the album and sets it apart from other, similar, jazz-rock efforts.

The longest track is “Suspended Veil,” and it’s an opportunity for each member to stretch out their bat-wings: Nilssen moves from pattern to pattern, rhythm to rhythm, with admirable finesse, Saft provides extended chords that evoke abandoned cathedrals with vaulted, cobwebbed ceilings, and Alberts screeches with a burning frenzy. My main complaint about this recording is the way that Flaten’s bass has been mixed - it’s too low! Occasionally, it does rise from the murk, but it would have been nice to hear his throbbing lines with more clarity (though, to be fair, that might have detracted from the swampy atmosphere that the players were working to build). One track in which the low-end gets more prominence is in the final one, “A Thousand Thousandths.” Here, Flaten’s bass is loud, proud, and fuzzed the hell out, and it sounds fantastic! In the same piece, Saft switches to lap steel guitar, a decision that puzzled me at first - I worried that this small change in instrumentation would throw the entire album off-course. Needless to say, my fears were unfounded; Saft’s lap steel does transform the track into a slice of dusty Americana, but it makes for a fitting conclusion. In terms of the B-movie analogy I set up earlier, this is the part where the heroes (bruised and bloodied, but not beaten) drive down the Great American Highway, past cornfields and roadside diners, into the sunset and away from the monsters and ghouls that had beset them at the beginning.

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Paal Nilssen Love Large Unit - Ana (PNL, 2016) ****½

By Eyal Hareuveni

Ana, Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit's second full-length album, was recorded just a few hours after the Large Unit's ecstatic performance at the Oslo Jazz Festival on August 2015, while the group still riding high on the adrenalin of the live performance. Ana offers an extended version of the Large Unit, augmented by two Brazilian percussionists, Celio de Carvalho and Paulinho Bicolor, both also played in the live performance and enriched the sonic spectrum of the Large Unit. The three pieces of Ana were tested before many audiences and were recorded before (The EP Rio Fun and the photo book-double Disc 2015, PNL, 2015 and 2016) during the extensive, more than 40 date tours by the Large Unit in Europe and North America, which followed the release of the group debut, Erta Ale (PNL, 2014).

Nilssen-Love explains that he sees in the Brazilian music the same qualities that have characterize his musical activity throughout the years, “a celebration of life – a celebration that should be loud, rhythmic and intense”. That kind of festive sound is now more focused than on previous Large Unit recordings, the studio and the live ones, and in the loose structures of Nilssen-Love's compositions. His compositions for this group are open road maps that suggest shifting dynamics, often attempting to push the Large Unit into different, even contrasting, courses simultaneously. But on the recording of Ana, that took place at the famed Rainbow Studio in Oslo, the interplay succeeds in sounding unified yet keeps its urgent and open looseness. It even offers a clear sense of lightness, despite the massive, 14 musicians instrumentation - two drummers, two percussionists, two bass players (playing on acoustic and electric basses), two tuba players, two sax player, trombonist, trumpet player, guitarist, and electronics player.  

The Brazilian talking drums, cuica, and the berimbau blend organically with the polyrhythmic drumming of Nilssen-Love and Andreas Wildhagen on the title-piece, dancing and stressing the infectious horns plus brass riff with joyous rhythmic impact that adapts itself naturally even to Tommi Keränen noisy electronics. The center-piece, the 28-minutes “Riofun”, is already a climax of many Large Unit performances, now rearranged in a new version that incorporates elements of Brazilian Bahia music. Its carnivalistic spirit integrates many approaches of the Large Unit, from the ocean-deep murmuring of the tubas of Per Åke Holmlander and Børre Mølstad, fast soaring trumpet solo of Thomas Johansson and bluesy sax solo of Klaus Holm, explosive outbursts of the whole group and Brazilian, harmolodic-tinged pulses, all accumulate to an ecstatic swinging celebration. The last piece, “Circle in the Round”, matches brilliantly the Brazilian playful rhythms and the inventive interplay and boundless energy of the Large Unit, now with surprising, funny vocal samples, commanding trombone solo of Mats Äleklint, a segment where Julie Kjær's flute playing leads the drummers and percussionists into a dancing march before a peaceful, gentle coda that concludes this great, inspiring celebration.  

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Torben Snekkestad - The Poetics of a Multiphonic Landscape (ILK, 2016)

By Derek Stone

The world of the solo saxophone can be a forbidding one, lacking as it does the sonic landmarks and signifiers that so-called “straight jazz” defines itself by. There have been far too few explorers of this terrain (Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker are notable for their extended forays), but it remains an area that is largely uninvestigated by the majority of both players and audiences. Torben Snekkestad is definitely not trying to reverse that trend; these three albums won’t usher in a golden age of solo sax, nor will they encourage a new generation of youngsters to seek out For Alto or Process and Reality. What they will do, however, is excite and mystify the adventurous listener, and hopefully invite him or her to continue down the barely-beaten path that Braxton, Parker, John Butcher, and numerous others have cleared out on past recordings.

Snekkestad’s new trilogy is called “The Poetics of a Multiphonic Landscape,” and it purports to “produce multiple sonics simultaneously (multiphonics) and to unfold the possible poetics of these within the acoustic solo format.” To do this, Snekkestad has utilized a range of instruments, one of which is decidedly peculiar. Curious about what that might be? Read on!

Plateau **** 

On Plateau, Snekkestad sticks to the tenor and soprano saxophones, and he explores not only their potential to produce convoluted, ecstatic threads of notes, but the timbral and textural possibilities of the instruments as well. The first track, “Plateau #3,” is an example of this latter mode: the tenor resonates and rolls in extended tonal swells, and Snekkestad’s breath is an integral part of the whole, lending the tones an unvarnished physicality. “Stellar Droplets” (played on soprano sax) is more varied in its approach, moving from circular shapes that recall Evan Parker’s work to airy exhalations and clusters that resemble the sounds emitted from conch-shells. Plateau is a lovely recording, atmospheric and spacious, with a great range of textures that run the gamut from soothing susurrations to riveting jets of sound.

Winds of Mouth ****

It is immediately clear that Winds of Mouth will be a somewhat different experience from Plateau, opening with multi-tracked reeds, a slide trumpet, and the ever-curious reed trumpet. While the instrumentation is different, the approach that Snekkestad takes is comparable; in the first piece, “April Flourish,” there are extended tones that warble, pulse, and trill, and the individual instruments arise and dissipate with wave-like regularity. As its name implies, “South Abyss” approximates what it might sound like to descend into a fissure in the Earth’s crust - the disquieting creak of tectonic plates, expulsions of air from unseen cracks, and foreboding groans. It’s an incredibly immersive track, and it illustrates well what Snekkestad does best - constructing veritable worlds of sound with a limited, but effective, arsenal.

The Reed Trumpet ***½

The Reed Trumpet is a singular work, one in which Snekkestad explores the textural possibilities of an instrument that most people have never even heard of. How much different is a reed trumpet from a regular one? Not much, I’d say - after all, it’s just a trumpet with a saxophone mouth-piece attached. There are some key differences, however: it’s raspier, more guttural and gravelly, and thus it carries some menacing undertones. Those differences aren’t enough to fool your average listener, though - it’s still easily identifiable as a trumpet. Snekkestad tries his best to extract alien textures and timbres from it, and he largely succeeds. Pieces like “Ninth” find him moving from sonorous, low-pitched shapes to the shriller tones that a trumpet is typically identified with. “Second” is a hushed, muted affair that occasionally bubbles up into pebbly rattles and murmurs, while “Third” is a somewhat straightforward track that brushes lightly against a myriad of light melodies before sinking into the abstractions of “Fourth.”

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Nick Millevoi – Desertion (Shhpuma, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

Listening to some samples of previous projects on Philadelphia-based guitarist Nick Millevoi’s website—ear-splitting solo work, high-intensity duos with Toshimaru Nakamura and Weasel Walter, and the raucous Many Arms trio, among others—does little to prepare you for the cinematic and inviting Western-inflected compositions on Desertion, to be released in May on Clean Feed’s Shhpuma sub-label. The Desertion quartet consists of Millevoi on guitars, Johnny DeBlase (of Many Arms) on electric and upright basses, Jamie Saft on Hammond organ and piano, and Ches Smith on drums, supplemented in places by trombonist and frequent collaborator Dan Blackberg and violinist June Bender.

“Desertion And The Arsonist’s Match” opens the album with a series of lush and brooding chords—the aural equivalent to establishing shots of Monument Valley—before falling into a plodding tom pattern over which Millevoi slowly builds a melodic but fiery solo. The stylized bad-ass cowboy attitude treads a fine line between send-up and homage, but the playing is too good, the spirit of enthusiasm and fun too evident, for the result to be anything less than compelling. In a nod to the group members’ typical freer tendencies, near the climax of the track the piece overflows its rhythmic container, with an organ workout over chaotic cymbal crashes. 

From there, the album visits some related idioms—for example, the country/folk of the follow-up, “Just For A Moment I Stood There In Silence,” with its acoustic picking, solemn string section, and stately 6/8 beat. Even with the example of the previous track (and especially compared to Millevoi’s work mentioned above), here the earnest commitment to the conventions of the genre and the familiar beauty they can produce, may be a tough sell for some readers of this blog. Still again, if you listen with an open mind, putting labels aside, you’ll hear the Desertion quartet playing some wonderfully tasteful and moving music.

Besides, this isn’t to say you can’t find noise and adventure on Desertion. “Where They Do Their Capers” preserves the sinister Western mood in a more atmospheric setting, with textural drumming, arco bass, and electronic processing. After some more straightforward rock and folk (“Disneyland In Hamtramck” and “The Big Moment Is Always Out There Waiting”), the album ends with “The Fire That Partially Damaged City Hall,” a great example of the album’s approach of extremes: to draw from its title, the track showcases the “fire” of improvisation and exploration without completely destroying the familiar and established territory of genre and emotion. From any perspective, a highly listenable album not without surprises.   

Desertion releases on May 20th.

https://nickmillevoi.bandcamp.com/album/desertion

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Kazuya Matsumoto - Mizu no katachi (Spekk, 2015) ***½

By Nicola Negri

Percussionist Kazuya Matsumoto’s first album is an undefinable musical object, suspended between sound catalogue and performance art. Aptly titled Mizu no katachi (The Shape of Water), it’s a collection of field recordings gathered during a period of five years, to which Matsumoto added (in real time) mainly harmonic percussion instruments – gongs, singing bowls, hamon and various sound-producing objects, carefully selected for their ability to achieve a literal resonance with the natural scenery in which they were employed. The focus on this album is strictly limited to sound itself, embracing the spontaneous occurrence of simultaneous rhythms, timbres and accents in the sounds of water, fire, insects and birds, investigating nature’s sonic dimension without forcing a particular musical vision, supporting it in subtle ways or letting it take center stage, contemplating its narrative qualities.

The second track, 'Odoru minamo', is exemplary of the record’s construction: a complex ambience of different water sounds, birds, frogs and wind on the foreground, with Matsumoto adding discreet rhythmic figures in an attempt to blend with the surroundings more than trying to shape the piece into a traditional compositional structure. This approach is the starting point from which Matsumoto develops most of the pieces, with the balance of natural and artificial sounds alway shifting, from the sonic postcard of Meinou to utakata, in which the percussions are kept at a minimum of arhythmic activity, to the more traditional interactions based on clearly outlined rhythms like in 'Kizamu', or the more complex structural development of 'Higurashi sonohigurashi', growing in intensity with carefully orchestrated superimpositions that sound like electro-acoustic permutations.

The mimetic quality of Matsumoto's performance is at times disorienting, and this album needs repeated listens to fully decipher its full scale, and to appreciate his rigorous and almost ritualistic approach to music making. Sometimes the more minimal pieces verge on New Age blandness, and the whole record is more a catalogue of different situations than a unified musical experience. But this aspect of sound collection is clearly deliberate, emphasizing how much beauty can be found by simply listening to the complexity of natural sounds, and for the most part the richly layered ambience and the carefully crafted percussion work create a captivating experience, showing Matsumoto's genuine love for nature and the musical potential of the world around us.

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