Sam Weinberg Trio w/ Chris Lightcap & Tom Rainey – Implicatures (Astral Spirits, 2023)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Sam Weinberg has been on my list of favorite saxophonists for quite a while now, but some time has passed since I was so thrilled about a recording he is involved. This time on Implicatures, for the always great Astral Spirits label, he seems to be the leader of a trio with established players like Tom Rainy on the drums and Chris Lightcap on double bass.

Checking out the info on the album’s bandcamp page, it felt a bit contradictive, since Weinberg is mentioned as the main (but not the only one, some tracks are equally composed by the trio) composer. The big contradiction is that the music on this vinyl album seems to flow freely like a spontaneous (or, at least, allowing some predetermined ideas) improvisation. Some listenings after the first one, I found myself noticing a well deserved balance between spontaneous playing and the elephant in the room, for us aficionados of improvisation, which is compositions.

I dare to say that this music is part composed and part improvised. Choose any side, of the two, you like, but you cannot deny that Implicatures is an aggressive, full of energy album, probably the best sax-bass-drums trio of jazz based musics for the whole year. There is a certain feeling of rapport between the players and, again this word, a balance between individual playing with pathos and collective musicianship.

Weinberg’s tenor sax is an aggressive but also humble affair. He uses phrases and timbre as a means to connect with the rhythm section of Lightcap and Rainey that isn’t exactly that –not in the traditional way. The double bass and the drums resemble an entity of their own and play in unison. Sometimes they are many galaxies away from the typical “keep the rhythm” of jazz tradition. But most of all, it is this feeling, one that is not easily described but much preferably listened to, of bringing fresh air, managing to distinguish themselves from the numerous recordings, each year, that call themselves free jazz.

There is so much freedom in their music that it is worthy the aforementioned label. One of the best albums for 2023.

Listen and buy here: https://astralweinbergtrio.bandcamp.com/album/implicatures

@koultouranafigo

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Adam Rudolph/Tyshawn Sorey – Archaisms I (defkaz Records, 2023)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Living in the periphery of Europe, it makes me really happy that a label from Thessaloniki, Greece releases such a musical statement. Tyshawn Sorey and Adam Rudolph are accomplished percussionists, two of the musicians that everything new under their name attracts my full attention. Being, especially, a fan of Sorey’s journeys into the black tradition (into music I should just say?), there is no doubt that he is one of the most important musicians of his generation.

But this is a collective work of the highest order. This collaboration of sorts was recorded live in concert in NYC as 2021 was ending, and is one continuous small scale journey into spontaneous compositions. The final result, cut into two 180gr vinyl sides, is worth the repeated listening that today’s hectic normality denies.

Apart from Rudolph’s overtone flute, both musicians utilize various percussion instruments. Bypassing the constant threat that this instrumentation can bring –a boring linear rhythmology- their playing comes to the listener’s ears as an inseparable entity. They play in unison and they both admit it willingly.

I really can’t be sure, since I have no images of the live setting, if the music was dialectical, like two friends exchanging ideas (reminder: John Stevens’ description of his duo playing with Trevor Watts on Face to Face), but, certainly, the music flows like one entity linking every second of sound with the next one.

Like Adam Rudolph comments on the label’s bandcamp page, they approached the music and their interaction with open hearts. And a willingness to interact, speak through the non-verbal language that music is, I dare to add, communicating their truth, ideas and sentiments. Even though there seem to be distinct sections within the recording, it is, or at least it feels like, one continuous piece. Archaisms I is one of the best records for 2023.

Listen and buy here: https://defkaz.bandcamp.com/album/adam-rudolph-tyshawn-sorey-archaisms-i

@koultouranafigo

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Jack Wright/Ben Bennett –Augur (Palliative Records, 2023)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Saxophonist Jack Wright and drummer/percussionist Ben Bennett have been collaborating for around a decade now. By talking to them and, mainly, by listening to their music, what is crystal clear is that both improvisers share common ideas and feelings about the music they create. Their shared language is totally evident in any recording by them-as a duo or even with other like minded artists like Zach Darrup for the trio Never which was reviewed here.

On Augur, their latest effort as duo, again on Palliative Records, this sax and drums duo forms another, different and inspiring entity than the usual free jazz blowouts that have, by now, formed a tradition inside the jazz tradition. Their shared language, mentioned before, is in the form of attentive listening and then playing. Their dedication in following each other’s ideas and gestures has created a fruitful trajectory of three long tracks. Each one seems to start humbly and, certainly, not loudly, building up slowly, using their weapons as improvisers: open to any new idea, those two players are nervously ready (but so relaxed at the same time) to respond to anything new.

Jack Wright has managed through the years to avoid following his idiolect as a player, producing something new each time. A very difficult task and goal. Bennett, coming from a much younger generation but also equally dedicated, seems (I’m quite certain about that) to be following the same path. It is not easy to reinvent yourself or even try to.

Theire is no point, I believe, in writing individually about the two players. They play in unison with an interaction that reveals a lot of playing together (in and out of any kind of a stage), but also a lot of talking and thinking about the music. Their music requires a lot of careful listening and provides many questions for the listener. I cannot think of a bigger compliment than this, it certainly is a five star recording for 2023.

Listen and buy here: https://milmin.bandcamp.com/album/augur

@koultouranafigo

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Alabaster DePlume – Come With Fierce Grace (International Anthem, 2023)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

International Anthem wasn’t a favorite at its beginnings. Gradually it delivered, to us listeners, with a fierce grace to quote the full of empathy album title, the music of today. Totally out of genres, labels and tagging. It seems to me that International Anthem has become a hub for a wide open roster of musicians who embody anything that comes from the black tradition but definitely travels to the future.

One of them is the Englishman Alabaster DePlume, named Gus Fairbairn in the world outside music. Even though he, obviously, comes from a different tradition than those playing jazz based musics in the States, you can never tell, when listening to the album, that he is not from there. But this isn’t the point, it never was.

There’s no easy way to describe the music in Come With Fierce Grace. This could be pop music, as all the tracks end before the six minute mark and many of them clock around three minutes. They feel (and I mean it as this album is all about sentiment) like small vignettes, passages that incorporate anything that could be called modern music.

DePlume is a spoken-word artist, writer and saxophonist. All those different (or not so different after all) fields conjure a new language, his language. Some are based on the voice, like the threnody of Naked Like Water with Donna Thompson, others use the melody lines of the sax as an instrumental journey for the heart of the sentiment. Soul (like on Did you know with the voice of Momoko Gill), jazz, blues and small ballads create the core of an eclectic, totally new experience –but also as old as the black tradition where partially is based on.

I really love this album and it will make it on my top ten list for 2023. DePlume (along with Celine Voccia if you are asking…) is the biggest musical discovery for me this difficult year and I truly thank him for the music.

Buy and listen here: https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/album/come-with-fierce-grace

@koultouranafigo

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Pyramid Trio - Visitation Of Spirits (NoBusiness, 2023)

By Stef Gijssels

The late Roy Campbell has always been one of my favourite trumpet players: soulful, free, creative, and most bands in which he performed offered music of exceptional and boundary-breaking quality. I'm a big fan of all "Other Dimensions in Music" albums, of the "Nu Band", and also of his collaborations with Jemeel Moondoc, Ehran Elisha, Matthew Shipp, William Hooker, William Parker, and many more. But he also had his own ensembles, including some trio albums, of which the Pyramid Trio is the most formal band, with William Parker on bass, and Zen Matsuura on drums, except on their first album "Communion" (1994) on which Reggie Nicholson plays the kit. The other two albums are "Ancestral Homeland" (1998) and "Ethnic Stew And Brew" (2001), and all three albums are easy to recommend. 

It's again an incredible treat to have this even older recording suddenly available, with a great thanks to the NoBusiness label for having released it again. The album gives a performance recorded on the 21 February 1985 at The Joint, Usdan Student Center, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, and has actually been circulating for many years as a bootleg that was aired on WBR FM community radio. Now that it's official, it will hopefully get better visibility to even a broader audience. Because of the radio performance, the recording quality is absolutely excellent, and thus far from the usual bootleg material. Roy Campbell passed away on January 9, 2014, and that's almost ten years ago, which is hard to believe. Zen Matsuura passed away on September 19, 2015. This makes this album even more valuable. 

Campbell's music is strongly rooted in free bop, with great and jubilant themes setting the scene for long improvisations, coming again to a closing with the themes. Campbell says about his own music in an interview: "I don’t write any one particular style. I incorporate whatever I’m feeling or whatever I hear from wherever the music’s coming through from and just put something together.”

Everything between the beginning and the end is open for improvised parts by all three musicians, and preferably all together. Four of the five tracks will become material on later albums by Campbell: "Charmaine" on 'La Tierra Del Fuego" (1994), "Imhotep" on "Ethnic Stew & Brew" (2001), "Vigilance" on "Communion (1994), and "Brother Yusef" on 'Ancestral Homelands" (1998). Only the last track, equally with an infectious theme, is less easy to identify, even if it sounds familiar (I've racked my brain and memory over this, listening to many albums again, and even used Shazam, but to no avail). 

In any case, this is a great and fun album. There a few minor weaknesses, such as at times the transition from improvisation back to the core theme, and I must say that at times Matsuura could have been a little more subtle, but that's a purely personal appreciation. 

Campbell also shares this reflection on his music: "The rule in the inner circle of musicians is that the visitation of spirits always supersedes music theory. The players, if open to this agenda, can form a relationship with their higher self. The only concept is love and compassion for all human beings. All great musicians follow the spirit to tap into the unknown without trying to own it."

To his credit, all his music is deeply soulful, uplifting and moving. This album is no different. 

"All great musicians follow the spirit to tap into the unknown without trying to own it."

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Max Johnson - Sunday Interview

Max Johnson. Photo by Aidan Grant

1. What is your greatest joy in improvised music?
   
   I think there’s something magical about great improvised music, and I come to appreciate it more and more as I go through more musical experiences. As someone who composes non-improvising music, plays songs, straight ahead jazz, and studies different traditions, there’s something mysterious and beautiful about freely improvised or spontaneously created music. The ability to build something from no pre-established forms communally with others is one of the most truly democratic and collaborative things I’ve ever experienced, and it stands in opposition to the top-down capitalist model of making music to sell. People come together to create something as a community, and there’s no room for ego or pre-conceived ideas of what has to happen to succeed, because if there is, the music can’t move forward. And every combination of musicians and instruments creates different results, like ingredients in a meal. As a listener (whether on stage or off), getting to experience all sorts of combinations of musicians and see how those voices change each other and create something greater is a beautiful thing.
   
   
2. What quality do you most admire in the musicians you perform with?
   
   While I try to be open minded and enjoy the diversity of different musical styles and voices of the people I play with, when it comes to improvisors, I like to surround myself with musicians who see the big picture and can look forward and backward in the music thinking formally. Improvisors who are composers often can see the big picture, and it’s really clear when you’re listening to Roscoe Mitchell or Anthony Braxton that they’re constantly looking ahead in the music while also keeping track of where it’s been. Patience is really important to me as well, and it can show itself in many different ways in the music.
   
   
3. Which historical musician/improviser do you admire most?
   
   The first person that comes to mind is Mingus. There’s something so tenacious about everything he did. He was composing this incredibly complex concert music as a teenager, and then became the most virtuosic bassist of the 40’s and 50’s, then started an artist run label with Max Roach, and that’s not even talking about his bandleading which was an art in itself, putting together these very different distinct voices within compositions that let them all be individuals. It's incredible the amount of reinventing and creating that he did; he mastered five or six complete things in one reasonably short lifetime. It’s insane!
   
   
4. If you could resurrect a musician to perform with, who would it be?
   
   As far as a resurrected musician I could perform with, there’s too many to name, as it’d be incredible just to feel what it was like to interact with any of these folks. Off the top of my head Coltrane certainly comes first, but Eric Dolphy, Steve Lacy, Elvin Jones, Andrew Hill, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, and John Gilmore, but there’s so many living people it’d be a dream to play with too! The world is just full of heroes!
   
   
5. What would you still like to achieve musically in your life?
   
   I’d love to tour more; it’s always a pleasure to present my music to new people. I’d love to compose something for a large ensemble of some kind as well. And I would love to be able to figure out a way to sustainably keep making recordings of my own and releasing recordings by other people I can support with my label Unbroken Sounds. With the recording industry in shambles and streaming corporations taking everything they can from artists, it’s becoming harder and harder to produce music, so I’d love to achieve a way to just keep making new things and trying to push myself to new places!
   
   
6. Are you interested in popular music and – if yes, what music/artist do you particularly like?
   
   There’s certainly popular music from different eras I enjoy, but I don’t really like music that is created in the focus-group corporate pop model that currently rules so much of that scene. All the modern hip hop or song-based music I enjoy tends to be by independent artists who have more say in the music rather than ones produced by big companies where artists are a product. But if you like it you like it! I try not to judge people for liking things I don’t and find so many artists to be hyper judgmental about popular music fans. We all get to like different stuff!
   
   
7. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
   
   As someone who struggles with a psychological handicap, it would be great if I didn’t have to deal with the constant pushing up against mental difficulties. I’m a very driven and always working person, and especially since I’ve had some of these issues exacerbated by long covid symptoms, I just don’t have as much mental energy to spend, and I wish I didn’t have those issues impeding my productivity. But honestly if I could change anything, especially these days, even in jazz, it would be to have a bunch of money. More and more publicity is becoming the only way that artists break through, and as a low-income person, I just can’t afford to compete with the people who have money. Practically every name jazz artist today has a PR campaign behind them, often costing more than the records themselves to make, and also often costing more than your income from playing music, so the only people who can afford it are those with some extra-monetary source. I see so many great artists who also don’t have money go unnoticed or aren’t working because they don’t have the resources that others have. You’re expected to have records, professionally shot videos for every project, press photos, and on top of that, there are a number of press outlets (thank goodness not FreeJazzBlog, thanks guys!) who will only accept reviews from PR agents, and festivals that will only book people with PR. So it’s a constant frustration I see folks like myself dealing with, not just in music but in America in everyday life.
   
   
8. Which of your albums are you most proud of?
   
   If I have to pick one, I’ll say “Orbit of Sound” by my trio with Anna Webber & Michael Sarin. There’s a real care and patience with that record that comes from the fact that we’d been playing and touring that music before we recorded it, and the musical trust I have in those two individuals really allows the music to go anywhere we want without judgement. We’ll be recording a new one this winter after our tour on the east coast of the US, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia this fall, and I think we’ll be able to build on some of those ideas.
   
   Another record that means something to me but for a different reason is a duo album I am releasing (or have released, depending on when this is printed) with Henry Grimes, recorded live at the Stone in 2010. Henry was my teacher, mentor, and friend and this is the only recording I have of us performing together publicly. He is the reason I play the bass, and I found this recording of us and wanted to share it because he meant so much to me. I think his post-return playing is incredibly underrated and often misunderstood, and I just wanted there to be some more documentation of his brilliant and patient work out there.
   
   
9. Once an album of yours is released do you still listen to it? And how often?
   
   I listen to my albums a lot after recording them because I edit, mix, and (recently) master them myself. I usually mix over the course of a few months, tinkering very slowly, so once it’s out I usually don’t listen too much, but I do sometimes get curious when I’m trying to remember what something sounded like and go back. It’s nice to remind myself on my most depressed days that A. I do know how to play the bass, and B. I’ve put out a lot of music, and I can keep going.
   
   
10. Which album (from any musician) have you listened to the most in your life?
    
    I don’t really have a single album that’s my go to, and my tastes have changed over the years, but I always go back to “Changes One” by Charles Mingus, “Fun House” by the Stooges, “Escalator Over the Hill” by Carla Bley, “Live at the Village Vanguard” by John Coltrane, the recording of “Derive 2” by Pierre Boulez, a box set of Bill Monroe recordings from the 1950s, “Black Sabbath” by Black Sabbath, and plenty of stuff I can’t remember right now.
    
    
11. What are you listening to at the moment?
    
    I’ve been listening to a lot of Andrew Hill lately. Richard Davis was the first upright bass player I really listened to, and I’ve been really enjoying his absolutely fearless playing on those records, and also now appreciating Andrew so much more as a composer (now that I have better ears than when I was 20). Also Bill Dixon, whose work I always enjoyed but never immersed myself in. Also also I’m composing a solo piano piece for the incredible new music pianist Steven Beck, so I’m listening to a lot of modernist piano music by Don Martino, Elliott Carter, and Charles Wuorinen. Also also also I’ve been really enjoying those 1950s Duke Ellington recordings of his long concert arrangements, and Norman Blake is a go-to when I’m around my house as well. 

Learn more about Max Johnson at: https://www.maxjohnsonmusic.com/

Max Johnson reviewed on the Free Jazz Blog:

• Max Johnson - Hermit Music (Unbroken Sounds, 2022)
• Thomas Heberer's Garden, Max Johnson, Lou Grassi – Push Play (CIMP, 2022)
• Max Johnson – In the West (Clean Feed, 2017)
• Yoni Kretzmer Five (Out Now, 2016)
•  Thomas Borgmann Trio - One for Cisco (NoBusiness, 2016) 
• Max Johnson Trio - Something Familiar (Fresh Sound New Talent/Bandcamp, 2015)
• Chris Pitsiokos Trio – Gordian Twine (New Atlantis, 2015) 
• Ross Martin, Max Johnson & Jeff Davis - Big Eyed Rabbit (Not Two, 2014)
• Max Johnson – The Prisoner (NoBusiness, 2014) review 1, review 2
• Max Johnson Trio - The Invisible Trio (Fresh Sound Records, 2014)
• Max Johnson Trio - Elevated Vegetation (FMR Records, 2012)
• Max Johnson Quartet (Not Two, 2012) review 1, review 2

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Daunik Lazro/Benjamin Duboc/Mathieu Bec - Standards Combustion (Dark Tree, 2023)

By Stuart Broomer

For those who had found free jazz in the early 1960s, meaning Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor and associates, two galvanizing recordings appeared in the middle of the decade: Albert Ayler’s Spiritual Unity and John Coltrane’s Meditations. They’re among the few records of the period that I ever listen to, though I can almost do so without playing them, so strongly did they embed themselves in my consciousness. If I have such a thing, they belong in my permanent list of top ten recordings.

Based on Standards Combustion, a sometimes raw-edged, nine- track, LP-length (even the two-column track list looks like an LP) journey into the music of his youth, Daunik Lazro, born 1945 and sometimes playing partner to two other distinguished contemporaries and tenor players, Joe McPhee and Evan Parker, might feel the same way. Here he visits pieces by Ayler, Coltrane, Steve Lacy and Wayne Shorter along with his own homage to Lacy and a couple of collective improvisations, ideally accompanied by the spare, precise, structural yet empathetic, bass/drums team of the younger Benjamin Duboc and Mathieu Bec. Consider it revolutionary nostalgia, a sometimes soul-baring, galvanizing music that reaches through time for emotional renewal,

The CD opens with Ayler’s anthemic “Ghosts”, played with an Ayler-like exaggerated wail that shifts between laughter and tears, but which spurs a Lazro solo distinguished by his own upper-register cries and spears of sound. These are difficult times, but wondrous, too. With Rodrigo Amado’s version with The Bridge, this marks two great versions of “Ghosts” released just six weeks apart, the closest that’s happened to the original pressing of Spiritual Unity.

Lacy’s “Deadline” is next, a wonderfully oblique, linear and wandering treatment, before Ayler’s “Mother” inspires another rich exploration of the melody and Lazro’s distinctive solo voice. How economical is Lazro? Together the two Ayler tunes clock in under eight minutes: you could get them both on a seven-inch 45rpm, the perfect tribute to Ayler’s own temporal economy.

Shorter’s “Nefertiti” is a subtly dissonant, rich harmonic weave, while Lazro’s composition “Line-Up for Lacy” is an oddly sweet dirge that brings Duboc’s arco playing to the fore. There’s some lyrical interactive play amongst the trio and a definite mood shift with some powerful multiphonic blasts from Lazro before the concluding theme statement.

The CD continues, alternating collective improvisations and late Coltrane compositions. “R.Métégal” is hard-edged, focussed, three-way improvisation; “Tight Rope” is brief and rhythmically playful. The late period Coltrane pieces – “Vigil” and “Love”, both from 1965, the latter first turning up as an add-on on later CDs, the latter part of Meditations – are imbued with an emotional intensity and testamentary clarity comparable to Coltrane’s own, with Lazro’s own slightly darker tone, higher harmonics less apparent in his sound, and a less keening, yet even more restless, impulsive feel to his lines.

Revolutionary nostalgia? This works pays meaningful tribute to one of the greatest (however painfully brief) moments in jazz history, revitalizing memory and animating the present.

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Omawi - Waive (Relative Pitch, 2023)

By Stef Gijssels

The Dutch band "Omawi" (short for Onno, Marta and Wilbert) consists of Marta Warelis on piano, Onno Govaert on drums, and Wilbert de Joode on double bass. This is their third album, after "Inscapes" (2018) and "Live At Roze Tanker" (2020), and it is an absolute winner. I already very much liked their previous albums, but this one goes even a step further. 

Warelis is an exceptional pianist, a little bit in the same vein as Eve Risser, someone who can appreciate the percussive and lyrical aspects of her instrument in equal measure, full of ideas and a good sense of sonic coherence and unrelenting dynamics. Her natural drive and energy are even made stronger and more powerful by Onno Gevaert's fireworks on the drums, and De Joode's equally exceptional skills and experience on bass. The trio moves as one, and is a real pleasure to hear from the very first note to the last. 

The album is a live performance, recorded in Zaal 100 in Amsterdam on October 12, 2021, in between the Covid-19 lockdowns and it presents a wonderful kind of escape, in which all the frustrations, social isolation and uncertainty get thrown overboard in a one hour long eruption of shards of sound, repetitive, percussive, urgent, with a strong sense of pulse without explicit rhythm, intense, vibrant, energetic, relentless, full of passion, power, fire, muscle, even in the quiet, more intense moments, but definitely when the volume picks up, in short, music that becomes a physical manifestation of internal energy and a real will to live again and to share it. 

Don't miss this one. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Below you can find a short excerpt from another concert that illustrates the band's sound and approach 

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Saxophilia – Metamorphosis (Redshift, 2023)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

The all saxophone quartet of Saxophilia moves into very interesting sonic territories, but yet, more or less, not so familiar for this reviewer. Performing tracks from five composers, the quartet of Julia Nolan on soprano sax, Kris Covlin on alto sax, David Branter on tenor sax and Colin MacDonald on baritone sax, travels the distance between 1960’s minimalism and modern composition quite easily.

At first listen I was not at ease with listening to many small scale works from an instrument that carries such a big burden in jazz history. Still, many times, my idea of how a saxophone should sound is fixed unfortunately. Adding to the aforementioned remark, trying to present works from five composers (Fred Stride, Violet Archer, Beatrice Ferreira, Rodney Sharman and the quartet’s own David Branter) seemed like taking the risk –and a blessing at the same time- of playing in such a diverse field of sounds that it could sound like a mish-mash of diverse elements that have no common ground. But they shouldn’t after all.

Not in this case though. I’m not sure if the title, Metamorphosis, is a hint that the quartet transformed the pieces, but I must certainly comment that they made them their own. It is a fact that you can much more easily understand by listening, rather that reading about, it, but there is a certain relevance between the works. Saxophilia offers new identities to the songs while keeping the core elements of them. Rich, playful timbres and low-key polyrhythmic –solo and collective- voices come from the saxophones.

The focus is on the collective playing, a choice that allows the harmonies and melodies to come forth in unison. Above all there’s a sentiment of unaffected joy, one that derives directly from the love for the music they perform. It may sound trivial but is not at all. Especially on this current day.

Listen and buy here: https://redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/metamorphosis

@koultouranafigo

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Greg Davis & E. Jason Gibbs - Steam Fence (Superpang, 2023)

By Gregg Miller

Gentle, disorganized chaos. Electro-acoustic + found sounds and live sampling. Vague industrial banging; reverberations of something indecipherable. Birds, static, resonant triangles, hard bowing and plucking The noise is pulsing, and we’re moving about inside it, The landscape adrift. Post-apocalyptic sound-debris laden with twisted imagery and unwonted intrusions. If not outright threatening, then slightly dangerous, like walking barefoot in an abandoned machine-shop. At the close of the second track, a human voice comes through like a ray of light across the illumination of a crevice, and then it ends. Crows provide the outro for track 3. Sounds manifests and then takes flight in organic life.

Sometime the noise-field is claustrophobic, anxiety-inducing. Do you live in the loud part of town? Turn it up. It’ll transfigure the construction noise, traffic, crows, and airplanes into a pleasant backing chorus. The fourth track is gentler, less menacing. Long tones shift and pulse under an assortment of bells and chimes in various registers. Track 5 lets distortion slowly overtake the proceedings, taking us back inside the sonic enclosure.

Track 7 lays down moving planes of casio chords, augmented by Derek Bailey-esque guitar plucks, and possibly a trombone. Less machine-shop industrial, the sound evokes a cleaner, though still artificial environment. What symphony chorus of hums does office furniture enjoy after the humans have gone home? The outro gives us the sound of seashore waves and cricket drones, night falling through an open window. The 8th track is the close miking of something, or many things impossible to discern, but then also altered and looped back in.

In 2021, E. Jason Gibbs released Wolves of Heaven (Orbit 577, 2021) (mastered by Henry Kaiser!), a full-on acoustic affair: a panoply of self-conscious, angular outbursts. Paul Acquaro called it “haunting and unusual,” and the liner notes (Owen Maerks) calls Wolves “pastoral.” If that’s right, in Steam Fence, we have industrial pastoral.

Highly recommended!

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