Karm is the ad-hoc duo formed by Michal Wróblewski from Prague and German guitarist Torsten Papenheim; we heard them in 2022 with their debut Kram record.
On today’s cassette Hako (MA RECORDS M 34) it’s one side of the duo with woodwinds and guitar, then another side where they’re joined by the Japanese player Kohsetsu Imanishi and her koto. As before the Czech-German duo adhere to their “strict idiom”, which I have previously taken to refer to a set of rules and parameters that must be respected. This discipline does result in very subtle interplay, and quiet all-acoustic music, but it’s also intensive; Papenheim’s “clicking” noises made on the guitar are understated, but very bold and confident. Wróblewski’s clarinet tone is slightly more conventional, but he deliberately limits himself to very few notes, and injects his purely abstract breathy passages as needed. The duo seem intent on carving out their own corner of minimal improvisation that stands far apart from others.
On the B side, they become a trio with the addition of Imanishi and koto, an event which came about during Karm’s March 2024 tour of Japan. On this occasion, the quiet-and-minimal aesthetic is enhanced – or distracted – by the sounds from the nearby railway at the Hako Gallery. Apart from one Ftarri recording made in 2024, we don’t know a great deal about Kohsetsu Imanishi, but her presence here has made for a mystical moment of improvisatory tension, and her aesthetic approach seems to be very sympathetic to the Karm “idiom”. This particular musical meeting might be a little slow to start up, but at its peak we hear something approximating a sketched-in diagram for a conversation that could lead in several different directions. You can hear the players working hard to keep all the options open, all possibilities on the table.
Issued on a small Czech label, arrived 29/10/2024.