Very good solo trombone work called Threads (SOFA MUSIC SOFA 592) from Mattie Barbier, Californian / LA musician although I believe they made this one in Colorado. Perhaps a semi-rural setting as the experience of just getting to the session seems to have involved some unexpected diversions and finding the road being blocked by cows and then herded away by cowboys. Also anecdotes about finding the water tank deep in the countryside. I also like the idea of starting out with a compositional idea that gets discarded as soon as you start playing and the acoustics of the space start to take over. I’m just relaying some of the artist’s stories as they appear, with hope of conveying something about their turn of mind, and the properties of very deep sub-bass resonant drone they play into the echoing walls of the tank, but more to the point it’s also about loneliness and isolation (yes, made during the Covid lockdown, but it’s not another lockdown record), and also another chapter in the journey of self-discovery by this person who describes themselves as non-binary and admits to a certain amount of conflict and uncertainty in their identity.
The water tank things turns out to be a matter of fact, since the performance space called The Tank Center for Sonic Arts is indeed a repurposed 1940 water tank originally built for use on the railroad, later moved to a new site. Now a home for very slow and resonant music (like this CD) it do be. It’s grown into a musician’s space ever since Bruce Odland discovered it in 1976 and declared a new frontier in artistic freedom with a sweep of his gesturing hand. So, although Barbier has played with other groups, composers (they have played with Sarah Davachi, whose Two Sisters was a recent revelation to this writer), and improvisers including the great George Lewis, this solo CD seems to be 98% about the sound they make, so feel yourself unburdened by any compositional ideas…one might say the music is working to rid itself of any trace of improvisational contagion too, in favour of pure sounds. And yet the personality of this player still seeps into the long tones, along with the emotions and the uncertainty. “I pretty often feel like I’m kind of constantly looking for this thing that sounds and feels right,” reports Barbier, “without being totally sure of what it is I’m looking for.” P.S. there’s some euphonium too. (10/10/2022)
Quite nice performances on Three Tsuru Origami (WE INSIST! RECORDS CDWEIN20), where the Italian trumpet player Gabriele Mitelli is joined by the English players John Edwards (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums). Very collaborative set, but a lot of the pieces were composed by Mitelli, and he wrote the semi-poetic liner notes too, indicating he intends the album as “a tribute to birds…and their migrations”, hence feathered friends eagle, hawk, goose and blackbird are namechecked in the tune titles along with such words as “karma” and “ritual”, suggesting our man really has his mind on our spiritual welfare as well as following an ecological bent. Our Italian friend sometimes uses his voice and electronics to unleash moments of wild shriekery, but not often enough for me – I wish he would remove the hood and let the falcon fly free from his gauntlet. Remainder of set is mostly conventional post-bop semi-free jazz tunes, or pieces of uncertain meandering and scrapey improv. (10/10/2022)
Cassette tape It’s Quiet (MAKKUM RECORDS MR34) is a nifteroo from Zea, i.e. the singing guitarist Arnold de Boer, lead singer and player in The Ex (Holland’s spiky post-punk greats) and who has also made experimental records recorded in the Frisian tongue…joined by French clarinettist Xavier Charles, a fellow we normally hear in the context of very refined and severe minimal improvisation records, yet here he is…doing what I’m not quite sure, but it’s like he’s been called upon to fill in for all the other instruments in a 1980s post-punk band such as Magazine when everyone else is sick or has gone home from the studio. While de Boer spits out and barks out disaffected lyrics and strums basic rhythm guitar – a kind of inverted, cynical, Bob Dylan for the 15-dollar coffee generation – Charles plays bass riffs, percussive sounds, and even little flourishes of lead guitar, all done using his clarinet. Even supplies abstract noise if the occasion demands it. Think how useful such a man would have been on the Pet Sounds sessions. Matter of fact I’d like to hear this duo remake that entire album on their own terms, replacing the introverted vulnerable lyrics with something of their own invention, hopefully more wiry and realistic about the practical difficulties of living. Apparently these two made a seven-inch single in 2012 (released on Makkum) and just decided to get this one together after doing a recent tour in March 2022. Glad they did. They made it very quickly too, much the best way, perhaps all single takes one would like to think. Content includes new songs and old songs by de Boer, plus one of them is an Ethiopian song with new lyrics, and there’s also this odd cover version of ‘You’re Dead’ by Norma Tanega, the 1960s singer-songwriter from California. So now I need a copy of Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog on New Voice or a reissue on Stateside. Meanwhile you listeners need a copy of this tape. (10/10/2022)