Šalter Ensemble
Tri Dela
SLOVENIA SPLOH RECORDS ZAVCD29 / SWITZERLAND BRUIT EDITIONS BR13 C.D. (2024)
The ensemble came into focus in 2017 under the aegis of Swiss accordionist/composer Jonas Kocher as a platform for electro/acoustic experimentation involving a fluid group of international musicians of a jazz/trad folk/avant garde stripe. In the interim, this multi-generational troupe has been witnessed at various festivals and club venues throughout Europe. “Tri Dela” emerges as a chaser to 2021’s debut “Štiri Dela”; a live recording captured in Ljubljana that saw contributions from an eleven-tet fronted by Irena Zaguricnik, also a one-time lead throat for dark electroids; Borghesia. The year 2014 however, had seen a major refurb to the unit’s warp and weft. That group fluidity coming into full effect as the now ten-piece has surprisingly retained just three members from previous years. Still at the helm, there’s Jonas Kocher, who is joined by double bassist Tomas Grom and Samo Kutin on hurdy gurdy. Also, the recording venues are now marginally more varied, travelling from ‘Le Singe’ in Biel, Switzerland to the Philharmonic Hall, Ljubljana (under the auspices of RTV Slovenia).
Their frequent occupation of the grey area between the scripted and the impromptu is as mentioned before, fast becoming the default setting among concerns such as the U.K.’s Article XI, Orchestra Entropy and Mikroton’s Pitch & Splitter Orchestra. However, like those examples, the Salterites have enough sleight of hand and juxtapositional nous to ghost past the ho-hum and the predictable. “Tri Dela” (which translates from the Serbian as “Three Works”) begins with “My Wish is Your Command” – the stand-alone from ‘Le Singe’, finds a threatening martial snare barrage presaging a series of heated conversations between MEV murder mystery themes and blurting unison passages that recall Bristolians Pigbag, of all people… During unpredictable moments, on “Interstices/Interferences”, a randomly generated light signal tells the musicians when to derail the composition or reduce things to a whisper. It’s easy to imagine the players being on maximum tenterhooks, just waiting for illumination. That tentative, creeping-on-tiptoe feel, via upper register piano, synthi-haze and arco double-bass is doggedly retained throughout the piece and neatly leads on, mood-wise to “Šum II”, where Eno’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ are left in the shade as the work uses a poem by Sylvia Plath as a pathway for improvisation (!) The sleeve notes keep mum regarding any relevant detail, so perhaps the secret lies in Irena’s whispered insinuations? But for now, a large question mark will have to hover over this for the foreseeable future.
I really like the way the ‘sleeve art’ kinda mirrors that of its contents in which rigid structure can become undone at any moment by the wayward penmanship of an unfettered mind. Recommended.