Author: Tyran Grillo

Christian Wallumrød Ensemble: The Zoo Is Far (ECM 2005)

| Tyran Grillo

The Zoo Is Far

Christian Wallumrød Ensemble
The Zoo Is Far

Christian Wallumrød piano, harmonium, toy piano
Arve Henriksen trumpet
Gjermund Larsen violin, Hardanger fiddle, viola
Tanja Orning cello
Giovanna Pessi baroque harp
Per Oddvar Johansen drums, percussion, glockenspiel
Recorded October 2006, Radio Studio DRS, Zürich
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Christian Wallumrød’s evolving ensemble makes its return to ECM as a sextet with The Zoo Is Far. On this, his fourth album for the label, the Norwegian pianist-composer draws from sourced and spontaneous material. It is perhaps his most “classical” album, if only for the added inspirations of cellist Tanja Orning, Norwegian fiddler Gjermund Larsen, and baroque harpist Giovanna Pessi—along with mainstays Arve Henriksen on trumpet and Per Oddvar Johnansen on percussion. Although Wallumrød is the heart and soul of the ensemble, his presence is more often ghostly than physical. For while his pianism erects brooding infrastructures for “Nash Lontano” and the Platonic cave of the title track, in “Parkins Cembalo” he lurks behind a harmonium, evoking trembling fear. On a deeper level, the embers of his gifts brighten with compositional prowess. The five descriptive “Fragments” scattered throughout the program alone show formidable thematic breadth. What begins as a Ravel-like blush might suddenly bleed across the page in the semantics of George Crumb or rustle like cattails in a breeze. Such changes are part and parcel of Wallumrød’s flora, which draw nourishment from eclectic resources indeed. “Music For One Cat,” for example, takes its inspiration from Mehdi Hassan (then still with us), a Pakistani ghazal singer known for his divine throat and passion for the cinema. The slink-tailed gait leaves no question about the title, disappearing one strand of fur at a time until only the eyes are left glowing in the dark.

“Arch Dance” and “Detach” are further confirmation of Wallumrød’s pen, both split into themes and variations. Prismatic and moonlit, they are touched by despair and folk sensibilities, walking the thin edge of being and nonbeing that separates them. “Need Elp” foils all of these with its angelic sheen. It pushes through glass as if it were water and touches feet to pond’s surface as if it were glass.

The Fantasias of late seventeenth-century composer Henry Purcell are the basis for three so-called “Backwards Henry” pieces. These at once mark the album’s grasp on the past and its interest in the future. As one known for his harmonic invention and ear for color, Purcell makes for compelling company to Wallumrød’s own “Psalm Kvæn,” which takes form in solo, trio, quartet, and tutti iterations, each an expression of the in-between. As in the concluding “Allemande Es,” the respect for history becomes a figure unto itself, standing at the edge of its own grave, into which it stares longingly for the release of silence’s puppet strings.

Michael Formanek: The Rub And Spare Change (ECM 2167)

| Tyran Grillo

The Rub And Spare Change

Michael Formanek
The Rub And Spare Change

Tim Berne alto saxophone
Craig Taborn piano
Michael Formanek double-bass
Gerald Cleaver drums
Recorded June 2009 at Charlestown Road Studio, Hampton, New Jersey
Engineer: Paul Wickliffe
Mixed at Avatar Studios, New York by Manfred Eicher and James A. Farber (engineer)
Assistant: Justin Gerrish
Produced by Manfred Eicher and Michael Formanek

The ECM debut of Michael Formanek finds the bassist-composer spearheading a cast of musicians as formidable as the tunes they’re bid to play. Altoist Tim Berne, pianist Craig Taborn, and drummer Gerald Cleaver bond over a full-bodied flight of six Formanek originals, each a puzzle whose solution must be heard to be believed. As seasoned progressives, members of this lineup had shared a stage or two before—but never as a quartet until 2008, when they joined forces for a performance at New York’s The Stone. Not one year later, they convened under the watchful ears of engineers Paul Wickliffe and James A. Farber for an incendiary studio session, tucked stealthily away in a New Jersey borough.

Formanek Quartet

Formanek’s writing is much in the spirit of Berne, with whom he shares an uncanny ear for depth-soundings and tight changes. And with a rhythmic nexus as experienced and open-minded as Taborn and Cleaver, bassist and reedman are in trustworthy company indeed. The tripping syncopation and thematic evolution of “Twenty Three Neo” set the tone. From sandy whispers to silver-toned flights, the dynamic spectrum takes root in immediately distinct personalities: it’s Formanek who first throws the pieces to the floor, Taborn who lays the four corners, Cleaver who finishes the edges, and Berne who susses the figures that emerge. Cleaver further cuts a stern diagonal, hurtling toward the listener along a z-axis of fortitude, arco breaths filling in the gaps all the while.

Formanek wears his bandleader’s hat with humility (as attested by the mixing, which at once subverts and bolds his cause), letting the tunes expound on their own as if in some imaginary language. His moods shape-shift in accordance with the material at hand. “Jack’s Last Call” bears dedication to a friend whose unanswered voicemail was the only remainder of the life that once was. Appropriate, then, that the saxophone should be absent, its bell turned away in mourning. This puts it on Taborn to shuttle a melodic weave that, while thick, allows light of drums and prayer of bass to soak through. At the other end of the spectrum is “Too Big To Fail,” a geometrical tongue twister that builds to masterful jouissance.

The title track is two compositions in one. “The Rub” is a backward glance; “Spare Change” opens its palms toward the future. Here Formanek unspools a taut spine from which Berne’s nerve signals pulse. Here is also where the band reveals its sensitive side as it churns through reflections on its way toward epic rest. The music feels even more physical in these tender reprieves, losing neither its flair nor its suppleness. Formanek’s “Tonal Suite” is the album’s epic peak, a three-part opus of signs and signals. Berne’s occasional lockdowns, combined with punctuations from Taborn, make for a robust ride.

“Inside The Box” describes exactly the kind of thinking Formanek and his associates espouse. This is not to imply conformity. Rather, it is to say that the band defines the very box in which it moves so freely. The lines may be jagged, but maintain a consistency of vision and respect within those parameters. Formanek and Berne epitomize such intuition throughout this track (consequently the album’s strongest), emblematic for its uncompromising palette and the texture of which Taborn’s pianism expresses an especially pointed feature.

The naked quality of this document is enough to take it seriously. In the growing abyss of Real Book drones, it’s divine to encounter from that abyss groups so victorious in the glow of their own creativity. Constantly surprising and open to whatever may come: this is what the “change” of the album’s title is all about.

(To hear samples of The Rub And Spare Change, click here or watch the promotional video below.)

Louis Sclavis: Lost on the Way (ECM 2098)

| Tyran Grillo

Lost on the Way

Louis Sclavis
Lost on the Way

Louis Sclavis clarinets, soprano saxophone
Matthias Metzger soprano and alto saxophones
Maxime Delpierre guitar
Olivier Lété bass
François Merville drums
Recorded September 2008 , Théâtre de Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Assistant: Mireille Faure
Mixed at Studio La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines by Gérard de Haro and Louis Sclavis
Assistant: Nicolas Baillard
Recording producer: Louis Sclavis
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher

“Beauty of music you must hear twice.”
–James Joyce, Ulysses

Lost on the Way brings together another fine ensemble from French reedman and improviser extraordinaire Louis Sclavis. Always game for a reshuffling, he surrounds himself this time with saxophonist Matthias Metzger, guitarist Maxime Delpierre, bassist Olivier Lété, and drummer François Merville. Sclavis fans will recognize Delpierre and Merville from L’imparfait des langues, and shouldn’t be surprised that the iconoclastic bandleader now turns his attention to Homer as a conceptual baseline. Each of Sclavis’s cohorts is well versed in both classical and jazz idioms, and all share a fervent interest in the possibilities of free improvisation.

It is Merville who sets the bar of the album in “De Charybde en Scylla” with his forthright drumming, by means of which he lights a fuse. Sclavis on bass clarinet is a revelation: gorgeous, engaging, and perfectly chaotic he is amid webs of electric guitar. Sclavis wanders intact into a duet with bass in “La première île” before getting caught up in the title track, which like the first balances intensities with a magician’s eye for detail. The furious altoism from Metzger spits further fury, nonetheless inviting.

Lost on the Way is one of Sclavis’s most meticulous outings, spanning the gamut from straight-laced soundings (“Bain d’or”) to joyful noise (“Le sommeil des sirens” and “Des bruits à tisser”). Because of this constant push and pull, moments of regularity from Merville stand out for their sweetness. Overall, rhythmic structures are pliant, ebbing and flowing through gut-wrenching solos (take, for instance, Sclavis’s in “L’Heure des songes”) and cinematic turns (“Aboard Ulysses’s Boat,” with its whimsical surf guitar touches). Like bodies softening from hard slumber, each track stands at the edge of sleeping and waking and tries to hold on to both realities. Such tensions abound in the rhythm section, which combines ritual beats with fluid bassing in “Les Doutes du cyclope” for a focused vision indeed. After many comings and goings, we lose ourselves at sea on a vessel named “L’Absence.” This droning piece shakes off the need for skin and drifts instead toward the next horizon.

Exciting about this album is the obvious evolution in Sclavis’s compositional language, which grows more intuitive with time. Like a dance, it takes over the body before the mind is aware and leaves us as spellbound as a brush with the Sirens.

Louis Sclavis: L’imparfait des langues (ECM 1954)

| Tyran Grillo

L'imparfait des langues

Louis Sclavis
L’imparfait des langues

Louis Sclavis clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone
Marc Baron alto saxophone
Paul Brousseau keyboards, sampling, electronics, guitar
Maxime Delpierre guitars
François Merville drums
Recorded April 2005, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Executive Producer: Manfred Eicher

Ever the master of reinvention, Louis Sclavis is no stranger to challenge, and for this record he places himself in mostly unfamiliar territory. Long relationship with drummer François Merville aside, he allies himself with fresh talent: altoist Marc Baron, keyboardist Paul Brousseau, and electric guitarist Maxime Delpierre are all new to Sclavis and his sound-world. Listening to the music, however, one would hardly know it.

On the day this quintet was scheduled to make its concert debut, the death of Prince Rainier of Monaco forced the show’s cancellation. Undeterred, the ensemble traveled to Studios La Buissonne where, under the direction of engineer Gérard de Haro, magic was documented.

You’ve never really heard jazz bass clarinet until you’ve heard Sclavis play it, and one can always count on a range of expressions from the instrument whenever it’s featured in his playing. From the nightshade hues of “Premier imparfait” (reiterated later in the program with Brousseau’s electronic accompaniment) to the unbridled enthusiasm of “L’idée du dialecte,” he thrills in compositions nourished by equal parts control and abandon. On soprano saxophone, he stands out like a well-powdered acrobat, engaging Baron in sparkling contrasts above an irregular bottom end—likewise in “Le verbe” and “Story of a phrase,” which feel like James Joyce interpreted by John Zorn. The latter tune’s gritty electric guitar denouements draw attention to Delpierre’s contributions. His solo “Convocation” and wall-of-sound approach in “Archéologie” (notable also for Melville’s jaunty tread) reveal the Glenn Branca influences lurking within.

There is, of course, plenty of inspiration to go around, which finds purchase in stellar turns from all involved. The end effect proceeds diurnally between songs of shadow and season, seeming, like one track title has it, a “Dialogue with a dream.” Facet for facet, a cerebral gem.

Louis Sclavis: Napoli’s Walls (ECM 1857)

| Tyran Grillo

Napoli's Walls

Louis Sclavis
Napoli’s Walls

Louis Sclavis clarinets, saxophones
Vincent Courtois cello, electronics
Médéric Collignon pocket trumpet, voices, horn, percussion, electronics
Hasse Poulsen guitar
Recorded and mixed December 2002, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineers: Gérard de Haro, Gilles Olivesi
Recording producer: Louis Sclavis
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher

Napoli’s Walls is Louis Sclavis’s reigning masterwork. More than a portrait of its titular city, it’s a city unto itself—an urban web with its own personages, economies, and philosophies. Known for paving future paths even as he redefines the ones he treads at any given time, the French reedist has never sat comfortably in one idiomatic chair. Heavily schooled in free jazz, as attested by the wingspan of his bass clarinet, he also grips his talons comfortably around classical music and, in the context of this album, visual art, taking as a starting point the work of Ernest Pignon-Ernest: a painter who, like Banksy, leaves echoes of his thoughts on streets and buildings, with a fixation on that fine line between integrity and crumbling.

EPE

Cellist Vincent Courtois will be familiar to Sclavis listeners from his last appearance on L’affrontement des prétendants. Less so perhaps are Danish guitarist Hasse Poulsen and Médéric Collignon, who plays pocket trumpet, sings, and provides electronic commentary throughout. The haunting slab of introduction that is “Colleur de nuit” would seem to say it all. It parses the night like some half-lit grammarian, drunk off the infinite possible interpretations of speech. The chamber aesthetic fogs windows accordingly as palimpsests for the hungry, enablers of diffusion for the self-absorbed. The cello is potent in this regard and adds a flavor of wanton necromancy. Percussive jangling and distant whistling recall the folk-infused landscapes of Luciano Berio’s Voci, while bass and drums put a strange sort of traction into play.

The title track is equally and deeply cinematic, laying curiously syncopated soprano lines over a spider’s web of electric guitar and amplified pizzicato from Courtois, building into a screeching pinpoint that punctures new stars into the sky with every lick and flick. This is music of remarkable subtlety that changes organically, following lines of flight long obscured, only now exposed.

Much of the album similarly teeters between ascent and descent, between sacred and secular, choosing instead the truth of entanglement. Two pieces marked “Divinazione Moderna”—one a duet of bass clarinet and cello, the other a prismatic setting for the full quartet—embody this entanglement to the utmost, interested not so much in politics as in the fractured lenses through which we view them. The effect is such that an overt historical reference like “Kennedy in Napoli” rings strangely alien for all its chronological specificity. (How appropriate that, during his 1963 visit to Naples, the President should quote Shelley’s characterization of Italy as a “paradise of exiles.”) Eerie, too, the Django-esque nightmare of “Guetteur d’inaperçu,” replete with torrential baritone and droning undercurrents.

EPE

Other pieces (e.g., “Porta segreta”) combine composed and intuitive elements in a brilliant mélange of feeling and physicality. All of which brings us back to the art of Pignon-Ernest, whose figures are as much a part of the stone into which they fade and from which they appear. In those traces we can find those same dilapidated edges, those same postcard reflections turned to incitements of anarchy at mere touch of mortal instruments. The careful attention paid to production at vital pressure points along the way sets this nervous system aglow, necessarily leaving us with the rough in a diamond, not the other way around.

Cyminology: Saburi (ECM 2164)

| Tyran Grillo

Saburi

Cyminology
Saburi

Cymin Samawatie vocals
Benedikt Jahnel piano
Ralf Schwarz double-bass
Ketan Bhatti drums, percussion
Recorded January 2010 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Following their 2009 ECM debut As Ney, singer Cymin Samawatie, pianist Benedikt Jahnel, bassist Ralf Schwarz, and drummer Ketan Bhatti tessellate their heritages once again in Oslo’s Rainbow Studio. As Cyminology they thicken the stem sprouted on that first outing, growing new offshoots along the way. From poetry of the past, Samawatie turns her attention to the tectonic plates of allegiance that define our political world in the here and now, using only self-penned words to express her visions of conflict from afar. Yet rather than engage in fruitless proselytizing, the album forges its own continent. Without borders.

The smoothness achieved by this enmeshed quartet is subtly effusive and affecting. Painting with colors imported directly from nature, Samawatie’s fluted vocals shift through Jahnel’s arpeggios in “Sibaai” as would an eel through seaweed, thus starting out the disc with a feeling of current. Jahnel’s contributions are indeed inspiring at every turn. Be they the exquisite harmonies of the title track or the Beethovenian interiorities of “Hedije” (for indeed, the album feels like a chain of unwritten Moonlight Sonatas), he turns water into crystal with every stroke. The same goes for Schwarz and Bhatti, who in the song “Shakibaai” weave a carpet so plush as to shield Samawatie’s barefooted cantoring from the magma below.

As ever, her voice spreads from center to periphery, bleeding through the fever dream of “As maa” and on through the diagrams of “Nemibinam,” in which she reveals a hidden dance. Despite Samawatie’s penchant for textual color, through which she impedes clarity of expression through the mystery of meaning, the wordless singing of “Norma” most forthrightly expresses her art. Named for Norma Winstone, it is truly something special. What’s more, her voice need not even be there to affect us, as shown by the concluding “Hawaa.”

That the album’s title means “patience” is an afterthought to what is already obvious. That such fullness can let the wind through without impediment is testament enough to the group’s meticulousness. Like a pinwheel activated by breath of slumber, its turns in self-hypnosis, that it might see the light of day whenever the skies grow dark.

(To hear samples of Saburi, click here.)

Anders Jormin: In winds, in light (ECM 1866)

| Tyran Grillo

In winds in light

Anders Jormin
In winds, in light

Lena Willemark voice
Marilyn Crispell piano
Karin Nelson church organ
Raymond Strid percussion
Anders Jormin double-bass
Recorded May 2003, Organ Hall at Musikhögskolan, Göteborg
Engineer: Johannes Lundberg
Executive Producer: Manfred Eicher

When Anders Jormin was asked to write sacred music for Sweden’s Västerås cathedral, the Swedish bassist went above and beyond, setting verses by Swedish poets Harry Edmund Martinson, Pär Lagerkvist, Johannes Edfelt and Lotta Olsson-Anderberg, as well a smattering of English from William Blake and Jormin himself, in the exploratory cycle In winds, in light. The choice of Lena Willemark to bring those words to life was an obvious one. Having lent her voice to the memorable ECM folk sessions of Nordan and Frifot, here she expands her palette yet again with a unique corpus of source material and sometimes-hallucinatory adlibs. In the latter vein, “Sång 80” finds her in an adventurous mode in some of the album’s starkest territories.  Pianist Marilyn Crispell, organist Karin Nelson, and percussionist Raymond Strid complete the picture.

Although the musicians are no strangers to one another in various combinations in other contexts, here they comprise an ad hoc chamber ensemble like no other. Crispell plays the role of conscience. Whether percussively tracing the periphery of “Choral” or breathing through album highlight “Allt” with vivid involvement, her pianism expresses the complexity of time in simplest language, acupunctured in all the right places. From the other keyboard, Nelson leaps into vast improvisational pools, tracing the arc of her travels in “Flying” to the ashen dip of her “Introitus” in splintered chronology, reaching wondrous peaks of expression with piano and voice in “En gang,” another standout moment. Her organ is a defining presence throughout, at times blasting like a theological furnace, at others whispering secular secrets. Strid, for his part, is the incantation. Hidden and tactile, he fans the flame beneath the snow in “Gryning,” emotes the ritual core of “Each man,” and bows the ether of “Lovesong.” Through it all, Jormin binds with his uniquely textural playing, an approach epitomized in three geologically minded solos: “Sandstone,” “Soapstone,” and “Limestone.” His texts—fitting snugly alongside the literary juggernauts in whose company they find themselves—embody, on the other hand, freeing impulses. The window of “In winds,” for instance, looks out onto a tearful memory, the landscape of which has withered like the soul that once dwelt there and in whose wake is left only a rotted cabin, snow-covered and still.

In winds, in light is giant footprint from the past, filled with the plaster of the present, preserved for the ears of the future. May it flicker still.

Arve Henriksen: Cartography (ECM 2086)

| Tyran Grillo

Cartography

Arve Henriksen
Cartography

Arve Henriksen trumpets, voice, field recording
Jan Bang live sampling, samples, beats, programming, bass line, dictaphone, organ samples, arrangement
Audun Kleive percussion, drums
David Sylvian voice, samples, programming
Helge Sunde string arrangement and programming
Eivind Aarset guitars
Lars Danielsson double-bass
Erik Honoré synthesizer, samples, field recordings, choir samples
Arnaud Mercier treatments
Trio Mediaeval voice sample
Vérène Andronikof vocals
Vytas Sondeckis vocal arrangement
Anna Maria Friman voice
Ståle Storløkken synthesizer, samples
Recorded, engineered and mixed at Punkt Studio, Kristiansand, except
Track 1
Recorded live at Punkt Festival, Kristiansand, June 2005
Overdubs recorded at Punkt Studio
Track 2, Part one
Recorded at Samadhisound
Trumpet recorded at 7.de Etage
Additional trumpet recorded at Punkt Studio
Track 10, Part Two
Recorded live at Punkt Festival, Kristiansand, August 2006
Track 11
Recorded live at Stadtgarten, Cologne
Assembled at Punkt Studio
Voice recorded at Samadhisound
Mastered at Audio Virus Lab, Oslo by Helge Sten
Engineered and produced by Erik Honoré and Jan Bang

After lurking as a figural, melodic force on many ECM sessions, at last Arve Henriksen dropped his unique brand of acid with Cartography. Although his place among Norway’s defining trumpeters—including Nils Petter Molvær, Per Jørgensen, and Mathias Eick—had already been firmly established, this leader date gave that badge some spit shine. As with his compatriots, electronics are a vital part of his toolkit, and here the incorporation achieves new levels of organicity courtesy of associates Erik Honoré and Jan Bang, who has contributed equally memorable soundscaping to the work of Eivind Aarset (see his recent Dream Logic), Jon Hassell (a huge influence on Henriksen), and singer-songwriter David Sylvian. In fact, Sylvian appears twice on this disc, bringing his idiosyncratic wordsmithery to bear on some amorphous territory. In “Before And Afterlife,” his speech is split and stitched, flashing cosmopolitan utterances across rural stages. The silvery ebb and flow running through Henriksen’s trailing commentary tilling the soil gently in his wake. “Thermal” further sets Sylvian’s stunning poetry of object-oriented diaspora in motion.

Henriksen
Photo credit: Oliver Heisch

With such evocations of land, (un)settlement, and water, the album’s title might seem an obvious one: the art of mapmaking translated into sound, comprising a trans-idiomatic survey recorded in multiple locations. To be sure, such connotations abound. Whether floating through the gossamer electronic spread of “Poverty And Its Opposite” or hooked by the widening beat of “Migration,” Henriksen moves through thick clouds with surety of calibration. The sense of continuity in his trumpeting evokes a romantic sort of cinema, a feeling of sustained emotional lift and robust physicality.

Henriksen is indeed often the focal center—sometimes of ambient rustlings and digitalia, sometimes tracing the shadows of voices, sometimes diving headlong into them. In the latter vein is “Recording Angel,” which samples the singing group Trio Mediaeval in a half-conscious sleep. The effect is eerily similar to Stephan Mathieu and Janek Schaefer’s Hidden Name (2006, Crónica), which was created using source material from composer John Tavener’s personal record collection. Words waver in and out of consciousness, swapping exigencies and feeling patterns. Through this goopy mixture, Henriken’s lines glide like water snakes, blind yet ever attentive to their food source.

The album also veers into deeply personal spaces, as in “The Unremarkable Child,” a short and dulcet piece with an orchestral backdrop, swaying and mellifluous. “Sorrow And Its Opposite” is likewise inward looking, revealing Henriksen’s warmth to the utmost against a shifting assemblage of upheavals, a ballad for time immemorial, for the enchantment within and the whispers without. A piano turns like an Escherian helix, until only the sounds of footsteps remain. Therein lies the real cartography: a form of travel not across tactile surfaces but through ghosts of mortal ends.

Another one of ECM’s finest.