Wolfgang Muthspiel
Dance of the Elders

Wolfgang Muthspiel guitars
Scott Colley double bass
Brian Blade drums
Recorded February 2022 at 25th Street Recording, Oakland, California
Engineer: Jeff Cressman
Mixing: Gérard de Haro (engineer), Manfred Eicher, and Wolfgang Muthspiel
Studios La Buissonne
Cover photo: Woong Chul An
Album produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: September 29, 2023

After clearing a giant swath of land throughout 2020’s Angular Blues, guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Brian Blade now construct a series of interlocking structures across it. With “Invocation,” we find ourselves immersed in a sound that is both familiar and forward-seeking. As the mist of spider-webbed guitar and glistening chimes resolves to reveal Colley’s blessing, the trio’s meditations offer glimpses of parallel dimensions before Muthspiel dips into a chord-slung melody, allowing us some oxygen in a suffocating world.

While we might expect a groove from this seeking spirit, more slow building awaits in “Prelude to Bach.” This vaporous studio improvisation surrounds us with memories, each unable to be captured for long before the next takes its place. Before we know it, we’ve morphed into the Bach choral “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which holds together like a fresco and touches the soul with equal lucidity. As inevitable as it was unplanned, it cups a candle whose flame has stood the test of time.

Muthspiel has a natural ability to twist the blinds to let in a different configuration of light at every turn. The polyrhythmic title track likewise changes faces as fluidly as one’s reflection in a disturbed pond’s surface. The acoustic guitar speaks with sagacity and love. Before the final act, Muthspiel and Colley recede into hand claps while Blade applies gold foil to the frame.

“Liebeslied” is one of two cover songs (this from Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera). Muthspiel draws a tessellated swing from within the tune’s many-chambered heart. Colley renders his solo in charcoal while the guitarist sketches in quieter pencil in the background before switching to pastel for a final say.

“Folksong” takes inspiration from Keith Jarrett’s vamp-prone improvisations in the pianist’s Belonging period, exploring a chord progression to the point of melodic bursting, with Americana touches and hints of countless side quests. Muthspiel’s acoustic shows its breadth and cohesion, so much so that Colley’s gestures feel like an extension of the same instrument, giving us that sunlit joy of the mid-1970s when Jarrett was at his most exploratory. “Cantus Bradus” pays homage to pianist Brad Mehldau, last heard with Muthspiel on 2018’s Where The River Goes, and whose chromatism shines as a guiding light through spectral improvisations.

Not a single note feels wasted at Muthspiel’s fingertips. Whether caught up in a dance or bearing down directly on a virtuosic motif, he stands at the edge of a proverbial cliff without ever feeling the need to jump. Instead, he takes in the view and shares it with us all. This is nowhere so clear as in his rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Amelia,” which closes the set with minimal expansion. Even absent of words, it speaks to the heart. The electric guitar is the softer brush in his artistic toolkit, allowing every bristle to sing. Colley and Blade are his tender allies, each a bearer of melodic and atmospheric truths for posterity.