Solo vinyl LP from Johan Arrias is Self Portraits (AUSCULTO FONOGRAM AUF006). He made it during lockdown using the soprano saxophone, an instrument he hadn’t picked up for some twenty years (what little we know of his work suggests he’s more comfortable on the alto). Running through his mind there may have been considerations about just intonation and the so-called “spectralism” school of composition, along with influences from free jazz by Braxton and Cecil Taylor, such observations mostly based on the sounds he was making. There are also moments during the session when he went slightly off-script and started playing his mouthpiece attached to a garden hose and a bottle of water.
If these musical statements really are intended as self-portraits of the man, we don’t really gain much insight into the soul or the mind of Arrias; I feel there’s too much technique, too many notes, and too much superfluous information getting in the way. One wishes he would drop his guard for a moment and let us glimpse the humanity that shines within, but instead we have these rather mannered and poised pieces, rather as if he’d invited along a professional studio photographer to use lights, tripod and backdrops to concoct a contrived photographic portrait for a magazine. I felt the same expressionless tone hampered Pour Alto Seul, his 2019 solo effort. (28/04/2023)