Instrumental music by GBK on their album Fulufulu Paupepa Paupapa (KLANG GALERIE GG438), from a group that’s been active since 2007 apparently. Austrian team they, including the very fine bass clarinet player Susanna Gartmayer who we’ve been hearing and enjoying in solo and collab contexts since about 2015, plus there’s trumpet player Thomas Berghammer and Didi Kern on drums. Their work here is situated somewhere in a modern improv and free jazz vein, but played in a very stilted and very European way, and our three Viennese players are keen to stress they do like a bit of melody and “groove”, that most elusive of commodities, and indeed some of these short cakewalks do emerge with an upbeat disposition and an audible open expression on the face. If this means they lean towards the quirksome, well, so be it – even the squirrel on the cover denotes a sense of fun, as does the album title which reads like an extract from a Kurt Schwitters poem, only updated by a Pop artist with added disco beats and dayglo acrylic paint. Very likeable music, but the threesome never really cut loose or swing; the experimental side, such as it is, appears on the slower introverted cuts like ‘Soome Lath’ or ‘Merry Quarternary’, where overblowing, minimal puffs, and extended techniques may sometimes crop up. (01/08/2023)
The 3D@Paris (DISCUS MUSIC DISCUS 156CD) record attempts to mix together a jazz-composition suite with field recordings captured in Paris and thereby convey something of the “cosmopolitan” nature of this most venerable of European cities. The record is also a showcase for the electric violin work of its composer Cécile Broché, although keyboard player Russ Lossing clocks in a lot of overtime with his piano, Fender Rhodes, and Hammond organ, while drummer Satoshi Takeishi skitters everywhere. As musical travelogues go, this one presents a rather banal and obvious day trip around the city, with its railways, Metro stations, and visits to bakeries and brasseries, some of these episodes punctuated by cheery sampled voices declaring “bonjour!”; a cursory read through a Tripadvisor page would be less touristy. There’s a certain degree of joie de vivre in the jaunty melodic music, but Broché’s melodies rarely reach beyond the ambitions of a Stephane Grappelli album. Record least likely to be nominated as a soundtrack for a Guy Debord dérive. Ironically, the composer isn’t even French. (July 2023)
Birgit Ulher sent her latest harvest from Hamburg, Horizontal Shift (AMALGAMUSIC AMA044) which she made with Carol Genetti and Eric Leonardson in Chicago, as far back as 2018. Ulher has previously performed with the delicacy of a surgeon and the aerobatics of a seabird, using her trumpet-radio-speaker setup which is pretty unique in the field, but today’s record sets a new benchmark in the slow and minimal tension stakes, a gambling table where she’s feared by many would-be assassins and often walks home with the jackpot in her handbag. Testing listen, but things started to liven up when Genetti’s gasps of horror emerge from her open lips on the title track, thereby setting up brief moments of abstract duetting with our German heroine and her brass ray gun. Even so, the session doesn’t quite turn into the hoped-for array of unhinged clay-mation dancing or three-AM alarms; the threesome seem to be uncertain of each other, unwilling to break the ice. (07/08/2023)