Introducing Aural Terrains

By Eyal Hareuveni

The British Aural Terrains label was founded in 2007 by composer-pianist-harpist-sound artist Thanos Chrysakis, now based in Belarus, as a platform for like-minded composers-musicians who work with the experimental  terrains of sound. The aim was, and still is, to disseminate exploratory contemporary music in its different manifestations - electroacoustics, composed and improvised music. The four albums of this label and another one that feature the Chrysakis in a free-improvised setting by the Portuguese label Creative Sources represent the many possibilities of these sonic searches and researches.

Dganit Elyakim - Failing Better (2016) ****½

Israeli composer and sonic artist Dganit Elyakim debut album offers an overview of her works, beginning with compositions dated to 2000 and concluding with recent ones from 2015. Most of her compositions were performed and recorded at the experimental space HaTeiva in Jaffa, Israel, where she curates the concert series ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Coherency’, featuring some of the most adventurous musicians from the local scene. Elyakim compositions confront digital-based media - assorted MIDI protocols and algorithmically based behaviours of the electronics platforms, with musicians who improvise or interpret her notated music. Often, her works are performed in collaboration with dancers, video artists, theater and experimental film artists.

Failing Better, a paraphrase on Samuel Beckett (“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better”), is full of humor, provocative sonic inventions, and inventive usage of conventional instruments and vocals.  “Lentils (2006)”, where she narrates a poetic, introspective reminiscence of wounded family relationship, is one of the most impressive compositions. She transforms the emotional turmoil into a sonic storm of acoustic piano, percussion, live electronics, and wordless operatic vocals.  Her guided improvisation dedicated to bass clarinet player Yoni Silver, “One On 1.1 (2006, 2015)”, where she plays with him on live electronics, emphasizes the intimate manner that acoustic instrument can improvise with an electronics-based texture, both keep exploring new sonic depths and territories and shift almost telepathically between dynamics and moods. “Lewdness (2005)”, based on poetic texts from the Biblical Songs and Songs and Israeli poets Yona Wallach and Alexander Pen, deconstructs the syntax of the original, suggestive texts in a way that charges them with surprising, ironic perspective. “The Next 31 Seconds of Your Life (2015)”, dedicated to viola player Ayelet Lerman, is the most provocative composition. It begins with about 30 seconds of almost unbearable white noises but it succumbs into two and half minutes of deep silence, that illuminates its noisy introduction in a Cageian way, and resurfaces with a gentle recitation of Beckett text, resonated with gentle electronics.

Highly original and always inventive. Warmly recommended.

Thanos Chrysakis / Chris Cundy - Music for Chamber Organ & Contra Bass Clarinet (2015) ***

A collaboration between label founder Chrysakis and British experimental composer, reeds, woodwinds player, and painter Chris Cundy (whose artwork used for the cover). The duo was recorded at the chapel Francis Close Hall Campus in Cheltenham on June 2014. Cundy has worked before with master improvisers as pianist John Tilbury and double bass player Dominic Lash and has performed with eclectic musicians as the DJ Moby and guitarist-songwriter Vieux Farka Touré.

The two offer a five-part minimalist sound-poem where the deep-toned voicing of the bass clarinet assimilates with the sonic spectrum of the pipe organ, and vice versa, until both instruments transform into some kind of abstract sound generators. The distinct timbral colors of the bass clarinet sound now as resonating, vibrating and extending the suspended, meditative playing of the organ. This kind of focused, complementary interplay stresses the contemplative and subtle spirit of this recording, creating a coherent sonic unity.

Thanos Chrysakis / Chris Cundy / James O' Sullivan - Asphodels Abide (2014) ***½

Another collaboration between Chrysakis, now playing laptop computer, synthesizer and radio sounds, and Cundy, again on the bass clarinet, with London-based electric guitarist James O’Sullivan, a regular in percussionist Eddie Prévost's weekly improvisational workshops, recorded on November 2013.

This is a set of six free improvisations, each one attempts to offer a common ground between the three parallel sonic universes - the otherworldly sounds and noises of the laptop and the synthesizer, the deep-tones, short breaths of the bass clarinet, and the metallic, resonating strumming and hammering of the strings of the electric guitar. Again, the atmosphere is reserved, the interplay is patient and subtle, slowly structuring and destructuring the tension, offering arresting and rich soundscapes. Some of these improvisations, like the second one or the tortured fourth one, even gain suggestive cinematic qualities, as their interplay is colored with detail and nuance.

Thanos Chrysakis / Ernesto Rodrigues / Guilherme Rodrigues / Miguel Mira / Abdul Moimême - Exaíphnes (Creative Sources, 2015) ****½

This album matches Chrysakis, playing the piano and the harp, with Portuguese viola player Ernesto Rodrigues, cellist Guilherme Rodrigues, double bass player Miguel Mira (who plays the cello in sax player Rodrigo Amado Motion trio), and electric guitarist Abdul Moimême. This free-improvised session was recorded in Lisbon on January 2015.

These three improvised pieces, totalling a dense 27 minutes, work an impressive and profoundly rich, all-strings sonic spectrum. This patient, methodical investigation of the unique, shared timbral spectrum, the physical characteristics of the stringed instruments and their wooden bodies keeps exploring more and more nuanced layers, detailed colors and shades and vibrating-resonating overtones. All the instruments sound as one, massive unity, organically fit in the ever expanding sonic puzzle that reaches surprising depths in the longest, and most minimalist and quiet third piece.

Thanos Chrysakis - Above the Hidden Track an Endless Blaze (2015) ****

This time Chrysakis offers a solo set of short 13 manipulated electroacoustic textures that he composed, mixed, and mastered by between October 2012 and July 2013, while staying at the Centre for Composers in Gotland, Sweden.

There is no explanation about the work process or instruments or devices used for this recording. Still, these textures offer a unique and provocative sense of space, time, and sound, blending supposedly real and warm natural sounds with highly manipulated, processed, and synthesized distant sounds. These inventive and subtle textures quite often create a bewildering and claustrophobic atmosphere where all known linear conventions and sonic architectures are about to dissolve into imaginary sonic liquid lava. Others offer more crystalline and gentle sounds that hint at possible but well hidden melodic veins, while a few, such as “Perpetual Movement”, surprise with an urgent, densely packed energy.

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Kit Downes and Tom Challenger: Vyamanikal (Slip, 2016) ****

By Joe

This is the second offering from the duo of Kit Downes and Tom Challenger, the first being "Wedding Music", an album of pipe organ and tenor saxophone duets using a conventional idea of melody and improvisation. "Vyamanikal", their new album, takes a sharp left turn musically, giving us a very interesting new perspective on the duos musical thinking. On "Wedding Music" Kit and Tom concentrated on their instruments as the main sound producing sources, on this release the duo have taken all aspects of their performance into account. Using everything around them to create a truly original musical vision which includes not only the two instruments, but also the ambience of each church and the sounds that filter into them. Recorded in 5 different churches in Suffolk, England, the duos label describes it as "[...] a collection of transcendent improvisations where the primordial moans and whistles of remote organs meld with gossamer saxophone.", and indeed they are!

Listening to this album a few names came to mind, ambient musician, Biosphere, the sound artists Tim Hecker or even the work of Ben Frost. Although this acoustic duo's music is far from the sonic world of the aforementioned artists, it does have some similarities. Downes and Challenger's music is made up in real time, with no electronic manipulation, but their interest in capturing, and using, the space that they perform in does come through. The sound of the pumps or vibrations produced from the different organs used, gives the music an effect like being in the engine room of a ship. Apart from these sounds you can also hear birds singing away (inside the church?), giving a very live feeling to what you are hearing.

The music itself is far from the bold melodic statements that came with "Wedding Music".  On this record everything is very minimal, low organ drones swirl around dissonant chords that hover in the air, rarely resolving in any logical sense. The saxophone of Tom Challenger almost caresses these rich organ sounds in a way that feels like he is coaxing a mythical beast (of some sort) out into the open! The two musicians build gradually on these strange and almost unnatural atmospheres throughout the seven pieces, finding imperfections and reflections in the church's acoustics which they develop into their drone quality improvisations. The result of this is that the duo has really brought together their musical vision in a very original, and although I speak of monsters and unnatural sounds the music is in its own way better described as spiritual and hypnotic.

Speaking of 'spiritual' may explain the title "Vyamanikal", which, as we're told, comes from an adaptation of early 20th century Sanskrit texts talking about aerospace technology and flying vehicles in ancient Sanskrit epics. Whatever the meaning, the music the duo makes is magical, or even spellbinding, in the true sense of the word.

Lastly, you'll have noticed I haven't described the individual tracks as, if you're curious, you'd do better to visit Slip's Bandcamp site where you can hear the album, meditate on the music, and even buy it - its a limited edition CD and/or cassette version.   

Highly Recommended!

Note: I'm not sure if there's physical CDs for sale, but, Slip kindly sent me a copy which comes in an intriguing presentation, and certainly well worth getting if you're interested in hard digital versions.  

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Brian Groder Trio - R Train on the D Line (Latham, 2016) ***½

By Paul Acquaro

Trumpeter Brian Groder's trio with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Jay Rosen plays a sleek style of modern jazz that builds on the spirit of free-jazz and delivers with a laser-like focus. On their second release 'R Train on the D Line' (if you're a New Yorker, you know), Groder and company pick up with where they left off with 2014's Reflexology.

Opener 'Quanta' is fast and free, and you're immediately struck by the clear, focused sound of the trumpet. The lines between the composed and the improvised are blurred as the tune segues seamlessly between rhythmic figures. This same precision and restrain is found on the follow up 'Retooled Logic', which kicks off with a syncopated melody line with wide intervallic leaps. Then, the trumpet and drums drop out, leaving Bisio to improvise an emotive arco passage. Even in these quieter moments, the pulse and drive continues, perhaps credit to Rosen whose playing lingers long in the ears. Actually, it's the open spaces between the musicians that invites the listener to almost participate by filling them in. For example, I wonder if I could suggest that next trio recording be a quartet - there were moments on the delicate ballad 'Whispers', towards the end of the album, when I swear I heard a piano.

Groder's discography is slim, but each entry is a thoughtful collaboration that invites return visits. Some highlights include his meeting with Sam Rivers on 2007's Torque as well as his 2009 collaboration with pianist Burton Greene. Both of the albums are full of verve and clarity that is found in Groder's playing also here on R Train on the D Line.

Available at DowntownMusic Gallery.

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The Out Louds – s/t (Relative Pitch, 2016) ****½

By JA Besche

The Out Louds are the trio of Mary Halvorson (guitar), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), and Ben Goldberg (Clarinet), this eponymous release being their first album as a group, though Halvorson and Fujiwara played together as part of a trio in Thumbscrew.  The trio here represents some of the brightest and most versatile talents in jazz today.  Halvorson has an impressively idiosyncratic voice on the guitar, playing on recordings that range from straightforward jazz, to rock, to more harsh post-music, and abstract ideas of freer improvisation.  Fujiwara has led a multitude of bands and kept rhythm for an incredibly diverse and wide ranging set of composers and other band leaders.  Ben Goldberg was one of the first jazz musicians experimenting with forms of traditional/ethnic Jewish music, and his playing usually blends between the lyrical, the rhythmic, and the exploratory.

On the album at hand, these players are settled into a much nuanced style.  They are not loud, more out, though with a touch of cohesion.  This is to be expected, as all players fit into a post-jazz paradigm in some way.  Fujiwara is very expressive on his kit, coaxing a full range of sounds and textures, as well as oblong rhythms that range from propulsive to disjointed, micro-studies of time and space.  Goldberg is at once lyrical, melodic, and abstract.  His playing invokes virtuosity, tightly wound runs interspersed with abstract pointillism, merging into simple melodies that seem almost serenely pastoral in their tone and pace.  Halvorson’s timing, phrasing, and choice of notes are impeccable as usual.

So the Out Louds tend to all play reactively, with few examples of one member taking the recording by the scruff of the neck and leading it somewhere.  If anything, Goldberg and Halvorson play off Fujiwara’s almost orchestral sounding kit, pushing forward when he creates rhythm, but exploring space when he becomes more abstract.  It’s definitely not something if you want highly energetic or cacophonous jazz, but it is an album of calculated risks, ideas rooted firmly in the language of improv, but speaking in their own voices.  In this sense, it is surely an unqualified success.  These artists definitely have the same vision here, but their unique ideas and their ability to hone in on what each other are trying to express results in some incredibly fine collective improvisation.

So, no this is not the most visceral album you will hear this year; not close.  It has a certain languid and reactive quality as I described above that doesn’t necessarily try to pull you in, but rests assured in what it is and offers the listener the opportunity to take it or leave it, seeming fully secure and happy with what it is with no pretense.  On the other hand, if you do let yourself sink into this aural world you will find a clear and beautiful kind of careful sonic research, with complex and thoughtful interplay between the musicians.  The track names are apparently all species of flowers found at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and the playing, specifically Goldberg’s, evoke the sense of plants growing upward toward the sun, of knotted and twisted roots underneath.  False Goat’s Beard reminded me of Eric Dolphy, possibly because it is slightly similar in name to Hat and Beard, possibly because the album in general is all relative to Dolphy’s style of free jazz.  However, it did so more in the sense of Otomo Yoshiide’s cover of the classic Out To Lunch, with interjections of modern sound collage, seemingly incongruous electronic sounds blending in and fading away.  While Yoshiide purely covered and injected his own identity into these Dolphy classics, The Out Louds present something similar, though different, perhaps not as experimental, but more personal.  They take old forms, add their own voice, and in doing so create new narratives, forms of expression, and I think, most impressively, create an incredible atmosphere of collective improvisation that really does not revolve around or place more import on one player, but hits that rare place of true conversational improvisation in a way in which most artists could only imagine.

Available through Instant Jazz and the Downtown Music Gallery

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Thumbscrew – Convallaria (Cuneiform, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

While fans of Thumbscrew have had plenty of opportunity to hear Mary Halvorson, Michael Formanek, and Tomas Fujiwara play together since the group’s 2014 debut, there seems to be something special about the music that arises from this particular trio setting. Perhaps the fruits of those other excursions—Fujiwara’s The Hook Up, Formanek’s Ensemble Kolossus—are distilled in this intimate context, where each musician has the space to contribute equally and which affords them the flexibility to play with the boundaries between jazz and rock, melody and noise, structure and openness. Likewise on Convallaria, developed during a two-week BNY Mellon Jazz Residency at Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, Thumbscrew manages not only to bring us what we expect from them but also to push forward into new territory.

Halvorson notes that the album’s namesake flower is both “sweetly scented and highly poisonous… a good description of Thumbscrew.” Indeed on “Cleome,” which opens Convallaria, a gentle stop-start introduction wholly belies the distorted mayhem you’ll hear if you skip to the middle of the track—though of course the magic is in the architecture of that bait-and-switch deception, not in the extremes themselves. “The Cardinal and the Weathervane” works this way too, pivoting suddenly at the two-minute mark from a mellow, wistful melody to a bombastic heavy metal riff. The title track manages to blend light and dark at the same time with its arpeggiated theme: simple, steady, and almost familiar but not quite, tinged as it is with sour harmonies and stuttering rhythms. 

Other tunes keep to one side or the other of the divide. On the “sweetly scented” side, the short “Sampsonian Rhythms” begins with an infectious groove from Fujiwara and goes on to feature some nice counterpointed interplay between Formanek and Halvorson. On “Danse Insensé” Fujiwara is especially playful, offering a cheeky solo built almost entirely on blocks, bells, and muted skins. The closing “Inevitable,” while not completely innocent of Halvorson’s patented pedal effects, is a disarmingly earnest and beautiful ballad in which the trio revert to their conventional roles to good effect.

As for pure “poison”… a pair of tracks from the middle of the album stand out. “Trigger” is a haunting piece. After a long bass introduction, malleted drums and crumbling guitar augment the eerie atmosphere. Unlike most Thumbscrew compositions, a stable rhythm never quite comes together, leaving the elements in suspension. Then comes “Screaming Piha,” named after a South American bird. Droning and noisy, this one’s a favorite of mine in part because of the way it suggests the discovery of a new species in Halvorson’s and Thumbscrew’s ecosystem of sound. Convallaria is more than enough to tide us over while we wait to see where the group will go next.



Available at the Downtown Music Gallery

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Moppa Elliott – Still, Up In The Air (Hot Cup, 2016) ***½

By Martin Schray

Recently I talked to German guitarist Nicola Hein about the difficulty of finding your own voice on a string instrument. He thinks that it’s easier for the reeds because they can use a lot of split notes or overblowing, they can even take their instrument apart and play it without the mouthpiece (or only the mouthpiece) while the strings have to use additional material like pieces of metal, license plates, mallets, drums sticks etc. to find new, unusual ways of expression. Barry Guy is the master of this technique.

Moppa Elliott, the bassist and mastermind of Mostly Other People Do The Killing, has chosen a different, rather puristic method on his first solo album Still, Up In The Air. There is no additional material, it’s just the player and his bass. And while this approach can be tedious and lengthy (I remember a solo performance by Paul Rogers - a player I usually really like - who simply overdid it then), Elliott can captivate his audience with his way of playing.

The reason for it is the fact that Still, Up In The Air is an album of sharp contrasts. Elliott uses a fixed set of elements that structure his compositions. He juxtaposes high speed tremolos with joyous folk motifs or counterpoint melodies with harsh single note arcos, it’s like a huge musical collage. “Sequence Nine“ is a perfect example of the different atmospheres he creates, it constantly moves between relaxed and nervous, reluctant and aggressive. Light hearted passages are replaced by dark, spooky sounds, which remind of Mohammad, the Greek princes of darkness. Yet, Elliott does not choose these elements randomly. They serve as a basis for his compositions to which he adds new elements when he considers it appropriate. “Sequence Three“, the opening track, starts with a plucked figure foiled by hard slabs, then there is a blues riff which runs out of line - just to morph into a break with a repeated single note (another basic element). “Sequence Eleven“ even displays a short Latin phrase. Some themes come up again and again (e.g. “Sequence Ten“ presents a similar beginning as “Sequence Three“) and are displayed in a different context. Indeed, this reminds of MOPDTK but in contrast to them there is nothing tongue-in-cheek on this album. Elliott likes to incorporate these fragmented melodies along with freer parts, often it sounds as if there were two bassists at work, the excellent musicianship is another quality of the album. His articulation is crispy and fresh, as well as the production.

Still, Up In The Air was recorded on February 16, 2015 at St. Stephen’s Pro Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

You can listen to “Sequence Three“ here:

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Tomasz Dąbrowski - S-O-L-O: "30th Birthday / 30 Concerts / 30 Cities" (Barefoot Records, 2016) ****½

By Eyal Hareuveni

Polish, Denmark-based trumpeter Tomasz Dąbrowski found an original way to deal with the existential crisis of his 30th birthday. He chose not to spend time thinking on the time passing so quickly but rather to try new things, “looking for another unopened door”. So, his seventh album as a leader is also his first solo recording, made up of 10 songs intended to represent 10 chapters of one story. Only him playing, only the trumpet and the mutes, with no electronics or amps.

These pieces were shaped during a series of 30 solo concerts celebrating his birthday in 30 different cities, 12 countries and along a tour that took 6 months and 29 days, beginning in Tokyo, Japan and ending in Poznań, Poland. The ten, unnamed pieces, were recorded on June 2015 in Mariendal church in the Frederiksberg district of Copenhagen.

All of these pieces highlight the rich and newly enriched language of Dąbrowski, already one of the most prolific European trumpeter. These piece feature not only his commanding technique or his nuanced sonic spectrum but also his well-crafted architecture of sounds and textures, a sharp sense of space and time and above all, a gift to form an immediate emotional impact and an arresting narratives that radiate a rare poetic beauty. Even on the most experimental pieces, as on “Part III”, where he begins to play a series of almost silent overtones; the talkative “Part V”; “Part VII” where he forms a series of percussive patterns with light touches on the trumpet valves or “Part X” where his whispers into the trumpet mouthpiece suggest a distant electric storm, he transforms these skeletal, fractures sounds into complex and detailed stories.

Eventually, playing solo is an experience that teaches the musician and the audiences important lessons not only about music, but the experience of listening or art at large. Dąbrowski found out that he discovered not only new sounds, techniques, and textures but how this life-changing journey caused him to feel humble and appreciative to all who are willing to take the risk, and listen with wide open ears and hearts to this one of a kind experience. A formative lesson to all anyone who is involved in this art of free, creative music. Dąbrowski, no doubt, is an excellent student.

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Ken Vandermark/Paal Nilssen-Love Duo, Bonn, Dialograum Kreuzung an St. Helena, 5/27/2016

By Martin Schray

In Situ Art Society is a relatively new organization which was founded by Pavel Borodin and Georges Tampanidis (a.k.a. Georges Paul) in Bonn in 2014. Borodin shot the Concert for Fukushima film in Wels 2001, Paul is a bassist and saxophonist who has worked with Paul Lovens and various musicians in the Cologne free jazz scene. They mainly organize improv gigs and new classical music concerts as well as art exhibitions (e.g. one by Peter Gannushkin), screenings and lectures. The gigs usually take place at the Dialograum (German for dialogue space) Kreuzung an St. Helena, a big, beautiful venue which is perfect for this kind of music and especially for the best sax/drums duo on the scene at the moment.

Although they had to travel a long way from a concert in Latvia the day before Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love were in a good mood that evening. While Nilsson-Love trudged onto the bandstand in his typical way, Vandermark entered it light-footed - which was good news since he seemed to have problems with his leg on the last Made To Break tour in fall 2015.

The two have an enormous musical vocabulary available, from classic free jazz runs, almost catchy hardbop riffs and funk/rock beats to intimate counterpoints and super-low dynamics. Like their albums their sets are structured by Vandermark’s choice of reeds: on clarinet he tries to explore the sound possibilities of the instrument and the room, the atmosphere of theses pieces is more introspective, they are quieter and slower and Nilssen-Love supports this by using extended materials like wooden sticks and blocks, little gongs, and mallets. On baritone and especially on tenor the two move up two gears. Vandermark literally hurls his phrases into the face of the listeners, he uses call-and-response riffs in which the lines in the deep registers are answered by passages in the high ones. He sputters the notes out like machine gun fire and Nilssen-Love is the concentrated berserker everybody loves. It’s like a competition who can push the other one harder.

That night one could recognize fragments of their latest (and excellent) album The Lions Have Eaten One Of The Guards, and in the second set, the two even increased their usual dynamics. Nilssen-Love sometimes interrupted the high-speed character of the saxophone parts by interspersing dense rock beats that forced Vandermark to react, which he usually did with varied forceful and monotonous funky riffs. In his very recommendable book A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation, John Corbett ascribes Vandermark "a narrative, storytelling quality, as if, out of the abstract bramble, there was a tale yearning to be spun. Vandermark’s pretty masterful at peddling the story and managing not to assume a controlling position". Ideas were batted back and forth, it was a masterful dialogue in the Dialograum.

At the end of the concert I looked at my friend Klaus, who is a newcomer to the world of free improv, and he just said: “Superb.“ That’s what it was.

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Aruán Ortiz - Hidden Voices (Intakt, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

There is something familiar about Aruán Ortiz's approach on the piano. One bit Matthew Shipp, one bit Craig Taborn, and much of his own sound, there is precise angularity and elliptical energy that defines Ortiz's approach to both composition and playing. Perhaps too, his choice of musicians says something - drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Eric Revis are no strangers to the type of hyper-melodic logic and muscular pulse found in Ortiz's tunes.

The playing is crisp, fresh, and accessible. There are hints of Latin rhythms mixed with strong modern and free jazz approaches. In addition to several originals, Ortiz also signals his musical lineage in picking Thelonious Monk's 'Skippy' and Ornette Coleman's 'The Sphinx' and gives a nod to his life growing up in Cuba, with a take on the traditional tune 'Uno, Dos y Tres, Que Paso Más Chevere'.

The opening track, 'Fractal Sketches', begins with a sparse and elliptical motif that lurches over a syncopated groove. Then, the classic Ornette tune begins with Revis' solo bass and quickly settles into a lithe and spirited arrangement. The following track, 'Caribbean Vortex/Hidden Voices' has a title with seemingly oblique political overtones, and the music too is full of intrigue and terse rhythmic figures. It builds, layer upon layer, to a tense climax. Ortiz varies the mood but his abstract sense of melody leans towards the spare and clean throughout. The track 'Joyful Noise' is a fun one for fans of prepared piano and 'Skippy' is a smart update on the Monk classic.

Ortiz presents a fresh sound on Hidden Voices and it is a pleasure to hear such a solid and energetic piano trio recording. Give it a click below...

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Jeremiah Cymerman: Sheen & Badlands

Bloodmist – Sheen (5049 Records, 2016) ***
Pale Horse – Badlands (5049 Records, 2016) ****

By Dan Sorrells

Jeremiah Cymerman’s records need headphones. Or to be played loudly. Each is an exercise in forced immersion, so it’s best to simply yield. Cymerman’s own 5049 Records is back with two new releases: Sheen, the recording debut of Bloodmist, a trio of Cymerman, Toby Driver, and Mario Diaz de Leon, and Badlands, the return of Pale Horse (with Christopher Hoffman and Brian Chase). 
Both Sheen and Badlands (Terrance Malick overtones intended?) are rooted in improvisational practice, but draw on many influences beyond the improvised music scene. Both are also born of studio editing and manipulation that might cause some improvisation purists to bristle: post-production tinkering is as much a tool of the craft as improvising. To those types I say: who cares? Just listen. The disorienting, psychedelic soundworlds Cymerman has been delivering for the past several years are unlike anything in creative music—each project has a distinct sound, but all are undoubtedly derived from an overarching artistic vision. In the past, he’s made a compelling case his approach: by using studio tools to highlight different aspects of the performance on 2014’s World of Objects, he attempted to recreate his own subjective memory of performing, effectively allowing the listener to embody his shifting attention as the music develops.

Sheen is assembled from hours of improvised clarinet, electronics, bass, and guitar. It’s a dark ambient record at heart, abstract but suggesting an ominous narrative—it has a cinematic quality that’s easy to imagine driving a moody storyline. This is fitting, as the record culminates in an atmospheric piece that samples a long monologue from the movie Paris, Texas. Eventually, the wild tremolo of a screw-drivered guitar floats in, and the whole thing calls to mind nothing less than early Godspeed You! Black Emperor records. Driver in particular is no stranger to this sort of expansive and unorthodox work, a student of Yusef Lateef and the creative force behind the protean Kayo Dot.

Badlands picks up where the previous Pale Horse release left off. Like Sheen, it’s also steeped in atmosphere and ambience, but allows glimmers of sorrowful melody to occasionally lighten the gloom. “Drifter” begins with a rather virtuosic solo by Cymerman, subtly blurred at the edges by echo and delay, which eventually blossoms into Doppler ranges of cello and horn over Chase’s beating percussion. As the music progresses, it becomes increasingly ritualistic: a music of dark contemplation, as intense and restrained as the desert ascetics.  “Hitchhiker” is another slow, dusky affair, a walk down a nighttime highway, illuminated in brief flashes of heat lightning. This is music as spacious and unforgiving as the McCarthy novels that inspired it.

Two more strong showings from Cymerman, who continues to hone an idiosyncratic and arresting aesthetic in this music.

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