Another brilliant experiment by Alessandro Bosetti, executed with his characteristic ingenuity allowing him to make complex and layered statements in a very concise way. Portraits De Voix (KOHLHAAS KHS 032) features the voices of Neue Vocalsolisten (a choir from Stuttgart) as well as his own speaking voice; at one level it’s a carefully constructed array, the recorded voices taken apart and repacked in astonishing new configurations, giving the listener multiple layers of “impossible” polyphony in tight packets of musical information. I’m reminded of the time he assembled recordings of amateur singers to recreate the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo (Gesualdo Translations, from the Stille Post box set), except here there’s spoken word and odd conversations interleaved with the singing, and of course Neue Vocalsolisten are professional singers. Bosetti may also be aiming at some sort of abstract drama – the piece existed as a theatre-horspiel work before this release – telling stories of this “family of voices” living its “sonic life”. With his highly mannered artifices and interest in Renaissance art forms, Alessandro Bosetti is like the musical equivalent of Peter Greenaway.
Swedish jazz combo STHLM Svaga here with their take on Afro-American free jazz. To their credit, Johan Jutterström and his team of competent players have managed to commission new compositions from living jazz legends Ron Carter, Roscoe Mitchell, and Archie Shepp – hence the title Plays Carter, Plays Mitchell, Plays Shepp (THANATOSIS PRODUKTION THT33). Not content with that, they assay a late Coltrane piece ‘Jupiter’ with just sax and drums. Anyone who’s heard records by Shepp, Art Ensemble of Chicago or one of the many releases where Carter played (2814 credits on Discogs alone) might be drawn to this recording, but may be disappointed in the lack of spirit or energy on show here. ‘Desert Lament’ simply sounds like “nice” cocktail lounge music – Linda Oláh has a sweet singing voice, but she’s no Abbey Lincoln. ‘Never Sound More’ is a lugubrious funeral dirge, played haltingly and uncertainly; I’m not feeling the emotion, and the musicians haven’t earned the right to feel down-hearted. The Swedes seem to snap out of their self-conscious stilted mode for the lively Shepp four-part suite ‘Die Rechnung – Chrystal Stairs – Blues – U-Jama’, and there’s something to admire in the way they carefully negotiate the tricky dynamics and rhythms of the composition. But they act like novice drivers following every command that issues from their SatNav; it’s a long way from truly “free” playing, far too polite and respectful, with no hint of the anger and fire that underpins Shepp’s music. I would like to resist this whitewashing, this blandification of jazz history.
For fans of minimalist drone, here’s a European slant on the music of Phill Niblock. Looking for Daniel (UNSOUNDS / ECHONANCE FESTIVAL 81UEcho) contains two very long pieces; the album is intended as a tribute to the composer, and he managed to supervise a lot of what went down before his death in 2024. Multi-part recordings, many instruments layered together, human voices – all the things that make a Niblock what it is. I’m particularly keen on ‘Biliana’, all played and sung by one woman, the heroic Biliana Voutchkova whose impressive improvising work on the violin we’ve been enjoying since around 2013. The piece was written for her, natch, and we’re invited to “read” it as a portrait of this great woman. ‘Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel’ goes even further down the polyphony route, requiring two chamber ensembles – The Ensemble Modelo62 and the Ensemble Scordature – to realise its multiple musical strata, using woodwinds, brass, electric guitar, organ, keyboards, and voices. 20 separate scored parts merge into an astonishing shimmering haze of drone, with hidden dissonances at every turn, and effortlessly occupying the same space as many a “spectralist” composer can only dream of (except my beloved Gorecki, of course). For some reason I rarely revisit the Niblock records I have on the Touch label; I now think it’s because they’re too hemmed in, solid wodges of blocky sound, lacking the air and space I’m finding here on this great record.
All the above from 02/04/2024.