Evan Parker tenor and soprano saxophones, khene Philipp Wachsmann violin, viola, live electronics, sound processing Barry Guy double-bass Paul Lytton percussion, live electronics Lawrence Casserley live electronics, sound processing Walter Prati live electronics, sound processing Marco Vecchi live electronics, sound processing
Recorded December 1998 at Gateway Studio, Kingston
Engineer: Steve Lowe
Produced by Steve Lake
The spheres of composition and improvisation are not so far apart. In fact, Evan Parker and his Electro-Acoustic Ensemble seem to say, they are as inseparable as water from the ocean. Since 1992 the Ensemble has gone, as the title of its 1997 debut suggests, toward the margins, and is content in the asymptotic nature of those margins. This follow-up welcomes Lawrence Casserley and his computer wizardry into an already eclectic admixture of sound processors, thus enhancing the overall atmosphere with real-time entanglements. Because the result feels so much like an aural diary, I can only offer a written one in return.
(1) there is a jagged line in the egg, and the light that spills from it sings, crackling like rain on tarp. in the crooner’s sigh there are wounds, in his laughter there is healing.
(2) aroused from my dream, i creep like a shadow toward the lighted window, throw open its transparent lungs and breathe in the dew-kissed air. but a serpent in the sky mars this otherwise idyllic dawn with S-curved passage, the only afterimage to linger in these eyes as it wriggles through gauzy cloud cover and parhelia. Parker’s lockdown is arresting, a Glassean riff turned on its head and spun like a top.
(3) to travel in the homeland is to walk away from yourself. catharsis of will and locomotion. in the absence of progress, the feet quicken their pace. in the absence of goals, they slumber even as they ambulate. hidden in the watering can behind the barn is the drop i left before parting for the city, where only sewer drains collected the tears of so many others and stirred them into an underground cocktail, never again to be tasted. it is not so radical to think that one might live here, but to think that one might die here. i can turn the radio dial however much i want, but will never find the beacon that i crave. instead, a diffuse comfort whereby the winds of opportunity blanket me with their hush.
(4) to look into the spouting bowl is to blind yourself to the truths of which it is an indifferent receptacle. i can lasso these words to its underwater circus yet fear i might not have the strength to hold on ’til i reach bottom. a fidgety existence i lead when it’s all i can do not to fall away from others’ attention.
(5) the music tells me i can deploy my love as an agent of unrest and offers in that possibility a temptation in whose surface i cannot see myself reflected. my heart is already lost to the cause. i stand in a booth on the corner making collect calls to strangers, my fingers all a-blur at the number pad in their furious attempts to communicate.
(6) i have found it: the spinning globe of circumstance on which i was trapped like a drone on a treadmill. now i can hold it, toss it as a child would a ball. but in so being endowed, i find there is only guilt and discomfort, and the knowledge that the top of the pyramid is a lonely place. i can only follow my wayward guides, playing the part of the child again as i slide down its brick-laid slope.
(7) back to concrete, i run pell-mell, pushing the capabilities of my social craft to the flexible limits of their stature, dangling before myself a carrot of progress. i cannot want this; i must let it want me. somewhere in the body of a cello, my bones are breaking and mending by the laser vision of gas stove flame.
(8) at home in the universe…nowhere else i’d rather be. it is our terrarium, our humid sanctuary, our light and love.
(9) i am writing on ice, using the ink my mother gave me. i let myself seep into the surface, tracing imperfections with newfound script.
(10) they have captured something in the frame, glued it inside with the adhesive of acceptance. timetables and train tracks curl into a tangled ball, it’s shadow the signature in the lower left-hand corner.
(11) the thread has unraveled and the secret is out. i am here only so long as i write myself to be. i take your hand and bid you to take another’s, so that by the end we stand as one. this is the music that goes on in the attic when we are asleep, in concerts attended by mice and other wall dwellers. if we are drawn inward to anything, it is ourselves.
<< Eleni Karaindrou: Eternity and a Day (ECM 1692 NS) >> Peter Ruzicka: String Quartets (ECM 1694 NS)
Joe Maneri alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet, piano, voice Barre Phillips double-bass Mat Maneri electric 6-string and baritone violins
Recorded June 1998 at Hardstudios, Winterthur
Engineer: Martin Pearson
Produced by Steve Lake
Tales of Rohnlief is an exercise in recitation. Joe Maneri’s histrionics call out to grasslands and briny spray. He preaches at the edge of the world, where rocks cut like scissors through wrapping paper: only a push and not a squeeze. In his voice is all the landscape one needs to find purchase for the journey that follows. The voice expresses itself by way of throat and reed, a pitch-bent nightmare turned frosty and sweet. It pales into a spontaneous croak as Barre Phillips and Mat Maneri press their palms to an elaboration of surrender. And with that, these three uncannily attuned improvisers touch the sky with more sky. A break in the clouds reveals a backdrop of revelry.
“A Long Way From Home” feels like anything but, so intimate is its delivery. It whisks us through points of contact as familiar as our subcutaneous selves, and just as sensitive to the errant touch. Mewing cats trade places with stone idols flicking their tongues in the face of condemnation, licking away the possibility of failure as a hand wipes away condensation. Paltry rhyme schemes fail, however, to express the depth of this game of halos. We may, then, search for another method to the genius we now face. I propose that we turn our ears away from what is being told and focus rather on the telling itself. For if we look beyond titles like “When The Ship Went Down” and “The Aftermath,” neither of which help us despite the wonders of their contents, we realize that the inaugural voice has never left us. Its register curls a ghost’s hand and guides us through the gnarled lessons of “Bonewith” until, lo!, it casts its oracle shadow across the “Flaull Clon Sleare” and watches, silent, as we attempt to “Hold The Tiger” (a particularly brilliant pop-up). Watery yet never watered down, the song cackles. “The Field” is another notable mention, if not for its mournful qualities then for the color of its blood. Three dark and winding paths bring us to the tongue-tied destination of “Pilvetslednah.” Now that he’s shown us the yard, Joe welcomes us into his home, forever full of warmth.
There is so much sincerity in this music that it hurts.
<< András Schiff/Peter Serkin: Music for Two Pianos (ECM 1676/77 NS) >> Alexei Lubimov: Messe Noire (ECM 1679 NS)
Philipp Wachsmann violin, viola, live electronics Paul Lytton percussion, live electronics Recorded October 1997 at Hardstudios, Winterthur Engineer: Martin Pearson Produced by Steve Lake
Following one untouchable duo with another, producer Steve Lake and engineer Martin Pearson fly ECM’s banner into further uncharted waters. Taking the label’s exploratory spirit to heart, they bring us Some Other Season. Last heard among the roaring mitochondria of Toward The Margins, here Philipp Wachsmann and Paul Lytton render that flame blue, gaseous. The two are more than experimental pioneers of their respective instruments, violin and percussion. They are, too, more than the electronic parasites that have grafted themselves so organically on to their craft.
The title of “The Re(de)fining of Methods and Means” says it all: the hermetic tinkerer must splash his craft against the earth and revel in the sounds. There is treatment to be had, to be discovered in the walls, lurking among asbestos and frayed electrical wire. It is the voice of a profound past cloaked in future guise. One can almost hear fingers tapping in the interstices, flipping signatures like fuses of the brain. In “Shuffle,” the violin sheds a skin with every utterance, stirring its accoutrements with impending fury while bells and cymbals dance in the upper atmosphere. Lytton dips “Leonardo’s Spoon” into the shadow of a painted veil, and from this ladles the prompt for Wachsmann’s solo “Choisya.” Like “The Peacock’s Tale,” it finds a choir in the single string, fanned and feathered.
This duo, then, is redefining at every turn, tapping the fractures of “Shell” to reveal the five-part “The Lightning Fields.” At its core is the ecstatic interaction of Field 3, which bubbles over into something like an Ikue Mori experiment in Field 4. Hereafter the session reveals its deepest biological secrets. From the thin, gurgling colors of “Whispering Chambers,” essential to what the album is (not) trying to achieve, to the final title track, which contrasts drones with the skittering vocabulary of finality, it rolls its tongue through a series of linguistic asterisks.
Sounding at times a hurdy-gurdy’s dream, at others a biological nightmare, Some Other Season wafts through our aortas with the wind of Luigi Nono’s La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura and the immediacy of a London Improvisers Orchestra bonfire. A scraping and gravelly spelunk into the depths of communication, it skates along the surface of consciousness with a playfulness at once mammalian and insectile. This music is four-dimensional. One can smell it burning.
<< Joe Maneri/Mat Maneri: Blessed (ECM 1661) >> Dave Holland Quintet: Points of View (ECM 1663)
Joe Maneri alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet, piano Mat Maneri violin, electric 6-string and baritone violins, electric 5-string viola
Recorded October 1997 at Hardstudios, Winterthur
Engineer: Martin Pearson
Produced by Steve Lake
The stone gate. Vagary of an age lost to the water that swallows its knees. To listen to this record is to step through that gate, and find on the other side not ocean but a new kind of air in which water and vapor bleed like the sun’s light from the moon, the parent in the child. Many father-son teams have thus riddled the history of jazz, but between Joe and Mat Maneri one not only hears the biological bonds at play, but feels their electrical charge, and nowhere more so than on this first duo recording for ECM. Much can be made of the microtonal grammar that Maneri Senior has perfected over decades and which rests so intuitively at his fingertips, but at the end of the day it’s all about physicality and attunement. “If I play a thousand microtones, what’s that worth if the rhythm isn’t happening,” he tells us. “In some ways the rhythm is the most vital part of what we’re doing.” Listening to them emote is akin to listening to Paul Motian on the drums. Such is their fluency. Comparing them and their fashionable counterparts, however, is night and day. Which is to say, night on Earth and day on a different planet. By the same token, there is something so deeply integrated about the playing that we cannot help but look inward to find its pulse.
And yes, we may search for the pulse, but in doing so forget that the search is itself the pulse. Its most potent strain breathes through the lungs of “There Are No Doors,” “Never Said A Mumblin’ Word,” and the title track, all three of which feature Maneri Senior at the piano. If the titles seem to be proclamations, it’s only because the Maneris practice what they preach, tracing the crevices of experience for all the grit we’ve left behind. From this they build microscopic castles and flag them with rapid eye movement. “Sixty-One Joys” is perhaps the most achingly beautiful animal Maneri Junior has ever tamed, an electric baritone violin solo that drinks pathos like honey and exhales sugar in the raw. The insectile blues “From Loosened Soil,” another thing of elemental attraction, bridges us into “Five Fantasies,” which draws on Webern’s bagatelles and ends on a light scream. “Is Nothing Near?” comes closest to an identifiable place, a place where reedmen convene to spit life in the dead of night. Waves of arco fortitude flounder in slow motion, the outtakes of a film starring cigarettes and rainwater. And what of light? For this, we turn to “Body And Soul,” an acoustic violin solo knocking at the door of a homespun dream. It is the rat in the kitchen who eyes the cheese, the teacher in the classroom who nods off mid-lesson, the child in the playground who sees a rainbow and cries, “Race You Home.” The clarinet gets a klezmer test spin in “Gardenias For Gardenis” before shifting into a Lombard Street drive in “Outside The Whole Thing.” At the end of it: a hole in the ground.
Unearthed is what this music is, like a gold nugget or gemstone—only these two mavericks are not interested in priceless rarities but rather take exquisite interest in the sifted dirt. When watered by the gifts of these performances, the dirt burgeons with syllables. They may not be of a language we can all produce on command, but it is one we can always translate.
<< Mats Edén: Milvus (ECM 1660) >> Philipp Wachsmann/Paul Lytton: Some Other Season (ECM 1662)
José Luis Montón guitar
Recorded April 2011, Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
“In this music I have tried to translate all the sincerity and love of art that I appreciate so much when I encounter it.”
After hearing José Luis Montón play so dazzlingly in Amina Alaoui’s Arco Iris, one of ECM’s finest records of this or any year, producer Manfred Eicher invited the Barcelona-born guitarist back twelve moons later for a solo session. The result: Solo Guitarra. Paying homage to the flamenco music that continues to challenge and inspire him, Montón took this opportunity, as he did with Alaoui, not to build on or recreate some monolithic tradition but rather to use his instrument as the starting point for independent compositions through which a mythic past flows unimpeded.
(Photo by Dániel Vass)
As with the implied figures of the Max Franosch cover photo, there is nothing “solo” about this guitarra, for the architecture of its player’s technical and idiomatic acuity has many chambers. The farruca, a (possibly) Galician strand similar to Portuguese fado, is referenced in the two opening pieces. This light and airy style is most evident in the understated virtuosity of “Rota,” but also shows a darker side in “Española.” Already we have witnessed the depths of Montón’s abilities, turning six strings into a choir just yearning to proclaim and meditate in turn. The acrobatics of the bulería come out through “Son & Kete,” a spiraling and almost tense flurry of activity. “Altolaguirre” and “Hontanar” give us the chameleonic tango. On the surface fragile as rose petals yet thorny as the supporting stem, it lives as it sings: without the need for words, and in service of that one moment when all is cast away. Next is an enraptured tarantella. “Con permiso” turns said folk dance into a diary of consummated love. There is the unsure touch, the cheek quivering at first caress, the pile of shed inhibitions cushioning every pinpoint of oneness. The relatively unornamented shapes of the Andalusian cantiñas and soleá roll like children down a hill through “Al oído” and “Conclusión,” respectively. Theatrical use of slaps and rasgueado (those distinct hummingbird strums) speaks to Montón’s experience as a composer of incidental music. The seguirilla, one of flamenco’s most expressive and formidable variations, shows him at his spirited best in “Detallitos.” The inventiveness of his mid-range melodies is second only to his intuitiveness of rhythmic control. “Tarareando” is without citation. As a result, its wide steps bolster the innocent joy of “Piel suave,” a rustic Cuban guajira that turns like a Rubik’s Cube, the solution of which glows flush in an endearing rendition of “Te he de querer mientras viva.” Nestled in the heart of all this is the Bach-inspired “Air,” which gives respect to the famous movement of the Orchestral Suite No. 3. It is an enlightening reminder of the many paths we travel to find the sound that best expresses us, only to discover that those paths all lead to a shared origin.
Formed in 2002 by pianist Boris Netsvetaev, bassist Phil Steen, and drummer Kai Bussenius, the Hammer Klavier Trio knows where it’s at. Little known outside their home base of Hamburg, one hopes that will change with the release of their sophomore album, Rocket In The Pocket. Netsvetaev is a keyboardist of many stripes, as comfortable plugged as he is un-. After studying piano in his native St. Petersburg, he worked with Joe Lovano, Dave Holland, Kenny Werner, and others to hone his craft. Steen was born in Hamburg, where he also earned his formative musical education, and remains an advocate for the local jazz scenes. He has studied with ECM great Kenny Wheeler, among others, and is a member of numerous touring groups. Bremen-born Bussenius is a drummer of fresh talent and insight, his future already secured through onstage tenures with John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, and many more. He cites Jack DeJohnette and Paul Motian as major and lasting influences. Having already worked together before, backing the Wolfgang Schlüter Quartet, their experience with the legendary German vibraphonist has clearly left its mark, absorbing his penchant for compact turns of phrase and equally concise flights of improvisation.
Since making their recording debut with 2008’s Now I Know Who Shot J.F.K., these young friends have sharpened their sound on Rocket, blasting off into the stratosphere with a set that is as hip as it is enjoyable. The attractive syncopations of “Hysterioso” usher us into the kind of mechanical precision and postmodern angst that one might come to expect from The Bad Plus. HKT brings its own swing to the table, what with the buoyant ground line and delicate array of electronic buggery, before ending like a record sped up until the cartridge goes flying off in search of other skies. These we get in “A Sketch In Dark Colours.” Against tight rhythm support, Netsvetaev provides enough to fill this puff pastry to bursting. His touch is beautiful, impressionistic, and decidedly futuristic, evoking streets awash with robots and automated traffic. “Suicide Train” is another rollicking exposé of urban ennui, only this time bartered into the hands of a frenetic ghost who seeks in said transportation a method to the madness. The keyboard dons an electric guitar’s clothing, while the bass is given its due frolic. The jam band aesthetic is smooth as scotch, yet distorted by a picture gallery of enticing modal variety. “Tekla” is a heaping slice of retro pie that looks to a more innocent time when we were content in following our minds rather than our hearts. Threaded by a watery bass, it sings to us with gentle remonstration. “Plan B” is a rubato mash-up of bold yet complementary flavors that swings its way into focus. “Play Me A Fugue” drifts in and out of a Baroque radio station with the swish of a whale’s tale. The drumming is bold, upright, and crisp. The title track walks a funky walk and talks a funky talk, rolling into the sweeping cinematics of “The Incredible Atmo” with unwavering aplomb. Steen switches gears to ARCO as Netsvetaev trails stardust into the night sky. The Steve Kuhn influence is palpable. “Take Fifteen” is a delightful slide into more boppish territory. Subtle and true to form, the trio excels here in its rudiments. Then, with a sweltering electric piano, “Desert Sun” kicks us back to seventies, with a mellifluous and oh-so-comforting sound. A fuzzy blanket in November. “Kaleidoscope” is a track of luscious textures and shapes, Netsvetaev exploring icicles in the highs. The set ends with “Harold Mabern.” Named for the great pianist and teacher, it is a jaunty ride through past and present on the way toward an as-yet-unknown vocation, of which music is but the first and necessary step.
If the music on Rocket is uplifting, then so too is the recording, which flies from the speakers with a life of its own. At once edgy and accessible, it should be the fun-seeker’s next destination. But this seeker wanted to know more, and to that end was fortunate enough secure an e-mail interview with Boris. Without further ado:
The press has located your work somewhere between Monk and The Bad Plus. Where would you yourselves locate it? What influences do you consciously bring into the music, and what influences have you discovered after the fact?
We get our influences from every type of music we come across. Of course, our main influence is jazz, but the influence of classical music (especially Russian music and music of the 20th century in general) is very strong. We use elements of rock, funk, hip-hop, and R&B, which are also strong. I can’t say there is a particular band or musician that has influenced our music. We’ve always worked on our own sound. We never wanted to be placed stylistically as “something influenced by…” We are the Hammer Klavier Trio. We’ve got our own sound.
How have you evolved as a band since J.F.K.?
Of course, we’ve grown much closer together as a band. Now that we’re using electric instruments (keytar, Rhodes, electric bass), our music has become funkier, harder, louder, but also much more variable. We’ve extended our sound palette, moving from straight-ahead jazz to modern beats and rhythms, so younger audiences can get into it more easily. We’ve also gone international, playing concerts in Rome, Saint Petersburg, and New York.
Tell me about the journey of Rocket In The Pocket from concept to recording to finished product. How do you feel it represents HKT and the future of jazz?
The recording session took place at Home Studios in Hamburg. It’s a legendary studio, famous for its rock and pop productions. The recording took place at night, which created a special atmosphere of mystery and inspiration. We had a special three-night deal with the studio: enough time to work out things in the way we wanted them to be. We even took an additional session to re-record some tunes we weren’t quite satisfied with. After the studio work was done and we had all the material, it took us some time to find a guy to mix it. Finally, our choice was Klaus Scheuermann from Berlin, and I must say, he did a really great job. Phil and I went to Berlin to oversee the three-day mixing process. We had a lot of fun working on it with Klaus, or, to be more precise, observing Klaus working on it. Once we had the master in our hands, we decided to wait until summer for the photo shoot (we wanted to have some outdoor pictures on the cover). Howard Mandel, a famous New York jazz writer, delivered some great liner notes for the CD, so we are very happy with the final product.
How do you approach playing in the studio versus playing live on stage?
It’s a different type of work. Live is more natural to everybody. There’s an audience you play for. You can build contact with it, interact with it. The presence of other people listening to you is inspiring and pushes you ahead. And if the people react to your music positively, it brings a feeling of a great satisfaction. The studio is different. You are closed in a hermetic box and you have to play for yourself. It’s really strange. It’s very difficult to develop the same energy as in a live concert. In fact, the nighttime recording session helped us a little to recreate the feeling of playing a club show. I really don’t care about it anymore. If you’re a professional musician, a good one, you have to be on 200% anytime you’re performing. Whether in the studio or at a jazz festival, it doesn’t matter.
When did you know you wanted to play jazz? Was there a defining event, listening experience, loved one, or instinct that drove you to this music?
By the time I grew up (it was in the 80s in Russia), jazz was not easily obtainable. My father had some LPs of Count Basie and Benny Goodman, but that was it. All through my childhood I studied classical piano and I didn’t really come across jazz music until I turned 14. It was 1992 when I entered the Rimski-Korsakov Music College in St. Petersburg to study piano and composition. At this school I met a new friend who was heavily interested in fusion music. He gave me some tapes with Miles Davis and Weather Report. Some months later I started taking interest in it more seriously and began improvisation lessons. At this time the political situation in Russia had changed. Jazz still wasn’t popular, but it became much easier to get recordings. Some of the new TV channels started broadcasting jazz programs from abroad. It was around May 1993 when I saw a video of the “Tribute to John Coltrane” with Wayne Shorter, Dave Liebman, Richie Beirach, Eddie Gomez, and Jack DeJohnette. This concert was a killer—the power of this music hit me seriously. And just about a week later I saw the John Coltrane Quartet on TV. This event changed my life completely. From this point I knew: this was the music I’d always wanted to play.
What is the most memorable comment a fan has shared with you after a gig?
“You’re sexy.”
What do you say when someone asks, “What do you do?”
It depends on the situation. Usually, I say, “I’m a musician.”
Much attention has been paid to your youth. How do you think age affects, if at all, the way you think about music and perform it? What is your generation adding to jazz? What is it taking away?
I don’t think that age is all that important. Of course, time adds some maturity to your musical personality, but for me it’s important to stay young at heart. I think being young or old is a mental thing. Some people stay young for the rest of their lives, others turn old before 30. It’s difficult to say what kind of an impact our generation has on jazz, because there are so many different groups out there playing completely different kinds of music, but the main tendency is that there are more pop or hip-hop rhythms and sounds in jazz than there were even 15 years ago. Swing is slowly disappearing. Despite the fact that we all love straightforward swing, we have to go along with the times.
Please tell me about working with such a moving force as Wolfgang Schlüter. What have your experiences with him taught you about performing, music, and life?
Playing with Wolfgang has always been fun. He is a musician of exceptional recording and performing experience, and he is a great guy, too. Offstage, he is always good for a glass of wine, a good story, or both. He loves playing music, especially in front of an audience. Of course, his technique and feeling for the music and his instrument are exceptional. His sense of rhythm and timing is also phenomenal. If you see him perform, you know immediately: jazz is all about rhythms and groove. But there is something else. The past years have been unkind to him. First, he suffered a stroke that left him almost totally blind. Just a couple of years later, his wife died in a terrible car accident (he was riding in the same car). But none of this has stopped his will to play music. This is probably the most important thing I learned from him: if you really love music, it makes you so strong that you can overcome your destiny.
To learn more about the Hammer Klavier Trio, please check out the German promotional video below, or click on over to the official site here.
Benedikt Jahnel piano Antonio Miguel double-bass Owen Howard drums
Recorded July 2011, Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Making its ECM debut is the phenomenal Benedikt Jahnel Trio, for whom Equilibrium is more than a title. Under direction of the eponymous German pianist, already familiar to label listeners as a backing member of Cymin Samawatie’s “Cyminology” project, the Trio marshals two of the New York contemporary jazz scene’s brightest—bassist Antonio Miguel (by way of Spain) and Owen Howard (by way of Canada)—who share his penchant for strong dynamic twists, meticulous rhythms, and lyrical touch. Recorded at the same Lugano studio that has brought such sparkle to recent recordings by Amina Alaoui, Marcin Wasilewski, and Bobo Stenson, this leader date retains engineer Stefano Amerio and follows a similarly eclectic trajectory through a set of seven originals.
(Photos by Uli Zrenner-Wolkenstein)
From the muted-string depths of “Gently Understood” we can draw analogy to the work of Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin. Similar is the Zen groove aesthetic and modular approach that has its roots in the Trio’s first album (unsurprisingly, Modular Concepts), uncoiling from a filamented core lasting gestures of great melodic sweep. Howard’s tracings build character, coalescing into an idol of dreams. After a light intro, the theme of “Sacred Silence” speaks in undulating phrases. It whisks away our angst with the flutter of an eyelash and leaves us primed like archival paper for the impressions that follow. Miguel in his solo follows the paths left behind by tears to their sources as Howard whites out every vein with a nocturnal sigh.
For all its auspicious beginnings, “Moorland & Hill Land” brings smiles to the faces of its history, for in being so remembered they live anew, unimpeded by the shackles of convention into which they were born. Jahnel is both the voice of reason and its crumbling philosophies. As the snowball rolls and the slope increases, the overall sound becomes only more permeable, and ends with a flick of the wrist, striking a match of silence. Howard’s delicate interactions between snare and cymbals make “Wrangel” the most rhythmically deft track of the set. Miguel keeps us keyed into reality, while Jahnel brings fantasy so close we can taste it. Together, “Augmented” and “Hidden Beauty” form a decidedly rubato interlude toward the final (and title) track, which closes the door and opens another. Here is the traction and romance of life in less than ten minutes.
The Trio’s approach to soloing is remarkable. Vague is the cordoning of instrumental voices. In its place, an effortless symbiosis, an equilibrium of contribution. Like an archaeologist, the Trio moves clods of earth before working methodically at the details with brushes and breath, leaving only the value of every sonic relic to shine as it once did before it was buried.
Without question, among ECM’s Top 5 releases of 2012.
Eivind Aarset guitars, bass guitar, electronics, percussion, samples, programming Jan Bang samples, dictaphone, programming
Recorded and mixed 2011/12 at Punkt Studio and Tjernsbråtan by Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, and Jan Erik Kongshaug
Mastering: Jan Erik Kongshaug, Rainbow Studio
Produced by Jan Bang
Eivind Aarset, without whom Nils Petter Molvær’s breakthrough Khmer might never have reached its full potential, gets an ECM space of his own at last. As much a child of the label as he is of Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis, the Norwegian guitarist brings attunement to every touch of the strings. Into the synchronicity of technique and vision he has sculpted since his early teens, Aarset has absorbed inspiration from a variety of musicians, including Bill Laswell, Marilyn Mazur, and, above all, Jon Hassell. That said collaborators are all masters at creating dream logics of their own is no coincidence, for he too is the student of another time-space continuum. With guitar as writing instrument and an array of electronics as his paper, he takes down field notes of a culture we’ve never known, a culture that slides down the ladders of our DNA and airbrushes mantras onto our microbes. Partner Jan Bang—who worked alongside Aarset most recently on Hassell’s Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street—adds rivers and landmarks, making the overall effect that much more immediate. Given the above history, one would expect long dronescapes, à la Re: ECM, to prevail. What we get instead is a set of eleven glimpses averaging four minutes apiece. These are no scale models, but self-aware biomes along whose ghostly borders flourish colonies of samples and contact wire.
(Photo by Luca Vitali)
In spite of the technological array in which it finds itself, the guitar of Dream Logic is naked as can be. The ensuing digital offshoots, as much reflections of the instrument as they are of it, are elementally no different than steam and water: only their physics has changed. Thus, the spidery crawl space of “Close (For Comfort)” feels less like an introduction and more the extension of life cycles as yet unheard. Its throats sing to us in two further variations, each slightly more corroded than the last. Contrast this with the texture of “Surrender,” which with its amniotic undercurrents gives no indication of flaw.
As the credits inform us, koto virtuoso Michiyo Yagi gave “Jukai (Sea Of Trees)” its title, an evocative one that carries the same double meaning in Japanese (樹海) as it does in English. Here, Aarset opts for the literal, painting with underwater gamelan a forest of internality. The level of development in its few short minutes is astounding, indicative of the thought put into the album as a whole. A subterranean bass tickles the soles of our feet in “Black Silence,” where slumbers a leviathan prayer. Its pizzicato veins chart every contour of our spines in “Active” and “Reactive” before spreading into the viscous pulchritude of “Homage To Greene.” Through a Taylor Deupree-like veil, Aarset weaves threads of guitar in a swaying rhythmic tide. If the foliage of “Jukai” could speak, it might sound like “The Whispering Forest,” which opens itself to concretely melodic shapes. Of the drone, we get only a teaser in “The Beauty Of Decay.” In the same way that the beginning was an end, so is this end a beginning. With a methodical sweep of the minute hand, it resets us to local time, that we might take this slow plunge into jet lag once again.
Bobo Stenson piano Anders Jormin double-bass Jon Fält drums
Recorded November and December 2011, Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
The anticipation of a new Bobo Stenson Trio release may be too much to bear, but the release of one is too much to ignore. This seventh album for ECM finds the Trio in new rags and old. Bill Evans’s “Your Story” was a favorite of Paul Motian, to whom the present version is dedicated, and starts the set off on a bittersweet note. It’s a heartfelt solo from Stenson that gives us perspective on the life of an artist whose contributions to the genre were incomparable. It also lulls us into a state of such openness that “Indikon,” the first of three freely improvised tracks, can be the only logical way to proceed. Along with its like-mindedly titled cousins, it reveals the album’s innermost thoughts. The title track even more so, as it threads slow and spiraling footprints along a haunting arco wire. Breathing room narrows to the point of claustrophobia, and slumbers there under a blanket of dead leaves. Here is the trio in its finest cohesions, spontaneous yet blossoming with organic comfort. Stringing one eureka moment after another, none of the musicians ever tries to lead the others, opting instead for close-eyed trust. “Ermutigung,” a protest song by East German dissident and Hanns Eisler protégé Wolf Biermann, levels off a scoop of political history with a smoothness of execution few can match. Fält’s subtleties keep its textures porous and susceptible to whatever comes in Stenson’s flights of abandon. Jormin steps forth in his deepest solo of the set and sweeps us like autumn into the cavernous “Indigo.” Amid rustlings of toms and cymbals, we hear the echo of a faraway song, changed by its journey from source to destination. Jormin pens two tunes. Between the frozen lake sheen of “December” and the creeping rays of “Sol” there is another album’s worth of imagery to ponder. The latter’s beginnings are remarkably enigmatic, every stroke of the horsehair a branch ready to fall. Both embody a depth of solitude that can only be seen in optimistic light. Jormin also offers his co-arrangement with Sinikka Langeland of a traditional Norwegian Ave Maria, which over its nearly eight-minute articulation of church rafters and prayerful thanksgiving recalls his work with Stenson on Matka Joanna. “La Peregrinación” is yet another unassuming vehicle for the bassist. Written in 1964 by late Argentine composer Ariel Ramírez, it sways like a playground swing in the wind of a tumultuous past. The lilting feel, maintained throughout, is all kinds of wonderful and fades into a sparkling finish. “Event VI” is adapted from George Russell’s eight-part suite, Living Time, thus bringing the Bill Evans connection full circle. Fält is as colorful as ever in his attempts to evoke the orchestral flavors of the original. Danish composer Carl Nielsen gets a nod in “Tit er jeg glad,” while another from across the water in Denmark, Ola Gjeilo, gets his in “Ubi Caritas.” Both are brushed and polished to a resonant shine, the second keening in aching curves of finality.
(Session photo by Nadia F. Romanini)
It’s encouraging to know that bands like Stenson’s exist. What the trio lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality and, more importantly, in its ability to morph into a new animal with every title uttered from its lips. In this sense, “Indicum” is more than a vision of what could be. It is the solution to darkness.
Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond 