Todd McComb: Jazz archive, 01/2018-09/2018

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It's been more than seven years since I started this project, so there's more of a sense of knowing what it is: Broad questions of what musicians are doing or how musical examples relate to my theoretical projects fade — somewhat. (Perhaps it's a cliché, but seven years has a feel of maturity in this regard.) I don't want to feel complacent about what's happening, though, even if some "usual channels" begin to stabilize, and so I'll continue to seek out the occasional wildcard, i.e. something unknown or that I wouldn't necessarily expect to appreciate much. But what sort of music? The implications of "jazz" in the title can vary: For me, it suggests music that resists the status quo, music that forges new senses of social justice, music that improvises new ways of living & interacting — and often with a nod toward the African American history of those impulses, perhaps extended to the ongoing fight against global oppression & imperialism, including domestic & neo-imperialism.

Why improvised music? Because life itself is spontaneous, and so I've tried to retain some spontaneity in writing here as well, i.e. when responding to music. Whereas it might be prudent to wait for fully sober reflections, particularly if one doesn't want one's fanciful thoughts & tangents to end up sounding silly, there's also a personal sense of discovery that cannot readily be retrieved once lost. So whereas I don't want to make counter-factual statements, I do want to retain a novel or imaginative impulse. Most of the entries here are consequently oriented around first (or second or ...) impressions of particular recordings, and I include (at least) basic documentary information, but many recordings remain on my mind, and are mentioned again subsequently in relation to later recordings. (Maybe I should start writing new entries oriented around old favorites? That would presumably provide for a more sober discussion.) Indeed, writing of one album in terms of another album becomes — more broadly — translation of something into something else, including music into writing. That's not to say that the writing is equivalent to the music, i.e. that such translation is "reversible" (as one might say), but that the writing is a response to the music: It's a response to music more than it's an exposition of music. (I've never thought of myself as a journalist, and any such attribution feels very strange. I do cite other people in my work, though, a practice of human society that dates back as far as we know....)

So what am I (here)? I'm a writer, specifically, in that I'm "doing things" with the written word: Whereas some of these entries consist of little more than noting the existence of an album that I think deserves (at least) some attention, others are more deeply engaged. And the latter are some of the texts that readers sometimes find difficult... the difficulty arising in part from my polyphonic writing style, wedged (or translated or transformed) into tapestry blocks or paragraphs such as these via juxtapositions, oppositions, parenthetical remarks, etc. Many entries thus don't proceed via linear exposition or narrative style. But then much music doesn't proceed via linear exposition or narrative style! So I'm a writer who doesn't privilege writing. (Although it won't be happening in this space, a musical response to music is certainly an aesthetic response, and perhaps an interrogation or clarification. Indeed, much music is in response to other music.) Translation has become something of my basic theoretical approach, then, including toward disciplines beyond music. One might consult, for instance, a couple of recent (ongoing) theoretical series, Basic mechanics of modernity & Practical listening. Or one might return to the previous set of entries here, with its own intro, and to those before it, etc. (This intro is simply the latest, rather arbitrary break in my work, another restart.) I like to make words dance, and pay close attention to internal rhythms in every phrase — so maybe that's a key to syntax.

The title of this space doesn't involve only jazz, but also thinking: I'm not only performing as a writer here, but as a thinker or theorist, and what I'm seeking to interrogate & unfold concerns my own thoughts & priorities. (As if any thought is entirely our own.) That's what drives the project, and in this sense, the music is by way of example. Yet as the ongoing sequence on translation suggests, example is not separable from theory: There is no "final objectivity" possible in such a narrative, no "endpoint" to a chain of relations. It's ultimately a bunch of commentary on commentary, across media, swirling around itself. To this we all bring different perspectives & priorities (not to mention different tools): My emphasis on social theory & interaction has in turn produced an emphasis on small — but not too small — ensembles in this space: Whereas I sometimes listen to solos or duos, I rarely features them. Indeed, I rarely mention most albums that I hear: I need to feel as though I have something to say, i.e. an artistic response, or at least to feel as though others with an interest might not notice otherwise. (The latter prompt actually feels more vain. The former usually comes with passion.) And as the mention of sequence further suggests... as not only thoughts in general, but thoughts on individual albums continue to develop through these entries, they depend upon each other & in the order written. (After all, significant albums will be discussed in more than one entry.) I have thus resisted prompts to present entries out of order or in a readily separable (individually searchable) format. So please scroll to the bottom for the latest.

Narrative history affects more than the structure of this writing, of course, and extends into (my prior) personal history as well: What music catches one's ear now has much to do with what has caught one's ear in the past, i.e. personal aesthetic narrative (per an opening to What is familiar?). I spent twenty years focusing on pre-modern music (from around the globe), for instance, after a shorter (but intense) sequence in contemporary classical music. (Although my family lived in a cultural backwater, and worked in construction & farming, I "discovered" classical radio as a small child: They largely left me to my eccentricities, as long as I did my chores.) Consequently, I'm not much into "alternative rock" or various other flavors of USA popular music. "Jazz" often employs such material, but that's largely orthogonal — or one might say historically contingent — to what I'd articulated in the opening paragraph. Given the emphasis on translation, one might even characterize most of my interests in this area as — beyond improvisatory — "crossovers" in some generalized sense. (Perhaps because of all this, I'm often more taken with vocal albums than most people who discuss similar music seem to be.) The "project" here then adheres according to musical relation, i.e. relations between music but also between music & anything else. As I often ask, what is the "use" of some particular recording? What does it do in various (hectic, even frenetic life) circumstances? What can it do for me? (Thus I turn the old notion of "art as monad" on its head. Instead, how does it relate, to whom, to what?)

What exactly is this project then? (It's my most intensive, but not my only musical project of the moment.) It consists of thoughts & examples — including a brief list of favorites by year, conveniently summarized for those with an interest but little time — relating music to other music, and further to everything else — the social world & (often abstract) political resistance in particular. Finally, as the opening paragraph suggests, while I have an evolving sense of what musicians are doing, there's no way I'll ever hear everything. (There are only so many hours in the day, and most of mine already involve music.) So please do let me know if some thoughts here suggest something else I should hear. Or if you already know that I appreciate your music, and have something new. (Unfortunately, like so much work, musical releases seem to come in bunches, and sometimes there are lulls, such as while I'm writing this entry. Other times I feel almost overwhelmed with quantity.) After these seven years, I don't want to find myself in a musical (or intellectual) lull — and certainly not feeling as if I know it all. (There are always new ways of living & interacting, after all. But it's one thing to know that theoretically....) All that said, here's to another productive year, at least musically speaking....

Although, as suggested, I might write some new entries oriented on specific older (relative to this project, that is, i.e. from the past handful of years) recordings, I don't want to start making this space about the past. However, given the retrospective mood of the previous entry, I thought I'd pick "albums of the year" going back a few years. These are selections I'm making right now, not a reflection of what I was thinking then — not that I remember what that was, if anything:

2017: Traintracks Roadsides Wastelands Debris — pinnacle of its genre.

2016: Nessuno — close choice in a year with multiple landmark albums.

2015: Oakland / Lisboa — narrowly edging Natura venomous.

2014: North of Blanco — in an asymmetric duel with Phase/transitions.

2013: Colophony.

2012: Ewen / Smith / Walter — as a bit of a toss up winner among what remains a surprisingly influential (on me anyway) field.

I'm not intending to make this into a regular thing, particularly picking for the previous year. I consider it to be a coincidence that I rebooted this page in January, and don't want to make general commitments for the end of year period. Anyway, perhaps these choices will provide some helpful further context in the present moment.

Although rebooting this page during a lull in releases makes good sense in some ways, it also means I don't have something more distinctive to say from the beginning — and that would likely have been better form. (The lull is starting to end, but as noted, I want to keep the writing in experiential order.) That said, I had mentioned Planets of Kei when discussing Core-Tet Project in December, and now it's here: Not Two has more sporadic distribution to the US than some of the other high volume, quality free jazz labels — and Not Two also probably has the nicest packaging of any of the higher volume labels — but albums do eventually find their way to me. Planets of Kei is an improvised trio album involving not only Szilárd Mezei, per that earlier entry, but Samo Salamon (b.1978, Slovenia) on acoustic guitar & Achille Succi on bass clarinet & alto sax. I hadn't mentioned Salamon previously, but did listen to his recent (composed) sextet album (also with Succi) on Clean Feed, The Colours Suite, recorded a few months before Planets of Kei (September 2016 in Slovenia, in the latter case). Succi had appeared previously in this space with Scoolptures & e.g. White Sickness (first discussed here in February 2012), and has apparently recorded a half dozen other albums with Salamon. (I hadn't noticed most of these, however.) Planets of Kei is a long album, with twelve tracks including four duos, and opens with a striking three-way interaction: I'm not sure to what the "Kei" refers, but it appears in the title of another Salamon album. Nor do I know what makes this "Free Sessions Vol. 1," but presumably more (from this exact trio, from Salamon?) are coming: The opening track proceeds circuitously into something of a cadence on held tones, setting the stage for novel counterpoint from clear gesture. Indeed, most tracks have clear beginnings & ends, with the duo tracks, which are about twenty percent of the album by length, punctuating the broader development. (The last two tracks are the longest, and do incorporate a richer sense of intersecting gesture.) The album is generally neither fast nor slow, but has a relatively leisurely individual pace that can seem almost busy when all three players are active. Both the ensemble & result are thus rather akin to that on Hunt at the Brook, an album that nonetheless seems more intentional & assured. Still, there is much to enjoy on Planets of Kei, occasionally with longer (tonal) quasi-tunes, but usually in the manner of quick bursts & almost pointillistic interchanges that suggest something of a percussive quality by their back & forth interaction. (I sometimes think of Drought due to the pace & three-way timbral clarity, even if the horn might imitate viola or vice versa. Planets of Kei doesn't induce a sense of calm, though.) Sometimes the trio sounds almost jazzy behind Succi, sometimes Mezei goes off on one of his angular riffs (although not virtuosic per se to the degree of Still now), and sometimes the dialog is downright strange — although not in an aggressive way — and that's ultimately the (acoustic) charm of this album.

Another late 2017 release that I want to note, albeit recorded in 2014, is Red October by Polyorchard: It actually appeared on cassette (a very silly idea, if you ask me, but it's also on the Bandcamp site) recently at Squidco — presumably in part due to the North Carolina connection. (It was recorded in Raleigh.) Indeed, Polyorchard has a rather distinctive & seemingly rather "American" improvisatory style of interaction — evocative, perhaps, of Jack Wright & e.g. Roughhousing or Calgary 2012 — that specifically warrants a mention. On Red October, the group is a quartet, nearly a typical "free jazz" quartet in fact, consisting of Jeb Bishop (trombone), Laurent Estoppey (saxophone), David Menestres (double bass) & Shawn Galvin (percussion). And on other albums, the same name is applied to different trios around Menestres. (It took me a moment to remember where I had seen his name before, but Menestres writes reviews at the Free Jazz Blog. And I have no idea what the track titles yielding "I would like to have seen Montana" are about, but I suppose that's American too, at least in a literal sense. Or maybe Russian.) I had mentioned Bishop in September as part of the trombone trio on Konzert für Hannes, and indeed he appears on many albums, particularly out of Chicago, but the other two were new to me. I was quickly attracted to Galvin's orchestral percussion, and between that & the trombone, the quartet does manage to sound different from the classics. As the album proceeds, though, the roles start to become more conventional, even while retaining a contrapuntal sense — as techniques start to seem sequential. (The fourth track is apparently composed, despite the notes talking up the group's focus on improvisation.) There are still some fine moments, with each musician contributing uniquely to the overall texture & in varying combinations.

Returning to discuss more from Agustí Fernández, The Liquid Trio, in which he is joined by Albert Cirera on saxophones & Ramon Prats on drums, appears to be his most recorded ensemble: They have at least two prior albums as a trio, not to mention e.g. Before the Silence (released on No Business in 2016) on which Fernández & Cirera are joined by members of Red Trio (but not Prats), but the focus of this entry is The Liquid Trio Plays Bernoulli, recorded in Salamanca in January 2017 — so, subsequent to the 60th birthday albums previously mentioned here. The reference to Bernoulli is apparently to underscore the "liquid" theme, although clearly a trio oriented around a fixed pitch instrument like piano is not as fluid as some. (Presumably they mean what they say about being under less pressure when moving more quickly, though? Or vice versa, that slower sections carry more weight? Such "musical" Bernoulli evocations do make some sense....) Nonetheless, this trio — which might be compared to e.g. Kaufmann-Gratkowski-De Joode in its ongoing connection — seems to exemplify a significant facet of the Barcelona improvisatory scene. (Besides, perhaps incongruously, these releases from Poland, Discordian Records is another good place to explore Barcelona style. They have a large Bandcamp site: Cirera appears on at least five albums there, Prats two & Fernández seven.) Fernández is obviously central to this scene, as well as to this trio, and Plays Bernoulli is a compelling album, nearly an hour long in three extended tracks. It captures attention immediately with a mysterious piano chord that also seems to mark a sense of urgency, promptly joined by breezy sax & exotic percussion. Much of the album involves more conventional pianism, with the same chord returning in quiet moments in the (longest) first track, but there is also manipulation of the interior (including rubbed strings etc.) blending with percussion. Moreover, there are sounds of transit, explicitly jazzy passages, (briefly) static textures, as well as both relatively simple juxtapositions & complex extended runs. So the interaction is sophisticated & far-ranging, and can be rather raucous: By the end, after slowly building from the longest section of extended technique (quietly opening the third track), the pounding cacophony is quite evocative of a traditional vein of free jazz, and the audience's applause confirms the energy in the room. In short, there are many appealing combinations to enjoy, particularly as Fernández sounds that much more assured in the wake of his 60th birthday events. Plays Bernoulli is oriented more on piano (or any single instrument) than I might prefer, although the sax does occupy the lead in the (shortest) second track, but projects such a broad sense of development & mastery that it will surely appeal relatively widely. (It can also be heard on the Fundacja Sluchaj Bandcamp page.) It's the overall tapestry that stands out, particularly on the opening track, despite that the piano generally remains centered — not so unlike Celebration Ensemble with its larger forces.

Also recently from Fundacja Sluchaj, I want to note Ultra by Joe Morris & Agustí Fernández & a string trio (Tanya Kalmanowitch, Yasmine Azaiez & Junko Fujiwara). In this case, Ultra was recorded back in 2011, and Morris had to be encouraged by Fernández to release it. The former had wanted to pair bowed strings with guitar — and had done so with the quartet on Camera, recorded in 2010 & mentioned here in 2011, pairing guitar with two bowed strings (including Fujiwara) & drums — such that those combinations apparently remained on his mind. (Ultra was also recorded three days after From the Discrete to the Particular, a relatively popular album with Morris & Fernández joined by Nate Wooley, and discussed here in December 2012.) Morris had begun his ideas for such an ensemble by composing the music (& including horns), but Ultra was (ultimately) improvised: His concerns had revolved around making sure that the guitar was audible, and balance does remain an issue on Ultra. However, the piano is generally quite audible — the piano quartet is a classical format, after all — and so sculpts & buoys a rather busy interaction of "squeaking doors," pizzicato, harmonics, and ultimately some more minimal playing. Indeed, the opening is amazing, and most of the striking moments come early in the program, as the quintet seems to run out of steam as it goes along, eventually ending in some tuneful moments. I've regularly been taken with ensembles featuring multiple bowed strings, as a quick survey of recent entries here will indicate, and they usually include another instrument (or two), so Ultra fits the mold: Some other albums of note are Chant with its four strings joined by marimba, as well as its generally quieter & smoother texture, The Afterlife of Trees (discussed here in December) with its (in this case) rather minimalist piano quartet interaction, and even Colophony for its tight ensemble of similarly jagged interactions around pizzicato, etc. So whereas Ultra might fail in terms of economy of forces, and not meet Morris's original vision showcasing guitar, it does make some striking contributions to a relatively new & evolving ensemble genre, particularly via its strong sense of rhythm. I guess Morris gave up on ensembles such as this, at least for a few years....

As I prepare to discuss a handful of new releases, beginning to appear again after the year end lull, including a few items actually dated 2018, I want to revisit the "albums of the year" entry from last month: As my remark regarding 2012 already suggested, I didn't really go back & spend time evaluating a choice. I went more on memory & "impressions," and indeed was in something of a rush to provide something tangible (or even juicy) for readers at the head of this new page. Anyway, having subsequently taken some (renewed) time with my favorites from 2012, I realize that I should have listed Yad: Although it's not necessarily as available as some items, and perhaps there's been some "water under the bridge" between me & Jeff Shurdut, Yad is the album from 2012 — among (of course) multiple excellent choices — that I'm finding most compelling here in 2018. (I guess it was a natural outcome, i.e. that I'd reach my limit & go a little past, in terms of what I wanted to relate, and end up overstepping on a choice. And then I'd revise. Perhaps I should also note that the list of yearly favorites wouldn't be identical to a hypothetical "top whatever" list of favorites in general, which — as readers might expect, given my priorities — would be weighted toward recent issues, and likely far more volatile.) I did end up working a bit with Jeff on some projects after that release, a concert & an interview in particular, and sometimes we saw eye to eye, and sometimes we didn't. I know Jeff didn't like the interview result. Honestly, I didn't enjoy the process either: I felt as though we weren't being genuine enough, and I don't really understand Jeff's attitude about... his reputation, I guess it is... so in that sense, it's a matter for him & not me. Jeff basically seemed to want to present himself as a larger than life figure, and for me, that belied his musical strengths, which I take to be more immanent, more participatory & inviting. He's got that "everyday" vibe (in a positive sense such that I find his music to be "useful") to what he's doing, with a variety of sounds from the (usually urban, but also indoor) landscape, including his wonderful idea to tune to environmental resonances. I (still) find the resulting style compelling, so for me, being frank about the whole process made plenty of sense. Anyway, I don't know, maybe this isn't what I (or likely readers) had in mind when I suggested writing new entries about old favorites.... Yad actually involves one of the larger ensembles on the list, an octet, and making the various layers & divergent personal styles come together in a single tapestry is one of Jeff's strengths: That Yad can be both quite dissonant & quite tuneful, often simultaneously, is something I associate with both Jeff & this album (which, incidentally, was recorded at DMG, perhaps marking a particular era). Yad takes in broad territories, via a wide palette of sounds & evocations — powerfully so amid an ongoing drive toward constant newness (reinflected, perhaps, with a traditional tune). It's a great album, and if anything, the followups (& Jeff has a huge prior, exploratory discography as well) are even less available, meaning it continues to stand out after six years: It continues to be a model for me of musical interaction at this scale. And now I've explicitly said so (again).

Although there are still some releases from 2017 awaiting discussion here (and perhaps more that I have yet to hear), 2018 releases are underway with Stomiidae by a trio of Daniel Levin, Chris Pitsiokos & Brandon Seabrook. Stomiidae (recorded over two days in April 2016) refers to a family of deep sea ray-finned fish, and the seven short tracks name various genuses & species in the family, so at least the title seems congruent with many of the earlier Dark Tree releases, which mostly revolved around naturalism & human-environmental figurations. These were by French performers, though, and so this trio is something of a departure — although incongruously, Dark Tree has most recently released a couple of free sessions from 1970s Los Angeles! — as is the music, which despite the titles, seems rather more abstract than it does naturalist. (Perhaps the music's basic aggression, which seems to fade somehow with exposure, is reminiscent of at least the look of these fish.) Anyway, Levin has been something of a fixture here since early in this project, and Stomiidae marks another improvised project for him, following New Artifacts (another two "strings" & horn trio) & others with Mat Maneri: His style continues to develop, particularly in these improvised settings, perhaps most decisively on the solo album Living (recorded August 2015, like New Artifacts, and discussed here in September). Pitsiokos has also appeared here on multiple occasions, most recently with Nate Wooley's enigmatic Knknighgh (in August) — and Wooley was also a fixture in the Daniel Levin Quartet (which has mostly featured composed music). Seabrook actually appeared here way back in 2012, in rather different music, and then most recently — underscoring these various cross-connections — on Pitsiokos's Before the Heat Death (with Weasel Walter & Tim Dahl, discussed last February). With the cello, the instrumentation of this trio is distinctive, although with bass instead, it would be rather classic — from the first Jimmy Giuffre Trio to e.g. You Haven't Heard This from last year. (Or with viola, as one might consider the cello as "between" viola & bass, a comparison would be e.g. Hunt at the Brook. Note, moreover, that the Daniel Levin Quartet had differentiated cello strongly from bass, with the former as a clear front line instrument, so perhaps this latter comparison is more apt.) That said, Stomiidae is indeed a raucous album at times, with various extended techniques, but often slows too... there is sometimes a shadowy melodic sense amid the motion, but at other times, there is traffic or screaming, albeit transformed. (I do have an issue with the recorded sound at times, which is closely mic'd & can lack definition or become muddy, although the three instruments — all in different families — are usually clearly audible.) It generally features quick exchanges, with multiple lines articulated at once from short figures, and so many novel timbral combinations — making for a great start to 2018. I understand that the trio intends to continue performing, and so I look forward to what they do next. This project appears to have great potential, featuring three distinctive & maturing voices from the NY-area improvising scene.

Rather tangentially, although given the (near) overlap above, I do also want to note Weasel Walter's new quartet album Throes are the Only Trouble (on his Bandcamp site): Walter is joined by Michael Foster (saxes), Steve Swell (trombone), & Brandon Lopez (bass). Of course, Swell participates in many quality projects. Lopez seems to have really burst onto the scene — including recently with his own quartet album, The Industry of Entropy on Relative Pitch. Foster appeared with Walter (& Lopez) on Igneity, and also on While We Still Have Bodies (discussed in November). Throes are the Only Trouble is a rather traditional album for Walter, using a classic "free jazz quartet" format (albeit with trombone rather than trumpet), which might be why it's kind of under the radar. There is a distinctive collective sense of rhythm, however, sometimes moving at multiple different paces: Perhaps such "throes" are worked through, however, as the quartet moves more into "slow" (yet busy) rumbling waves (not so unlike Lopez's quartet) by the end. So it shows something of a "coming together" style. Further, although it's a duo, I also want to note Walter's new album with Sandy Ewen, Idiomatic, which is much more probing (including in slow sections) than the trio's (with Damon Smith) recent Live in Texas (discussed here in November 2016) in terms of following the revelatory (and generally very fast) Ewen / Smith / Walter. Anyway, it will be interesting to see where Walter goes from here, as his absence from album production seems to have been short lived after announcing the closure of UgExplode.

In November, I took the plunge to discuss a couple of recent FMR releases by Udo Schindler, and whereas there was much to appreciate, they involved tracks recorded in different months, different performers participating track to track, etc... basically they seemed more like compilations than "real albums," in whatever subjective sense that might be meaningful. Apparently I could have waited only a little while longer for the yet more recent Sound Energy Transformation, as Schindler continues to release albums at quite a pace. Sound Energy Transformation was recorded in Munich in July 2016 by a group called "TrioSET" (their initials) consisting of Udo Schindler (clarinets, soprano sax, euphonium), Korhan Erel (b. Turkey; computer, controllers) & Sebi Tramontana (trombone). Tramontana had performed with Schindler on Hell dunkel, and here instead of horn players employing electronics alongside their instruments, as on that album, the two horns are joined specifically by Erel to handle this dimension. (Schindler's release pace is not confined to FMR either: He has another new album, a duo with Erel, Leben | Nebel on Creative Sources, recorded a day later & mentioned in the info from FMR.) At times, the resulting sound combinations might be compared to the recent Trialectics (albeit including string bass there) or the post-processed horn trio of World of Objects, but as with the previous albums featuring Schindler, there is a rather different mood: Even the most bizarre or seemingly aggressive extended techniques retain such a sense of calm precision that there is clear sonic beauty evoked — even when e.g. blowing a clarinet through its finger holes. Such clarity of tone combines with a clarity of gesture to give the ten short tracks rather different characters, and not generally (overly, overtly) serious characters either. Although I prefer e.g. the opening, where the intricate technical counterpoint even reminds me a bit of, say, Milton Babbitt, there are others in which forms are more open or tonal (and presumably much easier for the listener) — all of this being encapsulated in the notion of "bagatelle" that subtitles the album. (Beethoven's Für Elise is likely the best known "bagatelle.") There is thus almost a lightness projected by what is often rather novel music. Textures are usually not very thick, yet transformation (as per the title) is nearly constant, as each bagatelle (or gesture) proceeds in some clear yet seemingly arbitrary (musical) direction. Some are far more animated than others, while some are more intricate or instead involve broader temporal figures, making for a great deal of sonic variety on the album overall. The result is also something of an electronic interrogation (by Erel) of horn sound, both brass (including euphonium) & (less ubiquitously) reed (& even uncredited, voice), and so might be compared to e.g. Growing carrots... which involves something similar (performed by Wade Matthews) with or for a violin family duo: The latter is rather more piercing (at least at times), and involves a lot more sustained — even gritty — tone from the strings, plus needn't rely on electronics so much e.g. for pitch bending. In other words, Schindler does not have a "dirty" sound in the sense that early improvisers with electronics (many subsequently going into rock music) would understand the term, although there is sometimes "noise" per se: At least after the somewhat startling percussive opening, he & his companions generally maintain a sense of beauty & precision across a wide timbral spectrum. (Timbral transformation proceeds as far as low brass into chimes.) Sometimes they come off almost as mad scientists (or kindly professors) demonstrating tricks — again per the bagatelle notion. Perhaps this suggests or provides the welcoming sense to Sound Energy Transformation, as there is undoubtedly a distinctive warmth injected into these highly technical concerns by Schindler et al. (Transformation of sound & energy per se is undoubtedly a big part of that too.) What they have ready to demonstrate does seem to have run its course by the time the album ends, so I guess we'll have to wait to learn what they cook up next.

Although it was recorded by a trio of English improvisers — Steve Noble (b.1960), Adrian Northover & Daniel Thompson — live last year in London, Ag is a (late 2017) release on Creative Sources: This is not the first English album to appear on Creative Sources, much as there have been recent Portuguese albums on FMR, but it does seem more directly related to some other English releases than much of what appears on Creative Sources (the variety of which I shouldn't understate). Of course, the album is still welcome, including as a sort of international musical exchange, even before it gets exchanged across the globe as an art object... and I'm finding much to enjoy. Only back in May, writing around the sax trio album PEN (and I intend to return to those comments again in a few entries), I noted that I wouldn't be able to differentiate Noble stylistically from other English drummers. The situation has changed rapidly! I elected not to discuss it at the time, but I started to take notice of Noble's music with the Aural Terrains release Home (recorded in April & July 2016), a duo with Yoni Silver on bass clarinet: This is a particularly richly detailed duo of fascinating extended techniques, and both musicians make a strong impression. (Perhaps this is the time to wonder why Ag is named Ag? I don't know why it should be in reference to Silver, but.... The packaging itself is in black & white & gray, whatever that might mean.) Anyway, I've since learned that, among other things, Noble studied percussion with "a Nigerian master" (Elkan Ogunde, with whom I'm not otherwise familiar), and such an influence does show here — although I wouldn't necessarily distinguish West African styles by nationality myself (as might otherwise be implied). I recently mentioned both Northover & Thompson around Runcible Quintet: Five, and something of a similar style of interaction — albeit more austere with a trio — maintains here. (I still very much enjoy both the way the quintet handles a five-way interaction, and the quick & varied musical combinations that result.) Here Thompson is once again on acoustic guitar, while Northover adds alto sax to soprano. I should again note Thompson's prior participation on the acoustic trio album Hunt at the Brook, another original & densely motivic conversation, itself a followup to Compost (with Alex Ward, recorded in 2012). Whereas those albums present obvious precedents for the musicians, other favorites in the horn-guitar-drums genre, despite some clear differences (including electric guitar), present some remarkably similar dynamics: Longtime favorite Pool School (emphasizing tenor sax) is much more rhetorical & so reposed, often with at least hints of melody; more recent release (also on FMR, as were the previous albums mentioned) Tipple Live at Elastic Arts begins in a remarkably similar mood, with "boiling teapots" horn & austere percussion (there, vibes), although it subsequently takes on more of a rock mood, and becomes far louder around the electric guitar. Yet somehow the latter retains something of a ritual feel, and indeed Ag projects a rather strong sense of ritual throughout — sometimes eerie, sometimes austere, sometimes noisier. Although the individual sounds remain fairly clear — although not always (is that another daxophone?) — there is a wide range of timbre, from high resonant lines of flight to slow, bent metal & scraping strings. Evocations of African rhythm emerge at various points, although the strongly energetic performance usually enfolds them, such that the resulting sense of restraint only seems to amplify power & tension. Carefully crafted articulations seem to gain in gravity as (even the faster) figures (seem to) move across the crisply recorded sound stage: There is a consequent feeling not only of ritual, but of broad respect, of opening to the world of exchange & articulation. There are moments when the sax comes off almost melodically & even (briefly) dominates the texture, but Ag generally seems to be a drummer's album, with wonderfully varied accents & dialog from sax & guitar articulating the overall flow: Escaping, squealing lines (even cackling calls) against a pulsating, rattling, earthy background only seem to invoke a further sense of gravity within the proceedings. As does Home, Ag thus offers quite a polished (yet thoroughly improvisational) presentation.

I should also make a (brief) note of the recent (from the same batch as Sound Energy Transformation) FMR release The Dinner Party, featuring Northover with pianist Vladimir Miller (who has been around for a few decades it seems) & bassist Pierpaolo Martino, and also recorded (this time in Italy) in June 2017 — in fact the day after Ag. I like the ominous opening, but the trio quickly involve more conventional musical notions, including the tender piano of 1980s jazz. Still, there are some creaking doors opening from within the general romantic mood of the eight tracks, and I should probably be better able to enjoy something... optimistic, I guess it is... such as this.

Given the labels mentioned in this entry, and particularly on the heels of my list of favorites for 2017, which involved the smallest set of record labels yet, I also have to wonder if I've gotten into something of a rut with labels (& so sources): I mused on this issue just last December, and resolved to continue seeking items from less prolific labels. I still feel that way, but at least right now, labels such as FMR & especially Creative Sources have been releasing a lot of albums that I've found enjoyable and/or thought provoking. And it seems crazy to start ignoring sources that I've been particularly enjoying! (So there are already other items from those labels in my writing queue. I'm an obsessive self-auditor, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know what to do about it.) We'll see what happens here as things proceed.... Perhaps something else entirely will catch my ear soon. In any case, I should probably stop making these public apologies, since they're boring.

Ag is certainly a short, enigmatic title, and so is Sîn: The circumflex is curious, but might be an evocation of the almost obsessive attention to detail that dominates the musical interaction itself. The history of Sîn is, at least in some sense, more straightforward: The same quartet of viola, alto sax, trumpet & double bass had already appeared on Nor (recorded in May 2014, and featured here in April 2015). And Ernesto Rodrigues had already turned to different — & less frequent — collaborators on the same instruments for New Dynamics, which does indeed feature a different dynamic around the two-horn & two-string acoustic quartet. (I continue to appreciate New Dynamics quite a bit, but that "sprinkler" cover graphic is among my least favorite on the label.) Whereas Nor was a studio album recorded in one day in Berlin, and New Dynamics was recorded live in Lisbon, Sîn was recorded over two days in a studio (again in Berlin). There are no track breaks, so it's unclear what might have happened on different days, but there are also various pauses in the music that might have been marked by track breaks on other productions. Sîn also differs in that it was recorded by Frangenheim & mixed by Rodrigues — which is typical enough — but then mastered by André Hencleeday (who has participated in various other Rodrigues projects). Perhaps such a rethinking of the audio itself, if indeed it did involve rethinking, accounts for the relative delay in the release as well: Whereas many recordings appear a year or two after they were made, that's less often the case with Rodrigues, who often releases albums only a few months after a recording session, and in fact for context, I was discussing New Dynamics in this space three days after Sîn was recorded. (And for more context, although Nor is a recent album in many ways, there have been over two hundred Creative Sources releases in the interim.) Anyway, the result is such that whereas Nor can be maddeningly quiet, and (much like the first thirty seconds or so of K'Ampokol Che K'Aay) Sîn presents that way for a moment too, it ultimately has a lot more presence: In fact, at one point, it's so loud that it becomes frightening. There is quite a dynamic range, but one can hear everything clearly with attention — which is much more satisfying for me. Where things start to seem a little strange again, however, is that — in spite of passages that can become overwhelming — Sîn is also easy to ignore as background music. Full stop. So how is this situation possible? Perhaps another consequence of the relative lateness of this release is that, much to my surprise, it was already in "cddb" when I went to put a copy on my portable computer (since I move around the area, by public transit, on a regular basis): This was an unusual situation, as very few of these albums are to be found in that database, at least not as soon as I usually audition them. There is another aspect to this, though, and that's that the genre was listed as "ambient." .... As long as I'm discussing computers anyway, then, I have to be specific about my fraught relation to ambient music: I cannot think about it without thinking of the Microsoft system sounds (which were composed by Brian Eno, for anyone who might not know) — and the Microsoft sounds make me angry, because interacting with Microsoft & its noxious products has made me very angry over the years. (I was involved with the DIY culture around computers since before Microsoft, then in the guise of "DOS," and via their contract with IBM, took over the consumer & small business market. I generally prefer BSD myself, although I'm typing this on a very spartan Ubuntu portable. Anyway....) So this history is truly a barrier for me in terms of thinking worthwhile thoughts on the topic, since my reaction is quite visceral. (The startup sound for Microsoft Windows feels like a punch in the face.) That said, I have more or less just described the fundamental goal of ambient music, i.e. to occupy as much of one's attention as one wants to provide, and to be easy to ignore otherwise. So that label does appear to be apt, at least partially.                                                           However, Eno has also strongly associated ambient music with computers & studio post-production. And whereas I do insist that one consider the act of recording, mixing etc. already to yield an electroacoustic result, and I have no idea what might have occurred over the two days of recording Sîn, let alone subsequent mixing etc., this is still an acoustic album — in the conventional sense that it records traditional acoustic instruments: The techniques aren't even terribly extended.                 (One can also listen to the Portuguese half of this quartet explore some similar ideas in the company of two other players on electronics on Skiagraphía, an album recorded a month later in Moscow.) And whereas Sîn wasn't recorded live, such a situation is not unusual for these same performers when creating similar music. So one thus has a basically acoustic, improvised music that "functions" at a variety of attention levels, and moreover, can do so potently. What of the instrumentation then? As did these preceding quartets from Rodrigues, one might even note that Sîn employs three quarters of a classic "free jazz" quartet — with viola replacing drums. The result is a double pairing of horns & strings, although to the extent that the quartet breaks into pairs (i.e. not much), it's more the Lisbon pair & the Berlin pair. And there is consequently more of an orchestral, or a particular (differently immanent) version of orchestral, feel to the proceedings. In fact, Sîn is quite a journey: Despite being under an hour, it feels like a very long album, and I mean that in the best sense: After one already feels as though so much has happened that it's hard to remember the beginning, there is still much more to come. The same phenomenon exists at partial attention as well, with various episodes perhaps standing out across what sometimes seem like lengthy intervals. (It can be very productive background music in that sense.) There are what I might call chordal streams involved in the various — sometimes seemingly independent — gestures that both fill & are spaced through/by the exposition.                               There are likewise subtle evocations of various world scenes amid what is often a strong contrapuntal orientation (which would also describe K'Ampokol Che K'Aay, as would feelings of lengthiness, coming from what is otherwise a rather different album). That such counterpoint can move seamlessly at different speeds (temporalities), yet engulfed by the sense of "streaming" providing modulation of harmonic content per se, further demonstrates the depth & talent these musicians bring to such densely motivic improvisation (even, or especially, as density per se can sometimes ease).             The effect suggests the experience of a contrapuntal "machine" from different angles, including from inside, from outside, and from different times & time scales. As the austere title might already suggest, Sîn comes off quite seriously, and so not with the tacit frivolity of e.g. a bagatelle (per an entry last week), but in a wide ranging & potent realignment of affect — or rather, such potential realignment is what attention can or will drive. (One might even label the outcome theological, including in its interrogation of unity & difference.)       So Sîn makes a strong start to 2018 releases, already forcing me to relate differently.

Returning to the most recent batch of releases from FMR (marked as 2017, but seemingly not available anywhere until January), there are a couple of horn trios that I want to note: These are both "conventional" horn trios in terms of a reed with double bass & drums, such that the horn generally functions as the lead, as separate from a rhythm team that might blend a bit more. New World features Simon Rose — who had not (yet) made much of an impression on me, although I had heard him e.g. on CRAM Records — on baritone sax (& occasionally alto, which he seems to have played more in the past) with Jan Roder & Willi Kellers. This is a rather substantial album, nearly an hour long, and recorded in Berlin (on unspecified dates) in 2016. Roder had been featured in this space last year with Happy Jazz, a trio album with Rudi Mahall & Olaf Rupp (who also mixed New World) — and one featuring similar techniques & interactions, but with a generally slower pace of exposition. (Kellers I've mentioned with Grid Mesh & elsewhere, already in 2014 & 2015.) Track titles refer to Joseph Conrad, and indeed there is something of an exotic journey here, including evocations of Africa, perhaps most explicitly with the thumb piano (as played by Kellers, who employs a wide range of acoustic sounding bodies, including wood on wood). New World makes a strong impression not only with its variety of sounds & techniques, but with its aggressive, driving momentum, encompassing various escaping resonances together with frequently changing ostinati (e.g. on thumb piano). There is often a raw quality, and although it was described as "eerie, haunting and unsettling" by Bruce Gallanter, there's an aggressive quality that can even become loud. Dedicated readers might know that I have yet to manage real appreciation for baritone sax albums, but New World is compelling, and uses bari to great effect within its restrictive (trio) context: The wide grain of the sax tone almost becomes a rhythmic element, particularly as transformed by the superbly creative rhythm team, and different registers are handled with sophistication. The result is sometimes a grinding dissonance, particularly when the horn is closely intertwining the bass, but often involves a more straightforward interaction, such as the conventionally alto-dominated track #5 opening with a noisy bass solo. (One might compare to the recent After Effects featuring Danny Kamins on bari, another long album, also on FMR, there with two drummers & bass: The quartet seems more reactive, and less insistent on a particular vision, reacting so much as it does to Alvin Fielder on drums, and across four generations of musical experience. There's also generally less happening at any one time, intricacy largely yielding to a rough-hewn solidity.) By its conclusion, New World feels as though we've been to & through so many places — particularly rhythmically — that after the gamelan-esque close (evoking a bit of e.g. Drought, as it already had in some other slow passages, even as those were enfolded in the unstoppable momentum of the album), there's a palpable sense of "What's next?" hanging in the air. (One might likewise compare some of the resulting sonorities to those of Tipple Live at Elastic Arts, particularly when involving higher pitches. The atmosphere also recalls Sens radiants at times, an album discussed here in 2014, with Daunik Lazro on baritone — in another journey, but oriented more through South America than Africa.) New World has really grown on me: Besides some revelatory moments from Rose, who is certainly on my radar now, it showcases Kellers' versatility to fine effect. In many ways, the latter animates the album.

A sense of "conventional horn trio" can be extended, such that even if one requires drums & acoustic bass, I've featured (by way of ongoing favorites) a trumpet trio in HNH, a vocal-clarinet trio in Light air still gets dark, and even more conventionally (at least superficially), a sax trio in The Apophonics On Air. Whereas I recently shared some ongoing thoughts on sax trios in general (around PEN, also in May), and so included Apophonics On Air (with its very non-traditional percussion blending with Butcher's explorations of saxophone physics), in some ways, the mood of the trumpet trio on HNH (although partly composed) might be more akin to that on New World, even if the registers (& so roles) are more clearly segmented. The voice, likewise, particularly as Duthoit switches regularly to clarinet — or one might say forges vocal continuity with clarinet — functions in many ways like a horn, and indeed Light air still gets dark is also particularly segmented as regards roles within its trio.... After that little reminder, as much for myself as for others, let me turn to the other FMR release I wanted to highlight this month: Intention by the Peter Kuhn Trio is a "clarinet trio" with Kyle Motl (bass) & Nathan Hubbard (drums). Kuhn made something of a triumphant return to music a few years ago, after "finding himself" via Buddhism, and I actually listened to the rather classically (i.e. 1970s) inspired "free blowing" quartet album Our Earth / Our World (with regular Kuhn collaborator Dave Sewelson, again on bari, joined by fixture Gerald Cleaver) at the time. Kuhn followed that with what he's calling his first leader album in over thirty years, The Other Shore on No Business (also recorded in San Diego, in 2015), a prior album by the same trio as that to be found on Intention. (There is another FMR release featuring Kuhn from this batch, again with Sewelson, this time in a quintet, Dependent Origination. It is likewise inspired by Buddhist concepts.) I had actually encountered Motl, also living & working in San Diego, in a series of December reviews on the Free Jazz Blog, and found his bass style (which one can audition on his Bandcamp site) to be intriguing — hence partly prompting me to hear this trio. (I believe that I've heard Hubbard before too, but am not placing where.) Intention was recorded in San Diego last March, and is another substantial album: Despite the personal inspiration involved, it's quite a tour de force of clarinet technique in general, and the "conventional" trio format supports the horn very well in that. The three-way opening is already original, quickly moving into something of a sly melody — and indeed Kuhn has quite a command of tone on both clarinet & bass clarinet, often with a "cool" vibe — with the album later involving the sort of sheering (contrary) counterpoint that I associate with the early fifteenth century. (Not that there is an "early" vibe overall.) There are also some extended techniques, particularly notable on the bass, and so sometimes a bit of a squawky character that nonetheless fits within the overall rhetorical orientation. Mostly it's rather tonal, yet in a sophisticated idiom. (One might compare to e.g. 3 on a Thin Line, featuring Harold Rubin on clarinet, another engaging album, although more rough & variable in its live setting.) There are many enjoyable moments on Intention, which seems to involve another level of confidence & command from Kuhn: It's a particularly coherent "statement" album, I would say. It's likewise clearly a horn trio album — with the clarinet in the leader role, and generally rather separately audible. FMR continues to impress with these well-chosen horn trio releases, presumably from among many options: If someone wants to listen to a creative & representative bari sax or clarinet trio doing "free jazz" improvisation here in 2018, New World & Intention would both seem to be excellent choices.

As long as I'm discussing horn trios, let me also make a note of Moons of Saturn by Frode Gjerstad (on a variety of horns) & "The Cosmic Brotherhood" of Itzam Cano (bass) & Gabriel Lauber (drums): It was recorded in León, Mexico in May, and appeared for sale at DMG recently. The obvious precedent is Rhapsody of the Oppressed (discussed here in April 2016), on which the late Marco Eneidi leads the same Mexican rhythm team. I actually found the (smooth) horn to be the least interesting feature of that album, and working with Gjerstad instead is immediately & appealingly reminiscent of his various world travels & consequently other albums with musicians outside of Europe & the United States (such as Give and Take from Argentina — also on FMR, as per above). Although it employs a very common ensemble, there's a sense of excitement throughout, and even an ongoing sense of resistance & experimentation, i.e. inventing new forms of life within the most well-worn of formats: A typical "free" mode of expression moves into various extended techniques as the album continues (although as readers will know, I'm not generally fond of space themes), including into solos. The Cosmic Brotherhood continues to develop their own personal style on Moons of Saturn. Mexico is a big country, however, so surely there is much more to be heard there.

Continuing the horn trio theme, let me go on to mention trombonist Samuel Blaser's new album Taktlos Zürich 2017, which indeed happens to be a trio (although not a traditional one): Blaser has continued his partnership with guitarist Marc Ducret from their quartet days (which produced albums Boundless, recorded in 2010 & As The Sea, recorded in 2011), and the two are joined here by Danish drummer Peter Bruun (with whom I was not familiar). Of course, Blaser has appeared in this space since his (& my) early days, due to my interest in trombone (& its theoretically infinite pitch divisions). I happened to mention Blaser again last year around an Ars Subtilior disc (due to his A Mirror to Machaut), but his last leader album was Spring Rain (discussed here in 2015), this time applying an "early music" approach to twentieth century jazz. I also mentioned Blaser (also in 2015) as part of the sextet on Ducret's album Métatonal, and indeed although Blaser is generally in the leadership position on Taktlos Zürich 2017, as far as the way the trio is arrayed in practice, most of the compositional material is from Ducret (with even a short piece by Stravinsky). The notes say that this trio has played over a hundred concerts together, although it's unclear why they chose to release this particular concert as an album. As on the quartet albums, track markings sometimes seem to be arbitrary, as the trio — which is often conceptually a duo, with the co-leaders subsequently mediated by drums — spontaneously introduce new compositional material (although here there are full stops, with applause, after the second & third tracks). Blaser's technique remains impressive, with multiphonic playing set against funky guitar — legato against fractured chords. (Per the references of the previous entry, one might also recall Grid Mesh for timbres of the trombone & guitar combination.) There is more pure lyricism here than on most albums I mention, particularly in the slower moments. (Overall, the album does not seem especially coherent, though... a work in progress.)

Likewise featuring trombone is Somewhere in the Upstream, recently released on Clean Feed by the Michael Dessen Trio, and recorded in 2016: This is composed music (by Dessen) dedicated to Yusef Lateef (1920-2013). As per the previous entry, this is a conventional horn trio, with clear segmentation of roles, although bassist Chris Tordini & drummer Dan Weiss do also have distinctive personal styles on display, and Dessen handles the electronics. Not only do trombone lines sometimes extend or deconstruct into electronic tones — in something of the manner of George Lewis — but the composition involves computer selection of material to be displayed for the performers. (Exactly what processes are involved is not stated, nor are they obvious to the ear.) Dessen sometimes evokes the blues in his trombone playing, and the entire production has good presence, particularly as it becomes more traditionally jazzy at times. This is actually Dessen's fourth trombone trio on Clean Feed, and third with Weiss. (I mentioned the previous two very briefly in 2014. The first was with Tyshawn Sorey — & also Tordini). It involves solos etc., in the traditional manner, albeit charged by computer selections & electronic deconstructions. It seems as though more could be done in this direction, but apparently Dessen wants to keep things grounded in "inside" styles. Somewhere in the Upstream is still an enjoyable album, mixing as it does some ensemble conservatism with contemporary electronic enhancements (and some fine individual playing).

Turning to some other recent releases from Creative Sources, specifically ensembles featuring bowed strings, Zweige presents a natural successor to Blattwerk, as discussed here in June. Indeed, Zweige was recorded (in Lisbon, last February) the day after Blattwerk, and augments the quintet of the latter (Harald Kimmig, Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues, Miguel Mira & Vasco Trilla) with Alvaro Rosso on bass, making for a string quintet (with two cellos) plus percussion. It even, likewise, features two similar length tracks. (Zweige also predates the Lisbon String Trio series, at least as documented so far, in which Ernesto Rodrigues & Mira are joined by Rosso, by a couple of weeks.) These combinations continue to fascinate, and not only does Zweige augment the quintet on Blattwerk, but it's mixed (by Carlos Santos) to have rather more presence: High end to low end to various quiet scrapings & subtle percussive rattles, it's all easier to hear. Describing Zweige as a "natural successor" was not merely a turn of phrase either, as naturalistic themes maintain — thus appearing to retain continuity with Kimmig's album Raw (on Leo, discussed here January 2017) — including those sometimes frustrating interrogations of audibility. (And I do further wish that these various words deriving from "nature" weren't already so fraught with other meanings, from nudism to anti-immigrant politics. That makes it difficult to be succinct, but the reference here is generally to biology & ecology.) Various origins & inspirations for sound blend, but continue to suggest trees & forests & their inhabitants, living & otherwise. (And I feel sheepish for not having understood the title on Blattwerk as an explicit reference in this regard. This is not the first time I've approached a compound German word via its two parts, rather than realizing that it was already a well-known term: I've come to anticipate neologisms, I guess, including, as in this case, inappropriately.) As a sequel from the next day, it's hard to say that Zweige breaks new ground, but I do find it easier to hear, and therefore appreciate — hence furthering exploration of these string-based ensembles: Some of the background creaking might even present as some sort of wind instrument, for instance, as all manner of subtle sounds are coaxed from the strings & rubbed percussion. (The notion of a flat tapestry, varying in waves, also continues to apply here, as the interaction never becomes terribly layered despite its shifts.) From later in the year, and so following the Lisbon String Trio series & others, is Synchronous Rotation, recorded at CreativeFest in Lisbon in November 2017, by a quartet of Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues, Gianna de Toni (double bass) & (again) Vasco Trilla. I was not familiar with de Toni, but she appears on a prior album on Creative Sources, Trees (recorded in May 2013) by a quintet including both Rodrigueses. So Synchronous Rotation forms an alternate "Lisbon String Trio" around Ernesto, bolstered once again by Trilla's imaginative percussion. It also continues the recent history of geometric cover art on Creative Sources, particularly around the String Theory series (as does, more as a hybrid, the very sparse Spiric Sections, recorded the following day, also at CreativeFest 11), and the music suggests a corresponding technical quality: Synchronous Rotation consists of one modest length (under thirty minute) track, and opens strongly, with rich counterpoint around what I might describe as post-serial thematics. It's much more forceful in its first half, evoking various string associations, but seems to become more subdued following a long, quiet interlude. (One might say that after some equivocation, minimalism decisively asserts itself, although its reign does not remain untroubled. There's even something of a spiritual, Scelsian vibe to the drone & rattle combination that arises toward the end, as distinct from the presumptively geometric evocations.) Trilla does seem more animated at times, so perhaps this is the start of him putting more of his personal vigor into these projects with Rodrigues. And perhaps the more "ethereal" results are generated as a consequence of the "rotation" (to which the title refers) — I'm not sure — but the album does fade to a close. I can't claim that either album truly distinguishes itself in the midst of Rodrigues's massive outpouring of recordings featuring himself with various other string players, but both Zweige & Synchronous Rotation present independent points of interest, documenting the ongoing development of Rodrigues's "string theory" more generally. (And the latter also includes a nice two-panel, full color photograph of the quartet in concert.) There is clearly more to explore here: I'd be keen on hearing some of the early, high energy passages of Synchronous Rotation elaborated in different directions, say. Given the pace of these releases, perhaps that's already in the works.

I haven't been featuring composed music here much, particularly not composed music that doesn't involve improvisation, but do want to mention Kyle Gann's Hyperchromatica "for three retuned, computer-driven pianos" (2015-17), recently released on a double album by Other Minds Records. I had mentioned Ben Johnston's microtonal string quartets as part of an aside in a September 2016 entry concerning Joëlle Léandre's Can you hear me?, and Gann (b.1955) was a student of Johnston (b.1926): Gann's three pianos are each tuned differently (together in "13-limit just intonation"), so as to provide thirty-three notes per octave, and then coordinated by computer control. (A few pieces in the set are written to be playable by human performers, but most are not.) The result is a fascinating exploration of these various interval shadings & consequent far-flung relations. The music itself is a bit "cheesy" I'd say — and Gann kind of acknowledges this at times in the discussion of each piece on his website — in that it often uses conventional formats & figurations, but in service of illustrating the potential of the tuning & setup. (And I've already shared my thoughts on "space" themes, so that aspect is probably less appealing to me than to most listeners.) It pursues this exploration remarkably well, and particularly as a (lengthy) set (of 17 pieces), one can hear much potential coming from this sort of tuning sophistication. It's not a matter of retuning every piece either (i.e. persistent novelty), but uses a particular fixed tuning for an array of pieces deriving from different musical styles. I believe that the potential should be readily discernible by most listeners too, meaning that this is not really arcana, although obviously the setup is eccentric (albeit practical). Moreover, Gann develops a distinctive approach to polytempo in some of these pieces too, particularly as tempi can interrelate with pitch ratios. (Denman Maroney's work with undertones is relevant on this topic, although also different.) Microtonal relationality remains a vast canvas, and Hyperchromatica is a sustained exploration of a particular subspace. (The penultimate track, "Liquid Mechanisms" is the individual piece that most catches my ear, for whatever it's worth, although it would likely sound too weird without the specific context of the full set.)

As long as I've mentioned Gann's Hyperchromatica, let me also mention a new recording of the complete string quartets of Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) by the Ars Combinatoria String Quartet — available from Erik Carlson's Bandcamp page. (There is no first quartet, which was withdrawn by Babbitt. This & more information can be found, including via the links to the individual quartets, on the Wikipedia page devoted to Babbitt.) These pieces, particularly the later quartets, are actually less approachable than Gann's work, and I've spent some time (off & on) listening to them since the recording appeared late last year. I'm having some difficulty learning them, but am nonetheless finding them engaging. This is some of the most sophisticated serial music ever written (super arrays & aggregates being two of the related concepts Babbitt uses to extend the tone row notion), and although many listeners would likely disagree (and I know for a fact that many do, since Babbitt's music has not been well received by the public, including within the classical music community itself — where I've witnessed much invective over the years), Babbitt has a real ear for music, including jazz. This music does not seem out of place next to e.g. some of the string music I've featured from Creative Sources. Like much of that music, each quartet comes off feeling very long & so as a world unto itself (as based on its unique constituting relations). Despite the comparison, there is nothing else quite like it, particularly with its haunting sense of familiarity. (Beethoven's Große Fuge sounds strongly at times through No. 2, for instance, although that's not noted by Wikipedia.)

Landlocked Beach is one of the most immediately striking albums I've heard in a while. It suggests a variety of intersecting things to say, but no particular order for saying them. For one, it's amazing that Ernesto Rodrigues continues to find so many distinctive albums — in this case, all the way from the Bay Area, where I live: And I've been woefully negligent about getting out to local concerts, so I haven't heard the Animals & Giraffes duo, despite that they have been artists in residence at the Center for New Music, where I am sometimes a member (that is, when I remember to renew). I can make a variety of excuses, I suppose, but the main issue is that it's about two hours each way for most concerts, sometimes more, and I've been so busy.... In some ways that sounds reasonable, and in others it sounds stupid: This album reminds me that I should be more involved locally. Anyway, Landlocked Beach was recorded in Berkeley in March 2017, apparently for a radio show on KPFA, and the performance even features callers! The core duo is poet & vocalist Claudia La Rocco with Philip Greenlief on tenor sax. I was not familiar with La Rocco, but she works, for instance, at the newly reopened MOMA in San Francisco (which was designed to feature more sound installations). Her voice is striking throughout what can only be described as a spoken word album: Most of what she says is very clearly articulated, in the way a professional might read ad copy. Occasionally she moves briefly into a different register, and there are some samples, rarely with some intentional distortion, but mostly La Rocco's voice is very clear & present — such that the whole album might even be characterized as an interrogation of presence. Greenlief is someone who revels in extended techniques & exploring physical space: His music here is mostly "corner cases" so to speak, some of it perhaps inspired by actual physical corners. It's drones & register shifts & timbre mutations, etc. — including some extended passages without voice, but most often (in dialog) in the background. Greenlief is presumably the connection to Creative Sources, as he already appeared on Sidereus Nuncius (recorded in Seattle in 2006) with Ernesto Rodrigues; he also worked with Pauline Oliveros, and e.g recorded That Overt Desire of Object with Joëlle Léandre (Oakland 2002). It's customary for Animals & Giraffes to have a guest and here it is Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker on electronics: Besides some occasional "musical" playing along with Greenlief, some of it serving to intensify the general atmosphere, Leidecker injects various samples & cuts. (His participation might be compared to e.g. the recent Kontakte Trio, although Greenlief keeps things more anchored in physically tonality.) In fact, I'm not sure how much of the speaking part is La Rocco actually repeating herself & how much is Leidecker. Either way, the result yields an eerie sense of time & repetition (perhaps not so different from a Rodrigues album like Cyclic Symmetry) across the one very long track. One of the most striking things about this trio, then, aside from the penetrating voice itself, is the very different contributions made by the three members — to the point of projecting an almost orchestral feel from such small forces. (This outcome thus suggests a real "proof of concept" regarding potency. Perhaps one might think of spanning three distinct sonic dimensions.) Overall, one might describe this spoken word album as being animated by a repertory of textual-vocal figures that are retriggered & modified, almost suggesting a fugue state at times. Later, this material is retriggered by random comments made by people calling on the phone. I'm not sure how well Landlocked Beach works for listening more than a few times, but it is definitely worth hearing at least those few times. I guess I'm a believer in spoken word albums now!

Although it's from a quintet called Dart Love, Escargot seems to center on percussionist Camille Émaille (b.1993, Nice, France). The rest of the band — and just looking at the album, I'd've been inclined to swap album & band names, but the previous sentence reflects how they're listed at Creative Sources — consists of previously unknown players Xavière Fertin (clarinets), Louis Freres (bass), Tom Malmendier (snare drum) & Timothée Quost (trumpet, no input mixer). I assume they're also young, and they use a variety of extended techniques: Indeed, as the inclusion of a performer specifically on snare drum (next to the more general percussionist) might already suggest, it's often difficult to know who is doing what. In fact, considering the variety on Émaille's solo album Bekkos, including plucked strings or mbira, even what sounds like a horn, etc., some of the thirteen tracks on Escargot might be solos. Others appear to be duos, trios, etc., such that — particularly combined with the wide range of sonorities involved — I'm reminded of the "exhibition quality" of percussionist Dre Hocevar's otherwise rather different ensemble album, Surface of Inscription (mentioned here in October). However, Escargot isn't so much about musical transformation as it is personal transformation, with its centered sense of place & deep sonic investigations. Bekkos & Escargot were both actually recorded in "the woods of Québec," in January & February 2017 respectively. (I'm reminded of some of the weirder productions on Tour de Bras, but I don't know what connections these musicians might actually have to Québec.) Émaille has not only studied Middle Eastern percussion (the influence of which would seem to be rather attenuated on these albums), but at Mills College with William Winant, Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell, et al. — which is perhaps why her albums do not seem like empty (musical) exercises, but rather (already) forge a real & novel sense of sonic connection. At times, the sonic environment reminds me of the breathy clanks of Nashaz, or even the more chime-like passages of Landlocked Beach, but although there is a sense of peace, there is also a raw quality to Escargot. Émaille even vocalizes on some tracks, in a style not unlike that of Joëlle Léandre (until — the unnamed? — track eleven anyway), or at least I assume that the vocals are hers. (One might also note a Scelsian spirituality to the music throughout, although Dart Love appear to be seeking even more depth of expression.) As noted, it's hard to know who is doing what much of the time, but beyond Émaille, I was struck by the percussive clarinet tonguing (with some help from others?) on track four, as well as the bass playing on track six (amid a rather brilliant ensemble combination in general). Although the sounds are often raw, shifting & noisy, there is also significant restraint, such that at brief moments (e.g. parts of tracks eight & thirteen) there is almost a sentimental mood. (The final track, the longest, also includes several minutes of silence or near silence, recalling e.g. the ending of Oblengths, although in this case, there is no audience & so no possibility of an "encore." I guess it's because of snails & winter....) Indeed, Escargot is quite an affective album, and Émaille sounds like a major ascending talent, particularly when it comes to improvising a wide range of affective relations across a variety of timbral combinations.

I've heard multiple albums by Israeli, New York-based tenor sax player Yoni Kretzmer, but have yet to mention any here: So I do want to note his new double album Months, weeks and days (recorded in May 2016), featuring Frantz Loriot, Christopher Hoffman, Josh Sinton, Pascal Niggenkemper & Flin van Hemmen in a sextet called New Dilemma. This is actually Kretzmer's second New Dilemma album, with the first (from 2009) being a quintet (minus the second horn) using otherwise different personnel. Obviously I was attracted by the personnel here, as on so many Kretzmer albums featuring these & other musicians, and e.g. Niggenkemper & Loriot do have impressive moments. (All but Kretzmer had been mentioned previously in this space.) Overall, although there are passages I enjoy, Months, weeks and days does not really speak to me, so perhaps I shouldn't have posted this note. That said, the combination of horn (& I'm not sure about the value of the second horn here) with string trio & drums is generally appealing, and in this case, results in some very dense music: There is quite a bit of freedom, although confined to tight spaces within a rather rigorously layered compositional framework. (A lot of the action is in cross relations, and much of the compositional planning seems to be about maintaining density.) I.e. this is not at all airy or spacious music, but a dense tapestry — some of the passages, particularly those e.g. evoking traffic, recall Jeff Shurdut, for instance with their urban sounds. (Sometimes, but no more often than these other evocations, it's rather classically jazzy. At other times, it feels almost organ-like via close harmonies, perhaps recalling Baloni.) I think the idea is basically to bring a "jazz horn" together with classical string harmonies, which has an appeal, but I'm still not getting a real message beyond individual expression in tight spaces. Months, weeks and days does feel like something of a landmark for the prolific Kretzmer, though, given its length & density.

I was wrapped up with another project, so it's taken a little longer to focus on Crane Cries, an improvised string quartet album from Creative Sources featuring Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues together with Elo Masing (b.1984, Estonia) & Dietrich Petzold (b.1954) on violins (& sometimes viola for the latter). I was not familiar with Masing, who has some compositions available online, but Petzold had appeared with the Rodrigueses already on Sacred Noise (a double album recorded in October 2016): That album generally features much smoother textures within a quieter, more often minimalist, vibe (with the second disc having been recorded in a church). Crane Cries, recorded in Berlin last October, is also a very long album (over seventy minutes), and considering that Petzold not only switches instruments (& he also plays a variety of instruments, beyond violin, on Sacred Noise), but recorded & mastered the album, this might be his project as "second violin." However, obviously Ernesto Rodrigues has been involved in an extensive series of improvising string projects — although not previously a classical string quartet per se, at least to my knowledge — and Masing seems to be making a significant debut here. (She also appeared on last year's recording of Cornelius Cardew's Treatise by a London improvising ensemble.) Although the variety & density of string figures & exchanges create a rather different feel from some of the smoother or otherwise more minimal albums from Rodrigues, such a style is not unprecedented: In some ways, Crane Cries seems like a continuation of the Lisbon String Trio series (from earlier in 2017), although there is no bass & the cellist is different too. Perhaps then it's more simply a continuation of the stream of various Rodrigues albums featuring multiple bowed strings in general.... (One might even compare to e.g. The Afterlife of Trees, discussed here in December, where the Rodrigueses join a different sort of Berlin string duo, also including violin, to form a quartet. The music there is rather less contrapuntal, however.) In any case, a turn to such a classic quartet configuration — albeit with Petzold sometimes switching to viola, and so doubling the middle ranges (as is so often the case on recent Rodrigues albums), even as the cello is here the low end instead of the middle (as it likewise has been so often for Rodrigues, and for that matter, various tenor-oriented counterpoints) — is surely notable. Regarding density (& e.g. the previous entry), it's also difficult to know exactly what was planned or understood prior to the performance, but the quartet does tend to keep to a typical twentieth century string quartet density throughout most tracks — and the departures are also seemingly intentional invocations of style. Whose crane idea was it? That's a tangible question (and perhaps Masing — yet another violinist to appear on a Rodrigues album — is the answer). And whoever it is, are the titles retrospective or was the theme planned? (Do the titles form a narrative?) I tend to think that each track indeed involves the sounds of living crane activity (i.e. is at least inspired by it), and so there must have been some planning or coordination. How much of the detail actually derives from cranes? Not all of it, obviously, since there are romantic harmonies & other traditional string figures. (There is no shortage of variety in this regard.) So perhaps this is something like Messiaen's bird pieces, which involve various supplements — not to mention his particular sensibility when transcribing into (Western) human notation — to the harmonic & rhythmic potential of the bird songs & sounds per se, in this case focusing on one species (or actually, at least according to the title, family). The result is technically sophisticated, including a variety of harmonics, pizzicato (which are especially amazing on track five), glissandi & other pitch bending. (And note that I've long explicitly enjoyed Messiaen's birdsong pieces, so this is not a novel musical influence for me. That said, Messiaen's bird music did not involve microtonality or so much timbral detail.) There's also something of a landscape feel, particularly in the epic second track, such that a sense of distance enters into what is often a rather immanent interaction: Whereas Crane Cries evokes the natural (zoological) world explicitly (& specifically), the landscape quality & general technique might be compared e.g. to Rodrigues work on Traintracks Roadsides Wastelands Debris — (another long album) explicitly dealing with "non-nature." Similarly, Chant, featuring a string quartet of its own (plus marimba), mixes a wide variety of twentieth century (classical) string techniques with a sort of vaguely natural or "world" quality. (So if anything, such a "polarity," i.e. between classical string interactions & in this case, animal sounds, is more stark on Crane Cries. And when those poles do coalesce, it's usually in the more minimalist mode of sound exploration.) Among recent Rodrigues albums, one of the most similar is obviously K'Ampokol Che K'Aay, despite the inclusion of the clarinet: The use of classical string figures & style of counterpoint, not to mention (once again) the naturalistic & postcolonial cosmopolitan vibe, suggests a similar interaction & sometimes mood. (Crane Cries, perhaps as inspired by actual cranes, is generally more languid, however, even romantic at times.) Whereas much of the album is active — and there is a good recorded presence — it's also (as already noted) sometimes more minimalist (perhaps as a further interrogation of classical styles), including within the landscape mode. In the end, perhaps the simplest summary is that many different sound events occur over the course of these eight tracks, some of them seemingly part of a concrete (naturalist) narrative, but also including plenty of "music" per se to occupy the listening mind more generally — frankly to the point of exhaustion on first hearing. So it's quite a meaty album, albeit not particularly abstract due to its specific zoological reference point. (And as far as continuing to feature so many Creative Sources releases, I continue to especially enjoy them.... I'd be happy to have more from others provoking thoughts in me too. Meanwhile, I have to discuss what actually calls, or cries, out to me.)

I was intrigued to see that Gino Robair & John Butcher had released another trio album, building upon their longtime (twenty+ years) duo, A Geography For Plays (on Robair's Rastascan Records) — particularly since The Apophonics On Air (on Butcher's Weight of Wax imprint), their trio with John Edwards, has been on my favorites list for a while now. A Geography For Plays is a somewhat longer album, but isn't actually a very recent recording, having been made in London in November 2014 — still more than two years after The Apophonics On Air, though. Whereas that earlier album is mostly acoustic, perhaps as exemplified by Edwards' participation, Robair does play "synth" as well (& I don't know exactly what, since that's all that's listed), but the newer album, with the duo joined by Dieter "Dieb13" Kovacic (b.1973) on turntables & computer, has a more specific electronic orientation: Butcher is also credited with "feedback" & besides the rather general "energized surfaces" (& this sometimes simply means "drums") & prepared piano, Robair plays something called a Blippoo Box. The latter is an electronic sound producer supposedly motivated by chaos theory — whereas a co-listener noted that it sometimes sounds like some of the weirder vocalizations from dogs. (This seems to be an apt observation to me, and so can be compared directly to impressions of a daxophone.) Of course, the participation of a "DJ" — & I don't know to what extent either Wobbly or Dieb13 embraces the term — also recalls the recently discussed Landlocked Beach, and there are some similar clicks & pops to go along with cuts, etc. (One might also compare to e.g. Primary Envelopment, a quartet album with an otherwise rather different feel, for the relatively modest "noise" factor.) At other moments (particularly track four), The Open Secret (the name of this trio with Dieb13) sounds almost like a conventional sax trio — more so than The Apophonics ever do, actually — with bass drones from the electronics, and fairly straightforward sax & percussion. So, perhaps because of the electronic emphasis (& enhanced novelty there), the trio actually ends up seeming more conventional overall on A Geography For Plays: Other tracks feature common evocations such as jungles, harbors (which I do enjoy) & outer space. It's a generally appealing album, but ends up being less thought provoking than I had anticipated. What are Robair & Butcher up to since? Presumably their collective sense of space, acoustics & resonance remains striking & creative....

When discussing Crane Cries a couple of weeks ago, and evocations of animal sounds in general, I was unaware that Fred Lonberg-Holm was in the process of releasing an album featuring actual (interactive) animal sounds, Bow Hard at the Frog: The latter (on Corbett vs. Dempsey) was recorded at night in the Florida Everglades in February 2016, and features amphibians (as credited participants, although not individually!) & insects (as rather constant background) "performing" along with Lonberg-Holm on his cello. Gustavo Matamoros is also credited with field recording, which may simply mean that he recorded the session (but then why credit it that way, unless it was his idea?), or perhaps that he adds some previously recorded samples too. (This is not explained in the very sparse documentation, but he does apparently move the microphones for the different tracks.) Lonberg-Holm (who is wearing mosquito netting in the photo) generally plays noisy, croaking cello, often in longer tones, sometimes closely mic'd — in a generally Scelsian idiom, one might say, sometimes quite dissonant. Frogs & toads respond(?) to this, as Lonberg-Holm responds to them. (Experiments with e.g. gamelan music have already suggested that even insects modulate their sounds according to the musical environment, although insect modulation is less obvious here, so "respond" is presumptively correct.) The "interactive" aspect is important, at least according to my own interests, and actual animal participation certainly suggests a different ethical position from the human evocation or representation of animal sounds on e.g. Crane Cries (along with so many other albums). However, as long as I'm thinking in that direction, notions of consent would appear to remain absent. So is this a trio? I would have to say that it's either more than a trio or less than a trio, but I suppose "trio" works as a sort of compromise. Is it all that interesting to hear? Honestly, no, although there are layers to the interaction, and it does often seek the foreground. (However, I also grew up on the edge of a swamp, so I've heard similar sounds many times.) But I'm intrigued by the general idea, and particularly with the prior context, wanted to note the project. In particular, that the human musician's participation is mediated by the animals, and (either as condition or consequence) away from traditional tonality, makes for a different trajectory than that more often undertaken.

As long as I'm turning in the direction of (more literal) environmental sounds, I'll also note Chantier 4 (on the Swarming label) by Pascal Battus (found objects), Bertrand Gauguet (alto sax) & Eric La Casa (microphones). As the numeral indicates, this is actually the fourth release (recorded across five sessions in 2013 & reduced to three tracks, suggesting substantial editing) in the series, which documents & interacts with the sounds of a Paris construction site. I hadn't heard any of the previous three, beginning with the first release on Another Timbre in 2012, nor anything else from these musicians, but decided to take the plunge here fairly randomly, and likewise before I heard Bow Hard at the Frog. Once again, it's (even more) unclear how La Casa's participation differs from an ordinary recording engineer, except that he moves around with the musicians, but the project is again a "trio" considering the construction noises involved. (There is even some interaction with construction workers, although they are told to get back to work rather than worry about the musicians. Nonetheless, the musicians react to them, so it's a partial or partially one-way interaction.) Indeed there is a lot of activity, as one might expect to arise from the (apparently) extensive editing (via jump cuts, etc.): There is sometimes speaking, as well as various background noises, sometimes becoming quite loud. There also tends to be a rather noticeable echo, which I don't personally associate with construction sites. (Once again, I have extensive formative experience in this sound world, having worked in the family construction business from childhood, but that didn't include big urban projects like this, so that's probably the difference — surrounding structures, larger spaces, etc.) The result is quite rich sonically, an "interpretation" of the experience, making the album itself into a construction site (per Battus, who also notes that the "construction site" per se vanishes as the building appears). One might even compare to e.g. Traintracks Roadsides Wastelands Debris — & a construction site is something of a "wasteland" at times, again speaking from experience — or similar (musical) evocations of industrial & city noise. Although human evocation of human activity might not present the same ethical questions as doing the same for or with animals, there is still a distinction between inspiration & direct participation. (And of course the human world of legal rights entered into negotiations for making these recordings.) In that sense, Chantier 4 is a multi-layered interrogation of human mediation & participation in general. It also includes some interesting (in the abstract) sonic combinations, presumably as modulated by the two performing musicians, whose specific activity is often difficult to distinguish. I found the result to offer some real satisfaction, though, albeit after having been heavily edited, and mostly as (sometimes dissonant) background listening. (In other words, I'm not inclined to seek out the other volumes, but I found the experience — conceptual & otherwise — to be valuable, particularly given my continuing interest in "industrial" music in this space.) In yet other words, the pacing itself could be said to sanctify & transform the material, and that emerges only in post-production.

The latest release from Thanos Chrysakis has the rather self-explanatory title Music for Two Organs & Two Bass Clarinets, and was recorded last April in a church in Germany. Although the differences in the instruments aren't explained, Chrysakis is credited with chamber organ, so presumably a portable, while Peer Schlechta is credited simply with "organ," and so presumably the church organ. Their sounds blend rather seamlessly much of the time, and together, form a rich harmonic backdrop for the five improvised tracks. The project might thus be compared to e.g. Tuning Out (& other projects by Veryon Weston), also recorded with church organs, but in that case emphasizing hybrid tunings arising from "in between" stop positions & interrogated by flexible string instruments (which also turn to dodecaphony at times). However, Music for Two Organs & Two Bass Clarinets is actually rather conventional in its frequently lyrical clarinet parts, such that an initial sea of darkness & dissonance comes to be dominated by melodic elements: The organs move progressively into the (conceptual) background as the album proceeds, yielding the foreground to Chris Cundy (who has recorded with Chrysakis & elsewhere previously, including with more extended technique than here) & Ove Volquartz (with whom I was not previously familiar, although I see now that he has recorded with Udo Schindler) on bass clarinets. There is thus a sort of romantic quality that emerges, if not a traditional jazziness — in this case, evincing a more rhetorical modern lyricism (say, of the 1980s). The resulting combination actually seems as though it might be enjoyed by a more mainstream audience, provided it can navigate the initial sense of disorientation & novelty: Indeed, some textures might even be said to evoke c.1970 heavy metal, if obliquely (by way of an ice cream truck?). These more conventional melodic concerns (albeit quasi-fugal at times via the organ backdrop) are in contrast, then, not only with Tuning Out, but with e.g. Phase/transitions — a project Chrysakis must know, and which actually shares a more consistent timbral affinity (via its accordion, computer, and soprano sax combo), but which also indulges a much wider pallette of sonic inspirations & invocations. (The latter is indeed much more of a sphinx, given its length & variety of approaches, such as incorporating an electronic cellist over an internet connection & employing a computer intelligence as another improviser.) So whereas Music for Two Organs & Two Bass Clarinets didn't involve a more adventurous interrogation of perception & normality, as I associate with Chrysakis in such projects as Carved Water, it's still a particular interrogation of its texture-world, and rather enjoyable in its own almost straightforward manner.

Although it's obvious that I haven't been focusing on larger ensembles here, that becomes particularly relevant with someone like Ernesto Rodrigues, who releases so many larger ensemble albums. (And of course Rodrigues's discography is huge in general, with many albums employing smaller forces.) I do want to mention the recent Tellurium, though, both for the music itself & for a couple of formal reasons: First, Tellurium is numbered 500 on Creative Sources, so something of a milestone, and seemed to be released individually for that reason. And I do want to honor the label that is releasing the greatest volume of interesting material (at least to me) right now. Second, Tellurium is in Rodrigues's "String Theory" series, and I've noted other such items: The first String Theory album was Gravity by an ensemble of 17 musicians, so the 16 musicians on Tellurium actually mark a return to those roots, but I had personally taken notice with the quartet album Xenon (discussed here May 2017) & then the somewhat larger Heptaphonies (discussed July 2017). (Tellurium also seems to relate to a mixed "Isotope Ensemble" that has a forthcoming release, Barium. Indeed it's related to various larger ensembles, as Tellurium was recorded at CreativeFest #11 last November, which produced Rodrigues-led albums by IKB, Variable Geometry Orchestra & Suspensão too.) Tellurium is generally a restrained album, as one has come to expect from Rodrigues, with various activity in waves, sometimes highlighting more the tinkling of piano or zither, but more often bathed in string harmonics... later into pizzicato. There is a tangible classical feel, particularly evoking music by Xenakis, the mathematization of which implies an impersonal quality that is also felt here. It's almost timeless or epic, though, in a way that Xenakis never quite managed — maybe even panoramic in the sense of distance interrogated through its sometimes ethereal mood. Although it takes barely over half an hour, Tellurium is thus a stimulating journey. I suppose I should also make a few remarks on why I haven't been prioritizing larger ensemble albums such as this: When it comes to a system dynamics perspective, a trio already obliges musicians to think beyond a single dualism (although that thinking might still involve only duals) — and those interactions can readily be extended via "partial objects," smaller figurations allowing multiple interactions, or different interactions among different physical components, such as individual strings. Larger ensembles obviously present more such combinations for interaction, and on Tellurium, even a (naïve) permutation approach suggests a very large number indeed. Yet, when it comes to the world, rather than the laboratory of a musical performance, the number of possible interactions is not nearly high enough. So yes, I am actually saying that large ensembles are not large enough! Moreover, this is no simple matter of adding more musicians, at least via recorded media, because of the limits of hearing & distinguishing. In my opinion, making the most of larger forces requires something other than a traditional audience setting or recording, i.e. it requires something like a "sound installation" approach that allows the listener to move around physically amid or within (if we are to assert boundedness) a differential sonic space. All that said, I do find Tellurium to be a rather enjoyable tapestry. So what do the next 500 albums hold for Creative Sources (especially if I may dare to believe that Ernest Rodrigues will maintain his current, astonishing creative pace)?

The forgoing suggests, perhaps, a contrast between an intimate conversation & the chaos of the larger world, and such a contrast might in turn suggest a continuum. I'm not going to try to assert a border between large & small ensembles, though, and if anything, such a threshold is variable & dependent on musical approach. For Rodrigues & colleagues, whose instruments are already conceived as multiple, such that a "partial objects" approach (or dividuation, as one might say) allows various simultaneous interactions anyway, a septet can become a rather large ensemble. That's true to some extent on the recent Meandros e Vertentes, recorded live in Lisbon this February, which also tries to balance a more traditional approach to free playing. Its "Free Music Septep" (and although I've seen sites correcting this to Septet, the "Septep" spelling is found in multiple places on the album, including the CD itself, so I have to think it's intentional) this time involves a mix of instrument families: Ernesto Rodrigues himself, Luiz Rocha (clarinets, having appeared with the Lisbon String Trio on Akuanduba, discussed here in July), Guilherme Rodrigues, Eduardo Chagas (trombone, a frequent collaborator on Creative Sources, including a recent duo with Ernesto Rodrigues, Holes and Cracks, and an upcoming quartet album with the Lisbon String Trio, Tactile), Karoline Leblanc (piano, also appearing with Lisbon String Trio on Liames, discussed in August), Hernani Faustino (double bass) & Paulo Ferreira-Lopes (drums). The septet thus consists of a rather typical "jazz" collection of instruments (Ernesto himself on viola being the least typical), particularly relative to the Rodrigues's output otherwise, and does connect (& tangibly so) to some of their less avant garde projects — as the participation of Faustino might have already suggested. Indeed, some passages involve a boisterous & traditional "free" style, evoking urban traffic noise, etc. Other passages are much quieter, however, in keeping with Rodrigues's other concerns: One can even note a formal alternation between the five tracks (together lasting nearly an hour), with the massive outer tracks including both noisier & more spacious sections, and the even-numbered tracks generally remaining quite minimal & calm — and the (shortest) third track consisting of a kind of rush of glorious racket. The opposing block structure (and the extent of planning that was involved, I have no idea, although the outer tracks do seem to involve cycling through more specific inspirations, although in less of an explicit collage mode than is found so often in analogous contemporary efforts — e.g. Ken Vandermark, etc.) reminds me a bit of Messiaen, although the resulting sonics certainly do not. Let me also note a couple of favorites employing (vaguely) similar ensembles: Yad (octet) generally has much more presence; one might say that it never hides, as Rodrigues albums sometimes seem to do, lending an anxious edge to its interrogation, and indeed a more personal emphasis than the sometimes impersonal (e.g. trans- or posthuman) quality emerging from Meandros e Vertentes (& recall that the "fold" concept, the name of the opening track, is central to e.g. Deleuzian philosophy). Skein (sextet) is perhaps even more processual, but also retains a strong — even relentless — foreground amid evocations of specific harmonic styles. So both Yad & Skein are more tonal than Meandros e Vertentes (although themselves plenty dissonant, which is of course a contextual term). The latter thus involves not only various layers of (sometimes opposed) activity, but a sort of emergent structure via the (sometimes dodecaphonic) contrapuntal interactions. It's sometimes almost jazzy, with a sonic richness emerging out of spaciousness itself. (Indeed, some of the more extroverted moments are a real treat, and novel within Rodrigues's recent output.) And it's sometimes about barely conscious scrapings, human relations receding into a general calm.... It's thus another album (like Yad, but in a rather different way) that leaves one listening intently to the environment. The latter is one measure of its success (i.e. affectivity per se), as is the ability to project some individual personality. Whereas this might be a good entry into Ernesto Rodrigues's music for some — and I certainly have no "ideal" suggestion! — I found it to be more preliminary than polished: Perhaps its consequent rather open quality is (also) an attraction for some readers, though.

Bird Saw Buchla, appearing recently on the Danish Clang label (but not yet on their website, as of this writing), is another album of novel timbres & sonorities that deserves a mention: The trio, reflecting the title, consists of David Rothenberg on clarinets & ipad, Nicola L. Hein on guitar & circular saw, and Hans Tammen on Buchla Music Easel. The clarinet is an obvious enough instrument, and in this case, regarding the title, Rothenberg is known for — among other domains of fauna (as e.g. he even has an oblique reference in What is familiar? for his Bug Music book) — his exploration of bird song, and that's explicitly evoked at various points (& especially in the third track featuring, I believe, the ipad & samples). Hein first appeared in this space with Rotozaza Zero, and continues to be active now that he's based in New York. Tammen had not been mentioned here (and Rothenberg not really for his own music previously), but I've noticed him e.g. with Denman Maroney: I'm no historian of synthesizers, so would not recognize a Buchla Music Easel among others, but apparently it's one of the earliest, and is now being manufactured again. As its fascinating instrumentation suggests, Bird Saw Buchla indeed gets to some rather interesting interactions. Unfortunately, it begins with more conventional interactions, i.e. jazzy clarinet against weirdly repetitive & noisy accompaniment. (Apparently the circular saw is a mechanism for striking the guitar strings very fast & evenly. Overall, there's often a short & fast quality against Rothenberg's rich tone & legato.) The third track moves into the electronic register, as noted, with a variety of flittering & even some spacey clichés. (At times it has a bit of the frenzied feel of Natura venomous, which is likewise oriented around birds.) Then the second half of the album is generally more interesting, as the fourth & sixth tracks in particular produce some tautly creative three-way interaction. Whether this sequence arose from the trio's own explorations, or was intended to help the listener enter their sound world, or some combination, I'd be more interested in an album that begins where this one ends. (And in fact, there is no recording date or location information included with the physical CD, so we know nothing of how many sessions were involved, etc. I do continue to boggle at this bizarre urge to "document" something without documentation, but maybe that's my own issue.... I should also note that I was not able to have the CDR recognized by my traditional CD player: I have no idea if that issue is or will be resolved.) There is thus ultimately a sort of naturism (and not meaning bodily nudity, but "naturalism" has its own not quite right meaning...) combined with a mechanical perversity that would fit readily together on e.g. Creative Sources (& Tammen appeared on that label in its early days). And I'm serious about interest in a second album — but guys, please do provide some documentation. Even as is, I suspect that this album would have more appeal than the strange description suggests... and thus than is likely to be generated in practice.

I wasn't sure what to expect from 0 minutes and 0 seconds, recorded in Berlin last October, but it ends up being one of the most compelling recent albums from Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues. (And of course they both appear on so many albums....) The uncertainty derived from two basic dimensions, the first being the apparent "tribute" mode engaged by the title: This must be an evocation of Cage, right? (His piece 0'00", composed in 1962, is subtitled 4'33" No. 2, and so is a direct followup to what is often considered — especially by non-admirers — to be Cage's most influential, or at least provocative, composition.) Yet, besides the fact that Cage's 0'00" directs the performer to do anything (rather, to "perform a disciplined action") for any length of time, it is unequivocally labeled as for soloist (on any instrument). So here the solo instrument is a quartet of strings & electronics, and moreover, there are five tracks: As is not always the case in this music, there are even clear track divisions, with a few seconds of silence between them. So perhaps one should think of five different versions (although Cage himself did allow for "interruptions" in this work). 0 minutes and 0 seconds is not the first album by Rodrigues to present an enigma within a tribute context (and indeed Ernesto has a new album For Cecil Taylor that I expect to hear in the next few weeks): I ended up saying nothing about it at the time, in large part due to my own confusion, but e.g. Licht had already appeared in 2015. One might conclude that the title is simply an ordinary (German) word, but the evocation of Stockhausen's massive cycle goes beyond the title & in concrete ways, such as the seven tracks of the album (& perhaps even the septet of musicians). I rarely ask Ernesto anything specific about his music per se, but I did ask him if that album related to Stockhausen. (It cannot be a faithful performance of the score, at least not in any complete or logical sense.) His response was cryptic, so I dropped the subject. In any case, whereas Rodrigues's Licht is much more manageable than Stockhausen's, his 0'00" would appear to be rather more expansive than Cage's. (One might also call these "classical albums" accordingly, although at this point, I'm not sure what sort of point such a distinction would be making.) In keeping with a sense of 0 minutes and 0 seconds as consisting of five different performances of Cage's work by the same quartet of musicians, there are strong & overlapping perceptions of temporality involved: Much seems to happen, despite the relatively short length (just under forty minutes total), such that each track constitutes its own individual world: These can be quiet worlds, yet with an intensity that relates to qualities of duration per se. Not unlike Sîn, 0 minutes and 0 seconds also responds to different levels of attention, from concentration to indifference, although it can tend to fade away under the latter condition. (And regarding the "what's next?" question asked around Tellurium last week, 0 minutes and 0 seconds is numbered higher than 500 in the Creative Sources catalog, as were already Sîn, Meandros e Vertentes, etc. So things continue to happen quickly for Rodrigues....) Likewise in keeping with a sense of classical performance, there are perhaps questions of elitism lingering behind such work, and so this might be a good time for a few (more) general remarks: First, the notion that "popular" music, emerging from within the confines of imperial modernism, could be uncontaminated by the conditions of its emergence is an absurdity. One can speak of insurrection, of course, and the means at one's disposal, but there is certainly no purity to any such project — as seems to be posited by some critics of elitism. In fact, one requires considerable investigation in order to strip away layers of imperial imposition, and the basic ways in which Western tonality has rendered itself as being self-evident. If one responds in turn that such investigation is not, in principle, open to everyone, of course I must agree, because people function under various constraints (in actuality). So experimental music of this sort is certainly not sufficient, but it does contribute to the insurrectional character of popular struggle by virtue of its confrontation with universalizing & transcendentalizing imperial (musical) rhetoric. It is a matter, in other words, of immanent revolt at all levels, and so of not automatically or necessarily being content with whatever kernel of "the popular" presents itself. (Personally, whereas I can hear the insurrectional qualities to be found in e.g. the American Songbook, I also hear the modernizing tendencies, particularly the embedded anti-indigenous rhetoric, strongly & moreover, first.) After all, popular radio was established for social control: This is simply a fact, regardless of whatever heresy might have been allowed into it over the years. So sometimes, perhaps, one might do well to begin again from "first principles" of music, and this is what we see today in experimental improvisation: How does one forge or trace or acknowledge a new form of life, beyond the supposed non-alternative of contemporary neoliberal globalization? Is envisioning (or en-audibling) the non-impossibility of change inherently elitist? Let us hope not! (Is the unfamiliar elitist? In what sense might this be true or untrue? It is not a simple question....) So these are general comments, but what of this particular music? For one, the smaller forces (that I tend to favor here, as noted too often already) are easier to assemble, requiring fewer resources or coordination — in that an album always enacts or projects an economy of forces. (Although one could also posit that the popular, by definition, allows for the gathering of larger forces.) On 0 minutes and 0 seconds the Rodrigueses are joined (only) by Andrew Lafkas on double bass & Bryan Eubanks (b.1977) on "oscillators," yielding my second basic uncertainty around the album: I was not previously familiar with either. However, Lafkas had worked e.g. with Bill Dixon, and even has a trio album Funkhaus (released late last year) on Fine Noise and Light with Mazen Kerbaj & label director (& bassist) Mike Bullock: That is also a pulsing affair, but tends to be less smooth. Lafkas & Eubanks have actually worked together regularly, including years of performance (& albums such as Oceans Roar 1000 Drums, from 2012) as a trio with loft-era jazz drummer Todd Capp: Theirs is another exploration of duration & continuity via waves of sound, this time with drums forging much of the segmented material for elaboration via complementary smoothness. (Coincidentally, Capp joins the duo of Guillermo Gregorio & Nicolas Letman-Burtinovic for many of the tracks on their recent album Futura Spartan Suite, another innovative clarinet trio record that, like Bird Saw Buchla, is accompanied by very little documentation.) The general smoothness of whatever the oscillators are (& it seems to be basic sine wave production) tends to facilitate even more blend than an actual string quartet, which the ensemble otherwise resembles: The album begins with a brief clear tone (from an oscillator, I suppose), and quickly moves through a liminal, sheering presence via the strings — a Scelsian becoming, one might say. (One might also hear pre-echoes of Tellurium.) Some other tracks can have been more calm, rather than emergent per se, perhaps amid whistling harmonics or a sense of a distant signal, even the chirping of birds.... What such a description cannot convey, however, is the basic affectivity involved, and how 0 minutes and 0 seconds consequently modulates the listener's mood & receptivity. (One might think of notions of interiority & command — or indeed of being outside time.) Perhaps I will compare to some other favorites, and in particular Growing carrots..., which projects a similar sort of experimental emergence, but within a different (again, as one might say, here following Steve Goodman, aka Kode9) "politics of frequency" — such that, in other words, Growing carrots... generally emphasizes higher pitches within its particular assemblage of strings & electronics. Whitewashed with lines had explored similar sonorities (including as process-based) with related sorts of rigor & conceptions of dissonance....           Although this discussion projects an impersonal quality, 0 minutes and 0 seconds retains a very human core, such that expression itself is highlighted: In this, it's almost the inverse complement of Traintracks..., in which a more immediate expressivity is turned toward articulating industrial (i.e. inhuman) devastation. In that sense, 0 minutes and 0 seconds is more immanently noetic (i.e. regards the interiority of thought), and so successful (as well as novel) as a tribute to Cage.

I was excited to see that the latest release on Al Maslakh, AAMM (recorded in Berlin in 2015), was a joint effort between English legends AMM (in their current duo format) & Lebanon's "A" Trio, as led by label director & extended trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj. In this case, expectations didn't end up being a negative for my reception of the album, since despite a few spots where the musicians might be said to lose their collective edge, AAMM has made a strong impression right from first audition, eliciting intense ongoing attention. AMM require little introduction, of course — and I'm also looking forward to hearing their new triple album, An Unintended Legacy, in a trio configuration with Keith Rowe, but haven't had the chance yet: I mentioned Eddie Prévost most recently in this space in September, around his double duo album with Christian Wolff, Uncertain Outcomes. Tilbury has been mentioned more frequently, including for his participation in the all-star quartet album Nessuno: Tilbury's spacious chords & open sense of time often seem to frame that album, whereas they are more internal to the overall dissonant tapestry on AAMM. His Feldman-esque piano does continue to project a certain feel, however, particularly as it remains more (clearly ringing &) pianistic than much of what I've been featuring on the instrument. Besides Kerbaj, whom I first mentioned in this space around Ariha Brass Quartet (in February 2017) & who has participated in albums with e.g. Ernesto Rodrigues, the "A" Trio includes Sharif Sehnaoui on acoustic guitar, whose quartet album Nashaz (also on Al Maslakh, and also recorded in Berlin in 2015) has been an ongoing favorite for its airy & open, yet dissonantly human, rattling. "A" Trio also includes Raed Yassin on double bass, who had not been mentioned here individually: The bass is far from an afterthought in this quintet, however, as it projects an incredible potency, to the point of making other objects in the room (e.g. a fireplace poker) rattle at even modest volume — & this is not a normal experience for me. "A" Trio have (at least) three prior albums, the first on Al Maslakh, and then two recorded in 2012, including Live in Nickelsdorf on Roaratorio, which should be relatively obtainable for those readers who enjoy vinyl. As my opening remarks might have suggested already, there are some tentative moments early (although surrounding a surprisingly strong initial outburst), but the performance comes to involve deeply affective extended interplay within its single "unholy" (per the track title, apparently referencing the church location) track: It's not simply a matter of dissonance, which can be intense, yet always richly detailed & controlled, but of the lyrical sense that comes to emerge within the smallest spaces of the tapestry: This is not dissonance ornamenting melody, but rather melodic fragments ornamenting broader articulations of dissonance. It is presumably AMM bringing this kind of lyrical & airy touch amid a grinding earthiness, but it's anything but an awkward addition or afterthought: One comes to perceive the melody originating from the humming, scraping & muted blowing through tubes — as already latent there. (The "airiness" includes literal breath through the extended trumpet, but there is little in the way of traditional horn sound.) So whereas there is sometimes a pulsating drive — and in that, AAMM might evoke e.g. Sîn, another acoustic tapestry album from Berlin that can be both delicate & powerful at once — there is also a Chinese-naturalist feel to a later section, and at another point, watery burbling transforms into tuneful harmonics that almost suggest emergence from a Zen garden. The variety of accents, many subtly from Prevost, is also especially rich, lending different emerging evocations to these different passages & articulations. (It's possible that the sometimes overpowering rumbling of AAMM is behind some problems I had in trying to carry a copy on my portable computer, as I struggled to find equipment that would read it. However, it plays fine on my 1990s vintage Rotel player — a strange development, in that I cannot remember a previous example of a CD behaving better on a traditional CD player than on new computer hardware. A small computer speaker obviously isn't ideal for this music, as the church recording location should underscore, but a laptop DAC can be plugged into any speaker setup... and the stereo sound quality is actually superb, pace this complication.) A structural assemblage of delicacy & force, dissonance & lyricism, is then what gives AAMM its broad potency, although it still might be compared (at least superficially) to a variety of other "tapestry" albums, including in the electroacoustic domain, that produce a cumulative "orchestral" effect. However, here the result entails a unique cross-cultural intensity.

I haven't said much about Okkyung Lee to this point — although she's appeared here on Skein & with e.g. Evan Parker's Electroacoustic Ensemble.... I've also been less likely to feature composed music, but do want to mention Lee's recent Steel - Flower - Bird (Cheol - Kkot - Sae in Korean) on Tzadik, in part due to some previous remarks in this space regarding Korean fusion attempts: Henry Kaiser's Megasonic Chapel was discussed in May 2015 (and again in December 2015), and Treatises on Trans-Traditional Aesthetics, with two Korean performers among a more varied ensemble, was featured last November. (For some reason, these attempts to combine Korean music with Western improvisation have spoken to me more persuasively than some other projects, although I cannot personally claim as much specific influence from Korean music as from some other traditions....) Lee's suite opens with what initially presents as a duo between Pansori singer (Song-Hee Kwon) & cello, but quickly discloses the involvement of more performers: traditional percussion (Jae-Hyo Chang), high horn (John Butcher), bass (John Edwards), more percussion (Ches Smith).... These opening sections often seem to be dominated by the vocalist, and present some wonderful twisty passages in what tend to come off as spontaneous exchanges. When the electronics (by Lasse Marhaug) enter suddenly & forcefully, though, I start feeling less engaged: One has the sense of a cross between a race car & death metal in that section, and although a climactic passage of chirping birds (riffing off Butcher's high horn) is appealing, the piece then turns to a repetitive chant in steady rhythm. After an extended percussion solo & some tender flourishes (after fighting off, for a while, an almost intrusive sax), the second (much shorter) piece begins without a break — based on a simple piano (player uncredited) lullaby, again in steady rhythm. There appears to be an autobiographical factor at work in the suite, such that the later sections don't engage me as much musically. However, there are some wonderful cross-cultural exchanges prior to taking up more rigid and/or romantic styles. (In this, Steel - Flower - Bird is almost the opposite of Bird Saw Buchla from last month, as the latter begins conventionally & increases in originality as it goes.) Butcher's (soprano) participation with Lee & the Korean musicians was fascinating, in particular, and I'd be interested to hear some of those textures explored outside of the context of an autobiographical composition.

I'm not sure what "composed" means in this case — and I certainly do not mean that as a value judgment on the music, as I've mostly been enjoying non-composed music (whatever that means!) anyway — but I also want to mention William Parker's recent Lake of Light (recorded on a single day in Brooklyn in February 2017) featuring AquaSonics waterphones on Gotta Let It Out. This is an ample album of seven tracks covering more than an hour, played by a quartet of musicians (exclusively on waterphones by Jackson Krall) including Parker himself together with Jeff Schlanger, Anne Humanfeld & Leonid Galaganov: The ensemble itself further raises the question of what "composition" means in this context (and frankly, I think it's become more common to say that something isn't composed when in fact there were various significant prior decisions being made, rather than to hedge the other way around), in that besides Parker, one of them identifies as a percussionist, and the other two as visual artists. (I had already mentioned the instrument here in September 2017, as being played by Glynis Lomon in Leap of Faith, but had no real sense of the full sonic potential or limitations of the instrument from her performances, since they were embedded in larger ensembles.) To me, this immediately suggests concepts of sound installation & so e.g. Carved Water (which nonetheless sounds rather different). And indeed the performances are quite percussive, although they include various intriguing bent tones & shifting resonances via the motion of water. Moreover, the richly polyphonic individual pieces sound quite spontaneous (again, in a good way), such that I suspect that Parker led them with some explorations that were then taken up by others in their own way. There is consequently a strong quality of timbral experimentation & openness, together with a pervasive spiritual quality, that combines to give the proceedings a general feel that's surprisingly similar to that on e.g. (the recent) AAMM or even on 0 minutes and 0 seconds. (I found Lake of Light to be an intriguing playlist followup to the former, in fact.) Although one can further note a sophisticated sense of temporality, I also feel that Lake of Light drags on at times, as the experimental impetus starts to seem like lack of direction or focus. Still, there are many fascinating moments, suggesting many more possibilities in turn.

The improvised trio album Seraphic Light derives from a conference-concert at Tufts University (in April 2017) at which William Parker, Matthew Shipp & Daniel Carter first addressed the topic of "Art, Race, and Politics in America" verbally, before addressing it musically. Given both the setting & the stature of the musicians, Seraphic Light is sure to be on many "must hear" lists, including those from people who are a lot more concerned with tradition per se than I am, but I do want to add a few notes about what is an enjoyable & largely tonal album: I had mentioned Carter most recently (last August) around Carol Liebowitz's Poetry from the Future, and indeed it displays a similar orientation toward extended tonality & far-flung harmonic modulations. Carter's various horns are thus quite recognizable. Here the piano is manned by Shipp, and his sound (e.g. that with the Core Trio, first discussed here in June 2014, or more broadly, the many recent albums with Ivo Perelman) is also readily apparent, particularly with its drive & tapestry-like sweep. There is much passionate momentum between these two, generally maintaining strong continuity across a variety of tonal modulations & rhythmic shifts (via generalized hemiola, etc.): Superficially, Seraphic Light almost comes off as a duo then, but attention to Parker's playing reveals that he is often making significant (perhaps mediative) contributions. (Similarly, he was something of the "glue" on Beyond Quantum, forging a trio from the pairing of Anthony Braxton & Milford Graves. It would thus be difficult to summarize Parker's style, as the forgoing Lake of Light amply demonstrated — although perhaps one might consider the recurring "light" image further.) This is particularly the case when e.g. the piano reaches an impasse via escalating tensions, although a smooth "chamber" feel does tend to maintain (rather than the "spikiness" that Shipp might summon elsewhere by way of rhythmic interpolation). Of course, these senior musicians have great command of their instruments, allowing them to proceed idiomatically through many lively & spontaneous musical ideas, in what remains a charged atmosphere (at least relative to the classical, even romantic, evocations involved) that continues to mine the aura of (modern) beauty per se. The result is sometimes stormy, occasionally pointillistic, but remains very concerned with forward momentum — & so perhaps with social momentum (& indeed with social harmony figured as beautiful).

Intending to discuss a trio of recent releases from Relative Pitch, I want to begin with Happi (recorded in Sweden in January 2016) by the Tatakai Trio of Martin Küchen (soprano & sopranino sax, snare drum), Anders Lindsjö (guitar) & Raymond Strid (drums): Küchen has been quite prolific, especially for the Clean Feed label, but I see that I had yet to mention him here. Although I had listened to a selection of that material, and it's generally enjoyable, it's also more attuned to popular sources, and so hadn't called out to me (at least relatively speaking). Here though, Küchen enters (likely not for the first time) the more fractured & off-center world of e.g. Pool School — and indeed, at least here, Tatakai Trio shows considerable stylistic resemblance to the Tom Rainey Trio. I had previously featured Lindsjö — who is likely the least known member of the trio — as part of the (also Swedish) guitar trio Halster, around their album Mindfulness (discussed here July 2016): It's music of close listening & timbral exploration. Finally, Strid is also well-known, although I see that I had only mentioned him here (January 2016) with Voice & Percussion, a duo album with (also Swedish) vocalist Andreas Backer. However, I was first aware of Strid from his trios with Joëlle Léandre & François Houle (although I see that I hadn't mentioned them). So this is already an all-star trio — rather than up & coming, as one might have described a couple of the musicians on Pool School — but the similarities of interaction & exposition are sometimes uncanny: This is true of both the fast & slow tracks (on these albums with relatively many distinct, shorter tracks), encompassing bent tones in rhetorical timbral explorations & halting off-center rhythms, although Küchen might evoke "rock" per se a little more concretely at times. In fact, although the Tom Rainey Trio did its own followups to Pool School (on Intakt), featuring more composed music, Happi is so evocative of that album that it almost seems like an intentional second volume. Coincidence? (Perhaps the sometimes sheering tone or feedback places it more on the side of the often more raucous Tipple Live at Elastic Arts, featuring another Scandinavian horn player in Frode Gjerstad in a superficially similar trio. The fractured dialog might also be compared to that of You Haven't Heard This, albeit there in a somewhat different trio configuration.) Although I was eventually struck by the similarities, my first response was simply to enjoy Happi, as its style was immediately appealing — even familiar...? The appeal remains, and so perhaps this Swedish supertrio will continue to pursue their sophisticated, joint improvisatory style beyond these horizons.

Geometry of Caves (recorded at Firehouse 12 in December 2016) is another album that made an immediate & strong impression on me: Vocalist Kyoko Kitamura is the most striking participant, but the remainder of the quartet consists of all-star performers Joe Morris (here exclusively on guitar), Taylor Ho Bynum & Tomeka Reid. Although I didn't remember, I had actually mentioned Kitamura in this space in August 2015 as one of the "additional" participants on the "duo" album Signal Gain by Josh Sinton & Dominic Lash. She has also worked extensively with Anthony Braxton (as well as Ho Bynum) in the past, and is employed by the Tricentric Foundation. Of course, Morris (who begins the album on the heels of a quick stroke from Reid) is quite prolific, and was last mentioned here in January, around Ultra with Agustí Fernández. Ho Bynum is someone whose music I likewise explored fairly early in this project, but with whom I had yet to really connect: He does participate to fine effect on Quartet at Sesc Pompeia (around which he was most recently mentioned here, in April 2016) though, performing Braxton's Diamond Curtain Wall Music. This is then an opportunity for both of these musicians to work without a defined compositional structure, as opposed to much of their (at least recent) work. Finally, I hadn't mentioned Reid previously, although I had listened to some of her (more mainstream oriented) albums & noted the broader acclaim she had received: On first impressions, Reid is the least apparent member of the quartet, but subsequent listening reveals a very active presence right from the beginning, and indeed a crucial role. Geometry of Caves seems to mark something of a departure for Morris, i.e. from the visual or photographic orientation of some ongoing projects (to which the "shine" of Ultra was related), as it seems to evoke a kind of musical blindness via its quick figures & varied close interactions: This sort of imagery has already been associated with e.g. blind polyphonist Alexander Agricola & his labyrinthine counterpoint from the late fifteenth century, and the cave image would seem to reflect a similar orientation (and perhaps suggests a classic philosophical evocation as well). Moreover, the cover graphic shows what is apparently a computer rendering of intricate cave passageways, with only a tiny portion marked as "explored" — a wonderful metaphor for free musical experimentation. Reid & Morris begin the album in close dialog, and form something of a duo throughout, as their lines & articulations often intertwine, including pizzicato cello at times, as well as broader percussive qualities. Likewise, Ho Bynum (here on cornet, piccolo trumpet & bass trumpet) intertwines Kitamura's voice, with changing roles in different tracks, depending on instrumental (or vocal) register, as well as contrasts of relative continuity against fractured figures. (The way that these two duos — of the most similar instruments here — both intertwine each other and relate to the larger quartet is almost reminiscent of Runcible Quintet, minus the unifying drummer: At times, from the perspective of one duo, the other presents as a single entity, thus forming a composite trio — although it would be easy to overstate this mode of interaction.) Although I hadn't found much personal connection with Ho Bynum in the past, his interactions here are especially impressive: Minimal means or short repeated tones are often used to suggest an entire dialog, even a sense of swing choir at times, via rhythmic offset or clear timbral contrast (with the voice, which itself might be "muted" in turn). The result is a charged sense of musical economy that both animates the quartet more broadly, and — together with the string duo — serves to place the extended vocal technique in sharp relief. (Among the previous vocal albums that have caught my interest here, mostly quartets as it happens, I note that horns have often been absent: Isabelle Duthoit does employ clarinet on Light air still gets dark, but there it's a matter of articulating continuity between voice & horn, and of course the two are not independent. Perhaps the most similar configuration is actually that of VCDC, mentioned in November, with Frode Gjerstad on clarinet, as well as Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello, joining vocalist Stine Janvin Motland & percussionist — rather than guitarist — Ståle Liavik Solberg. However, Solberg's apparent hornless — but with guitar — followup Eye of the Moose projects a more similar sound & conception in many ways. For a comparison of vocal style alone, Catherine Jauniaux on Birds Abide might be the most similar, but that's an older album, and often focuses on bowed string interactions.) The voice might be said to convey a sense of musical economy as well, as it's not always active, but might articulate high pitched tones (mirroring trumpet) or low rumbles (likewise), often in twisty passages — maze-like, but not all alike. Cello harmonics come to appear in upper registers as well, as various lines intertwine in close counterpoint, at times even becoming pointillistic (especially) via guitar: The sometimes dreamy quality of Geometry of Caves is thus not only infused with a spiky intensity, but despite the occasionally percussive cello, or the unusual use of bass trumpet, tends to emphasize higher registers. Indeed, one might note — in a further sense of intersection & "blind" collision in turn — that the instrumentalists largely find themselves in the same range as the voice. In many ways, such "hide & seek" serves to intensify perception of the voice, which as noted, projects the most immediately striking sound of the album: Not only does Kitamura utilize a variety of register alternations over larger periods, but various (non-verbal) phonemes, buzzes, creaks, fast throat articulations etc. within the smallest spaces. The result suggests a conceptual span or tapestry, in which various combinations & configurations might not be arrayed systematically (at least temporally), but yet emerge over the course of the album as mappings of its interiorized spaces. (One might thus suggest a sense of triangulation....) The ensuing sense of balance can feel eerie, given the variety of quick exchanges from which it derives over the course of the seven tracks — feeling its way, as it seems to do, through metaphorical darkness — yet & consequently placing Kitamura's wonderfully varied vocal figures in sophisticated textural relief.

The primary interlude in the previous (paratactic) movement already had (heard) me thinking of improvised vocal albums more broadly, such that whereas e.g. Eye of the Moose can be cited for its similar pace & fractured quality, one might also emphasize — by way of contrast — its broader overall (pitch) range via bass & drums, making it more suggestive of spaciousness (& gravity) than claustrophobia: It also invokes a different politics of frequency. (And vocalist Andreas Backer, whose technique encompasses many similar elements to that of Kitamura, was only just mentioned in the previous entry on Happi.) Beyond the already noted vocal similarities on the older Birds Abide — a release within the same temporality as Pool School in 2010, but belatedly noted here only in late 2013 — albums involving voice seem to be gaining in prominence more recently: For instance, Clean Feed has been releasing more vocal albums, including two this month, and I wanted to make a few remarks about With Sofia Jernberg by Lana Trio — a Norwegian group (and Clean Feed continues to feature many Scandinavian performers) consisting of trombone, piano & drums. I wasn't familiar with Swedish-Ethiopian vocalist Jernberg (b.1983) previously either, but it appears that I should have been: Indeed, recalling the VCDC reference above, she has two albums (the second on 482 Music) in a quintet called Seval that includes Lonberg-Holm (again) & David Stackenas (guitarist for Hot Four, i.e. on Eye of the Moose), and so has a clear overlap with some other albums mentioned here, albeit in that case, in a more pop-oriented context with lyrics. (Jernberg has also appeared with Fire! Orchestra.) Her high squealing glissandi & slow percussive articulations are the most striking features on With Sofia Jernberg, and her sense of textural emergence recalls Duthoit. As on Geometry of Caves, it's the voice-horn duo & its interactions that are some of the most stimulating, as Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø on trombone sometimes employs breathy blasts or growls circling the voice. But more often, the instrumentalists are relatively subdued, with the voice in the foreground, often focusing on quiet emergence amid minimal activity — although they can sometimes be full-bodied & aggressive too, as at the beginning. The result (recorded in Norway in March 2016) comes off as rather exploratory, even preliminary overall, sometimes unfocused & sometimes focusing on simple combinations. Still, it's worth hearing, particularly for its exploration of vocal glissandi & extended technique more generally. (The second Clean Feed vocal album in this batch is Imaginary Band, a composed septet album of dreamy pop or cabaret stylings by vocalist Lynn Cassiers, with whom I was also not previously familiar. In terms of employing popular idioms, the rougher With Sofia Jernberg could then be said to occupy an intermediate position between Imaginary Band & the more abstractly balanced Geometry of Caves. The degree of "polish" involved in Clean Feed albums does continue to vary quite widely....)

I probably wouldn't have chosen to discuss Loud based on musical content alone, but wanted to make a few remarks in the context of the recent set of Relative Pitch releases: In particular, Loud (recorded in Berlin in June 2016) marks that label's entry into the Berlin scene & its often quiet music, emphasizing continuity amid subtle timbral interactions that move beyond relations between traditional "musical notes." For Relative Pitch, this suggests not only a move beyond the US-based production from which they began (and with which they continue, e.g. in recent albums by Nate Wooley, Brandon Lopez, etc.), and even beyond albums by well-established Western European improvisers (e.g. John Butcher, Alexander Von Schlippenbach, etc.), but into categories of "genre" per se: Indeed, one might also view the other albums just discussed here in terms of genre, from the eerily similar horn-guitar trio inspirations of Happi to the fractured vocal quartet tradition of Geometry of Caves. Whereas the latter does feature well-known US performers (and is not the label's first release with Joe Morris), it also seems to be a carefully planned entry into a lineage of similar albums, one without any recent precedent in this country. (The two duo albums that are also a part of this recent set of five releases do seem to be more unusual & US-derived.) What does all this suggest? It suggests to me that whereas Relative Pitch started out with concert-related activities around New York, it's now aspiring to be a general US-based label for improvisatory musical trends such as these: Thinking about it, there is really no other such label in the US, with most offering rather more restrictive selections of materials & inspirations. (There is no US Clean Feed, say, let alone no high volume label emphasizing composition-less free improvisation....) So perhaps Relative Pitch sees itself as consciously bringing this music before the US public (& such consciousness has me almost feeling as though Geometry of Caves is "too perfect" — although I admire the result, its consequent perfection of gesture, one might say). All that said, Loud itself (by a trio called Flamingo) has earlier connections to the Berlin scene. Indeed as it happens, I mentioned a Creative Sources album with Chris Heenan (& Alexander Frangenheim, et al.), named simply Berlin, back in July 2014: I complained that it was one of those albums exploring the limits of audibility, and so was frustrating to hear. (Whereas I've seen various remarks, including more recently, about how setting a low volume level & just leaving the recording on autopilot — so to speak — results in a recreation of the auditory experience in the room, I've also already expressed disagreement: In the original room, one can adjust & direct one's hearing & attention in ways that are much more difficult, if not impossible, once the dynamic limitations are fixed in media. Such an observation seems to be obvious, yet one continues to see these philosophical statements about recording.... Perhaps in a format with more bandwidth than CDs, such statements might become more accurate, but I'm not so sure....) Joining Heenan (here on contrabass clarinet) in Flamingo are Adam Pultz Melbye — who appears on Rotozaza Zero, and was most recently mentioned here around Hyvinkää last October — on bass, and Christian Windfeld (with whom I was not previously familiar) on snare drum & objects. Presumably to address some of the concerns I've articulated around Berlin, and indeed those of the lengthy parenthetical remark, Flamingo are also joined by Roy Carroll, credited with "amplification & feedback." (I had mentioned Carroll in December, in the lengthy entry concerning The Afterlife of Trees, for his trio album As Found with Biliana Voutchkova.) So then, as the title indicates, this production takes the quiet scrapings & timbral inflections, and feeds them back, making them louder in real time. The result is easier to hear, and I appreciate that (& indeed other recordings, including on Creative Sources, have moved toward greater audibility in the interim as well): Close mic'ing & selective recording choice (& intensification) make good sense to me in general in this music. Loud then consists of a single track lasting well over an hour: Continuity is emphasized much of the time, but there are some breaks. The bass & low horn (almost like a foghorn at times) tend to rumble or hum along, accented by rattling percussion, with processes maintaining for a time before tiring or transforming: Sometimes the trio (or quartet) sounds almost like a helicopter, whereas at other times they might evoke primitivism — throbbing along with a variable level of insistence in either case. As usual, some passages are more engaging than others, such that one gets the feeling of improvising "through" some stagnant points to find more stimulating interactions — in this Loud can be readily compared to e.g. AAMM, although perhaps not so much to what seem like more carefully sculpted albums in Sîn or 0 minutes and 0 seconds (the latter in five movements) — i.e. a few recently released Berlin albums of note, among so many.

Tse — recorded in Geneva last November by a trio of Cyril Bondi (harmonium, pitch pipes, objects), Pierre-Yves Martel (viola da gamba, pitch pipes, harmonica) & Christoph Schiller (spinet) — is not from Berlin, but similar ideas do operate. In fact, given its five movements of close, pulsing concentration, 0 minutes and 0 seconds is a close comparison. However, whereas both albums possess a process-like smoothness, as well as an airy human quality, Tse is generally brighter and involves more convergence between tones than the counterpoint (& broader pitch range) of 0 minutes and 0 seconds. One might also compare Martel's trio album Boule-spiele (first discussed here in January 2017, and again for its Tour de Bras release in December), which is both more dissonant & more focused on continuity per se. (Loud might be said to occupy an intermediate position on both accounts.) In the case of Tse, more can be said of the specific approach: Online comments relate that the performers agreed on a specific sequence of pitches for improvisation, by way of orienting their activities, lending the resulting sense of convergence. Contrasts are obtained in large part by dialog between the two smooth, sustaining instruments & the decaying percussive attack from the spinet. A sense of dissonance almost seems to build within pitch unisons as a result, recalling Scelsi's multi-faceted explorations of single tones. One might also compare its slow smoothness to other Another Timbre releases, such as Antoine Beuger's (composed) Ockeghem Octets, likewise each based on (double) pitch sequences. The slowly shifting, individual tapestries on Tse thus build a buzzing (sometimes verging on shrill) quality punctuated by ringing plucked strings that provide a further sense of time hanging in the air like mist.... (Audibility is not an issue here, and in fact there's a loud climax in the center of the middle track.) I had been drawn to Martel based on the trio album Drought, which is likewise calm, but more rhythmically varied & insistent (and that trio does intend to release a third album later this year, so I'll be anticipating that). I see that I hadn't mentioned either Bondi or Schiller previously, but both have large discographies of similarly abstract reductionism already, including extensively on Another Timbre & e.g. on Creative Sources. (Both had also worked together, but without Martel, in the past.) Coming together in this new trio, then, Tse ultimately projects a strong sense of calm via its shifting tones & steady articulations: Its resulting sense of focus transfers, in turn, to the listener, making for an appealing & "functional" album. (I'd be interesting in trying it out as the backdrop to, say, a group study hall session, since it projects such clarity of thought.)

Some of the music that most captivated me early in this project was by Henry Threadgill, and in particular This Brings Us To, which happened to be new at the time. It also gave me the opportunity to ponder continuity with jazz from the sixties, about which I basically had only foggy impressions — but these did include e.g. impressions of Air. That spacious (now quintet) style — and there was the intervening sextet album Tomorrow Sunny... as part of the recent continuum as well — seems to have found its epic climax, at least to this point, with In for a Penny, in for a Pound, and indeed the latter brought Threadgill a Pulitzer Prize. That particular event seems to have been latent in the early days of this project as well: Although I was only getting my bearings, I did note debates about whether e.g. Threadgill was a "composer" or an "arranger" — with the differing prestige implications of those terms. I have the impression that Threadgill himself values the title "composer," and it would be even more difficult to deny him that status at this point, particularly with his recent pair of albums, Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus & Dirt... And More Dirt, and their increasingly "composed" feel (the former even more so). Personally, though, I don't place more value on the notion of being "a composer," i.e. telling someone else what to play, in greater or lesser detail, than I do on being a performer or musician more generally, especially in the mode of spontaneous improvisation. (For one thing, the class implications of the "composer" arrangement are palpable. This is also why I haven't really embraced terms such as "spontaneous composition" either, because they mostly seem to want to reinject a sense of hierarchy into musical creation. I mean, is it a good performance or isn't it? If it bears hearing again, great....) So in that sense, Threadgill has been moving away from my areas of interest.... Moreover, he's also embraced the piano — and to a great extent, as Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus now features three of them! — an instrument about which I feel quite ambivalent — and as something of a stunning development, at least considered from the prior perspective of Air. (Of course, it also makes sense that Threadgill might want to invert his former activities in this way, simply as a challenge if nothing else.) And whereas Double Up Plus is already a rather large group around the pianos, an octet (which doesn't include Threadgill, who engages in Butch Morris inspired conduction), Dirt... And More Dirt involves a "Kestra" (I assume short for orchestra, perhaps as inspired by the Sun Ra Arkestra) of fifteen instruments — so larger than I usually consider in this space. Whereas this recent pair of albums (both recorded during the same four day span in September 2017, and totaling 90 minutes) does move away from my main interests here, then, it's also quite enjoyable. So I wanted to make a few remarks based (both) on my earlier engagement, as well as my enjoyment today. In fact, pace the discussion of composition per se, what makes these performances so striking is their sheer fluency with the music: I was further struck by a comparison to Bartok, both for the spiky rhythmic energy, as well as for the reworking of folksong. (Of course, their respective bodies of "folksong" are rather different, but perhaps not in spirit.) Threadgill's music is more complex, however, with various interlocking facets, whether via rhythm or allocation of intervals. And yet, these albums come off as quite fluent, fluid & spontaneous, whereas a classical orchestra (e.g. the Chicago Symphony under Boulez) seems — at least at times — to strain to play Bartok's notes exactly right. So I want to note this accomplishment quite clearly: Despite (which is how I'll put it for these purposes) being a "composer" in this music — and these (musical) interactions clearly involved substantial planning — Threadgill's music manages to sound fresh & unselfconscious. Of course, this is a credit both to Threadgill & to the many musicians involved: In particular, returning musicians Jose Davila (now exclusively on tuba) & Christopher Hoffman (who joined only with Tomorrow Sunny...) stand out for me, especially their duets for Double Up Plus. It's a great combo, and these albums are packed with appealing solos & distinctive duets etc. for less usual combos. (The continued emphasis on soloing isn't necessarily my thing either, but this is also where Threadgill's compositional prowess comes into play — such that some of these pieces might be considered as concertos with cadenzas, or perhaps a Concerto for Orchestra, again to evoke Bartok....) Of course, as already noted, it's the pianos that seem like the biggest musical departure, and Threadgill had already employed two in the first album by Double Up, Old Locks and Irregular Verbs (discussed in April 2016): Apparently the three pianos are not about using different tunings, so as to get around the fixed pitch limitations, but in part to have different people taking different solos. And again, the result is appealing, enjoyable music, with counterpoint spinning off in all directions (perhaps recalling e.g. Myra Melford on Tiger Trio Unleashed whose Threadgill-esque qualities I had noted in February 2017). (I might also note the traintracks & broken fence on the cover, suggestive of Traintracks Roadsides Wastelands Debris perhaps, but of what possible relevance here? Although the placid cover of Dirt... And More Dirt does appear to include actual dirt, the simplicity of the landscape image still doesn't suit the music.) Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus is probably best received as a "classical album," then, and its first (& longest) track is especially impressive: It seems as though it would appeal to a classical audience seeking a thorny 20th century-esque concerto — and that's not a small niche. (The other three tracks are also appealing, but involve American popular traditions more prominently. Perhaps one should think of Gershwin. And, again, we have someone reciting the list of contents as the final track of each album.... I hope that someone appreciates it, because I don't.) One might likewise hear these albums, particularly in reintegrating piano, as further developments of large-form AACM compositional ideas & aspirations, such as those emerging in earlier decades around Muhal Richard Abrams.... There's also something of a feeling of collage via the various materials evoked, clearly marking Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus as early twenty-first century music. (Although we see more of the avant garde moving away from collage at this point, it's still very common & popular in these musical genres.) Dirt... And More Dirt continues the sonorities & interval concerns articulated & developed in This Brings Us To more directly, but now (similarly) brings two pianos (& now two drummers), as well as a brass choir, to the music. It's thus more dense than In for a Penny, in for a Pound, particularly as the two title pieces are articulated over much shorter time spans. (The pianos are not at all incidental either, as e.g. some short tracks are piano solos.) That the large ensemble never seems especially heavy or turgid, particularly as it shifts through smaller units, is also a credit to Threadgill's compositional ability, which he continues to explore in this setting. (These are thus more "abstract" works, versus songbook-inspiration etc. The styles are immediately recognizable as similar, however.) The result might be characterized as kaleidoscopic, if not for the way that it so often "contracts" to a piano (as the center of the texture, or alone) — apparently the medium through which Threadgill had worked out his compositional ideas all along (just like so many European composers before him).

Although it was released only after some other collaboration albums between Ernesto Rodrigues & Vasco Trilla (among a varied cast), Lithos both predates some of those already discussed, and presents a seemingly different dimension of "natural" inspiration. The most similar ensemble was that on the prior quintet Nepenthes hibrida (recorded in December 2016, discussed here June 2017), with its evocation of flora (& perhaps fauna, given the intoxicative hybridity suggested) — there employing (frequent Trilla collaborator) Yedo Gibson on sax & Miguel Mira on cello. There was a "lushness" to that album that differs considerably from the "rocky" starkness of Lithos, however, on which the trio of Ernesto Rodrigues, Luis Lopes & Vasco Trilla are joined this time by Bruno Parrinha on bass clarinet & Guilherme Rodrigues on cello. (I see I had not mentioned Parrinha previously, but he appears in a number of similar contexts, including on Clean Feed.) Both Blattwerk & Zweige, recorded on consecutive days in February, also suggested floral inspirations, and these two albums were actually only recorded three & four days respectively after Lithos (also in Lisbon). Indeed, my first comments on any of these albums were on Nepenthes hibrida & Blattwerk, only in June 2017, i.e. after Lithos was recorded. (The shorter Synchronous Rotation, featuring Trilla with a string trio led by Rodrigues was recorded only in November 2017, and discussed here in March. In that case, one might broadly claim "geometry" as the inspiration, as with some other Rodrigues albums.) One might compare the "breathy rocks" — maybe also retaining some dampness? — to those on Sediment by the Carlo Costa Quartet (or indeed to those evoked by Costa's Earth Tongues, which appears to be an ongoing trio formation), first discussed here in March 2015. In this, Lithos has a rather consistent & austere feel, perhaps paving the way for more of these percussion & string-based explorations. (Actual stone-based percussion does not appear to be at stake here.) The clarinet does continue to inject an element of wind or breath that animates the quiet & jagged (& often rather contrapuntal) textures articulated by the strings, though. One might thus compare to another Sediment "followup," Ramble (& its sometimes deeper rumble).

Along with appearing to release a broader selection of (mostly improvised) material lately — and that may simply be my own short-sighted impression — FMR continues to return to Paul Dunmall & collaborators — & so I want to make a few remarks about the recent quartet album Seascapes. (This is the more "chamber" oriented quartet album in this batch, the other being the more traditionally jazzy Freedom Music.) On Seascapes, Dunmall (who appears to play a larger variety of horns, but is credited only with tenor & soprano saxes) is joined by regular collaborator Philip Gibbs (guitar), along with newer addition Ashley John Long (bass) — thus invoking their prior trio album, Now Has No Dimension (mentioned in this space in March 2017) — as well as Neil Metcalfe (flute) — thus suggesting the quintet album I look at you (discussed here in March 2016) by Dunmall, Gibbs, Metcalfe & two (other) string players. I had characterized the latter as "mellow," "classical," and maybe even conservative: Similarly, Seascapes generally involves a calm yet lively conversation, with shifting timbres, occasionally noisy, layering differing sorts of material. There are suggestions of early music, electronics, etc. — yet it retains a rather modest, even homey aura: Despite some novel elements, I'm reminded, once again, of e.g. John Jenkins & the history of English "country" (or provincial) chamber music, with its frequently contrapuntal — yet conversational — emphasis. (And especially given the participation of Metcalfe, one might compare to Runcible Quintet as well, although the latter might be characterized as a less relaxed interrogation of form & number, especially considering its interlocking trios & consequent tendency toward abstraction. The ensemble is superficially similar, however, simply adding drums, one might observe.) The "seascape" paintings reproduced on the packaging — by the only woman involved in this particular project, it seems — also suggest a sort of leisurely vibe... of people with time on their hands who seek to fill it with music, among other (creative) activities: The friendly conversational vibe of Seascapes thus suggests (perhaps) a premodern rebuke of the hectic quality of so much contemporary (postmodern) life. That said, there are also powerfully projected (musical) utterances as well, particularly from Dunmall, even as the album seems to suggest activities & interactions undertaken more for the pleasure of those involved than as artistic statements per se — but then, such an orientation is indeed already a statement. I really enjoy the opening, beginning from guitar, and featuring so much polyphonic simultaneity, but the inspired balance soon seems to lag at various points as the album proceeds (e.g. through some soloing, duets, etc.). I might not have noted it otherwise, but started to feel that Seascapes exemplifies much of (or, at least, some of) the vibe of Dunmall's recent activity for me, so wanted to articulate some thoughts here as they arose.

I had been impressed by the album The Moment In and Of Itself by the Australian trio North of North (Anthony Pateras on piano, Scott Tinkler on trumpet & Erkki Veltheim on violin), and so was excited for their second album, now self-titled, North of North: Whereas the first album (following a surprisingly consistent theme in this space lately) was recorded in Berlin, the second was recorded in a church in Melbourne — again without precise recording dates, but in January 2018. (Perhaps that means three sessions for the three tracks, and perhaps not.) In any case, the new album displays considerably more comfort & fluidity in the collective trio interactions, and is that much more at ease, original & compelling. Moreover, apparently it prompted a new record label, Offcompass — which confuses me somewhat, since Pateras already had his Immediata label, and its packaging & notes are more lavish.... (Perhaps the budget came from an expiring grant, or indeed the trio simply wanted to found a label together. In any case, sound quality is good.) The first album had a sticker on the package assuring us of "instruments that sound like instruments," and that remains true, as the trio continues to employ "straight" virtuosity, usually at speed, rather than preparations or scrapings or the like. This next album has a sticker too, noting "Stochastic/Carnatic free improvisation from Melbourne, Australia." Carnatic music was referenced in the previous discussion as well, and Tinkler in particular has worked with Carnatic percussionist Karaikudi R. Mani (as noted in the August 2016 entry on The Moment In and Of Itself) per his vida: One might consider the rhythmic patterns resulting in the music, but there is no straightforward evocation of Carnatic (or any other) style, and certainly no sense of collage, here. If anything, the trio style is more seamless on the second album. As for stochastics, nothing screams e.g. "Markov chains" either. (I actually found it curious that they chose to emphasize these influences in this way.) So I note no particular thematics on North of North, but rather straightforward individual virtuosity freely combined via expressive & quick exchanges. What impresses me, then, is the overall integrity & originality of the group style, despite the divergent influences: My equivocations regarding (straightforward) piano thus fade away amid the ("nuts & bolts") technical orientation & lively play, placing North of North into the category of abstractly oriented & classically-infused "piano trio" albums such as Earnear & e.g. Geäder (the latter also? from three separate sessions, but using more preparations) that continue to catch my ear. So apparently I can still be convinced at times. Moreover, the use of the church setting also follows a recent theme (e.g. AAMM), that of using very resonant spaces, and the resonance facilitates a great presence here, to the point that the trumpet is almost piercing at times (& the violin is electric, presumably to facilitate blend, not for any special effects) — but more on that in an upcoming entry. With its longer (yet free-) form tapestries, and particularly its increasingly sophisticated & confident interaction, North of North makes for a compelling album out of the Australian scene, and as North of North now seems to be established as an ongoing project, it will be interesting to hear what they do next.

As recently suggested amid extensive comments on 0 minutes and 0 seconds earlier this month, Ernesto Rodrigues tribute albums do not tend to be straightforward or derivative — and might even be confusing — as is the case (once again, perhaps) for the recent For Cecil Taylor (recorded in Lisbon this past March) by a sextet named New Thing Unit: Rodrigues (viola), Paulo Alexandre Jorge (tenor saxophone), Eduardo Chagas (trombone), Manuel Guimarães (piano), Miguel Mira (cello) & Pedro Santo (drums). I had already noted the participation of Chagas when discussing Meandros e Vertentes, and of course Mira appears on so many albums with Rodrigues.... Jorge & Guimarães hadn't appeared in this space previously, but both have prior albums on Creative Sources (as well as e.g. Clean Feed for the latter) — and both are known for their knowledge of twentieth century USA popular music, obviously relevant background for this tribute album. (And that term "background" does happen to be important in this case....) Finally, I had mentioned Santo in conjunction with José Lencastre's 08.30/18.09/10.10/10.18 (in December), and he appears to work most often in more traditional settings. So the sextet consists of one alto (Rodrigues on viola), three tenors (of which the cello sometimes functions as a bass), and piano & drums. Whereas Rodrigues does engage in some traditional string virtuosity from his position in the highest register, it's not always particularly evident. Indeed, For Cecil Taylor generally has a kind of murky & swirling character from which more traditional expressions & interactions, even solos, sometimes emerge. And whereas the "murky swirling" garden includes various string harmonics & the like, the simmering activity generally has a traditional feel as well, featuring a variety of interlocking ostinati & other techniques of continuity. It's basically the "stuff" of jazz, but presented from other directions. (One might thus note that it starts by constructing a mood, which it might then harvest....) Sometimes the result is quite a racket, but some activity is usually more in the foreground, while some is more in the background, and these relative positions can shift, whether suddenly or gradually, as different activity sharpens or comes into focus. Per the previous entry (& pace harmonics), instruments do usually "sound like instruments" here, versus more experimental settings typical of Rodrigues, though. Moreover, For Cecil Taylor is a long album, over an hour, and thus presents plenty of opportunity for a wide variety of interactions: Track #3 (the longest) begins on piano, which might be said to imitate Taylor, but only tangentially — and then the piano asserts itself again for its most traditionally jazzy (even romantic) evocations only toward the end of track #4 (after various intervening, less qualifiable, piano activity — i.e. the noted ostinati, etc.). The result is almost a haze of Taylor's associated sounds & musical environment, from which some more specific (& sometimes more specifically jazzy) individual tributes can emerge amid other layers of activity. (One almost wishes for more of this mode from e.g. the horns, which can be surprisingly & straightforwardly expressive at times.) Perhaps For Cecil Taylor can be characterized as an impressionistic collage of Taylor's forms & sounds, then — which finally dissolve away. (And of course Taylor himself had ceased his musical activity by the time that I began this project, so nothing from him ever really fit here, although I did list his Victoriaville trio album with Bill Dixon & Tony Oxley as my oldest item for a while.)

Colectivo maDam — a loosely defined, electroacoustic improvising group from Madrid — is joined by Creative Sources mainstays Ernesto Rodrigues & Miguel Mira on Coluro, part of an ascending collaboration between these Madrid musicians & Rodrigues. Here the collective is represented by a quartet of Ruben Gutierrez (electronics, objects), Tomás Gris (acoustic guitar), Guillermo Torres (flugelhorn) & David Area (electronics). (One can e.g. also hear them as a quintet, i.e. those same four performers plus clarinet, on Fields Retro Coco Set, a relatively aggressive & animated album released by Ex Nihilo Records: There are other albums available there as well, in different configurations.) In May 2016, I had discussed Aleph, a quartet album on which Guilherme Rodrigues joins Area, Torres & Gris: Although I still approached those comments too much from the outmoded perspective of the "band" concept, rather than according to the more fluid forms defining these collectives, i.e. considering that different combinations tend to occur on different albums, rather than forging a stable lineup, the comment about an ecology of balance & restraint (& even gravity) remains appropriate. Indeed, whereas I was referring to geometric aspects of the sound stage & pitch gamut, and the manner in which they are spanned or framed, concepts of gravity would appear to reenter here via a(nother) quasi-"space" theme: Coluro is an old term referring to celestial coordinates, as reflected in the cover diagram. (Whereas "space" has not been my favorite theme, to say the least, and despite the electronics here, Coluro does not feature anything like a traditional "futuristic" spacey sound. The collective sound world it constructs is very much its own, although a sense of geometric spanning, including across regimes of timbre, does apply.) As with many (e.g. Lithos) — but certainly not all (e.g. Tactile) — recent Creative Sources releases, the relatively plain & seemingly hand-drawn cover — even suggestive of rough parchment paper, which it does not actually use — also projects a "do it yourself" ethos: Such an ethos would seem to fit the performers' approach more generally, including to their instruments, particularly the electronics, which are presumably homemade. The plain cover then suggests little of the rich creativity of the interactions themselves, let alone the creative construction efforts coming prior to this particular instance.... (One might also compare the pairing of electronics performers within a larger, half acoustic, ensemble to e.g. Thanos Chrysakis projects such as Skiagraphía — on which Rodrigues also participates — & Carved Water, which presents perhaps the most similar set of sounds. And whereas the latter also suggests a spatial quality via its "installation" approach, the former is more about cultivating a mysterious center via wave-like continuity.) Despite its own idiosyncratic invocation of space, then, Coluro might actually be said to project an earthy quality, including as reflected in the coloring of its package.... By way of continuing history, the participation of maDam members on Aleph was followed by Creative Sources releases Chorismos (on which Ernesto Rodrigues plays harp, joining Gris & Area in a trio) & Hápax (a different quartet formation without either Rodrigues) in 2017: The latter is a somewhat formless affair suggesting distant radio signals, whereas the former is more pointillistic. In turn, Coluro is much more elaborate & colorful, with subtle electronics configuring & responding to various contrasting plucks, clunks, rattles, rubs & flutters. The sound is almost immediately engaging, lively & with contrasting sonorities across a broad textural range, with good presence & even the occasional ringing tone. (Unusually, the album is also mixed — by David Area — to have excellent presence on small travel speakers. This surprised me, but it's a welcome option. Of course it's more spacious on better speakers....) Moreover, Coluro is a very substantial album, with three twenty-plus minute tracks totaling well over an hour, recorded on consecutive days in Madrid in January, the first track live, and the next two in a studio venue. Although they use similar combinations of sounds, each track constructs its own world, which comes to a full halt upon conclusion: Each track thus seems to provide an entire album of experiences by itself, such that one might even speak of a double or triple album.... (At times, the third track turns to some very high pitches, recalling e.g. Wade Matthews & Primary Envelopment, which takes something of a similar spanning approach to the very high & very low gamut. Indeed, the pacing & investigations of the maDam approach are clearly inspired by Matthews, while engaging an even richer tapestry of sounds & contrapuntal interactions. So these styles continue to evolve & do so rapidly....) There's palpable tension arising from a kind of disinterested or restrained aggressiveness, sometimes with a pulsing momentum, occasionally with distorted versions of animal (e.g. dog) calls or squealing metal amid various resonances, some repetitive ticks, a variety of string technique, maybe some dripping water or a few sirens... the result leaves the typical pop culture ear worm far behind. In this (very welcome & practical!) trait, Coluro recalls e.g. Ramble & its triple horn acoustic quintet lineup, Sediment before it (albeit there with a quasi-linear sense of process, rather than spatial spanning as here), and especially Nashaz, which also presents a similar range of sounds & interactions, albeit with only minimal electronics: In each case, one finds an elaborate articulation of complex timbres, different speeds of attack, whether percussive or breathy, and an energetic quality seeming to arise from (sometimes subtle) dissonance itself. Especially in the latter case (which evokes more "mystery") — as well as on Coluro — the balance itself drives a kind of dynamism, the concrete "do it yourself" industrial evocations both yielding to & surrounding various natural invocations (which come only at a distance, but are not derived from external samples, at least as far as I can tell): In short, Coluro constructs a highly mediated (& largely indoor) contemporary world of timbral counterpoint, and does so from an unusual & understated sextet configuration that seems to proclaim that more developments will be arriving soon.... Despite (& perhaps because of) that latter sense, Coluro cannot be ignored now, making it perhaps the album of the year in this space thus far.

I was remiss in not devoting attention to Empty Castles, the third album by the horn trio Spectral (Dave Rempis, Darren Johnston, Larry Ochs) when it first appeared, and I confess that this was due to some "information fatigue" arising from being on Rempis' newsletter mailing list. (I understand why musicians do this, but I never ask to be on these lists, and it seems kind of rude to protest.... Still, it induces a sort of "eyes glazing over" effect at times. In a world already saturated with advertising, adding to it bears some caution.) Also, I had almost totally forgotten their prior (digital only) album Neutral Nation, and not only that I had discussed it (in May 2016), but that it had prompted some broader musical thoughts: Albums that prompt broader thoughts are what I'm seeking to hear, so obviously I should have paid more attention.... Spectral (first discussed here in July 2014) was actually the start of a three month trilogy on all-horn trios, and was followed by Sonic Rivers (from John Zorn et al.) in August & then World of Objects (from Jeremiah Cymerman, likewise joined by star horn players) in September 2014. I had been more taken by both Sonic Rivers (with fellow legends George Lewis & Wadada Leo Smith) & World of Objects (similarly with Evan Parker & Nate Wooley) than I had been Spectral — although I did credit the latter with setting the stage for my enjoyment. Perhaps the digital-only aspect of Neutral Nation helped me to forget it, but the act of calling (together) into a void, perhaps with incidental response or coordination — i.e. camaraderie between the players is evident, more so than "harmony" or counterpoint per se — was increasingly thought provoking, and the Spectral trio only continued to work together to develop their style, leading now to Empty Castles: The latter takes the act of calling out into a void to another level, indeed a very tangible physical level, by being performed & recorded in a vast & empty resonant space, a WWII munitions bunker in Vallejo California. (My son was married on Mare Island, as it happens....) So not only have they developed their interplay beyond those other trios by continuing to work together, but they've pursued their own intriguing concept into a more striking & unusual situation than a typical concert (& so touring) setting. Regarding the former, the subtle articulations & slurs between the three players, including the ways in which they differentiate their sounds — and the two saxophonists don't play horns in the same register — are clearly the result not only of an immediate compatibility, but of such extended interactions. (As opposed to the remarks of the previous entry, then, the "band concept" does apply here.) Regarding the latter, whereas World of Objects had explored rich horn interactions in turn via electronics & post-processing, Empty Castles approaches some similar sonic explorations entirely via acoustic means. (Well, as noted, a recording is already "not acoustic," and so this is not entirely true: The act of recording this music was surely challenging, and engineering professionals other than the musicians were involved. This has me wondering again about e.g. some of the muddy medieval recordings I've noted, and why this is an issue, since everything is so clear here: A hazily recorded medieval album thus seems to be confirmed as a choice — a poor one.) Such an acoustic approach enforces a certain deliberative quality from the horns, as sounds must interact according to the rhythm of the space & its non-instantaneous quality. (One might also compare to recent echo-inflected favorites, both recorded in churches, North of North & AAMM. This is not a new trend, but it seems to be in an ascending cycle at the moment.) Moreover, these two factors combine to dictate details of tone, slurs, articulations & the sculpting of tone in general... more leisurely than in some performances, perhaps, due to the delays, but much more immediate than post-production! And such lingering leisure leads in turn to a more charged quality, a tension emerging out of the physical constraints.... (In neither case would there be "neutrality" per se, since the performance is modified by its context, but one might begin to speak of purity as a matter of degree. The resulting calm & clarity might also be compared to e.g. Clarino: Cookbook, although that is composed music. In any case, Empty Castles less often involves pure noise than does World of Objects, even as it's sometimes harsh itself.) The acoustic & the electronic thus tend to accomplish similar, or at least overlapping, things in this comparison. Beyond & in relation to the temporalities of such contexts, Empty Castles also implicitly interrogates notions such as physical proximity (of stage, of audience, etc.) & evokes lingering notions of construction: Thus it has something of the sound of e.g. construction site recording Chantier 4 (discussed here in May), and perhaps a rather poised "do it yourself" vibe akin to Coluro. And whereas Spectral both seem to refine the horn trio concept in general, as well as to develop a very specific situation in great detail, there is also a curious personal element to be noted (beyond the lapse in my attention): If one counts cornet & flugelhorn (& although one might practically consider them to be trumpets, characterizing Coluro as "a flugelhorn album" is more than a bit of a stretch), every 2018 "favorite" so far has involved trumpet: I'm not sure why exactly, but transitioning to the sound of horns per se was one of the biggest barriers for me in considering the jazz tradition, and whereas I found it easier to take to the ubiquitous reeds & the warbling low brass, trumpet has been an acquired taste for me — certainly relative to its massive jazz legacy. (And also as it happens, my daughter has long played trumpet....) I guess I've acquired a taste now, and indeed the distinctive timbre of the trumpet works wonderfully between the two saxes on Empty Castles. (Perhaps Trialectics was actually decisive for me on this point, as the previously unknown trumpeter seemed like the perfect fit in that trio. It can be strange how these narratives evolve on the personal level, and interrogating such narratives has been part of the aesthetic project here....) Returning to those empty castles, then, echoes become a form of response (again, with all this might imply socially), and new concepts of simultaneity are forged. So can this "working horn trio" top themselves again? This is real, small-scale (in the biggest "nuts & bolts" sense...) technical innovation.

Since briefly noting Polyorchard in January, around the quartet Red October, they've reappeared in a new configuration with Sextet | Quintet: These are again both relatively older recordings (2014 & 2015 respectively, with the latter dating from February & April concerts at retailer Squidco, if I understand them correctly [which I didn't]), and so who knows where the style has gone from here, but Sextet | Quintet involves unusual ensembles in polyphonic improvisation, and so must be noted. Besides leader David Menestres (double bass), the only returning member from Red October is Jeb Bishop (trombone). Here they are joined by Dan Ruccia (viola) & Chris Eubank (cello), plus Bill McConaghy (trumpet) & David Morris (tuba) on the sextet, and Jacob Wick (trumpet) on the quintet. (Wick is the only other performer with whom I had any familiarity outside of Polyorchard: He has appeared e.g. on Creative Sources, and he does stand out here in his pairing with Bishop.) So we hear a string trio paired either "equally" with a brass trio, or with a brass duo. (Like Colectivo maDam of Coluro, this is a fluid collection of musicians around Menestres....) Both sets, coming to an hour in total, both divided into multiple tracks, are richly contrapuntal, especially in their opening movements, and present extended explorations of (generally tonal, but sometimes raucous or extended, including by percussive effects) brass & string interactions. (Although the brass is different, and what makes Sextet | Quintet distinctive, one might compare to the classically-inspired string & marimba improvisations of Chant — and to the imagery of largely leafless trees that they share as well: In fact, Sextet | Quintet makes the natural-technical juxtaposition I had noted around Chant explicit, by including imagery of the electrical grid running through the trees....) The result is an appealing sound, sometimes quiet around harmonics, but usually with a lot of activity, maybe too much at times, and I'm not sure it finds its own musical concept beyond the basic timbral pairing.... However the latter is explored with excitement over a variety of combinations & virtuoso techniques, making the exploration per se worthwhile, and the ensemble intriguing & full of potential: So what has Polyorchard done since? Have they revisited or refined ensembles such as this? (Red October was, after all, at least in its ensemble, a traditional free jazz quartet, although Color Theory in Black and White — recorded at Squidco, also in 2014 — did include four tracks of this very same string trio alone.) This is contemporary USA improvisation, away from the big media centers... and online comments suggest that, at least for some listeners, this was their first such experience (at least to encompass classical technique, which tends to be rather segregated in this country), so that's always something.

Creative Sources releases a wide variety of albums beyond Ernesto Rodrigues & his direct collaborators, including recently Mokita from Argentina: The quartet consists of Cecilia Quinteros (cello), Christoph Gallio (saxophones), Alex Elgier (piano) & Marcelo Von Schultz (drums). I had heard of none of them before, and the album was recorded in Buenos Aires in May 2017. In some ways, this is rather typical contemporary free improvisation from its most forceful & active ensemble-oriented vein. Yet, one also gets more of a feel for the Argentine sound, with Quinteros the most intriguing, but Elgier rather distinctive at times too. There is thus more "Argentina" here than on its most recent mention in this space (in December), namely the Ada Rave Trio's The Sea, the Storm and the Full Moon — an album that heavily involves the cosmopolitan experience of Europeans, Hein & De Joode. (One does get a particular feel for Argentina, though, post-tango etc.) Indeed, with its surplus of activity from this younger generation of performers, Mokita gave me a new perspective on what I had found distinctive about Give and Take (from Frode Gjerstad, also featuring piano) — such that the latter comes to sound slow, almost like a shadow of the former's vibrance. So whereas I didn't find the quartet compelling overall, it definitely made an impression. What's next?

Finally, I also want to note Head Under Water, recently on FMR from a trio of Robert Burke, Tony Malaby & Mark Helias. This is a very long album of sixteen tracks, and again has something of the "feel of a series of studies," as I had noted regarding later tracks on Burke's prior FMR album, Shift (discussed in May 2017) — the latter also including Helias in a quartet with George Lewis & Australian pianist Paul Grabowsky. Without piano or electronics, Head Under Water has a rather different feel — & both the title & the suggestion that the "audience let the music surround and flow over them" are evocative of Pool School (& I guess one isn't intended to drown in either instance) — deriving largely from the horn dialog. (In its "calm precision" one might also compare to recent FMR releases from Udo Schindler, most recently discussed here in February. They generally involve a sweet tone, close interaction, and "clarity of gesture" — the latter often being absent from e.g. Polyorchard.) Besides involving bass, Head Under Water is also more generally melodic than e.g. Empty Castles, and involves something of an inversion to Malaby's insertion into a preexisting duo on New Artifacts: Here his horn isn't centered between strings as the newcomer, but rather to one side as the two horns pivot around the bass. (Of course, one must also note Helias's longtime trio with Malaby & Tom Rainey, Open Loose, but I didn't find them speaking to me when encountering them early in this project.... The improvised interaction on Head Under Water also contrasts with another "composed" album in Clarino: Cookbook, despite some obvious similarities in ensemble & outcome.) The result is pensive at times, often with an appealing song-like quality set against some "process" thinking (especially from the bass), but remains distant for me, "surrounding flow" or no. Burke (here on tenor & soprano sax) does appear to be developing a personal style, though....

Particularly on the heels of Norbert Rodenkirchen's participation on the recent (& recommended) Boethius reconstruction album by Sequentia, I wanted to note Opalescence by a trio of Rodenkirchen on various (including historical) flutes, Robbie Lee on various flutes (& other horns), and James Ilgenfritz on bass. I was previously unfamiliar with Lee, but Ilgenfritz has appeared in this space with a variety of projects, most recently (last August) the second album from Mind Games — after appearing here initially with that quartet's first album (in February 2012). Improvising is by no means new for Rodenkirchen, who performs improvised accompaniment (as well as dedicated flute tracks) on a variety of medieval albums, including via both source interrogations and more fanciful evocations, the latter e.g. on Hameln Anno 1284 or especially Tibia ex tempore. Opalescence recently appeared on Telegraph Harp Records (co-founded by Lee), and was recorded in Brooklyn in two separate sessions, in January 2015 & May 2017, but the notes do not specify which tracks are from which, nor the provenance of the material: Apparently the "-scence" tracks are composed pieces by Rodenkirchen, although not all are solos (perhaps as implied). There are a handful of wind duo tracks too, with the flute/horn dialog usually dominant, such that when the bass participates, it's often more in the background. (That changes on Mille Regretz, the only track with a recognizable medieval title, as it opens with an extended bass solo. Opalescence is thus rather different from e.g. A Mirror to Machaut, which is more often based on historical material....) There are thus only a few tracks among the fourteen (totaling 50') that can be said to be full-fledged trio improvisations. Still, the use of a variety of flutes with a variety of tunings & other characteristics, and the exploration of some early timbres more broadly, makes for an interesting result, even as it's never all that exotic (although more often dissonant than one might imagine). Might this trio come back with a more integrated (& perhaps radical?) album after playing together more?

At least for Joe Morris, it appears that Geometry of Caves already has something of a sequel in Wet Robots on ESP, recorded in Brooklyn in August 2017 (i.e. eight months later), and on which Morris (playing electric guitar) joins Fay Victor (b.1965) & her SoundNoise trio of Sam Newsome (b.1965) on soprano sax & Reggie Nicholson (b.1957) on drums to form Fay Victor's SoundNoiseFunk. I was not familiar with Victor or her other collaborators previously, but she has some older albums available on Bandcamp: They tend to be strongly oriented on lyrics, and in a straight ahead style emphasizing message & communication (& involve well-known musicians such as Ken Filiano). Victor has also developed a rich repertory of vocal techniques, and true to Morris's participation, Wet Robots features more abstract, non-lyrical music. Indeed it's a long album — well over an hour — and includes not only abstract quartet tracks that parallel Geometry of Caves in some ways, but tracks using word-less vocalizations to evoke or essentialize particular 20th century vocal genres, as well as three tracks featuring lyrics. That second group is impressive in its own way, and Victor's assertively articulated messages in the latter are quite relevant & on target. (Perhaps surprisingly, the more abstract tracks are sometimes evocative of the Nordic balance of Eye of the Moose too: It starts to be a classic?) Unfortunately, it seems as though the straightforward lyrical delivery contrasts with the more abstract musical exchanges, although lyrics do emerge from within the latter style at times (& go on to dominate the foreground), such that it almost becomes a choice between one or the other. This seems like a general issue, although I was recently taken (discussed in April) with the "spoken word" approach on Landlocked Beach.... Regarding the other musicians, Morris doesn't use a "dirty" sound here, but keeps to clear tones, while the way the sax imitates & sometimes continues the vocal lines is also impressive. (And Nicholson & Newsome are both quite tuned into Victor: There is something of a "loft scene" vibe to the interaction.) Altogether, Wet Robots is another welcome development in contemporary vocal improvisation, an arena with much left to explore.

Following last month's comments regarding Relative Pitch, and how they seem to be expanding their scope to include various world scenes & (improvisatory) genres, I also want to mention an even newer release, Inner Core: This is a "piano trio" album, recorded in Barcelona in December 2016, and featuring Irene Aranda (piano), Johannes Nästesjö (double bass) & Núria Andorrà (percussion). I had mentioned Andorrà last August as appearing on Celebration Ensemble, another Barcelona production, but the others are new (here). In fact, that Celebration Ensemble was released by Sluchaj Foundation is already indicative of the commercial void for albums from Barcelona, as they've most often appeared there or on Polish cousin Not Two — or digitally on Discordian Records. (The Liquid Trio Plays Bernoulli, also on Sluchaj, was the last to be discussed here, in January.) Inner Core is generally a jagged, noisy, rattling, industrial metallic affair, but sometimes becomes rather calm & quiet — down to background rumbles, scrapes & squeaks. Even when quiet, it tends to maintain some continuity, and even the loudest racket tends to coalesce around a central repeated figure. It's thus a particular example of the "deconstructed" piano trio style, for which the central piano contraption is more of a percussive sound source than a classical instrument (although there are some big chord sequences too). In this, it's not especially characteristic of Barcelona, as similar styles are being explored in many places (e.g. Magda Mayas comes to mind), but the tendency to coalesce around a main line does recall Barcelona pianist Agustí Fernández at times. The musicians must know each other well, too, as their collective interaction is assured, even in the wildest moments. (And I really enjoy the first several minutes, before they quiet down for the first time in the opening track....) And with those brief remarks, I'm indeed happy to note that Relative Pitch is already continuing its expansion of scope in terms of both genre & scene....

I mentioned the impending new triple album from AMM, An Unintended Legacy, when discussing AAMM last month, and it's indeed a welcome issue. As noted many times at this point, I came to this project in the middle, i.e. wanting to get a sense of what was current at the time, rather than jump immediately into history. (And my long experiences in other arenas of music history are part of what prompted a reluctance to assume that position once again....) So with a legendary group like AMM, active since the 1960s, not only was I hearing them decades after their first interactions, but also after so many other musicians had already been influenced & had produced their own subsequent music in turn. (Some of which I then heard....) In this case, "hearing them" meant hearing the Prévost-Tilbury duo, since their previous work with Keith Rowe occurred prior to this project: So I did listen to the duo, although I hadn't discussed it here, but I didn't seek out earlier recordings (and still haven't). So my comments here are not in the same vein as those who have been following AMM for many years, or otherwise seek to document the arc of their history. Rather they're comments about hearing a new triple album shortly after its release — albeit only after having heard so many other performances by musicians influenced by this iconic group. Although prior to AAMM I had mentioned AMM per se only in passing (as influences, etc.), I did otherwise mention the members of the trio: John Tilbury was first mentioned in October 2013 around Joëlle Léandre's Ulrichsberger Trio, and again subsequently around various productions, including for his participation on another iconic release, Nessuno. (The latter has a lively yet pensive air that does build to considerable density at times, yet also suggests some of AMM's characteristic long form pacing right from the beginning.) As something of a surprise to myself, I note that I hadn't actually mentioned Prévost until the Wolff-Prévost duo (Uncertain Outcomes) last September — although I had listened to his recent "Meetings with Remarkable Saxophonists" series. Finally, I didn't have much sense of Rowe, as he seems not to have been terribly active since leaving AMM, but I did mention him in July 2015 around Contour — an album from Mikroton & Kurt Liedwart, with whom Rowe has a new collaboration (supposedly to arrive at my home today) as well. (Yes, I realize that I just disclaimed history, and then went on to recount my own — likely uninteresting — history: Whereas the latter isn't necessary to relate in principle, it does situate the comments. That seems important here, not only in general, but due to the ample discussion of AMM already taking place, including by members themselves, including in the book accompanying An Unintended Legacy.) So Rowe rejoined AMM shortly after they performed as a duo (to form the quintet) on AAMM — an edgy & highly charged album that benefits from the (albeit dissonant) legato capacities of bass & trumpet, not to mention the novelty of the international pairing — to record the first concert/CD of what would become An Unintended Legacy in December 2015 in London: This is the longest of the three discs/concerts at over an hour, and also perhaps the most characteristic, heavy & involved. That involvement includes e.g. Rowe tuning to local radio (recalling not only his own prior practice with AMM, but perhaps evoking new practices by others, such as those on Landlocked Beach, as well...), although the latter does remain quiet & in the background. It all contributes to the epic quality of this initial wave, although the shorter second & third discs have their charms as well, both being around three quarters of an hour in length, with the former originating in Paris in April 2016 & the latter in Trondheim in June 2016. (The former has more of a sharpness via escaping resonances, whereas the latter has more of a steady & rumbling quality. And these are recordings of three of the five concerts the trio gave during this period....) Whereas the first might be the more conceptually dynamic, all three performances rely heavily on dynamic changes of loudness, and so are sensitive to environmental interaction (including as selected by Rowe via the radio), and need good recorded sound, which they do receive from this exemplary production. Moreover, the long form pacing, involving periods during which the listener is almost waiting for something to happen, continues to be characteristic of AMM: Apparently an initial burst of activity (noted of AAMM) is characteristic as well, before they go on to explore even broader temporal structures, often through various accelerations that subsequently abate. Such a progression through elaborations within a longer wave or arc of activity has been suggestive of Indian classical music to me, the unmeasured alap form in particular. So I was surprised to read the extensive notes to An Unintended Legacy emphasizing a Chinese legacy, and not mentioning India. (Leaving those impressions aside, I had indeed noted a "Chinese-naturalist feel" & sounds of "emergence from a Zen garden" when discussing AAMM, but hadn't realized that it derived from such a primary influence. Of course, that album is also generally grittier, such that the delicate Chinese feel can be quite fleeting.) Although it's left more implied than explicitly stated, the Chinese qin (ch'in in the notes) is especially reflected (at least partially) by Rowe's table top guitar configuration, although any direct musical correspondence is apparently transformed by the time we arrive at An Unintended Legacy. There's also some suggestion that AMM's music has become even sparser — more listening to listening, they say — but I also note that it never really loses cohesion, its "looseness" deriving from mastery... continuity via the tension of anticipation. The guitar also marks a divergence from the classic piano trio, and although I haven't attempted to trace the history of this specific configuration of instruments, it continues to be popular: Kontakte Trio is a particularly sophisticated recent example — including with electronic sampling, going beyond the radio broadcasts here — likewise from the UK. I could also mention e.g. It Rolls (first discussed here in June 2015) with Fred Frith on guitar, etc.... Further regarding the UK, I've already noted something of a reluctance to feature English albums here, although I've come to explore more of that scene over the years: There are still not many 100% English albums featured here, with recent favorite Ag being another that — while generally rather more active — shows inspiration from the AMM sound (i.e. timbres in particular & not only pacing or listening approach). Considering that jazz arose from marginalized groups inserting their own freedom of expression into "cracks" in the mainstream (i.e. white, capitalist, imperialist, patriarchal) music world, there's a certain incongruity for me when the rulers of the world enter into this idiom... which is perhaps why I never took to Prévost's "Meetings..." series, despite that AMM themselves have displayed a social consciousness throughout, perhaps even hyperbolically so via their associations with Cornelius Cardew, et al. (Moreover, Prévost suggests that the modernist sense of aesthetic experimentation retained by AMM is contrary to the postmodern impulse, which he immediately sutures to neoliberalism per se. I will return to this subject elsewhere, in particular to interrogate the bogeyman qualities of "the postmodern," which — after all — correlates at least temporally with the postcolonial, but in the meantime: Such a statement is critically animated by the chronologies of capitalist imperialism, from which it must ultimately be disentangled.) Regarding the piano trio format, and the piano in particular, guitar & percussion often blend on An Unintended Legacy, such that their continuity is a feature of these performances, whereas the piano is most often heard as clear & separate. (The third disc does appear to use more preparations to warp the piano sound, allowing it to blend at times.) The squealing metal of rubbed strings or cymbals often produces a shimmering background hum or broad echo, sometimes becoming loud — an encompassing sound to which the piano almost seems added, rather than central, in an inversion of canonical piano trio norms. (The "separateness" of the piano here thus underlines my concerns around the future of the instrument, pace recent comments regarding Henry Threadgill's new albums, North of North, For Cecil Taylor, Inner Core, etc....) Such separation adds to the sense of "waiting one's turn" that — although deeply internalized — sometimes dominates the three albums, such that simultaneity can be (relatively) lacking. There is, moreover, a calm sense of inquiry that maintains — a sense that might become charged, e.g. by the confrontation on AAMM — despite the occasionally noisy or dissonant punctuation. (The piano might then contrast resonant lines of flight with pretty tinkling....) So having influenced so many musicians already, has the AMM style been thoroughly plumbed, so to speak? That would be overstating, as it develops audibly through the three performances included in An Unintended Legacy, and will likely continue to do so, but there is also a lingering sense that it belongs to the previous era — unable or unwilling to make a full jump into the contemporary moment, and yes, into the postmodern aesthetic. (Again, I will be treating the latter in much more theoretical detail here soon.) Of course, even if that's true, it doesn't diminish the massive contributions AMM has already made, including toward forging the contemporary moment itself, or indeed dim the ongoing magic of their music, whether old or new: The modern does linger (sometimes perhaps uncomfortably) today, as we continue to struggle with the post-imperial transition, and that doesn't necessarily correlate to specific value... it's simply a part of our jumbled times, with AMM taking its own particular perspective on the jumble (down to the final thump).

After six albums from the Lisbon String Trio last year, this year (so far, anyway) there are three: In fact, all nine albums were recorded within a year of each other, as the most recent releases date only to earlier in March this year than the series began last year — with the trio alone on Proletariat. And whereas the second through fourth volumes featured high reed instruments joining the string trio, before moving on to trombone & piano, this year's releases include two more guests on brass, as well as violin legend Carlos "Zingaro" Alves. The latter is certainly an exciting addition to their lineup, and the resulting album, Theia (to be discussed in more detail in a subsequent entry), moreover joins a sequence of improvising string quartet albums involving Ernesto Rodrigues: I had discussed the evocative Crane Cries here in April, and its specific instrumentation parallels the classical string quartet (albeit with one of the violinists sometimes moving to viola), whereas Iridium String Quartet (discussed here in May 2016, coincidentally in the same entry as Aleph — a precedent for Coluro, as recently noted) employed what I've been thinking of as the "jazz string quartet," i.e. with bass instead of a second violin — as does Theia. Sometimes moving in so many directions at once that it involves a sort of hide & seek for the listener, Theia displays some of the same capricious character as K'Ampokol Che K'Aay (recorded just two days after Proletariat, such that one wonders what would have happened had that interaction not achieved such a dazzling result) with Blaise Siwula, albeit with fewer timbral distinctions. (K'Ampokol Che K'Aay & Theia also share a motivic orientation, quickly moving through arrays of harmonic spaces. And I had already admired both guest musicians before hearing them with Lisbon String Trio, so maybe that's the important part for my reception! Hopefully I remain open....) When it comes to the guests on brass, not only does Lisbon String Trio have the precedent of Intonarumori, with Carlo Mascolo joining on trombone, but coincidentally in this space, there is also the recently discussed Polyorchard: Sextet, Quintet, with its classically-inflected yet improvised exploration of string & brass combinations. With a single brass instrument & three strings, the Lisbon String Trio releases present less opportunity for simultaneity from the brass, but also tend to involve more focus through smaller forces. Regarding Intonarumori (discussed in August 2017), I had suggested considering a different string balance, so as to frame the trombone differently, and whereas Polyorchard manages to include so many combos that various balance points appear, on (the seventh Lisbon String Trio release) Tactile, trombonist Eduardo Chagas tends to maintain an ambivalent orientation low in the texture. I've already mentioned the latter recently, in entries around Meandros e Vertentes & For Cecil Taylor, and indeed Chagas has worked extensively with Ernesto Rodrigues (including on recent duo album Holes and Cracks) & other Creative Sources regulars. Consequently, perhaps, Tactile is by far the most diffuse & experimentally-oriented album yet in the Lisbon String Trio series: I particularly enjoy the first several minutes of its single track (recorded in Lisbon in February), in which the trombone does establish an intriguing & relatively assertive textural relationship, but much of the album involves quiet subtlety & extended sounds from all involved, such that e.g. breathy horn animating high position string harmonics becomes a highlight. A sense of landscape might thus be said to emerge, and that's even more true (in a more assertive guise) of From Faust, featuring Sei Miguel (b.1961) on pocket trumpet, and recorded in March in Lisbon (the day after Theia): I had not mentioned Miguel here previously, but he has an impressive discography on Clean Feed, etc. And with the pocket trumpet, the often quiet & murky balance of Tactile is basically turned on its head, as the piercing trumpet tends to dominate attention whenever active, and moreover to call out starkly over a "landscape" established by the strings. The latter can be quite rich, buoyed by a wide variety of techniques, as well as a sense of excitement in playing with such a noted & uncompromising horn player in Miguel, but since the trumpet generally must remain quiet in order for the strings to interact, one is often left wishing for a more balanced interaction overall. One certainly doesn't lack for immediacy, though, at least when the trumpet is active, as the latter balances insightful interjection & commentary against a concertante style, such that a rhetorical quality emerges across the three tracks (each longer than the previous) of From Faust: The album begins almost with an overture, maintaining a sense of mystery & anticipation, then elaborates the string textures in richer detail (while retaining that mysterious sense) & into near silence, before making a more assertive & polished extended statement. So each of the resulting quartet albums featuring a guest on brass with Lisbon String Trio raises balance issues — or balance opportunities, I suppose.... And indeed, the string & brass combinations continue to appeal, offering tantalizing possibilities, if not actualities.... Finally, regarding the "band" remarks recently articulated around Coluro & Empty Castles (which shares a similar, calling spirit with From Faust), Lisbon String Trio appears to be becoming a band — although, at this point, their activity is documented for less than a year, as noted, so who knows whether they'll continue. Moreover, their series adopts a distinctive (physical, graphical) look around collages by Dilar Pereira: I don't generally spend much time discussing graphics here (and of course you can observe my own site in that regard), but after noting the DIY style on Creative Sources releases such as Coluro, I wanted to note the Pereira collages as well, particularly as collage was one of the defining early forms of postmodernism (& continues to be used extensively in adventurous or genre-bending music). (These two distinct styles of graphic design, by Carlos Santos for Creative Sources, might also be contrasted with e.g. more "classic" or stark covers such as those of For Cecil Taylor & most recently, Jardin Carré... the latter's music to be discussed in a subsequent entry.) The collage covers thus mark the Lisbon String Trio series — & accurately so, as with the possible exception of Tactile, the music readily concurs — as relatively conservative within the Creative Sources catalog. In other words, they are original & creative within their idiom, including via instrumentation, but the idiom itself is not especially radical. Nonetheless, I continue to find the series to be quite appealing as an exploration of texture around classical & extended string techniques, incorporating & combining traditional rhythms & harmonies (often at quite a density). There is not so much juxtaposition of material, as one might find in a straightforward collage — & Pereira already incorporated blending techniques — but much material is indeed encountered, in a traveling mode, i.e. via (musical) movement through time. So whereas Rodrigues et al. might evoke or inhabit a visual mode at times, they are not (particularly) constrained by ocularcentrism, at least not in its static (or exclusively distant) form.

Particularly since I sometimes seem to be fixated on particular sources, I'm happy to check other people's remarks and albums they might have noticed that I didn't: There's a lot out there — in fact, there's an entire world, so surely far more than I've heard — and that's very welcome. In particular, Martin Schray recently drew attention to an improvised album from Germany, Boulez Materialism recorded live in 2017 (more specific information not provided), and released on Christian Lillinger's Plaist Music label. This is actually the second release on Plaist, after another Lillinger's Grund album, C O R released earlier this year: Grund is a septet, playing Lillinger's compositions incorporating improvisation in a post-bop mode, and includes all the musicians from Boulez Materialism, as well as such luminaries as Achim Kaufmann on piano. It's a polished, ample & enjoyable album, building on prior Clean Feed releases from Lillinger.... Boulez Materialism is a little different, an improvised album incorporating electronics (by Johannes Brecht, who is "merely" an engineer on C O R), and evoking some of the vibe & relations of serial music. The "vibe" part is literal in this case, as the "DBLW" quartet is basically a vibraphone trio fronted by Christopher Dell, with Jonas Westergaard on bass & Lillinger on drums — with live mixing & other input on electronics from Brecht. Moreover, as the intriguing title already suggests (and Schray had quoted a paragraph), there is a story to this group & album, and the approach is discussed by Dell in some fairly lengthy (for this sort of release anyway) & philosophical (e.g. citing Hegel more than once) liner notes. (As it happens, I also had to procure the album directly from Plaist in order to read the notes, even though they have arrangements for worldwide sales: The "on demand" CDR version that I was sent by a major US retailer included the music, but otherwise only the cover, and not the liner notes or even the back insert or CD face image. Those were marked "Various Artists" as if an automated program didn't recognize the music — no surprise there! — and suggest a generally shoddy job by this "RecordJet" company that was charged with providing the material. Beware.) So the vibes trio sounds like a vibes trio... not that those are common... a mix of ringing tones against a gritty bass & wide ranging percussion, sometimes supplemented by electronic tones, and generally being remixed (I think) on the fly for balance & echoes, etc. Apparently the inclusion of serial ideas — and note that a similar mix of serial & "thematic" (the strange term Dell uses in his discussion) ideas maintain in a classic (e.g. Free Jazz Blog award winner) such as Polylemma (& of course earlier with e.g. Anthony Braxton), albeit there based in composition — together with the electronics & a rather evocative vibraphone foreground, suggested "Boulez in real time" to a German reporter, and so it's almost as though Dell felt compelled to respond: In other words, the essay doesn't feel to me like an expression of passion, but rather a measured response to being compared to Boulez, and especially to the various public perceptions of serial music that such a comparison might imply. In particular, I appreciate Dell's focus on the (changing) locus or boundary between individual & society, and how that can be reflected or interrogated musically, including via conceptions of (musical) notes themselves. I also appreciate his focus on relation — a focus I've made more explicit in my revised opening to this space this year: It's a basis for my aesthetic approach more generally, and my longer theoretical discussions discuss not only relation (including in musical terms), but subject position in particular, including its cultural & epochal shifts.... That Dell touches on these topics is certainly welcome, even refreshing, but I do have a few further thoughts: First of all, one of the founding impulses of dodecaphony was to eliminate (or ameliorate) "common practice" pitch hierarchies! Moreover, such a non-hierarchy is not immediately or inherently about creating or maintaining "separation" between notes. Rather, it's to establish contexts & relations — yes, relations — between notes, but outside of traditional (musical) hierarchy. And as the twentieth century proceeded, that orientation gave way to a process-based approach to relating notes: To be as abstract as possible, one might speak simply of equations, perhaps even dictating musical parameters outside of traditional twelve-tone scales, etc. In that sense, serial music specifically provides a greater palette of relationality per se. (I start to sense a notion suggesting that serial music is somehow "anti-material," and I find such a notion to be absurd. It misses the whole point.) Further to the discussion of subject position, Dell notes a desire to "integrate non-identity," which suggests to me a Laruellian concept of the generic, a mode of relation that differs from either the universal or particular. (Dell doesn't put it quite this way, but the concept of the generic does seem to fit his thinking. He also explicitly wants to "go beyond genius," and the hierarchical reifications of "composer" are indeed something that Boulez did not escape....) OK, so Dell more or less says that the group reinjects motivic relations into the serial forms that they also employ in order to provide another dimension, and thus coordinate or orient relationality per se: Such a discussion of dimensionality around musical parameters immediately suggests the recent Coluro (with its novel sense of spanning coordinates) in turn to me, or indeed e.g. Proletariat (discussed, in part, in these very terms last July) & its Scelsian (or "spectral") approach to harmonic dimensionality. That said, the band largely evokes Boulez (or did for someone) via its "crystalline" vibes sound in the foreground, and perhaps Dell's own instrument does project or enforce a sense of separate note (as might piano, etc.) — and indeed the vibes seem to mark a particular moment of modernism: Beyond Boulez, starting in the 1950s, e.g. Feldman refined these sorts of timbres (e.g. during For Philip Guston) in the 1980s. And whereas it's true that I don't know another vibes trio like this (electronics or no), some recent comparisons do present themselves: Natura venomous comes off rather differently because of the voice, but also employs vibes & electronics, and within a (more) radical & often serialized sound world. Tipple Live at Elastic Arts generally has more of a "rock" atmosphere, as well as Gjerstad's squeaky horns, but the strong & gritty bass lines make it perhaps the most evocative of the sound of Boulez Materialism. (Indeed, both benefit from good speakers & a big sound.) Further, Kontakte Trio interrogates serial influences more explicitly, arguably with a broader sense of relation, and even opens with prominent vibes (& soon, electronics). Back to the notes, there is little or no discussion of "the sound" of the group, or indeed the inclusion of electronics, unless that's alluded to via temporal articulation, but the Boulez evocation is clearly to the sound world of Répons (also not mentioned specifically), Boulez's first prominent integration of real-time electronics (& spatial parameters) — and a piece to which I've attributed a Disney-esque quality. (And I stand by this description, considering the commercial technology available to Boulez at the time.... Boulez had said he wanted to compose a Répons 2 later in his life, but as far as I know, that didn't happen.) Now, real-time electronics are far more practical for many musicians — & indeed appear regularly in this space (& often with a "do it yourself" flair). As I've already suggested, though, what makes Boulez Materialism sound rather different from these & other iconic works of late modernism is often its gritty & sometimes booming bass, as well as the edgier aspects of the drum work — almost analogously to what AAMM did with the rather classic (even crystalline) AMM duo sound.... (It's the bass that simply isn't found e.g. in Feldman's gestural refinement, and so one might speak — again, following Goodman — of a politics of frequency. That Dell figures this according to materiality is thus not without merit, but one might merely note that the music is lower & more forceful: Serialism is not antithetical to bass!) All that said, I did enjoy Boulez Materialism, particularly some of its massive clunks & forcefully bent metals set against the "classic" vibes sound. I sometimes find myself wishing for more from the electronics, although I also don't really know how much remixing or looping is already happening, since those are generally the more exciting passages.... It's also a short — albeit dense — album, and both tracks seem to end abruptly: In that sense, it's clearly not the end of a story, but an effort to document a particular exploration.... DBLW does forge an appealing sound, though — quick-witted, and yes, often jazzy — so let me end by noting a few relations or non-relations (that I usually include toward the beginning): I knew Lillinger from e.g. the energetic Rotozaza Zero & elsewhere, but both Dell & Brecht, as well as Westergaard (so central to this album) on bass, were new to me. Perhaps they'll continue to forge new ways of relating. And perhaps these remarks will be helpful.

As noted above, Theia is an album that I had expected to enjoy, with legendary violinist Carlos Zingaro joining the Lisbon String Trio for the eighth of what is so far a series of a nine albums, again recorded live (in Lisbon this March). (Expectations are always dangerous, but they seem to have worked out in this case....) I don't know if Zingaro has performed together with Ernesto Rodrigues in the past, but this is the first document, as far as I know, and with a title evoking Titanic collision: Theia is anything but an album of polarity & broad epic sweep, however, as it's often "moving in so many directions at once that it involves a sort of hide & seek for the listener," per the earlier remarks. Zingaro's participation suggests a direct comparison with Chant, another (relatively recent) album featuring the "jazz string quartet," but with (classical) marimba as well: Chant often adopts a rather classical mood, and indeed does develop something of a "sweep" at times, as counterpoint builds continuity & even lushness. (Chant has suggested for me a polarity between naturalistic sounds & their mediations and the industrial-technological world of modernity & indeed musical instruments. It comes to sound more distinctly classical, even biographical, over time.) Whereas both Chant & Theia could be said to revolve around viola players, Cròniques 5: Ao vivo! is another recent (recorded in Portugal last October) album to note, albeit short: Cròniques takes us back to Discordian Records of Barcelona — per my comments on Inner Core last week — and Ao vivo! is apparently the climax of a series by tenor sax player Albert Cirera — mentioned here in January around Agustí Fernández & The Liquid Trio Plays Bernoulli — a quintet album coming after a series of four duo outings with each of the other participants. Not only does the latter group include Zingaro, but bassist Alvaro Rosso of Lisbon String Trio as well, plus Ulrich Mitzlaff (cellist on Chant) & Olle Vikström (with whom I was not previously familiar) on baritone sax. Ao vivo! has some fine moments, and suggests a "gathering of forces" in a style that's become associated with Barcelona, developing a herky-jerky composite rhythmic ostinato or groove. Meanwhile, Theia moves in many directions at once, both within & between its six well-defined tracks, not so much suggesting aimlessness as an intense web of precise & growing connections via harmonics, double stops, interpolations, etc. It's not so much a matter of pace, as that's relatively moderate, but the contrapuntal branching & sense of relation is relentless, quickly filling the mind: In this, it recalls for me not the Boulez of Répons, per the previous entry, but of Dérive 2 — my favorite of his late works, employing only a string trio (i.e. no bass) among its eleven conventional instruments (without electronics, etc.). Dérive 2 also fills the mind quickly with its branching relations, and requires sharp concentration on its close interactions. Theia, likewise, almost seems to be more active the more one attends to it, in keeping with its relentless tracing of connections. (It can seem very potent, even spicy, and yet withdraws or hides without much attention, not so unlike Sîn — although I don't believe that anyone would characterize Theia as ambient.) Theia might even be said to track some of the same naturalistic-technological duality as Chant, although with its own flair, as the connectedness of humanity per se to anything & everything else becomes increasingly apparent (and, in this case, is criss-crossed by an even broader variety of relations). Does this "everything else" include "outer space?" In contrast to some of my preferences (especially as articulated, perhaps overly strongly, in my response to Autres Paysages — also from João Camões of Chant, as it happens), Theia undertakes a relation with "space" not by evoking previous traditions of "spacey music" or even imagery of NASA & technological space exploration/exploitation, but via a mythological "Clash of the Titans" & even suggestions of originary planetary collision. (Theia was chosen as the Titan to name a hypothetical planetary body posited as involved in creating our moon via celestial collision.) (Coluro likewise invokes the planetary, although perhaps not "space" per se, in a precise yet non-astronaut centered mode. One might even say that it decenters the human more generally, or perhaps even recenters it.) And these are all real human ideas, of one sort or another, such that we are all somehow enmeshed in this multifaceted web, from primordial planetary motion to classical string technique & evocations of the broader sonic environment.... Moreover, the intricacy of Theia makes it difficult or even impossible to pull away from these connections, to gain a (desired?) perspective of distance, i.e. of non-involvement: It thwarts illusions of mastery from within its embedded relationality, and often does so rather starkly. (That was a comment about life in general, right? It might also apply to Geometry of Caves....) Stability & insight are infrequent within such a space, but they do sometimes pool, however briefly, in eddies....

One thing I've wanted to accomplish here is to articulate my actual opinions & preferences on music, and not to be bound by notions of what I "should" think, whether generated by outside influences, (often legitimate) thoughts on fairness, etc. Such a line (of demarcation) is not always especially clear, since notions of "should" definitely infiltrate my choices of what to hear... which I think is fine (& largely unavoidable)... and that does in turn affect my choices of what to discuss, but I don't believe that it would actually be "fair" (knowingly) to ignore releases that I do appreciate: It's a matter of honest feedback (a notion which, of course, can go on to be even more fraught than this brief summary suggests) for everyone. So my perspective is that Ernesto Rodrigues is really on a roll right now, and is releasing major album after major album, intelligent & compelling interrogations of various sound worlds & musical relations, involving a wide variety of musicians in different combinations... or perhaps it's more a matter of when I came to his style, and my focus on his latest output is actually belated or otherwise askew. I can't really respond to such a suggestion, but I do want to acknowledge that my focus on Creative Sources releases may seem out of proportion... in a world of "should" anyway. That said — although a series like the Lisbon String Trio is an exception, but do note that it's also relatively traditional within Rodrigues's output — I'm trying to take the albums individually, one at a time, and create specific entries for those that prompt them. Close on the heels of the latest Lisbon String Trio releases & discussion, Jardin Carré is such an album, so a few more remarks: I had already noted Jardin Carré as an example of a stark or classic cover on Creative Sources — rather than collage or DIY (or, although with overlap, geometry) — and it was indeed recorded about three weeks after From Faust, in March in Paris: It's a single track of more than a half hour, with French double bassist Fred Marty joining Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues to form another string trio, supported by Carlos Santos (who also did the covers) on electronics. As the square on the cover (& reflected in the title) might imply, Jardin Carré suggests a kind of framing, i.e. a musical view from a distance — so suggests, perhaps, a consideration of ocularcentrism quite unlike on Theia — and in turn objects (per se) at a distance (rather than immanent or embedded). Such a perspective tends to revolve around Marty (b.1970) on bass: Although I wasn't previously familiar with him, Marty has an earlier duo album on Creative Sources, as well as with Jean-Marc Foussat. His style reminds me a bit of Pascal Niggenkemper, absent the sudden resonance shifts, but with a kind of rumbling & buzzing main line (that suggests for me Niggenkemper's participation on e.g. Lignes De Crêtes — another album of vistas, as discussed here in February 2017, albeit very different in so many other ways — with Jean-Brice Godet). Indeed, Jardin Carré is very potent at times, sometimes evoking a Scelsian vibe, and in fact the buzzing bass might be attributable to Uitti/Scelsi-style string mutes or vibrators. There is often a kind of gritty or grinding quality as a result, one the other strings sometimes share (& which the bass does not always adopt), such that the "grain" of the string tone itself becomes an important musical object. (The buzz might also be compared, at times, and despite a generally busier musical surface, to that of the rudra veena — a string bass, albeit not bowed — or more simply to the tanpura: Both are fitted with metal strips or brackets to bounce against the strings and proliferate high harmonics.) One might compare the ensemble itself to that on 0 minutes and 0 seconds, where Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues are joined by a bassist & electronics artist: The latter is more formal & inward looking, as noted in June, unfolding between smoothness & segmentation. And there, the electronics are "oscillators," focusing on clear tones, whereas the use of electronics on Jardin Carré is rather more subtle: There are some high electronic tones at times, although these might be inflections of string harmonics, just as some "bend" is added to the bass at times. Usually, electronics are not noticeable, however, such that — as on Boulez Materialism, as discussed earlier this week — they appear to be involved largely in mixing & perhaps looping. (The latter is hard to judge.) Is the focus on grit & grain enabled by real-time electronics? I'm not sure, but in any case, the subtlety of the electronics — and one might not notice them at all — adds to the mysterious emergent aura of the album. Whereas such a discussion might suggest a "single tone" emphasis, and there are indeed some rather minimal episodes, particularly later in the album, there is also quite a bit of polyphony, and not all of it's noisy: There are sometimes long lines from all three strings, sometimes even lyrical in a nineteenth century sense (especially from the viola), although generally embedded in a gritty atmosphere. (The resonant alignments of the string trio on Jardin Carré might then be compared to those on Proletariat, although the latter is probably more about harmonic verticality, and definitely more about "straight" string technique.) There is a further emphasis on continuity in general, pace the quieter episodes, particularly as the remainder of the quartet might "contract" to accent or ornament a central bass line. Although there can be a feeling of sameness or circularity at times as a result, and sometimes a preliminary quality, I've found Jardin Carré to be quite engaging, particularly as a contrast with other music: I had originally parsed it as little more than an appendix to the Lisbon String Trio series (being a string trio plus another musician, after all), but it's taken on a life of its own, reliably leaving me listening calmly to the sounds or silence around me after it ends.... Moreover (perhaps with 0 minutes and 0 seconds providing a sense of reinvigoration), there appear to be a number of new albums on the horizon to feature Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues in trios or quartets with other string players, etc. (Not that this or similar combos are new, but there seems to be a renewed energy....) These would also appear to involve more radical concepts than the Lisbon String Trio series, so once again, we seem to be in the midst of a notable creative outpouring: If 0 minutes and 0 seconds & Jardin Carré are an indication, it'll involve more reworking of musical affectivity (i.e. relation) per se.

On the heels of discussing AMM: An Unintended Legacy a couple of weeks ago, I note that I had yet to mention Phil Durrant (b.1957) in this space: It appears that he has not been very active since I began this project, or maybe I simply didn't notice, although I did hear him on Variable Formations, an album from 2013 with John Tilbury et al. on Another Timbre that features a "progressive" program in which a sextet eventually comes together to perform based on material developed earlier in smaller units. I guess the concept there seemed too specific for me, and I didn't mention it.... Anyway, Durrant does have a new album, this time listed entirely on synths (modular & software) rather than violin, Third Issue from Trio Sowari on Mikroton. As the title suggests, this is the third album from Trio Sowari, taking its name from a prior Durrant solo album, with the first two trio albums having been released on Potlatch in 2004 & 2006. Joining Durrant are Burkhard Beins (b.1964) on percussion & objects, and Bertrand Denzler (b.1963) on tenor sax, so this is an international trio, recording in Berlin in July 2016, rather than an English group per se. (I had mentioned Beins most prominently in September 2015, around the composed percussion quintet album Glück, also on Mikroton, and most recently in August 2016 around Trembling Shade with Rhodri Davies & Mark Wastell, but first, with Wastell again, but also John Butcher, around Membrane in July 2015. Denzler was also mentioned previously for an album on Confront, Le Ring, in September 2016. So these are musicians who have been relatively close to the English reductionist scene....) Third Issue consists of four tracks with rather different characters: The first, with its variety of timbres, reminds me a bit of Coluro, although it's generally more sparse & forges a series of gestures, rather than engaging parametric-polyphonic spanning of musical space. There's something of a rugged quality, subsequently put into "suspension" by the slow-moving second track, one that basically involves variations within a long hum... and moving into the shorter third track which once again shows more timbral variation, in this case around a prominent hocket. With the fourth, one hears Durrant's violin to open, but apparently (only) via electronic samples... the sheering forces that result also being suggestive of some Creative Sources string albums. The result is affective, particularly in its overall sequence of contrasts, but also in its various individual timbral interactions, and generally uncompromising. I enjoyed it, even if it doesn't necessarily hold my interest throughout.

Also from Mikroton, as part of a rather substantial batch of recent releases, are L'Or (recorded in Poland in August 2017) & Ground (recorded in Moscow in September 2017), both featuring label director Kurt Liedwart in a trio of well-known international performers: L'Or is perhaps the most severe, and features Keith Rowe on guitar & electronics with Julien Ottavi on "computer." (I had recently remarked that Rowe hadn't seemed very active while away from AMM, but I should revise that statement: I had heard him with Liedwart on Contour, noted here in July 2015 for instance, and he has appeared on other similar albums such as this, particularly from Eastern Europe — so away from the English scene.) Although it often seems as though not much happens, particularly through the longer first track, L'Or is also more affective than initially perceived: It sort of sneaks up on the listener with overwhelming subtlety, such that there is a lingering & even disorienting effect. (In this it might be compared to e.g. Sîn, and perhaps the "ambient" label does apply. However, the latter is relatively more forceful more often.) Whereas the simmering first track almost takes on a lilting quality at times, the second picks up the intensity, such that a sort of transition can be said to occur, within a kind of interrogation of frequency bands & their (sometimes commercial) correspondences. It's an intriguing album, particularly for its effect on the listener, but also presents a generally more consistent surface than e.g. Skiagraphía — also involving Liedwart, & on which the half-acoustic quartet injects a different sense of balance. Similarly, Ground presents a relentless, and almost overwhelming quality, building impressive forward momentum at times, and generally interrogating forms of low register continuity. There, Liedwart is joined by Gunter Müller & Norbert Möslang — who were mentioned here in March 2015 around Five Lines, also from Mikroton — all on electronics. (Given its cover, Ground might also be compared to Fracture Mechanics, also from Mikroton, and also including Beins, in what are becoming incestuous ensembles, the latter also including the well-known Martin Küchen.) Ground can involve quite a rumble, although I suppose it never rises to the level of earthquake.... It does have a potency, though, as Mikroton continues to take a leading role in these reductionist, improvised electronic explorations: This is music seeking direct, tangible (& often novel) effects on its audience — not a pretty tune or other fun & games.

Taking a bit of a break from some highly conceptual improvising groups involving electronics, I want to make a few brief comments on a recent setâr & tombak (metallic plucked strings & drum) duo album from Iran, Melodic Circles by cousins Mehdi & Adib Rostami of Kermanshah. Melodic Circles is another intriguing release — and of very recently recorded material, from what I can tell (although details are sparse as usual) — from Arc Music, a "world music" label I had largely avoided in the past due to its lack of documentation & frequent reissues. However, even in the glory days of enjoying Persian classical music on this site, exciting setar recitals were rare, and so Melodic Circles is quite welcome, particularly for its brilliant sound & "fresh, contemporary perspective" — including incorporating some Kurdish influences (cf. tanbur of e.g. Moradi) into the Dastgah system of the classical Radif. (I do remain suspicious of Arc Music, though, including their statements about winning awards for Hollywood film scores: Do the artists get anything for that? Which ones? What are their terms for a reissue such as Uzbekistan on the Silk Road, the first of their albums that I added here? Given their typically shoddy documentation, I do wonder how a proper accounting is even possible....) Such a new perspective from the Rostami cousins is also based on studies with musicians of the previous generation, especially Mohammad Reza Lotfi, Kayhan Kalhor & Hossein Alizadeh, all broadly known classical musicians, so it's traditionally based & indeed articulated via improvisation. The notes — & one can read a somewhat more extensive version off of Arc Music's online extra page — contrast classical Dastgah music (which they call "urban") with pre-Islamic music (presumably "rural"), but are short on details. In this, Melodic Circles — & note that the sorts of ensemble priorities I have for Western music get set aside in these cases, given the other constraints — differs rather considerably from the more "folksy" & vertically-aligned compositions of Tambour inopiné, another relatively recent Iranian addition here: The former retains an intricate melodic emphasis, articulated with great command & fluidity, such that individual notes are handled with care & sometimes even delicacy, to the point of suggesting an Indian classical tradition at times.... Perhaps a bit on the austere side, largely because of its instrumentation, Melodic Circles is thus one of the most compelling "world traditional" albums to come to my attention in the past few years (i.e. since shifting to the "adds" page format in 2015).

Although they aren't recent recordings, and so I'm not going to add them to my world music listings in the same manner as Melodic Circles, I did want to make a note of a couple of archival performances by rudra veena master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar recently released on Ideologic Organ: I went ahead and updated the discography of Z.M. Dagar that I had compiled within a CD file at one point, including with the Country and Eastern releases that I had neglected since 2006. (As noted there, it's also possible that I've missed other items in the interim.) Both recent albums were recorded in Seattle in 1986, when Z.M. Dagar visited (after having left his position at the University of Washington in 1981): Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani arose from a house concert, and illustrates a rare dhrupad recital in Carnatic ragas, whereas Raga Yaman both continues the Ustad's unparalleled command of this central raga & employs a percussionist (the two-headed pakhawaj drum) for a metered composition to close. For those readers who might not be familiar with Dagar, but yet might also have an interest in older Indian music, his rudra veena was highly modified to accomplish a particular sound, allowing him to articulate every note with the greatest subtlety & austerity — to reiterate remarks about Melodic Circles, on which there is also close attention to every minute note & slur. The instrument reminds me of the ancient monochord, perhaps fancifully so on my part, but there is such an authority projected by this "string bass" (without ever being bowed).... (The buzzing harmonics arising from the tanpuras in droning accompaniment, as well as from metallic string resonators on the veena itself, also make for a suggestive & encompassing style, as e.g. noted last month during a discussion of Jardin Carré.) Given the "busy-ness" of so much of the contemporary improvisation that I've been enjoying lately, I thought that I might have become too impatient for Z.M. Dagar on rudra veena, but I was quickly disabused of any such notion via the sheer potency & detail of his playing: Concepts of "essence" not only come to mind, but are immediately probed & shaped — confirming Dagar as a "master of adagio" (an apt phrase from the rather extensive liner notes). If indeed there are readers who are not familiar, these two albums from the 1980s are excellent entries into Dagar's oeuvre. (And it's compelling enough for me to stop & note a couple of archival recordings!) I was ultimately quite happy to return to this musical space, even if it's increasingly of the past.

Although I wasn't previously aware of any of the (presumably young?) players on the self-titled debut Dystil, I wanted to make a note of their very short (under thirty minutes) album: Bryan Qu (alto sax), Quincy Mayes (piano) & Mark Ballyk (percussion, voice) — & all of them also on "objects" — decided to form a trio, having never played together, and so decided to spend three months living together in New York. That's an intriguing commitment, and the notes from Clean Feed also cite a "DIY philosophy" (as already noted around various releases here), a commitment to a "progressive future" (which I probably mostly agree with, but not its Hegelian principle, if I may be a stickler for a moment), plus a description of the album as evoking an "imaginary film." I've not generally found film music to be very compelling, or even film inspired music, but perhaps theirs is an imaginary film I would enjoy: In particular, the music features a kind of "nuts & bolts" approach to combining styles that's in line with recent favorites such as North of North & Empty Castles. (There's also an "essential" quality sought in this musical distillation, with the simplest gestures evoking various styles & in combination, such that the musical surface generally remains rather busy. Such a search for gestural essence might even be compared to Z.M. Dagar from the previous entry....) Whereas the eleventh & final track is kind of a goofy pop-style (with twists) vocal piece, complete with (I guess) "studio magic" for the voice (which does not appear on the first ten tracks), the build up to this climax (& maybe at that point the "film" reference comes to make sense) is often rather eerily abstract, albeit sometimes with clear tonality or even tenderness amid recurring dissonance. (The album was also recorded over a couple of months, June & July 2017, so any climactic effect does not derive from a single performance sweep....) Although the influences on Dystil might not be as aligned with mine as some, their approach to musical combination — respect & even support for multiple, simultaneous expression — is intriguing & well-conceived. (One might compare to another recent Clean Feed release, Lili & Marlene, on which Joachim Badenhorst joins a preexisting Amsterdam-Argentinean guitar & drums duo that has a rather sophisticated & analogous "nuts & bolts" approach to combining various popular styles, albeit mostly via individually composed music in that case. Badenhorst then provides a tuneful front man....) I have to think that the milder, or more bite-sized, flavor of these albums — & Dystil, in particular, does have some rather adventurous sonorities (e.g. not so unlike last month's Inner Core at times) too — will spur more of a taste for non-collage-based stylistic combinations among a broader audience: To summarize via a rather simple image, favorite songs (or styles) might be heard as passing through one another simultaneously (i.e. tight constructions I can only approximate in this format).

Having recently reread Hierarchy as rupture (2013), I have to note my comment there (in the final section) stating that serial music involves or implies separation. Such a comment is especially notable when juxtaposed with my criticism around the discussion of Boulez Materialism (as articulated here last month): There I emphasized the process nature of serial concepts, and that discrete notes — or discretizing filters, i.e. sieves — were not necessary or implied. The latter response is a more contemporary interpretation, or evaluation, and I don't recall what motivated my earlier comments, other than (perhaps) the contingent, physical nature of piano, vibraphone, etc. — as indeed reflected in the remarks around Boulez Materialism. [I realized subsequently that this was an assessment that I had picked up second- or third-hand from Pierre Schaeffer.] In any case, I thought it necessary to acknowledge my misguided remark in Hierarchy as rupture [although concern does remain warranted, as Schaeffer didn't make this observation for no reason, necessities aside] — from a section which I still find very meaningful overall.

Although Low Yellow — recorded live in Ljubljana in October 2016 — is their first album, apparently Martin Blume, Wilbert De Joode & John Butcher have been performing together as a trio since 2004. That means there's plenty of history to hear, especially for a listener such as myself who hadn't heard them before, on this generally dark & subtle album — less experimental than most featured in this space, but rich in details nonetheless. I had first mentioned drummer Martin Blume around In Just (a quartet including Frank Gratkowski & Szilárd Mezei) back in January 2012, and that's another subtle album, often sparse. De Joode first appeared here with Shoe (discussed in May 2012) by the Jan Klare 1000, but wasn't named explicitly until Geäder (January 2015). Butcher was actually first mentioned here with Exta (discussed October 2013) with John Tilbury & Thomas Lehn. Of course, as a "sax trio" on my favorites, The Apophonics On Air is also a natural reference for Butcher's participation here: The latter is more experimental, more focused on extended technique, whereas Low Yellow begins from & develops a generally more traditional (& often restrained) sound orientation around subtlety. In fact, Butcher's playing seems relatively subdued at times, simmering often in the middle of the texture in a slow burn — although e.g. some lively twittering birds do sometimes emerge from the "jungle" of track one, not to mention various other techniques from his personal toolkit. The often understated horn yields more of an emphasis on drums & bass, and whereas Blume particularly shines on the brief & relatively sparse track two, De Joode's distinctive bass tone (sometimes evoking trombone, for instance) frequently holds center of attention: This is a particularly strong outing for him — demonstrating (or being allowed, perhaps) more prominence than e.g. his playing on the generally more aggressive Oblengths. Low Yellow strikes a pleasing balance between accessibility & reference to historical sounds on the one hand, and personal stylistic development on the other, but I'm also struck by the title itself: The liner notes (as also recapitulated at the Free Jazz Blog, where I learned of this album on the hard to find Jazzwerkstatt label) suggest that the title refers to the (presumptively harmonic) coloring of the music itself, and whereas "low" fits with its generally dark hues, yellow does not... or at least the notion seems strange to me: Visual response to music can certainly vary, so I can't say anything definitive, but it's hardly coincidence that jazz is associated with "blues" & Low Yellow often retains that mood. Even the lush jungle of the first track is in dark hues, although the more pointillistic second track does bring some pastels. Maybe it's my own issue, partly because I live here (I suppose), but I can't help but associate the title with the term "high yellow" from the racial taxonomy of the segregated United States. (And this is "jazz" after all, e.g. right in the name of the record label, so African American references are clearly relevant.) In short, since I find the association to be inescapable, the title becomes confounding (particularly since the "low" makes little sense within the taxonomy, although maybe that's the idea). Whether there is intent involved, I don't know, but I did feel compelled to mention it. That said, Low Yellow is a masterful album, but also takes a "survey" approach, proceeding from different places (or genres) on its four tracks: As noted, the long opening track has a kind of travelogue sense to it (a genre that I've noted before), in particular a frequent jungle vibe, and with Butcher so often laying low in the texture, recalls Sens radiants for me (discussed August 2014) — another sax trio, this one fronted by Daunik Lazro, and inspired by Henri Michaux (and so evoking the Amazon). Also as noted, the short second track is more sparse, with Blume more to the fore & proactively sculpting. With the third track, the trio moves into firmer "jazz" ground, though, in an extended simmering "free" sweep through a very traditional configuration — although extending into personal directions via emerging restraint. The fourth track arises more from rhetorical "cool" jazz, beginning on the bass & involving a lively range of percussive accents. In all four situations, one can feel a move, perhaps subtle, toward a distinctly European improvisatory idiom — perhaps even referencing the title (somehow). I end up enjoying the first half of the album more than the second, though, which is something that can happen with (stylistic) survey formats....

In last month's entry for Jardin Carré, I stated that I'd (now) be making individual entries for Ernesto Rodrigues albums as warranted, and yet here I am, in the very next entry involving Rodrigues, preparing to discuss another group of string-majority albums at once, these recorded in Berlin in October 2017: It's probably silly waffling on my part, and yet another lesson about making future claims (& for no compelling reason), but I do want to mention these latest albums, and without as much individual focus as some others might warrant. On all four albums, Ernesto Rodrigues is joined by Guilherme Rodrigues — a configuration which should, perhaps, be called the Lisbon (or, I suppose, Berlin) String Duo — either to form half of a quartet or the majority of a trio. (The former configuration also holds for Jardin Carré, as well as for 0 minutes and 0 seconds. In fact, the latter also originated in Berlin last October, as did e.g. Crane Cries, discussed in this space back in April. So the albums in this entry appeared a little later, although certainly not "late" according to the norms of improvised music releases.... Jardin Carré is then a newer album, originating in Paris this spring, whereas e.g. The Afterlife of Trees — discussed here last December — is from the previous October in Berlin....) Considering the overlapping techniques used by Ernesto & Guilherme together, not to mention their years of shared experience, they almost seem like one double instrument at times, such that their trios have something of the flavor of duos: Such a flavor might not suit my project here as well as some other efforts, but it does often serve to place the "guest" in sharp relief, and even allows the resulting trios to plumb some deeper spaces. Perhaps the later release dates (than those of some other albums already noted from the period) were already indicative, but these albums are less radical in concept than I had talked myself into anticipating. Nonetheless, trios RRR & We Still Have Bodies, involving previous Creative Sources artists Olaf Rupp & Richard Scott respectively, yield a variety of exploratory & distinctive textures: In particular, RRR — on which the ensemble differs from that of Traintracks Roadsides Wastelands Debris only by substituting Guilherme Rodrigues for Ulrike Brand on cello — could not be more different from that earlier album: In contrast to the extended, industrial desolation of the latter, the former is almost sunny at times, with electric guitar involved in chiming sounds that evoke not only a mysterious counterbalance to the various string glissandi & extended pizzicato techniques, but an East Asian character as well, a mélange of Chinese & Balinese colors. One might further note a contrast between a frequent "earthy" character in the violin family instruments & a calmly ethereal "sunrise" quality from the guitar, a contrast which nonetheless coheres into or around stable musical figures. (The "pretty" or uplifting character, if not the calm per se, might be compared to Rupp's participation on the earlier & more traditional Happy Jazz, discussed here in May 2017. The "punk" character I had found in some of his earlier music seems to be far behind....) The basic tone or mood of We Still Have Bodies doesn't contrast with earlier Creative Sources favorites involving Scott, Natura venomous & Trialectics, to the same degree, but does suggest something of the character of studies: The title is intriguing & appropriate to our times — & strangely similar to the self-titled debut While We Still Have Bodies on Neither/Nor, as discussed here last November (i.e. shortly after the former was recorded) — but a compelling overall concept doesn't seem to emerge (at least not relative to my hopes for such a pregnant pairing). Nonetheless, this is indeed the first album to feature both Scott & Ernesto Rodrigues, and various intriguing textures are explored in an ample & multi-track (as seems typical of Scott) album lasting over an hour — the latter even discounting the several minutes of silence occupying the second half of the final track.... (And one cannot always be sure what is intended or what is a production glitch in some of these cases....) There is a bit of "spaciness" from the synth at times, but also a variety of combinations from aggressive to subtle (including some quiet vocal sampling & "radio" static that weren't immediately apparent), suggesting many future possibilities. These projects also involve the continued exploration of mic'ing & mixing that is sometimes associated with the notion (or genre) of "lowercase" by some narratives: While the amplification of quiet sounds does align, this is more "abstract music" in Pierre Schaeffer's sense of Musique concrète, including with originating sound sources largely effaced at various points, than it is a spotlight on the everyday. I intend to return to that remark in the next entry....

Regarding the quartets involving both Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues, of course, with two differentiated guests, one perceives "at least" a trio-style interaction, even when the two Rodrigueses employ styles that seem to be in continuity with one another: Most recently, like RRR, The distant sound within seems to be a relatively straightforward followup album, in this case to Nuc Box Hums (recorded the prior October in Berlin, and discussed here in March 2017), with one ensemble substitution, in this case Adam Pultz Melbye for Adam Goodwin on bass. (And whereas Pultz Melbye hasn't been a regular on Creative Sources, he has already appeared here e.g. with Rotozaza Zero, and most recently on Loud, as discussed this past June.) In both cases, the quartet is completed by Kriton Beyer, previously on daxophone, and more recently on harmonium & objects. The distant sound within, which also involves a series of short tracks (as did Nuc Box Hums, both sets with track titles, perhaps due to Beyer), likewise includes some intriguing textural explorations (such as a kind of composite "raspberry"), as well as reference to interiority, but is also surely the less exciting (& challenging) album of the two. (So it might also be praised for its relative accessibility....) Later in the album, there are some passages showing more "traditional" combinations of strings & harmonium, such that the latter might be taken for organ or accordion... these also tend to involve more continuity & momentum via ostinato, etc. Farther afield, evoking a more romantic stylistic orientation, Ignis Fatuus involves Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues with Tristan Honsinger & Klaus Kürvers — to yield another "variant" string quartet, this time with two cellos & bass (& of course viola in the top part): Kürvers has already appeared here, both e.g. on Creative Sources (most recently around Discoveries, discussed here last October, i.e. approximately when Ignis Fatuus was being recorded) & elsewhere (first on Rotations from the double bass quartet Sequoia, mentioned in December 2014). But the more widely known performer is cellist Honsinger, and he seems to bring more traditional, even folksy, priorities or orientations: I had mentioned him briefly with In The Sea last August, but Honsinger first appeared on Creative Sources with Laura, released earlier this year (& likewise recorded last October), a rather "popular" album revolving around ballad forms (& so rather uncharacteristic for Ernesto Rodrigues — although not necessarily for e.g. Axel Dörner). Ignis Fatuus is also rather different, a less austere or minimal album than most frequently appears here from Creative Sources, although it can also involve a heavy dose of classical austerity (& dissonance) at times, usually amid lively counterpoint. (Its lively thematic concerns are thus more akin to e.g. 20th century classical string quartets, including their characteristic incorporation of "other" folk materials... Honsinger's vocal contributions aside.) Perhaps it will attract a different audience, and indeed Honsinger (on whose birthday Ignis Fatuus was recorded) appears to be popular in other niches.... Post-romanticism aside, it's a rather meaty album, particularly (I would think) for someone who isn't familiar with Rodrigues.

Between Ernesto Rodrigues having recently created (or at least I recently noticed) a Bandcamp page for his many albums, and my own schedule being tied up waiting on materials (in this case, not so much music as some final texts in preparation for another long discussion that I'll be writing separately), this seems like a good time to make some other observations on Rodrigues's output in general, as well as to discuss some material I've neglected. Of course, with Rodrigues's massive output — & there are currently 172 albums on his Bandcamp page (and one might find more at any moment), the vast majority from Creative Sources, but only the albums on which he personally appears — some neglect seems almost inevitable, and indeed Rodrigues releases albums at such a pace that I never find myself saying that I last mentioned him around this or that, or originally there, etc.... So that's one difference from other musicians in this space, and I've also neglected his larger ensemble albums almost entirely: That's (still) not my focus, but I've mentioned such projects from some other prominent musicians at times, so allow me to interject a few remarks into that arena now as well. I first mentioned Rodrigues in this space in April 2012, with some reasonably descriptive comments regarding Le Beau Déviant & Brume — albums already evoking the sort of technologically mediated, yet naturally inspired, landscapes that run through so many Creative Sources releases. I didn't use the term "lowercase" then, but found myself using it soon after, as I picked up vocabulary from other music writers, particularly around jazz retail. Since then, I've come to question the label, and especially how broadly it's being applied: Per Wikipedia & elsewhere, the term apparently derives from US sound installation practice around the turn of the millennium, which makes it a relatively late entry into the "genre" domain. I don't know the specific history of how it was taken up as a retail category, particularly for music from Europe, but it's certainly not the only genre term that has come to expand into related outputs & impulses. In particular, "lowercase" is specifically suggestive of bringing something unnoticed, particularly an object, to attention. In other words, it's about illuminating one's sound source in some way, the illumination being the reason for selecting the source. In this it differs markedly from the older, related concept of Musique concrète, particularly in its original meaning from Pierre Schaeffer: There, it's abstract "musical" concerns that dominate, with the sound source being unimportant, or even effaced in the production process. (Sounds might be heavily edited, for instance, such that their origin becomes obscure.) In this sense, it would be difficult to suggest — at least in my opinion — that Rodrigues is attempting to illuminate unnoticed objects, at least not physically: Rather, although he often employs electronics (& a recording or even amplification already involves "electronics"), he's generally using traditional instruments in extended ways, the sonic relations produced being prioritized ahead of their "objectness." (And one could suggest that much music literally involves illuminating "objects" in the most general sense, usually musical objects, but then, why generalize the lowercase term to an ordinary musical outcome?) Musique concrète also suggests the creation — using electronics, originally tape decks, in a studio — of a finished musical product, rather than a score to be performed: At least in its early guise, it involved substantial editing, whereas Rodrigues uses minimal editing (or so I think, although selecting material does become editing), but does produce a finished musical result (a performance & then recording), rather than a score. Moreover, subsequent to (& really contemporaneous with) Schaeffer, ideas of Musique concrète were already extended in a variety of directions, including by composers such as R. Murray Schafer (who coined "soundscape" & further interrogated the separation of sound from its sources) & Luc Ferrari (who presented everyday environmental sounds, albeit heavily edited, as composition), et al. In the latter example, one does begin to perceive "canonical" lowercase emerging around both everyday-ness & intent, but that was 1970...! Further regarding the history of lowercase as a (retail) category or genre, it apparently emerged from ambient music — rather than referencing these European developments already well underway in the 1950s — and indeed I already had occasion to discuss the "ambient" concept earlier this year, around Rodrigues's quartet album Sîn: In that case, the basic ambient concept, that music should be suitable for greater or lesser attention, is coherent to me, even as "lowercase" starts to intersect so many ideas as to become meaningless... actually, I first used the latter term around Nor (recorded in 2014, discussed here in April 2015), the first release from the quartet that would later make Sîn, and my first "favorite" from Rodrigues. (The oldest current favorite is New Dynamics from 2016, an album that doesn't really suggest or confront these categories.) Now I have to question the coherence of the "lowercase" category further, especially when I see it applied to a recent album like Coluro, involving a great deal of abstraction around timbral parameters: One might say that aspects of musical instrument-objects are being illuminated, but I think that's a stretch. Rather, it's sounds combined for expression & effect (or affect). And moreover, music involving heavy doses of quiet or silence, as sometimes cited for lowercase, likewise dates back at least to the 1950s, to Cage et al.... Indeed, Cage is a cited influence for Rodrigues, as is, to a lesser degree (of acknowledgement, anyway), Xenakis: Xenakis emerged from a post-Varèse world to create musique concrète around Schaeffer at GRM, beginning with electronics & tapes, and — like Rodrigues — moves more into traditional acoustic instruments (in his case, via written music). If one intends "lowercase" to simply refer to music that uses amplification in order to focus on ordinarily quiet timbres, then I suppose that's coherent, although I'm not sure it reflects actual usage... (& doesn't that already describe e.g. hard body electric guitar?). In any case, I intend to be much more circumspect regarding my usage of the term in future, although I should add that, although it's received more & longer musical (& conceptual) interrogation, and appears to be a more direct historical inspiration for the efforts mentioned in this entry, "musique concrète" is not entirely suited either: Perhaps call it improvisational post-concrète, instead. (Rodrigues himself had adopted the label post-serial.)

That said, after the previous entry oriented on new releases from Rodrigues (& his son, Guilherme) in Berlin, let me return to Lisbon to highlight a couple of octet recordings from 2017: Urze (recorded January 2017) & Vulgaris (recorded June 2017) managed to slip through the cracks of Rodrigues's output for me, being neither small nor large ensembles. (And whereas neither recording date seems especially far in the past relative to other items discussed here, for Rodrigues, there have already been more than thirty subsequent albums released....) Both are interesting items within Rodrigues's broader output, a fact that obligation-free Bandcamp audition helped make apparent, such that Urze, by a mixed octet called Diceros, seems to bring some of the same concerns that Rodrigues articulates (in part) via his IKB ensemble down to a "half"-sized group (& more on IKB & other larger groups in a moment): In this case, Rodrigues himself is on harp & other plucked strings, not for the first time, in a remarkably coherent album that often involves a squeaky atmosphere with a variety of overtones, burbling, sheering waves... almost an underwater scene, and also relatively smooth (perhaps in an ambient sense): Sometimes vigorous internal rhythms are simply washed over by waves of shimmering overtones. (Its general sense of interaction & restraint might even be reprised in Rodrigues's most recent album on Bandcamp at the moment, Backlighting by a quartet of viola & three horns, all alto or higher. It almost seems like the top half of Urze, although the latter uses only two horns amid its watery computer, piano, guitar, etc. These are also all single track albums....) The ambivalent environment of the album seems to be reflected in its names & iconography as well, with a shadow rhinoceros ("Diceros", similar to IKB's Rhinocerus from 2014) set against (I guess, the term might also mean e.g. heather) a field of rosemary... but I sure don't hear a field or savanna. An "underwater" sense is that much more tangible on Vulgaris, by another octet called Octopus: There, Rodrigues is back on viola, and while the octets are very similar, the only other musicians actually in common are Paolo Curado (flute, also on Backlighting), Andre Hencleeday (piano, psaltery) & Carlos Godinho (percussion). (All are frequent Rodrigues collaborators, although I was not specifically aware of Godinho previously.) Vulgaris has a particularly strong ambient vibe, and generally has a calming effect, more so than e.g. Nashaz, with which it otherwise shares some characteristics — and of course the "doubled" ensemble of the former again facilitates a smoother sound overall. Particularly given the lack of environmental confusion (and I don't intend to portray such reterritorialization as a negative, regarding Urze, but rather as an intriguing crossing), Vulgaris might make for an excellent entry into Rodrigues's oeuvre for the uninitiated, but as noted around Jardin Carré, much has also developed in the past few years. (Regarding the underwater theme, one should likewise note Underwater Music — one of at least a dozen trio albums from Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues, all with a different third member — as discussed last October, i.e. while the albums of the previous entry were being recorded: That album was recorded all the way back in Spring 2016, and as noted in my prior discussion, doesn't appear to evoke water sonically at all! Nonetheless, it seems like another pivotal album....)

Regarding larger ensembles, I already made a departure by discussing Tellurium in May, and there I noted that recordings by IKB, Variable Geometry Orchestra (VGO) & Suspensão were also recorded at CreativeFest #11 last November. A few further remarks: Tellurium was the fourth "String Theory" album, and my decision (to discuss it) derived in part from the fact that the previous two albums in the series were for seven & four musicians respectively, although the first (Gravity, released in 2016) was for seventeen. (And one does see primes run through these ensemble numbers, although Tellurium & the last three IKB albums are for sixteen musicians....) Since then, it appears that Sul by "Strings & Andrew Drury" (involving eleven musicians on various string instruments, plus the drummer) might be something of a continuation: Drury had appeared on quartet album Eterno Retorno from early in the Creative Sources catalog, but not with Rodrigues since, and the "constellations" of the cover moreover suggest variants on (& crossings of) space themes (as I had discussed last month around Coluro) & geometry: It's another eerie, single track album for relatively large forces. Another "variant geometry" concept seems to be involved in the more recent Isotope Ensemble (because, after all, isotopes involve a kind of atomic geometry, albeit much smaller than solar systems), with its first album Yttrium (for thirteen musicians) having been recorded in May 2017, i.e. between Urze & Vulgaris. And in 2018, there are two more Isotope Ensemble albums, both involving seventeen musicians: Barium (as noted around Tellurium, recorded in February) & Lanthanum (recorded in April) both involve quiet rumbling, overtones, sometimes animated horns, and a mysterious sense of progress. Whereas Barium involves a traffic jam (& Rodrigues "playing" metronome, including conspicuously at the end), Lanthanum is the smoother of the two: Its various waves & timbres take on more of a finished character, making for another reasonable place for an uninitiated listener (who enjoys larger ensembles, anyway) to enter Rodrigues's sound world. That series seems to be becoming more assertive, or at least more frequent. Already massive & assertive at various points is the VGO series, though, with the first half of its sixth album (Ma'adim Vallis) emerging from CreativeFest #11 as well: The number six is somewhat deceptive, as it's a double album, and not the first such in the series. Moreover, the two parts (the second from January 2018) are labeled as Conductions #47 & #48: I didn't attempt to trace the numbering, but it appears that not all have been released, unless the output of the other large ensembles is counted as well.... Still, it gives a sense of how active Rodrigues has been with his largest groups, and the November recording from VGO is massive indeed, involving thirty-seven musicians (with a "mere" nineteen on the more mysterious January session) in a huge & varied orchestral eruption: It recalls Xenakis, and not for the first time in the series. (One might further recall that Xenakis combines geometric interest with architectural principles, and that might fit some of these Rodrigues projects as well....) Moving on, there have now been five releases in the Suspensão series, with the November recording (i.e. the most recent) being Physis, numbered as the eleventh piece in the series (counting double albums, multiple tracks, etc.): Here the eerie desire to interrogate the basic contours of reality, especially the equivocation of foreground & background, of environment/context & subject, maintains.... Although I've made only a few brief comments about the series, now including here, its basic equivocating concerns reflect & enhance important contemporary questions regarding subject-object duality (& in turn, traditional ontology) more generally (as soon to be articulated more extensively in the text that I promised at the beginning of this entry...): There is again an overall "ambient" sense & even conceptual interrogation, to retract to genre concerns. Finally, the IKB series, which generally involves crisper tones & more explicit counterpoint, is harder to summarize: I'm not sure why it started using unusual biological species for its titles & minimal covers, the most recent being Apteryx mantelli, but perhaps its ecological or territorial articulations are more specific than I imagine.... (There is a sense of geometric inspiration that I can't really localize.) In any case, IKB albums — of which there have now been seven, with three of them originating in 2014 alone — have used ensembles ranging from thirteen to eighteen musicians (and like the octets above, less often involve prime numbers). I suppose the relative crispness of the music (especially relative to e.g. Suspensão) is reflected in the crisp covers, and like all the recent albums mentioned in this entry, but perhaps most canonically, the music is articulated in a single sweep. (Many of the IKB albums do also seem rather similar to me.)

I've been (re)considering my thoughts on what I want to include in this space, and in turn how I want to structure entries, in part because there seems to be another small lull, this one driven in part by a long mail delay (& who knows what that's about, other than randomness).... The best conclusion is probably that I want to remain flexible, but I also feel as though it's useful for me personally to note some items here, even absent extended thoughts. Maybe that means I'm making poor choices for readers, but I tend to believe that such a note can be helpful. So a few more brief comments, this time on some albums originating in the US....

I wasn't familiar with "multi-instrumentalist" Robbie Lee when discussing Opalescence (with medievalist Norbert Rodenkirchen, as well as bassist James Ilgenfritz) in July, but it was an intriguing album for its combination of influences, and Lee is already back with the (perhaps) similarly inspired Seed Triangular on New Amsterdam Records — this time in a duo with Mary Halvorson. Seed Triangular is apparently the result of a spontaneous jam session on a set of unusual instruments, all new for Halvorson, which was then edited down to a set of 15 tracks lasting 51 minutes: It's basically winds against plucked strings, with an early music or folk emphasis, but also with a contemporary intimacy arising from the exploration & interaction. (One sometimes perceives an early or folk inspiration in Halvorson's composed ensemble albums too, at least amid the other inspirations.) A wide variety of different, yet relatively straightforward in many ways, timbres & voicings arise from what is generally a pleasant & convivial interaction.... I didn't feel as though it held much repeat attention, but it was well worth hearing once. (Although it's described as a jam session, there's also no precise information on when Seed Triangular was recorded, or indeed how many dates were involved.)

Whereas Seed Triangular is improvised & exploratory, Protean Labyrinth by Kyoko Kitamura's Tidepool Fauna is an album of (mostly) composed music (by Kitamura): I had presented Wet Robots (likewise at least partly composed) as a direct followup to Geometry of Caves in July, in that case featuring Joe Morris (again) with vocalist Fay Victor, but here it's vocalist Kitamura herself who leads a quartet, this time with Ken Filiano (who's already recorded multiple albums with Victor), Ingrid Laubrock & (the previously unknown to me) Daveon Seok on drums. The composed nature of the music, recorded this past February, and the way that the ensemble roles tend to remain rigid around Kitamura in front, made for less of an impression on me, but Kitamura's increasingly assertive production — here in another often "dreamy" setting (self-produced & found e.g. on Bandcamp) — should be noted. She's joined by more top players, and whereas Laubrock's participation comes off as strangely anonymous to me, the dialog between Kitamura & Filiano (specifically) is often quite appealing. (I guess Geometry of Caves, which admittedly was recorded back in 2016, is leading rather quickly to more....)

Another appealing, composition-based album that I enjoyed, but which didn't really connect with me on another level, is Noise of Our Time on Intakt, by a distinguished quartet (named VCRW it appears) of Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley, Sylvie Courvoisier & Tom Rainey. There are nine tracks (three each composed by each member, with the exception of Rainey) on this 44 minute album, recorded in the New York area last August, and passing through a wide range of contemporary technique — presumably hence the title. This was the first that I had heard Wooley & Rainey together, and they have some appealing dialogs, and of course all four musicians are widely hailed.... (Whereas those two have been featured here on multiple occasions, I've also noted Courvoisier, e.g. with Wooley on both of his Battle Pieces albums. I've noted Vandermark a few times here too, going back to June 2011, and although his horn technique is certainly impressive, I've also never felt a connection: I've actually listened to many of his recent albums, but hadn't found much to say.) Technique is amazing on all fronts (including e.g. Vandermark's precise smears), making for something of a dazzling result, but I tend to find that it remains well within the realm of "entertainment." I just don't hear a deeper relevance, which (I guess) is my usual reaction to Vandermark. I'm also difficult, if not impossible, to actually entertain, especially on a second try, so that's my own deficiency.... Still, I feel as though they captured a particular & abstract (& largely tonally related, albeit with some occasional spikey parts) US musical moment on Noise of Our Time — admittedly on the relatively "inside" Intakt label. The music is thus not very self-consciously "of our time," i.e. doesn't reference anything terribly specific, yet is timely nonetheless. I expect that will make for a popular album, particularly relative to its abstraction.

Likewise oriented on compositions, but with even more of a personal history in this space, Steve Coleman's recent double album Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 1 (The Embedded Sets) was recorded in two sets back in May 2017: This is a quite extended album (over two & a half hours in total) that returns to the exact same Five Elements ensemble as on Functional Arrhythmias (although there with guitar on only five of fourteen tracks), i.e. Coleman himself, Jonathan Finlayson, Miles Okazaki, Anthony Tidd & Sean Rickman. I had discussed the heavily composed & orchestrated octet/nonet album Morphogenesis last July, and (like the big band on Synovial Joints, discussed May 2015) it moved farther away from the sort of intimate interactions I had enjoyed on many of Coleman's earlier albums, especially Functional Arrhythmias (which was the first on Pi where all the material actually dated from around the same time frame, although even there, it involved four dates across two locations), so I was happy to see improvised sessions appearing from this quintet. That it's the same ensemble five years later is impressive, I guess, and it seems as though Coleman has finally "caught up with himself" (so to speak) after those early Pi albums mixed performances from months apart.... Coleman is someone I had always associated with having a clear vision, which is to say a clear sense of what his music is really trying to do for the listener, rather than simply sound appealing, but e.g. Morphogenesis had also seemed so heavily arranged down to such a level of detail that it took on another feel, almost a utopian feel... another world, as I put it. So it was almost escapist, which is not how I prefer to approach my life. (And there's less of the "open" feel obtained by e.g. Henry Threadgill.) Yet there is also this dynamic, almost romantic quality that can be both dreamy (often "tropical" in Coleman's case) & invigorating. Live at the Village Vanguard is then far less orchestrated, but still very composition-based — including the last track from Morphogenesis (which had always seemed to lead away from the core concepts of that album) returning, as well a couple of older compositions not by the ensemble.... Coleman is also interested in Ancient Egyptian images specifically in this project, with the largest number of tracks taking titles from a sort of Romanization of hieroglyphics (which is not explained, but reminds me of current Semitic languages). How much of this is image & inspiration, and how much of it is deeper interrogation of old sources, I don't really know... I did not look into the transcription system. "System" seems like an ongoing concern for Coleman, though, and this work fits that impulse — & there likewise seems to be an ongoing quest to support personal (& so presumably social) health to be found. So Live at the Village Vanguard is effective & even relaxing in that sense, but absent the intricate orchestration, Coleman's music actually comes off as surprisingly ordinary sounding (i.e. post-bop) here. I thought I'd have more to say, but I don't (& again, this can be on account of my own deficiencies)... once again, though, great technique & collective feel from all involved. Will it mean more Record of the Year attention from the mainstream press? That will be interesting to learn. Meanwhile, of course, I'll also be curious to learn what Coleman does next: I know that he does believe strongly in relevance.

When discussing the quartet album The distant sound within only a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't aware that Kriton Beyer had also been busy releasing digital albums, including another with Ernesto Rodrigues: On his own The Procrustean Bed Bandcamp label, Beyer released Digressions (recorded in Berlin in June 2017) in June, but I didn't notice.... Digressions is a rather long, but often very appealing trio album featuring Beyer on harmonium, with Nicola Hein on guitar & Rudi Fischerlehner on drums. (I had mentioned the latter with Grid Mesh back in November 2013, while the former is becoming something of a fixture here, since first being mentioned only in July 2016. Hein also has e.g. a new duo album on Creative Sources, Shug Monkey with Simon Rose, that I have yet to hear....) Rather than blending with bowed strings, on Digressions the harmonium provides "smoothness" by way of contrast & so almost suggests the bass — or perhaps organ, of course — of a typical guitar trio format. However, the musical explorations are rather more dissonant & less typical, with Beyer in the center of various squeaks & clatters, even as some sections come to seem repetitive. Whereas it doesn't come together into something really transformative, it's the most immediate & ear-catching album to be mentioned in this entry: The instrumentation yields some rich yet detailed sonic combinations, subtly invoking various precedents, and the relatively vigorous result seems like it could be appreciated more widely.... Involving Rodrigues is another long-ish album, Plot (recorded in Berlin only this past June) available on Rodrigues's Bandcamp page, and including Guilherme Rodrigues & Nikolaus Neuser (trumpet) to form a quartet: Plot thus utilizes another quartet substituting one member from Nuc Box Hums (discussed here March 2017), and indeed Beyer is back on daxophone, but this time with a horn instead of bass.... (And I had already appreciated Neuser, seemingly out of nowhere, on Trialectics.) The trumpet would seem to add new dimensions to the sonic palette, and indeed there is an amazing feel right from the start, but there are also various moments where the quartet seems to stagnate. In other words, there are some brilliant moments, but also a lot of waiting for something interesting to happen, & already in the long first track.... By the short third (concluding) track, we get almost a "traditional" ensemble sound around daxophone as a "vocalizing horn" & into a quasi-Southeast Asian (non-gamelan division) feel. Once again, there is a lot of potential, but Plot remains more exploration than (per the terms of "use" here) statement.

Plot is not the only digital-only album that Rodrigues has released in the past few weeks, though, with a handful of both older & newer recordings appearing on his Bandcamp page alongside the many Creative Sources releases. (On his discography page, Rodrigues has these marked as Digital Creative Sources. I don't know if that means he'll be releasing even more music, or if some of the items that would have formerly appeared on Creative Sources proper will now be digital only....) There are two others recorded in 2018, and so some of this is very recent material: Poiesis (recorded live in Berlin in May) features a quintet in which Rodrigues is joined by Hui-Chun Lin (cello), Yoshimoto Yumiko (electric guitar, daxophone), Shuichi Chino (zither) & Harri Sjöström (sopranino & soprano saxes). Lin had appeared on Creative Sources previously with the quintet album Discoveries (recorded by Klaus Kürvers, and discussed here last October), on which Davide Piersanti on trombone is set against a quartet of low strings, but hadn't previously recorded with Rodrigues himself. (Discoveries is an often appealing album, even employing some lush & almost jazzy harmonies to distinguish it from the sometimes analogous horn-featured Lisbon String Trio albums, or indeed Polyorchard's Sextet | Quintet as discussed here in July, but it does also drag a bit at times in its explorations.) Sjöström has also appeared here, in October, with Hyvinkää, an album focusing on varying colors amid motivic continuity, and weaves a rather sophisticated high reed through the largely string-based proceedings on Poiesis — again providing continuity against e.g. frequent pizzicato otherwise. The other two performers were not familiar to me, although note the daxophone again, and indeed the zither. The interaction begins assertively, and takes on something of a classical character at times, yielding to exploring a variety of novel timbral combinations. (And the daxophone sometimes mimics brass?) It's only in the somewhat longer second track — and each of the two is around a half hour — that one gets a distinctly Asian feel, particularly around the zither, yielding to almost a generally romantic Easternized vibe that surprisingly becomes even more assertive. (One probably wouldn't guess that it's a Rodrigues album by this point.) Again, there are various intriguing combos from this largely unknown ensemble, but the interaction drags at times as well. Finally, I had no concrete idea — although the music itself did suggest an inkling — that more Octopus albums were planned when I discussed Vulgaris (likewise only a couple of weeks ago), but there is now Dofleini, recorded live in Lisbon in March: This is a short album, under half an hour, and retains under half of the specific musicians from the previous album, but the ensemble constitution is similar overall — e.g. electronics (again operated by CS fixture Santos) are more provocative here, though. Dofleini likewise seems more exploratory, with some understated textural innovations, and I guess this means we should indeed be expecting more from Octopus....

I didn't get a chance to listen until recently (since I was waiting for it to appear somewhere I regularly order, which it hasn't yet), but I wanted to note the quartet release Sensoria on Leo Records from early this year. It's the third album by Heath Watts (soprano sax) on Leo, and his fourth overall, all having been duos to this point. The previous Leo album, Bright Yellow With Bass with Blue Armstrong on acoustic bass, attracted some attention, and Armstrong joins Watts again here, with MJ Williams (trombone, piano, melodica) & Nancy Owens (violin). Bright Yellow With Bass was recorded in Montana in 2013, but released only last year, and although Sensoria gives no recording date (despite the notes emphasizing that it was recorded in a single session), other comments suggest that it was recorded (also in Montana, which is specified) in early 2014. I don't know about the Montana angle, especially since Watts says he lives in Philadelphia, but Sensoria projects a distinctly "American" quality somehow. Its relatively calm articulation & layered unfoldings, never too much at once, but always with something else about to happen, also remind me of Jack Wright more specifically, e.g. Calgary 2012. The web site for Williams didn't shed much light, other than saying she's a Montana native, and depicting someone who appears to be older, but are there Native American connections here? I don't know, and I rarely see this topic addressed in concrete terms.... (Indeed, I feel reluctant to even broach it, but felt it necessary here. Let's just say that there are a lot more native genes in this country than there are native upbringings....) Watts has a distinctive style on soprano, but it's Williams on trombone who really makes the album — in particular, when she changes to piano, the combination is less appealing to me (although the piano riffs do have a personal character, and melodica is played like accordion to open the last track). There are also a couple of sparser duo tracks.... There is a lot to like, though, with the two horns & two bowed strings almost suggesting some of the improvised textures of e.g. Ernesto Rodrigues et al., although (as noted) in a rather distinctively American idiom, and with less in the way of "far out" technique. It's quite conversational. (The horn players are also credited as vocalists, but if so, it's done in such a way as to feel continuous with their horns.) In any case, I don't know what brought Watts et al. to Leo — & Leo releases a lot of albums, including many "out of nowhere" releases such as this, to go along with various series by well-known musicians — but this is the sort of result I want to support. There is much to enjoy, from a truly distinctive (American) quartet, and without much or any angst.

After a discussion of triple album An Unintended Legacy in July, that landmark itself following on the heels of the often dark & sometimes disturbing AAMM amalgamation, Eddie Prévost is back with a couple of new Matchless releases: I wanted to make a few remarks about the "guitar trio" album Darkened, yet shone, on which he's joined by N.O. Moore on electric guitar & John Edwards on bass. Of course, Edwards is a highly flexible player, and a fixture in this music, but Moore is new to me: His playing is creative & varied, and especially notable for its precision, in that new sound combinations are found & deployed such that their contours can be reused in motivic ways. (Precision, including with "noise," becomes necessary for recognizable repetition & so for motivic variation.) The precision, and indeed many of the sounds, especially of the faster variety, reminds me of Ewen / Smith / Walter — which continues to be an imposing album for its length & variety. Moore also includes a relatively lengthy essay describing his thoughts on improvisation, and I particularly appreciate the opening conclusion: "The experience of playing improvised music with and for others has made me doubtful that the universe is made up of specific and discrete things." He goes on to orient this experience around Bergsonism — one of the dominant European philosophies of the early twentieth century, with various revivals since — and mentions e.g. the immanent-transcendent dual, as well as the chaosmos notion (likely as funneled through Guattari, who isn't mentioned, pace Joyce). He also criticizes habit — which I've figured here more broadly via the familiar — and indulges in a bit of vitalism. (Perhaps Moore hasn't encountered some recent critiques of vitalism, but that's been a topic around Bergson since the early twentieth century as well.) Given the amazing quality of his collaborators here, I'm not sure what it says that I'm finding the more soloistic passages of Darkened, yet shone (particularly the relatively more direct final track) to be the most immediately appealing (reminiscent of some music from Japan, also soloistic), since I'm usually more focused on the interactions (or assemblages). Nonetheless, it's an enjoyable album with a variety of novel textures & exchanges, and serves the battle against reification — a term that Moore does not use — & indeed for "alternatives," well.

Relative Pitch continues to release albums rapidly, from a variety of sources, and so I want to discuss the recent Three Stories about Rain, Sunlight and the Hidden Soil, recorded in Berlin in July 2017 by Olaf Rupp, Paul Rogers & Frank Paul Schubert. In some ways, this is a followup to Happy Jazz (discussed here in May 2017), another Relative Pitch album from Rupp, likewise involving bass (Jan Roder) & reed (Rudi Mahall). Whereas I had noted that Happy Jazz seemed to articulate some rather typical (of the European scene) free interactions at a slower pace, presumably to help orient the listener, Three Stories about Rain, Sunlight and the Hidden Soil — another long album — soon returns to an orientation on quick exchanges. As the title suggests, it also retains something of a "sunny" disposition, though, and so even recalls RRR (discussed here just last month, but recorded a few months later) & its often ringing tones set against violin family string technique. (Rupp has been relatively active of late, and as already noted, seems to have left many of his "punk" associations behind, at least in the straightforward sonic sense.) Although both trios include Rupp, such that he stands as a presumptive point of continuity for Relative Pitch, both albums also seem centered on bass: Rogers has been very active with other well-known English improvisers, but not so much in the past few years, and not in projects that fit the priorities here, so this is his first mention.... He plays a distinctive 7-string bass on Three Stories about Rain, Sunlight and the Hidden Soil, and displays a compelling & intricate style. Rogers & Rupp form something of a core duo involving frequent collisions (& consequently "dissonance") around which Schubert weaves generally appealing horn lines between foreground & background. (And Schubert was mentioned here originally with Grid Mesh in November 2013. His often sinewy soprano style might be compared with that of Heath Watts on Sensoria, per last week's entry, more on account of coincidentally appearing in succession than due to real similarity... such that Watts indulges more discontinuous technique, particularly weaving around legato trombone or violin. Another aspect of the latter ensemble is that its collective polyphonic sense is articulated through a variety of simultaneous temporalities: In other words, the musicians tend to operate at different speeds, as indeed do the individual lines of much medieval polyphony, whereas on Three Stories about Rain, Sunlight and the Hidden Soil, interactions tend to be focused within a single — most often fast — temporal horizon. Other implications then flow like asides....) The horn thus mediates the string activity, which might otherwise find itself in conflict. That recent releases from Rogers have mostly involved Paul Dunmall, and before that e.g. Paul Rutherford, suggests that Schubert's middle name might, moreover, have been important when forming this trio...! Well, perhaps not. In any case, the basic sound recalls instant classic Rotozaza Zero, which does add drums (&, like Happy Jazz, also involves Mahall on clarinet) to what is already a rapid pace of motivic exchange. (The pace might be described as almost frenetic, especially behind the drums, although both albums do have mellow moments at times. Moments calve like icebergs....) The result, again in both cases, yields a sometimes paradoxical sense of stasis — i.e. poses a crisis demanding change, one might say. (It also generally moves fast, but the similar trio on e.g. Roughhousing projects a rather different feel from these Berlin-based releases....) I've enjoyed Three Stories about Rain, Sunlight and the Hidden Soil — and for all three performers, although Rogers is the one more in need of recent exposure — but also can't escape the sense that the label is attempting to build a larger catalog by "checking off" genre boxes, this being the latest — after my fascination with the basic ensemble (& indeed result) on Geometry of Caves.... Are they wrong to attempt something of the sort? Certainly not, and several of the year's releases have been (explicitly) worthwhile, but such a sense does leave me wondering if these albums were really burning to be released, or simply available. Obviously this is a "genre" that I do enjoy, though, and there's much to be said for availability....

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