Shibui

Shibui: Quint

| Tyran Grillo

Although Quint is the second album from Boston-based Shibui, it is also the first in what one hopes will be a longstanding relationship with Ronin Rhythm Records, the label of Nik Bärtsch, whose influence on bandleader Tim Doherty is as obvious as the stars at night (and just as beautiful to regard through the telescope of the ear). The core trio of Doherty on bass and percussion, Curtis Hartshorn on drums, and Céline Ferro on clarinets opens through the inclusion of Bradley Goff on keys, Derek Hayden on marimba (a key timekeeper throughout), and violinist Chris Baum. The latter makes his only appearance on “2.1,” which opens the first of five submarine doors. Through gradual appearances of percussion and bass clarinet, it travels from pianistic sediment to a glittering epipelagic zone. The final five minutes offer a glorious conspectus of the band’s relativity, offering plenty of opportunities for intake.

“2.2” is a chunkier groove, made all the more worthy of our mastication by the savory bass snaking its way throughout, while “2.3” offers a more pleasurable spectrum of delights, especially in the transfigurations of clarinet and piano between solids, liquids, and gases. The resulting states lean more in the direction of ineffability than concretism. Smoother textures await in “2.4,” where arid sands and moist breaths intertwine as equals. The bass is especially present, each note a trunk from which pianistic branches are given room to sprout. The marimba’s echoes tread like creatures too light to sink on water yet too heavy to be carried away by a breeze. Lastly, fluidity is the modus operandi of “2.5.” Here, the impulse to sing is never more than a step out of reach. Gritty electric keys give us a sense of inward focus and emanations of heat, weaving delicate cymbalism through shafts of shadow.

While fans of Bärtsch and other masterless musical samurai will surely rejoice over the rudimentarily numbered set list and modular approach, the uniqueness of vision rendered on Quint urges relistening. Doherty’s compositions are proof that instrumental discourse operates differently from speech. Whereas saying the same word over and over strips that word of meaning, Shibui’s aesthetic enhances clarity with every cycle. It also proves there is no such thing as truly identical reiteration in a world of constantly moving molecules and energies between them.

In an enchanting bit of coincidence, the album’s cover artist, Sevcan Yuksel Henshall, came up with the five circular gestures before even knowing its title. Such confluences are part and parcel of music that lifts the spirit with the same weight so that both appear to float in unison, forever suspended between firmament and fundament.

Quint is available from Bandcamp here.

Shibui: s/t

| Tyran Grillo

Shibui marks the full-length debut of the eponymous Bostonian sextet. Led by bassist and composer Tim Doherty, whose music filters out all but the most necessary light, the album nestles five numbered pieces in the simpatico auras of pianist Bradley Goff, clarinetist Céline Ferro, percussionists Derek Hayden (primarily on marimba) and Curtis Hartshorn, and drummer Kyle Harris. Welcoming a range of moods and shading in a smattering of guest percussionists and string players, it treads some obvious influences, from the precise flow-speak of Steve Reich to the modularity of Nik Bärtsch (on whose Ronin Rhythm Records the band’s follow-up release is slated to appear in June). More obvious is the hybridity of the fruit growing therefrom.

Within the introductory “1.3,” the spirit of the band’s name (a Japanese term encompassing nuances of austerity and understated quietude) reigns supreme, though multivalently enough to accommodate grace, nuance, and realism. Less like a needle to a record and more like a hand into a stream equalized by the measure of careful observation, it drops us carefully into a song already in motion. Amid the blissing out of piano and marimba, the bass clarinet adds earthier colors to the water. In a parallel universe, “1.1” and “1.4” are rendered in cooler dialects in which bass and drum lines pop, skip, and leap. Meanwhile, the marimba snakes across frozen ponds and other crystalline formations.

The set’s highlights happen to contain some of its darkest turns. Case in point is “1.5,” in which the starlit contributions of a glockenspiel only serve to emphasize the night that makes them visible, while a clarinet oozing lyrically above the trees coaxes tears from every branch as if they constituted an essential oil. The finality of “1.2,” given special urgency by bass and its reeded cousin, gives over to strings of such sublimity that the finish demands a restart.

While such music is too easily characterized as cinematic, there is also something undeniably photographic about it, breaking down moving images one precious still at a time. And if it may be called minimal, it is primarily because the sparse arranging allows listeners to weave between every instrument, picking up hints of fragrance along the way.

Shibui is available from Bandcamp here.