Ken Hyder’s Talisker: Land Of Stone (JAPO 60018)

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Tyran Grillo

Ken Hyder’s Talisker
Land Of Stone

Ken Hyder drums
John Lawrence bass
Marcio Mattos bass
Davie Webster alto saxophone
John Rangecroft tenor saxophone, clarinet
Ricardo Mattos soprano and tenor saxophones, flute
Brian Eley vocals
Frankie Armstrong vocals
Phil Minton vocals
Maggie Nichols vocals
Recorded April 1977 in London
Engineer Martin Wieland
Produced by Thomas Stöwsand

Over a career spanning more than four decades, Scottish percussionist and vocalist Ken Hyder has developed a strong body of work, though perhaps none so robust as his Talisker outfit. Combining Celtic and jazz influences, Talisker debuted in 1975 with Dreaming Of Glenisla on Virgin Records. Yet as Hyder’s musical interests began to expand to traditional Irish music and further to Asian monasticism, his sound opened itself to a world of possibilities. Enter album the second, Land Of Stone, which found a home on the JAPO label two years later.

“The Strathspey King,” a strangely swinging ode to Scottish master fiddler James Scott Skinner (1843-1927), sets a homegrown tone. Clarinetist John Rangecroft proves to be a vital presence in this increasingly enigmatic session, adding swagger aplenty. Like a young hopeful decked out in fresh threads and money in the pocket, he tricks the heart into thinking that harm is a while away. Hyder’s militaristic drum solo intercepts street-side, as if offering free samples of reality before a chorus of bidders drops into view with its haunting brand of Hebridean choral music in “The Men Of Barra Know How To Drink, But The Women Know How To Sing.” A boisterous and colorful chain, its syllables become actions, teetering like drunken instruments into “Close The Window And Keep It Down.” This likeminded island song is an onomatopoetic excursion into the inner lives of house wares and propriety. The latter quickly disintegrates as bonds loosen their friction and slide from grasp in screeching ululations, courtesy of ECM margin-bearer Maggie Nichols. The color wheel darkens further in “See You At The Mission, Eh, If It’s No’ Full,” in which a brood of instruments strains unison phrasings through an upturned colander. Bass and drums form a knot of support, eyes in a flowing wood grain. In the wake of these dirt-caked fingernails, “Derek Was Only A Bairn” rides into the dawn, a smooth caravan lead by Ricardo Mattos on flute and horse’s trot.

Hyder insists that improvisation was a vital component of Scottish bagpipe playing, and in a tripartite pibroch he explores the crossover from the Highlands to the fringes of American free jazz, dedicating parts respectively to the MacCrimmons (a notable family of pipers), John Coltrane, and Albert Ayler. After a microscopic dialogue between bassists John Lawrence and Marcio Mattos, soprano saxophone masquerades as bagpipe in piercing shepherd’s call. Hints of a jig rise and fall from deeper drones, a sky behind mountain silhouettes. Over the click of cymbal, dense voices weave in and out of earshot, taking solid presence in the loam of memory, to slumber and to molt. The banshees return with gentle persuasions, their ashen hair and earthward grins blistered by the rub of their limbo. Yet with the coming of rhythm they achieve communication somewhere on the other side of fear, ecstatic totems each passing through sea and grain until the wind puts fingers to lips and blows.

Cleaning off the dust of age, Talisker shakes out tunes old and new, and with the chaff pieces together charcoal fields as would a cobbler hammer a sole. Or is it soul? There’s plenty to be had in this land of stone.

Es herrscht Uhu im Land: s/t (JAPO 60037)

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Tyran Grillo

Es herrscht Uhu im Land

Christoph Anders voice, guitar, organ
Heiner Goebbels synthesizer, piano, saxophone, voice
Alfred Harth saxophones, bass clarinet, voice
Paul Lovens drums, percussion
Rolf Riehm english horn, alto saxophone, voice
Annemarie Roelofs trombone, violin, voice
Recorded December 9-11, 1980 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Thomas Stöwsand

This early collaboration from saxophonist Alfred Harth and composer Heiner Goebbels is a telling lens of intersection through which to mine two fascinating careers. Harth will be familiar to ECM devotees as the progenitor of the label’s second album, Just Music, and would go on to release two further albums in other venues before meeting Goebbels in 1975. The two came together musically in a jazz-rock outfit called Rauhreif which, being to neither’s liking, dissolved, leaving these powerhouses itching for freer means of expression. It was in the context of this collaboration that Harth introduced the young Goebbels to the music of Hanns Eisler, which would of course lead to Eislermaterial, his most successful project to date. After connecting the dots for five years as a duo in various German settings, Harth called on the services of an old friend, Thomas Stöwsand, who’d played cello and flute on Just Music and was now headlong into the ECM storm. Stöwsand agreed to produce and welcomed into the studio Chris Anders, Rolf Riehm, and Annemarie Roelofs, each accomplished multi-instrumentalists, and drummer Paul Lovens. Such is the tangled web of Es herrscht Uhu in Land.

In it ideas were already taking shape that would become touchstones for Goebbels’s work, such as “Autobahn,” which meshes rallying songs with a field recording of its eponymous motorway, while “Wertkauf” betrays a less delicate side, sounding like something out of an Otomo Yoshihide free-for-all. The reversed vinyl and crunchy guitar make for a powerful contrast, each groove a cavity waiting for a tooth. “Mahlzeit” is a trembling gift, enacting a sacred touch of tongue to circuit. And one can’t help but uphold the frozen wasteland and creaking wonders of “Durch Den Wald” as a precursor to Stifters Dinge.

Riehm also makes a significant contribution with “Der Main.” Composed around poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin, it thus lays another important keystone in the ECM ethos. This skip through space is like a sonic parlor trick, a knock on the door of memory, a wishful thought. Through a deft admixture of songs, the relay of word to voice moves in an extended meditation. At nearly eight minutes, it towers over the outlying tracks, which average around two minutes each, and underscores the otherwise restless musings therein with a bold cohesion.

The musicians turn air to solid with their touch. Intimate musings, talking brass, laughter, and wires share a bed, rolling in the sheets until something musical takes shape. Each body part becomes a note that in combination with other, activates instrumental ideas. Harth, for one, writhes in soprano-gilded spirals over the song of a hungry whale in “Echter Lachs” and pops the electronic bubble in “Knecht U.” Yet for the most part, the group works as a whole, spitting watermelon seeds out of cartoon mouths in “Ich Nicht Mich Dich” alongside the jackhammer of self-questioning. It pulls us into an underworld of radio signals, waltzing to the beat of a perverse drum (“El Salvador”) and changing channels with the twist of a rein (“Uhu”), all the while feeding voices through a sluice pipe of craft. A spate of translation (“Superbirdsong”), dust for wings and air, and we are in the forlorn wakeup call of “Tilt!” smoking monosyllables until they stain the lungs with honesty.

In this bedtime story for the escaped mind, the main characters are an adroit political insight, a leak in the colonial pen that ruins a fluid takeover with exposition of intent, and a crucible of retrospection. Neither derisive nor derivative, this project takes a good long look at the sandy areas of our consciousness and pours water on them for sandcastles. The water jug drains itself. The water jug waits for no one.

Back cover

OM: Kirikuki (JAPO 60012)

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

OM
Kirikuki

Urs Leimgruber soprano and tenor saxophones, percussion
Christy Doran guitar
Bobby Buri bass
Fredy Studer drums, percussion
Recorded October 1 and 2, 1975, at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by OM

Like its contemporary, the Everyman Band, the Lucerne-based quartet known as OM succeeded in blending rock and free improv idioms to gnarled perfection. Composed of guitarist Christy Doran (Dublin-born but Swiss-raised) and fellow countrymen Urs Leimgruber (reeds), Bobby Burri (bass), and Fredy Studer (drums), the group was an espresso shot in all four careers. ECM has, of course, given just dues with a 2006 retrospective. Still, there’s no better place to get acquainted with OM than through the four complete albums for daughter label JAPO, of which this is the first (the fourth, Cerberus, survives fully intact on said retrospective).

Doran is the compositional heart and soul of the set. The only track not penned by him is “Lips” (Leimgruber/Burri), which stands out for its inspired flute playing. Leimgruber sings into the instrument for a bit of polyphonic panache against a gorgeously primal backing, Doran providing industrial touches throughout. Yet it is “Holly” which introduces the album’s distinctly nocturnal sound. Leimgruber’s talents abound here, casting him in the melodic lead from the start. Smoky atmospheres are blown into rings at his lips through a pure, oboe-like soprano. His gorgeous, full highs, complemented by Doran’s crunch, make for an enervating sound and bring their smoothness to the burnished field that is “Sykia.” The buoyant drumming makes this an enchanting epilogue. The color wheel of “Karpfenteich” begins with reedless trio action before launching us horizonward in a lob of flame. More propulsive action from the rhythm section here backs some artful crosstalk between reed and guitar. Yet it is the “Hommage à Mme. Stirnmaa” that takes this cake and bakes another one in its place. From the lovely solo by Duran that starts, it builds to a slightly burnt frenzy, out of which arises a bass of flesh and wires. The tenor solo is like a coda, rough and unleashed, and opens into a percussion solo from Studer, this but the carpet for a grand underwater raga. A masterstroke, and proof enough to seek out OM’s dates in full.

There is something strangely melancholic about the river of Kirikuki. The sunshine is in its sediments.

Rena Rama: Landscapes (JAPO 60020)

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

Rena Rama
Landscapes

Lennart Åberg tenor and soprano saxophones, percussion
Bobo Stenson piano, percussion
Palle Danielsson bass
Leroy Lowe drums, percussion
Recorded June 1977 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Thomas Stöwsand

Saxophonist, flutist, and composer Lennart Åberg is among ECM’s sleeper talents. Having graced the label only as sideman to 1994’s Dona Nostra, his brilliance was saved instead for the limited JAPO imprint. On this record he is joined by fellow Swedes Bobo Stenson (piano) and Palle Danielsson (bass), both familiar to ECM listeners. Perhaps not is American drummer Leroy Lowe, who rounds out this incarnation of the quartet known as Rena Rama and played with the group from 1975 to 1983. Born 1944 on a Pittsburg farm, Lowe began playing drums in his high school marching band and later befriended such greats as Billy Hart in his quest for a personal voice. After a two-year period of study at the Berklee School of Music, he joined Otis Redding’s Big Band on tour. The rigorousness of this experience led him to renounce the lifestyle that came with it. In need of recovery, he randomly picked Oslo as a holiday destination and, after some shuffling around, ended up in Sweden, where he sadly died of cancer in 1999…but not before leaving behind a legacy spanning 30+ years. I note Lowe’s background not only because it’s worth telling, but also because it seems indicative of Rena Rama’s aesthetic: it spins a globe and plays whatever its finger lands on.

From the drum solo that opens the Stenson-penned “Enok,” it’s clear that Lowe was a moving force in this outfit. Colorful as an ice cream shop’s selection of toppings, he opens a spacious sound together with Stenson’s entrance, to say nothing of Thomas Stöwsand’s engineering, while Danielsson adds good vibes to the growing message. With this skyward energy behind him, Åberg need only open his wings and let the wind do the talking. That powerful tenor sheds its earthly weight in favor of a boisterous key that with its dancing unlocks gurgling leaps of intuition from Stenson. Danielsson offers two tunes. The composer’s darkly melodic intro in “Rumanian Folk Song” kicks into a light groove with Lowe along for the ride—the bed of the quartet’s energy. Stenson again scales the z-axis, landing only to relay his altitude to Åberg’s soprano. The latter, soft and sure, casts a gray spell. Throughout, the contours of the rhythm section are much like patterned cloth, wispy yet boldly imprinted. Stenson gives us the alphabet of “Circle Dance” before Åberg’s tenor puzzles it out into words and sentences. He is happy to wander far afield, knowing the band’s footprints will always catch up. A veritable tributary of invention. The reedman closes out with two compositions of his own. First is the soprano-infused “På Campagnan II,” which threads galleries of needles in single strokes of intuition. The pianism’s frenzied beauty and hip contributions from the rhythm section are surpassed only by Åberg himself. Those same infections spread in “Royal Song From Dahomey.” This caravan of purposeful melodizing is at once cold and warm and rains percussion on us as if in a desert without oasis.

Like most JAPO releases, this is another elusive jewel, but well worth the digging.

Sleeve back

A second look: Pirchner/Pepl/DeJohnette (ECM 1237)

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

Werner Pirchner / Harry Pepl / Jack DeJohnette

Werner Pirchner tenor vibes, marimba
Harry Pepl ovation guitar
Jack DeJohnette drums
Digitally recorded on a Sunday afternoon in June 1982 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Writing these reviews has been as much an opportunity to learn about the many fascinations of ECM (and music in general) as about myself. Part of that learning process involves reassessment. So far in my explorations of the label, there have been only two bumps in the road—no small feat for a catalogue of 1300 releases. One of these bumps was the self-titled record cut by Werner Pirchner, Harry Pepl, and Jack DeJohnette. Recorded on a Sunday afternoon in June of 1982, it came across to my ears as a one-off session that was perhaps better suited to remain in reissue limbo. Yet after posting a rare critical review, I incurred an unexpected backlash. Rather than let this underscore my defensiveness—which is useless, for how can one argue with another’s appreciation of art?—I took it to heart and have, over the past year, returned to this album on occasion to absorb its expressive secrets. The experience also revealed an imperfection in my system: because I am hearing so many of these records for the first time, and in my sometimes-overzealous efforts to reach synchronicity with ECM’s rigorous release schedule, I tend listen to albums only once before reviewing them. While on the one hand this gives (I hope) a freshness of feeling to my attempts at describing the indescribable, on the other it doesn’t always leave me prepared to expound upon an experience that may be a longer time in coming. I am also an ardent, if idealistic, believer that music tends to come into one’s life when it is meant to, but that sometimes its interest requires incubation. I simply did not give this date the attention it deserves.

“African Godchild” opens its eyes to a savannah dawn and draws us into a scene resonant with life. The depth of Pepl’s talent, now that I’m more familiar with it, is immediately evident in the spaciousness of his evocations. Pirchner matches that spaciousness on the inside, so that our understanding of it becomes unified. We can hear from this that the Pepl/Pirchner relationship is the nexus of the trio, the guitarist providing spider webs of support for the mallet man’s acute inscriptions. DeJohnette’s kick drum and cymbals add relief to their subtle crosstalk. The interrelatedness of foreground and background is deftly realized, especially as Pepl steps forth with an echoing solo, sculpting the drama with practiced fingers. “Air, Love And Vitamines” is perfect for an autumn afternoon. It is a prime vehicle for Pirchner, whose Jarrett-like inflections enchant at every turn and constitute the vertical to DeJohnette’s horizontal. The drummer balances the hidden urgency of this tune and blends seamlessly with Pirchner’s chording. After listless beginnings, “Good-bye, Baby Post” Pirchner leads the way into a resonant groove. Pepl acts the bass player’s part, even more so in his solo, before pinpointing the night with far-reaching flame in “Better Times In Sight,” for which Pirchner brings us back to earth but not to land, preferring as he does to skate the limpid waters of a forgotten sea.

I stand by my original opinion that the processing on Pepl’s instrument obscures what is already such a direct voice (compare this to the more organic buzzing of Pirchner’s marimba), yet I can understand the motivation for contrast. Ultimately, his gorgeous sustains and crunchy backing ring true in spite of the effects applied. And while I still think the recording levels could still use some tweaking, I have found a solution: listen to it loud.

This curious little gem may or may not hold you at first listen, but it does have the potential, like anything worth its salt, to endear as it endures.

OM: Rautionaha (JAPO 60016)

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

OM
Rautionaha

Urs Leimgruber soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, percussion
Christy Doran guitar
Bobby Burri bass
Fredy Studer drums, percussion
Recorded December 1976 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer Martin Wieland
Produced by Thomas Stöwsand

The Swiss quartet of OM, which found just the freedom it needed in ECM’s studios for a good decade, flung open the doors with colorful aplomb on Rautionaha, a rare JAPO release. To this early date the group brings a kaleidoscope of shared experience. The sound is appropriately splintered. Guitarist Christy Doran pens the kick-in-the-gut opener, “For Ursi.” Unable to resist the attraction from the get-go, saxophonist Urs Leimgruber colors the twilight with his heady tenor, chaining ladders of virtuosity with attentive form. His gurgling expositions of momentary abandon give Doran just the break he needs to cast a reverberant magic with tails flying. The superb rhythm work from percussionist Fredy Studer and bassist Bobby Burri completes this wall of light. The latter gives us “Stephanie,” his first of two cuts. This meditation of gongs and electronics coalesces into some fine soliloquies from the composer, while the full drumming and six-string picking shimmer like morning sun on the horizon’s lip. The prickly tenor is a bonus. Speaking of which, Leimgruber puts his writing to the test in “Song For My Lady.” Something of a ballad, in it he becomes a crying wayfarer who walks the same circle of self-reflection until there is only music left of the one that produced it. Lifting this ponderous weight off our shoulders is Burri’s title offering, which grows like weed in a groovy embrace. His bass work glows here. Leimgruber opts for soprano, reaching heights of multi-phonic brilliance that no footstool can reach. The effect is nothing short of extraordinary. The quartet ends on a whimsical punctuation mark, for all like a flag without a country, a star without a sky. In the absence of definite shape, we are free to induce our own.

Lennart Åberg: Partial Solar Eclipse (JAPO 60023)

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

Lennart Åberg
Partial Solar Eclipse

Bertil Lövgren trumpet, fluegelhorn
Ulf Adåker trumpet, fluegelhorn
Jan Kohlin trumpet, fluegelhorn
Håken Nyquist french horn, trombone, fluegelhorn
Stephen Franckevich trumpet (VI)
Lars Olofsson trombone
Sven Larsson bass trombone, tuba
Jörgen Johansson trombone (VI)
Lennart Åberg soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, alto saxophone
Ulf Andersson alto saxophone, piccolo, flute
Tommy Koverhult soprano flute, tenor flute
Erik Nilsson baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, flute
Bobo Stenson piano, electric piano
Harald Svensson synthesizer (I, IV)
Jan Tolf electric guitar (I, II, III, VI)
Palle Danielsson bass (I-V)
Stefan Brolund Fender bass (I, II, VI)
Jon Christensen drums
Leroy Lowe drums
Okay Temiz percussion (I, II, III)
Recorded September 5-9, 1977 at Metronome Studios, Stockholm
Engineer: Rune Persson, Metronome
Produced by Håken Elmquist

Swedish saxophonist Lennart Åberg assembles a force to be reckoned with for this out-of-print JAPO release. Fronting a 20-piece ensemble that includes early appearances by pianist Bobo Stenson, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen, Partial Solar Eclipse plays out in a six-part suite of epic proportions. The trumpet-led swell of Part I gives way to a groovy bass line amid big band brilliance infused with Brazilian percussion (courtesy of Okay Temiz). A soaring solo from Åberg flirts with the clouds even as it transcends them in fiery sunset. The twinned bass action from Stefan Brolund and Danielsson impels the spirit toward Stenson’s winding finish. Out of these dense beginnings comes a mosaic of hues and textures. From the flanged ground line and backing horns of Part II, which sound for all like a warped version of “Baby, You’re a Rich Man,” to the oozing finality of Part VI, the album as a whole bursts with a jazz that squeals, “I made it!” Jan Tolf’s guitar work is the conclusive highlight, along with the florid and soulful tenor work of Åberg himself. Between the two we find the Motown edge of Part III, with its radiant flute and oceanic pianism, and the killer baritone work in Part IV of Erik Nilsson, who also unleashes a fabulous bass clarinet solo over the chalky backdrop of Part V.

This is an album that foregrounds itself by foiling the otherworldliness of all that came before. In so doing, it offers the glare of its namesake without the need for glasses. It’s an intense thrill ride, to be sure, but one that offers choice rewards even (if not especially) for those not tall enough to enter.

Misha Alperin: North Story (ECM 1596)

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

Misha Alperin
North Story

Misha Alperin piano
Arkady Shilkloper French horn, flugelhorn
Tore Brunborg tenor saxophone
Terje Gewelt double-bass
Jon Christensen drums
Recorded September 1995 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Simultaneously drawing on his folk roots and paying homage to European jazz music’s openness to cross-cultural dialogue, Ukraine-born pianist and composer Misha Alperin gives us North Story, his paean to the selfsame region where fermented the vivid contributions already so well documented on ECM. Classically trained brass player Arkady Shilkloper, who became acquainted after hearing snatches of Alperin at practice from an open apartment window, joins the group on French horn and flugelhorn. Saxophonist Tore Brunborg, bassist Terje Gewelt, and drummer Jon Christensen round out the quintet. And what a quintet it is, for it is quite clear that this set of eight originals positively glistens under the breath, feet, and fingers of master craftsmen. That being said, the rewards require patience and an invested heart. Alperin’s painterly ways move as if in slow motion, taking in details and finding even more within them. Everything in the light of “Morning” takes shape by contrast, such that what may seem at first sluggish blossoms in hindsight of Alperin’s delicate fortitude. Shilkloper follows similarly delicate arcs in the two-part “Psalm” and “Ironical Evening,” each a prize of organic denouement so fine that it passes through fishermen’s nets unnoticed. The title track gives us a deeper version of the same, Christensen building his tracings into full-blown sketches as Brunborg’s erases in swaths of negative space. “Alone” finds Alperin just so in a lulling piano solo, providing reprieve from fitful slumber on the way to “Etude,” a lovely duet with Shilkloper that sounds like a lost track from Wave Of Sorrow. Its skittering lines and virtuosic doubling concretize the storytelling. This leaves only an arrangement of “Kristi Blodsdråper (Fucsia)” by Norwegian composer Harald Sæverud (1897-1992). It is a fitting epilogue to an album of ever-growing detail, which like the whole becomes a mirror as we back away from it, sounds blending into an all-encompassing hush of existence.

Alternate cover

Louis Sclavis Sextet: Les Violences de Rameau (ECM 1588)

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

Louis Sclavis Sextet
Les Violences de Rameau

Louis Sclavis clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone
Yves Robert trombone
Dominique Pifarély acoustic and electric violins
François Raulin piano, keyboards
Bruno Chevillon double-bass
Francis Lassus drums
Recorded September 1995 and January 1996 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Assisted by Roger Amoros
Produced by the Louis Sclavis Sextet

The result of a 1994 French Ministry of Culture commission, Les Violences de Rameau is Louis Sclavis’s incisive study of its eponymous French galantist, drawing mostly from the operas Les Boréades, Les Indes Galantes, and Dardanus. The assembled sextet spins a web of textures, due in no small part to Sclavis mainstays Dominique Pifarély (violin) and Bruno Chevillon (bass). Trombonist Yves Robert, last heard on Heiner Goebbels’s Ou bien le débarquement désastreux, also joins the fray, adding a pliant undercurrent to the jagged oratories of the aforementioned. It is Pifarély who throws us into the swing of things, contorting his instrument with gymnastic variations in “le diable et son train,” a harrumphing romp of glee and fortitude that puts flaming tongue in cheek in anticipation of the jester’s soprano in “de ce trait enchanté.” The exhilarating bass work and gypsy violin twists make this one the joy that it is. “«venez punir son injustice»” is a dance at court and acts as a frame tale for the rhythm section’s unbridled enthusiasms, though one can hardly ignore Sclavis’s enchanting clarinet and the cosmic circular breathing that speaks through it. A few spins of the wheel, by turns lethargic and blasting, land us in the electric violin’s flailing purview as “réponses à Gavotte” whirls with the eclecticism of a John Zorn collaboration. The glittering murmurs thereafter incapacitate us with secrets, each a sketch bolder than the last, only to get lost in a “post-mésotonique” world. This sonic equivalent of a half-developed photograph stumbles into some of the band’s most evocative conjurations and ends in paroxysm, psychedelic and granular.

The dear listener can ignore the title. The only violence to be found in this treatment walks a sarcastic path, alone and laughing to itself. A blast and a half!

Eberhard Weber: Pendulum (ECM 1518)

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Tyran Grillo

Eberhard Weber
Pendulum

Eberhard Weber bass
Recorded Spring 1993, München
Engineer: Jochen Scheffter
Produced by Eberhard Weber

Eberhard Weber, perhaps best known as bassist for the Jan Garbarek Group, in addition to his own string of classic ECM albums as leader throughout the 1970s and 80s, brings his 5-string electric upright into a more focused spotlight with Pendulum. This solo date from 1993 marks yet another evolutionary step in this unmistakable musician, whose wings discover fresh space in which to flap in “Bird Out Of Cage.” Through its menagerie of overdubs and loops, Weber navigates the pops and jagged peaks of spontaneous creation. Yet despite its skyward beginnings, Pendulum tells an earthbound story that turns in its own cycle of life. Maternal shores skirt paternal oceans in “Notes After An Evening,” while in “Delirium” Weber unfurls visceral diversions against a droning canvas. “Children’s Song No. 1” picks up the thread, swaying to the rhythm of a playground swing, and continues to spin it into “Street Scenes.” Playful harmonics carry over into the meditative “Silent For A While,” reaching out to the birds that brought us here. The title track hones a robust thematic edge, dancing its slow dance across a hundred dreams and lifetimes, leaving “Unfinished Self-Portrait” to drip equal parts whimsy and grandiosity into the comforting “Closing Scene,” tingling with the taste of destiny.

With unerring delicacy yet with a weightiness that oozes security, Weber treats his bass at times pianistically, at times chorally, and often as both at once on an album that offers an intimate look at his compositional sensitivity. One of his absolute triumphs in that quiescent, fluid way he has.

between sound and space

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