Tag: @sequenza21

CD Review, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, File Under?, Pop

Radical Romantics – Fever Ray Returns (CD Review)

Radical Romantics

Fever Ray

Mute

 

It has been nearly six years since Plunge, Karin Dreijer’s last album under the moniker Fever Ray. Equally well known for their band The Knife, on which they collaborate with their brother Olof Dreijer, Karin has made distinctive electronic music for over twenty years. Their latest, Radical Romantics, is a welcome return. In gestation since 2019, it is some of the finest work released by the Fever Ray project.

 

Another welcome return is one of collaboration. Olof helped to produce some of the recording and co-wrote four of the songs, the first collaboration between the siblings in eight years. Other co-producers and performers include Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails), experimental artist and producer Vessel, Portuguese DJ and producer Nídia, Johannes Berglund, Peder Mannerfelt, and Pär Grindvik’s technicolor dance project Aasthma. Long-time collaborator, Martin Falck, joined Dreijer in creating an impressive visual corollary to the recording. Indeed, Radical Romantics is a project in which videos and artwork are a strong component, not the promotional devices that they so often are for other releases. 

 

The first four songs are a set written by Karin and Olof. “What They Call Us” started life some time ago as material for two unrealized movie soundtracks. Thrumming live drums alongside drum machine, an insistent synth riff, and electronic interjections demonstrate the number of iterations of the genesis of “What They Call Us.” However, this working approach is not uncommon on Radical Romantics. The end result, like much of the rest of the album, is music chock full of multifaceted layers, as well as far flung allusions in its lyrics. Another tune the siblings co-wrote, being supported by a video, is “Kandy.” It has an irrepressible “Whoo” vocal ostinato, an alto register lead vocal, and squirms with synth melodies. Tabla on “Shiver” and hand claps and a bass drum on “New Utensils” provide fulsome grooves. Both also feature modular synths that create a swarm of glissandos. Karin’s vocals encompass a variety of colors and superlative control. Gone is the stridency that typified some of their work in the Knife, replaced with a supple upper range and honeyed lower register. When they want to, as on “Even it Out,’ a steely edge appears.

 

The hit single, thus far, is “Carbon Dioxide,” on which Vessel helps to craft a club track with a soaring vocal by Karin and strings by Sakhi Singh and Seb Gainsborough. “Carbon Dioxide” includes an unusual tune, the Baby Elephant melody. Like many of Radical Romantic’s songs, the backstory recalls a diverse selection of inspirations and influences. Fever Ray has said they wanted the music to,  “Have the feeling of when you first fall in love …to be nice, happy, full of everything, extra everything. The Baby Elephant melody is the happiest melody of all time. The track contains wording from 1 Corinthians 13:1 because those words made a great impact when hearing them in Kieślowski’s Blue film. And a line from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s, Gift from the Sea.” 

 

Another standout is “Even it Out,” on which Karin collaborates with Nine Inch Nails. Reverberant vocals create a texture over which a second line, a rousing chant, is placed. NiN supply a terse electric guitar, bending notes, and an alt-rock drum pattern. The song imagines settling scores with your child’s bully, a feeling many parents have likely had (hopefully, as here, it remains a fantasy). Reznor and Ross also assist on “North,” which Karin describes as “stillness after collapse.” As its title suggests, there is a chilly atmosphere, with whispered vocals, a syncopated rhythmic loop, and an architecture of overlaid synths. Mining their father’s record collection, Karin got to know Bob Marley’s music. On “Looking for a Ghost,” a line from Marley’s “Satisfy My Soul” appears alongside an unlikely compatriot – a Porno for Pyros snippet – as well as words by the eminent Swedish author Barbo Lindgren.

 

“Tapping Fingers” is a sad song, one that Karin suggests is the saddest song they have written, about trying to communicate with your partner, listening for a morse code message in their tapping fingers, repeated over and over again as they fall asleep. Vocals in octaves, a descending chord progression with fat bass underneath, and regular synth punctuations adorn the song. The final track is seven minutes long, but makes much with a small amount of material. “Bottom of the Ocean” consists of Karin performing repeating vowels that echo with long repeated bass tones underneath. It is a suitable denouement to cool down from an album of imaginative instrumentation and excellent songwriting. Recommended. 

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Guitar

Voyageur – Ali Farka Touré (CD Review)

Voyageur

Ali Farka Touré

Work Circuit Records

 

The late Ali Farka Touré (1939-2006) was one of the most venerated of West African guitarists. His work combined the musical culture of his home country Mali with that of other African styles, including frequent collaborations that extended his work’s reach. Touré had a belated introduction to First World listeners, via a solo record that came out in the 1980s, when he was in his fifties. By 1994, Taking Timbuktu had won him a Grammy, with more awards to follow, including a Grammy for the posthumous release Ali & Toumani.

 

When material is released posthumously, it is fair to question the wishes of an artist, who is not there to weigh in on edits, production choices, or song selections. World Circuit Record’s Nick Gold has tried to ameliorate this by producing the record with Ali’s son Vieux Farka Touré. In addition, a longtime collaborator, vocalist Oumou Sangaré, is included on selected songs.

 

Voyageur’s recordings span fifteen years, and were made in a variety of locations:  Timbuktu, West Hollywood, California, concert halls in London and Tokyo, and tiny villages strung out on the Malian riverside. Sangaré’s contributions, notably the single “Cherie,” in which the vocalist and Touré perform a rousing duet, and the quick-syllable riffs of “Sadjona,” are standouts. On the former, singing in octaves with Touré, who also creates a loping polyrhythmic groove and fluent guitar solo, the vocalist provides various inflections distinctive to West African vocal styles. The latter is a showcase of vocalism at its most virtuosic.  “Safari” is equally diverting, Touré’s guitar-playing placed front and center, the artist riffing with abandon over background musicians, percussionists prominent among them. 

The diversity of recording locations provides a panoply of contexts in which to experience Touré’s music, and he adapts himself to each situation seemingly effortlessly. An excellent place to start, with a catalog of releases to further explore. Recommended.

 

  • Christian Carey

 

 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Marc Ducret Plays Time Berne (CD Review)

Palm Sweat: Marc Ducret Plays the Music of Tim Berne
Marc Ducret, guitar/arranger
Out of Your Head CD/DL

This is no ordinary jazz guitar album. Saxophonist/composer Tim Berne and guitarist Marc Ducret are longtime collaborators. After receiving a stack of compositions from Berne, Ducret set out to arrange them for overdubbed guitars, brass choir, voices, percussion, and cello (played by his son). Ducret knows Berne’s own style well, and while celebratingnd 2 it places his own stamp on this collection of work.

“Curls/Palm Sweat/Mirth of the Cool” begins the recording. An eleven-minute long suite, in it Ducret comes on heavy, with overdubbed, distorted guitars, panning between speakers. I didn’t previously associate Berne’s music with power chords, but Ducret rocking out is in some ways analogous to Berne’s Snake Oil band at full fury. “Stutter Step” begins with a long drone, over which an extended solo of angular lines, complete with whammy bar vibrato, create a fractious demeanor. There are then a series of harmonic arpeggiations alongside brass choir. The layering of instruments is adroit and the result, once again, faithful to Berne’s musical language. “Shiteless 1 and 2” are a study in contrasts, the first exploring noise and then adding horns to the mix, and the second overlapping harp-like arpeggios and a clean guitar sound.

Not all the compositions feature amplification. “Rolled Oats 1” and “Rolled Oats 2” feature a more traditional jazz sound, without effects or extreme amplitude. They are lithe standouts among the recording’s walls of sound, and a welcome respite that features Ducret’s playing in a gentler vein.

Palm Sweat is a fascinating translation by Ducret of Berne’s works. Recommended.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Twentieth Century Composer

Bernd Alois Zimmermann – Recomposed (CD Review)

Recomposed, Volumes 1-3

Bernd Alois Zimmermann

WDR Sinfonieorchester, Heinz Holliger: conductor

Sarah Wegener: soprano; Marcus Weiss: saxophone;  Ueli Wiget: piano

Wergo 3xCD boxed set

 

Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970) lived in Cologne and was an important member of the postwar avant-garde. However, he retained an independent voice, and did not operate in the circles of the Cologne School. His 1960 opera Soldaten, an ambitious work in terms of theatrical devices, vocal requirements, and musical demands, is both a zenith in terms of post-tonal writing and, with its use of collage, a precursor to postmodernism. 

 

Everyone needs to make a living. Zimmermann did so by crafting arrangements of preexisting pieces. His orchestrations did not strictly hew to the styles of the originals, instead creating vibrant translations that not only reconsidered them but proved influential on his own compositions. Many of the arrangements were composed for radio, a medium with which Zimmermann would retain a lifelong connection. He wrote about a hundred arrangements for radio and an additional hundred scores for radio plays. Heinz Holliger leads the WDR Sinfonieorchester in performances that emphasize Zimmermann’s penchant for rapid shifts of texture and dynamics – the aforementioned collage technique is built up in several of the pieces. The recording also features original compositions, some previously unrecorded.

 

Soprano Sarah Wegener admirably negotiates arrangements with their Zimmermann spin. Her performance of Franz Liszt’s “Oh! Quand je dors” is particularly lovely, the soprano spinning long lyrical lines and declaiming the text with detail and vivid dynamics. The orchestration is Mahlerian in cast, an interesting take on a Liszt lieder. The composer’s “Die Drei Zigeuner ” features nimble Magyar violin solos, with Wegerner’s voice blooming in arioso passages. Saxophonist Marcus Weiss provides a dynamic rendition of Sergei Rachmaninov’s “Romanze,” originally composed for solo piano. The orchestral interludes are thunderous, alternating with Weiss’s ardent phrasing. Uli Wiget is the nimble soloist in the aphoristic, blazing Concertino for Piano and Orchestra. 

 

Zimmermann was interested in Brazilian music, and the first volume of Recomposed includes several compositions and arrangements with South American influences. His own “Algoana. Caprichos Brasilieros” combines folk dances with stentorian percussion and, in places, more than a hint of Rite of Spring. ”A Lenda do Caboclo,” a piano piece by Villa-Lobos, is given a soaring rendition, with ebullient string passages and timpani supporting the clave rhythm. Darius Milhaud and Zimmermann were on amicable terms. Two arrangements  of movements from Milhaud’s “Saudades do Brasil. Suite de Danses” are included here, “Leme “ and”Sorocaba,” the former combining Ravelian impressionism and neo-classicism a lá middle period Stravinsky. “Sorocaba” has a lilting rhythm and overlapping winds. Equally fetching are two arrangements from Alfredo Casella’s “Undici pezzi infantili.”

 

Vernacular music comes from other sources as well, and Zimmermann demonstrates a keen ear for various styles. A polka by Bedrich Smetana is given a wry scoring. Antonin Dvořák’s “Causerie,” originally for solo piano, sounds as if the composer himself could have orchestrated it. A septet provides Cyril Scott’s “Lotus Land” with an exotic flavor. There’s even a “Blues,” composed by Edmund Nick. Zimmermann creates a rendition more akin to Hollywood than St. Louis, but it is attractive nevertheless.

 

A standout among the original pieces is Kontraste, a six-movement suite for “an imaginary ballet.” Composed in 1953, its waltzes and march must have thoroughly perplexed the composers at Darmstadt. Although the dance rhythms are faithful, much of the scoring is actually reminiscent of early Schoenberg. Also from 1953, “Symphonie in einem Satz” is at the other end of the  spectrum of Zimmermann’s work, a fiery serial piece that is most compelling. A valuable addition to the programmed works is “Konzert für Orchester,” a piece from 1949 set in a Bergian idiom.

 

WERGO Records knows how to do it right. The three-CD boxed set is accompanied by a 92-page booklet. Original compositions by Zimmermann are set alongside his orchestrations, providing interesting comparisons and contrasts. Holliger engages in a conversation with Michael Kunkel about the arrangements and original works. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Cello, File Under?, jazz

Laufey – A Night at the Symphony (CD Review)

Laufey

A Night at the Symphony

Laufey, vocals; Iceland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hugh Brunt

AWAL

 

A Night at the Symphony sees release this week. Jazz artist Laufey performs a varied program in a concert performance with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hugh Brunt. It consists of previously released songs off her debut album Everything I Know About Love and 2021 EP Typical of Me, standards, and Icelandic jazz artist Elly Vilhjálms’ “Ég Veit Þú Kemur. Hearing a jazz ballad sung in Icelandic is a new experience for me. Vilhjálms’ style and the arrangement are indebted to Kurt Weill.

The hit tune, “Valentine,” displays the characteristics of Laufey’s voice, with suave phrasing and a warm tone. Laufey accompanies herself on the cello on “I Wish You Love,” using pizzicatos to create a bluesy progression. Her rendition of “The Nearness of You” demonstrates an awareness of swing that often places the vocal ahead and behind of the beat in a fluid rendition. “Every Time We Say Goodbye” is a valedictory staple. Here Laufey displays her awareness of expert predecessors who sang the American Songbook, Ella Fitgerald notable among them. A Night at the Symphony, a retro revival of swing and standards, is an excellent introduction to an artist coming into her own.

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Julia Holter and Spektral Quartet record Alex Temple (CD Review)

Behind the Wallpaper

Alex Temple

Spektral Quartet: Clara Lyon (violin), Theo Espy (violin), Doyle Armbrust (viola), Russell Rolen (cello); Julia Holter: voice

New Amsterdam Records

Out this Friday, March 3rd, via New Amsterdam Records  is composer Alex Temple’s cycle Behind the Wallpaper. Vocalist Julia Holter joins the Spektral Quartet in this song cycle inspired by Temple’s gender transition. 

Holter, as always, is a marvel, with expressive, liquescent singing throughout her soprano voice’s range. The Spektral Quartet is given a variety of styles to play, from doleful lyricism reminiscent of Shostakovich’s string quartets to post-minimalism. The musical smorgasbord reminds me in places of Elvis Costello’s collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet, The Juliet Letters. Temple is fluent in marshaling these materials. Behind the Wallpaper deals with a significant event in Temple’s life, yet her touch is light and lyrics affirming. Recommended.

 

 

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Oracle – Joanna Mattrey and Gabby Fluke-Mogul (CD Review)

Oracle

Joanna Mattrey, Gabby Fluke-Mogul

Relative Pitch Records RPR1143

 

In their first collaboration, improvisers violist Joanna Mattrey and violinist Gabby Fluke-Mogul create music that combines drones, microtones, and extended techniques. Mattrey also plays stroh violin, which includes an attached horn that serves as a resonating chamber. Performing the aforementioned sounds on the stroh creates far out results.

 

Each piece on the album is titled, “The,” followed by a single evocative word. Wayward lines and multi-stop pizzicatos begin “The Vision,” which are then followed by pizzicato glissandos accompanying a bluesy riff. Improvisations vacillate between these two demeanors, with greater sustain accumulating. The piece settles, only to be followed by the eruptive “The Trinity,’ with a howl of over-bowing and various methods to elicit scratching and non-pitched noise. “The Potion” returns to pitched sounds, with a duet between repeating patterns and glissandos. 

 

“The Switch” explores the lower register and quasi chitara strumming. As an antidote to all the upper register violin prior, Mattrey explores scordatura low tuning on her viola and supplies cello-like sounds. The texture gradually thins out, with glissandos and pizzicati dueling for primacy. “The Switch” ends on a sustained, bass register note. “The Child” begins most quietly, with upper register over-bowing, harmonics, then continues with pizzicato multi-stops versus a delicate altissimo melody. The delicate contrast with previous selections is welcome. While there is no steady pitch center, the duo play thirds and sixths and a modal melody. This isn’t to last, as hails of pizzicatos supplement it. Things remain soft, but string noise, circular glissandos,  and wood thwacks, with the occasional harmonic, create an entirely new atmosphere. This crescendos, and the noise quotient is upped, only to suddenly shift to quiet harmonics. Like so many of the pieces on Oracle, the music may be improvised, but the players are experienced enough to shape the musical narrative seamlessly.

 

“The Womb” is Mattrey and Fluke-Mogul at their most scary. The use of glissandos, sotto voce noise, and a  voice-like, panting line that predominates its opener could be licensed for a horror movie: why shouldn’t free improvers get some of the dough? Parlando whimpering is accompanied by an upper register fiddle followed by squealing string noise. This moves into a drone section of repeated plucked notes and microtonal sustained double stops. The monster’s voice returns, slighter higher, making it even more frightening. Just when you think the piece has hit its zenith, Mattrey and Fluke-Mogul quickly pull back to soft harmonics, only to build to a conclusion that howls with fury.

Oracle closes with “The Blade,” in which clock-like wood blows and a viola drone that gradually moves between three pitches and then is replaced with a high register squall. A number of ostinatos are juxtaposed, some pitched, some extended techniques, with the one constant being the rapping on wood. Like a broken clock coming apart, the material dissolves, with a pizzicato heartbeat ticking and altissimo harmonics and scratches gathering toward the close, an acerbic descending flourish. 

 

Mattrey and Fluke-Mogul have hit things off from the beginning. One hopes their musical association will continue.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Percussion

Tony Oliver plays James Romig’s Spaces (CD Review)

Spaces

James Romig

Tony Oliver, vibraphone

Sawyer Editions

 

James Romig’s music has become more expansive. Spaces (2021) is his third recent piece to run over an hour in duration. Still (2016), a piece for pianist Ashlee Mack, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Last year brought The Complexity of Distance, a piece for metal guitarist Mike Scheidt that was both rigorously constructed and ripped uproariously. 

 

Like all of Romig’s music, Spaces has a highly detailed plan. Each of the four sections of the piece has an “a” and a “b” subgroup. They begin with a collection of three pitch classes that works its way up to six by the end of “a,” while “b” unspools this in reverse, ending with only three pitches. Three strands are put in a structural polyrhythm of 9:10:11, providing the work with an asymmetrical rhythmic scheme.

Vibraphonist Tony Oliver has worked with Romig for over thirty years, and Spaces was composed to celebrate that collaboration. One can readily hear why the two have enjoyed this association. Oliver performs every nuance of the score, embodying Romig’s music like few others do. Romig is a percussionist himself, and knows the in and outs of the vibraphone, the resonance of each key and the best way to balance a passage. This affords the music, despite its limited palette, to retain interest throughout.

James Romig

One continues to be fascinated by the surface of Romig’s music. After all the preplanning, the result sounds intuitive. Romig studied with the most prominent of American serial composers, Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, and yet there is a palpable influence of the music of Morton Feldman on these recent extended pieces. And like Feldman’s own long works, Spaces has a meditative quality that draws one in and makes them forget the time that’s passing. As Feldman said about one of his pieces at its premiere, “It’s a short eighty minutes.” 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Anthony Cheung on Kairos (CD Review)

Anthony Cheung

Music for Film, Sculpture, and Captions

Ueli Wiget, piano, Ensemble Modern, Franck Ollu, conductor;

Ensemble dal Niente, Michael Lewanski, conductor;

Ensemble Musikfabrik, Elena Schwarz, conductor

Kairos Music

 

Anthony Cheung is a prolific composer whose music is situated astride spectralism and second modernity. This is his fifth portrait CD, his first for Kairos, and first of music that accompanies extra musical media. While these sources of inspiration are pivotal components for the music’s genesis, it stands on its own as an audio recording. The works are performed by three top flight groups, Ensemble Modern, conducted by Franck Ollu with piano soloist Ueli Wiget, Ensemble dal Niente, conducted by Michael Lewanski, and Ensemble Musikfabrik, conducted by Elena Schwarz. 

 

Visual artist Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) made sculptures out of wire mesh. A line can go anywhere (2019) is a three-movement piano concerto inspired by Asawa’s work. The first movement’s title, “Wound Wire,” points out the connection between piano strings and Asaway’s wires. Harp-like piano arpeggiations and descending color chords are met by tumult, often riding just below the surface, that periodically erupts into repeated brass verticals. The piano enters a swirl of percussion and brass glissandos and shakes. Wind solos imitate the piano’s gestures with a dovetailing effect, and the movement ends with softer, angular attacks from soloist and ensemble. Wiget does a stalwart job matching the dynamic of the ensemble without ever overplaying. His imitation of the attacks of other instruments is noteworthy. 

 

The second movement, “Weightless/Sustained,” begins with the soft dynamic that ended the first movement. A second keyboard, tuned down a quarter tone, as well as microtones from the ensemble, serve to blur the piano’s music, creating a haze of overtones. Not to be outdone, the piano thrums low bass notes followed by birdsong-like flurries. Gongs and chimes further complicate the atmosphere, and descending wind lines are juxtaposed with the piano’s now ubiquitous birdsong and taut, quickly, repeated verticals. Once again, a denouement closes the movement.

 

The piece’s finale, “Woven Wire – Homage to Ruth Asawa” is a clever rendering in sound of the sculptor’s working method. The piano contorts a single line solo, let’s call it wiry, while metallophones also provide a taste of Asawa’s metallic medium. A plethora of glissandos in the various sections of the ensemble, as well as periodic stabs from winds, enhance this impression. A final section finds the piano playing repeated notes while boisterous brass and punctilious percussion attacks create a vibrant accompaniment. The piece closes with string glissandos surrounding final punctuations from, successively, piano and percussion. 

 

The Natural Word (2019) is based on the work of author Sean Zdenek, who has researched the use of closed captions in television and film. Zdemek observes that sound captions are selective. Since not every sound can be included, the editor must decide what to foreground and what background noises to select. The Natural Word doesn’t include captions spoken aloud, but rather uses a collection of them, taken from Zdenek and expanded by Cheung. The composer then found analogous film clips to score. The result is a series of short contrasting sections, many of which use coloristic orchestration: seagulls are depicted via altissimo glissandos, pattering rain by percussion, upper register plucked piano, and harp, and so on. Cheung does not just seek to imitate sounds, but in juxtaposing them, mine their cultural reference points. Thus, he shuttles between disparate scorings like jump cuts, but the piece is a cohesive whole.

 

Null and void (2021) was composed for the soundtrack of a short silent film Stump the Guesser, created by the Canadian filmmakers Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galin Johnson. In his liner notes, Tim Rutherford-Johnson describes the film as having a “surrealistic, absurdist tone,” and being inspired by the Russian poet and dramatist Daniil Karms (1905-1942). Cheung responds to the material, and to Karms’ aesthetic, with nearly everything but the kitchen sink: Harry Partch’s instruments, thunderous, motoric percussion that references Russian futurism, swing-era jazz brass, with wah-wah mutes, glissandos, and altissimo stabs, and a pistol firing (there is a game of Russian roulette on screen). I would greatly like to see how it syncs up with the film, but null and void as an aural document has a beguiling sound world. 

 

Cheung’s partnership with Kairos continues to expand, encompassing a variety of techniques and inspirational material. Accompanying videos of these pieces would be welcome – dare we hope for a DVD release?

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

The Clarinet Trio on Leo (CD Review)

The Clarinet Trio

Transformations and Further Passages

Jürgen Kupke, clarinet; Michael Thieke, alto clarinet, clarinet; Gebhard Ullmann, bass clarinet

Leo Records LR 921

 

Gebhard Ullmann is celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday with the release of three albums, Transformations and Further Passages on Leo among them. The Clarinet Trio are a superb group of improvisers, Jürgen Kupke and Michael Thieke are eloquent foils for Ullmann. Unlike some other Ullmann outings, where he clearly leads the proceedings, this is a context in which everyone collaborates and gets to take solo turns. In fact, three of the tracks are solos, one for each member of the trio. While some pieces are improvised, much of the music-making here is based on compositions by European jazz composers.

 

“Collective #13” is one of the former, and finds the musicians exploring tone colors overlapping in a compound melody, vibrato and overblowing creating a shimmering texture. Upward glissandos and a howl from the bass clarinet punctuate the close of the piece, which concludes with a distressed unison detuned with subtle pitch bends. 

 

In Joki Freund’s “Cleopatra,” a bebop moto perpetuo with the tune overlapping dominates. Likewise, “Virtue,” by Manfred Schoof, explores a swing ballad with tasty changes and a bit more tension in the solos. “Set ‘em Up,” by Albert Mangelsdorff, is a quicksilver bebop tune, harmonized by the trio with great suavity. Once again, when two players drop out, the remaining soloist performs in a more experimental vein. Eventually, “Set ‘em Up” moves into a skronking trio before a more traditional outro. 

 

“Tension/Varié,” also by Mangelsdorff,  initially combines free passages with a jaunty heterophonic refrain, then there are long stretches of sustained notes and mercurial flurries. The tune slowly emerges again from the texture, leading to a new section of chorale-like gestures. A loping accompaniment gives the tune, now floridly embellished with howling altissimo gestures, a Middle Eastern feel. The denouement combines the rhythmic groove with the previous chorales. “Tension/Varié” is a wide-ranging and satisfying musical journey.

 

There is a liveliness and puckish sense of humor, even in pieces that allow all three clarinetists to caterwaul with abandon. “Get Up, From Now On,” by Karl Berger, has a bluesy riff that is explored for much of the piece. But there are free jazz breaks where the trio trade licks and howls. The juxtaposition is surprising, but left turns such as these seem to be the trio’s calling card. 

 

“Solo 1,” performed by Thieke, traverses the compass of the alto clarinet in jangling lines that are punctuated by stentorian low notes. Ullmann’s “Solo 2” begins delicately with whiffs of birdsong, only to be ruptured to wakefulness with fortissimo bass notes. Microtonal interpolations close the solo, a brief essay with a bounty of material. It segues into Rolf Kühn’s “Don’t Run,” which fleshes out the experimental gestures of Ullmann’s solo. Mangelsdorff’s “Theme from Vietnam” crests and subsides in waves of interactive melody and bent notes. It is followed by Kupke’s “Solo 3,” in which disjunct lines are delicately deployed with repeats of the head motive. It is an enigmatic close to an exploratory album. It makes one eager to hear more of Ullmann’s sixty-fifth birthday celebrations.

 

-Christian Carey


by Christian Carey