Benjamin Moussay

Louis Sclavis/Benjamin Moussay: Unfolding (ECM 2831)

| Tyran Grillo

Louis Sclavis
Benjamin Moussay
Unfolding

Louis Sclavis clarinet, bass clarinet
Benjamin Moussay piano
Recorded March 2024 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Cover photo: Péter Nádas
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: September 13, 2024

The pairing of clarinetist Louis Sclavis and pianist Benjamin Moussay, born of larger group collaborations on past work for ECM (including 2019’s Characters on a Wall), yields a program of fresh material penned by both musicians. Moussay’s writing, which comprises the lion’s share, comes into its own with smooth confidence from the start in the title track. Its invocational sound lends an air of providence to all that follows, which is indeed an unfolding of creative impulses into a grander narrative that takes shape one track at a time.

Extending the pianist’s signature is “Loma del Tanto.” A whispering keyboard introduces itself before the clarinet writes the names of faded others across a foggy window, breathing warm air to obscure them. This process repeats, each time a little bit differently, in a cycle of self-reflection. “None” has a more free-flowing quality. It seeks to spread anxieties until they are transparent enough to walk through. The slightly abstract and dissonant touches always return to harmonic resolutions, and the theme’s restatement assures us that all is well in the end. Other highlights from Moussay include the mysterious distortions of “L’heure du loup” and “Snow,” the latter an empathetic benediction that touches the past as if it were a physical substance.

If Sclavis’s voice, especially as spoken through the bass clarinet, is a multifaceted presence in these pieces, then so much more as a composer. Whether in the extradimensional fantasies of “L’étendue” or the phenomenally reactive improvising of “Somebody Leaves,” he is a master at delineating expressive space. In this and other respects, the album’s pinnacle is “A Garden in Ispahan.” Its piano arpeggios trace a wall of protection around the clarinet, whose lucid dreaming gives rise to an organic state flow. Like the set as a whole, it is a viewfinder into itself, ad infinitum.

Benjamin Moussay: Promontoire (ECM 2659)

| Tyran Grillo

Promontoire

Benjamin Moussay
Promontoire

Benjamin Moussay piano
Recorded January/August 2019, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: May 29, 2020

After multiple appearances as sideman for Louis Sclavis, the timely Characters on a Wall most recent among them, pianist Benjamin Moussay for quietly dominates the marquee of an ECM album cover. In this program of original solo material, he shows himself to be a genuinely focused player who values not only melodies but also the spaces in which they breathe. What began as more fully fledged compositions have grown more open-ended over time, whittled away to whispering motifs and suggestive chords.

Our introduction to Moussay’s sound percolates through the boulders of “127.” Inspired by 127 Hours, the 2010 biopic about Aron Ralston’s harrowing escape from Bluejohn Canyon, it comes to us fully formed. It so happens the theme of rock climbing is a personal one, as Moussay is himself an avid outdoorsman. His cyclical notecraft evokes not the danger of the backstory but rather the hallucinatory state in which Ralston found hope to persevere. Thankfully, neither certain death nor a severed arm are necessary to enter that mental state through the vision presented here: a glimpse of hope at a point in history when our own survival feels more precarious than ever. Related topographies dot the album, from the all-too-real anxiety of “Don’t Look Down” to the cold stillness of “Monte Perdido.” The latter is entirely improvised, as is “Théa,” a spirited ode to his daughter.

The indeterminate weaves of “L’Oiseau d’Or” (which works a hymnal recipe from nostalgic ingredients) and “Chasseur de Plumes” (written for a cat fond of chasing birds) sit comfortably between the picturesque beauties of “Villefranque” (transcribed from his improvisation at a friend’s house in the eponymous commune) and “Sotto Voce” (my favorite for its expressive directness). If any of this feels cinematic in the listening, it’s not by accident, at least in the case of three tracks written as accompaniment for Jean Renoir’s 1926 Nana. Within this generally darker spectrum, the band of “Horses” stands out for its progression from the familiar to the unknown. The title track, too, belongs on a screen as much as on a record. Like the land formation after which it is named, we know it to be ancient and part of a story beyond measure. Thus, it gives us a bigger view of what lies beyond the horizon, and how the songs of a brighter future might sound when we catch up to them at last, ragged and thirsting for their nourishment.