I have a few new albums recently released. All three were actually recorded a while ago, one in 2016 and two in 2017, but have only finally made their way into the public.
Jason Alder, Thanos Chrysakis, Caroline Kraabel, Yoni Silver
Music for Baritone Saxophone, Bass Clarinets & Electronics is released on Aural Terrains, TRRN1340
Duration 47.32 | Released April 2019
Jason Alder | bass clarinet | contra bass clarinet | clarinet in B♭ | clarinet in E♭ | Thanos Chrysakis | laptop computer | synthesizers | Caroline Kraabel | baritone saxophone | voice | Yoni Silver | bass clarinet
Recorded at OneCat Studio in London on the 6th of December 2017 by Jon Clayton.
Edited—Mixed—Mastered by THANOS CHRYSAKIS
Between January — February 2019 at Meridian Studio.
AVAILABLE ON BANDCAMP
Review
Todd M. McComb — Jazz Thoughts — 18.06.2019
Thanos Chrysakis is someone I noticed relatively early in this project, and especially since the pace of his album releases is more modest than e.g. Ernesto Rodrigues, albeit still steady, I’ve been discussing many or most of them since. In fact, it’s kind of funny to reflect back on this space, and the feeling that I’d started from much more traditional or conservative music: That’s certainly true to an extent, but (as noted last August) I’d already mentioned Rodrigues in early 2012, and then first mentioned Chrysakis in November 2013 (with Zafiros en el barro) & again in March 2014 (with Garnet Skein). Both of those albums are what I might characterize as more keyboardistic than his recent output, but I already noted how Chrysakis was able to highlight particular lines & relations in order to create a sense of balance, i.e. a sort of order from chaos, something that I’d noted again more recently (in January this year) around Iridescent Strand. Chrysakis seems to be moving away from even non-traditional keyboards, though, into more of an electronic environment that emphasizes manipulation of pitch & timbre, and this direction reaches a new level of sophistication with the marvelous Music for Baritone Saxophone, Bass Clarinets & Electronics. One might even note something of a trilogy then, beginning with the similarly generically named Music for Two Organs & Two Bass Clarinets (discussed here in May 2018, so a little over a year ago), an album that both interrogates a broad sonic landscape & more specific timbres (doubling an earlier duo release, which one might thus compare to e.g. Face to Face, as discussed earlier this month, in its overlapping timbral relations between synth & reed). After that acoustic album (with Chrysakis credited on chamber organ alone), Iridescent Strand had projected more of an industrial tapestry, largely because of the metallic contributions of guitar, but also due to broadly chaotic interactions around instrument changes & electronic manipulation. Rather than illuminate a line of exploration within rumbling chaos, then, (the also five movement, as seems to be a predilection for Chrysakis) Music for Baritone Saxophone, Bass Clarinets & Electronics retains a more contrapuntal (or broadly textural) emphasis, while restricting electronic participation to Chrysakis himself, yielding what at times feels like a horn trio being interrogated & manipulated — not unlike on World of Objects as just mentioned, or indeed even the acoustic Empty Castles, where “the space itself” takes on the character of an electronic framework via physical reverberations, etc. Electronics tend to be subtle in that regard here, although sometimes burbling or hissing in the background, or perhaps in fragile ringing overtones, but then emerge more explicitly into the foreground with what seems to be samples of military radio in the 4th track. (It’s strangely affective within its broader musical context, but if the discussion of “Weasel Island” is supposed to evoke any specific historical event or context, it doesn’t for me.) Despite the title, the horns do also change sometimes in the person ofJason Alder, an impressive technician who was new to me, but who does (surprise!) have a new duo album soon to appear on Creative Sources, Contradictions. Joining Alder & Chrysakis — also from the English scene, the edges of which seem to supply most of Chrysakis’ performing colleagues in general — are then Caroline Kraabel & Yoni Silver: Kraabel, who is originally from Seattle, is also credited with voice (although that isn’t apparent sonically), and has performed extensively with the London Improvisers Orchestra, from which I’d heard some of her compositions, as well as writes liner notes of late (e.g. for Vulcan). And I’d mentioned Silver in conjunction with (prior Aural Terrains duo release) Home around Ag in February 2018…. Perhaps its difficult to render such a generically titled album as Music for Baritone Saxophone, Bass Clarinets & Electronics as distinctive & revelatory, but besides the strange military radio presence in the following track, e.g. the central (& longest) track presents another sort of recitative feel (which had seemed to be the goal of Iridescent Strand at times), with difference tones & small scratchings moving from a low roar into chirping atmospheric shifts & beats, finally into what can only be described as a novel lyricism…. (One might say that it involves a Scelsian concept of melody & perhaps even a Scelsian sense of time.) Indeed, Music for Baritone Saxophone, Bass Clarinets & Electronics is often brilliantly lyrical — in an emergent sense — while usually remaining disorienting, as it generates its own sense of space. Clearly it also involves some planning in its “symphonic” form, which isn’t discussed, but presumably improvisation within a conceptual plan & perhaps editing longer takes… track breaks generally presenting affective changes as well. (I should further note two other Chrysakis favorites of yore, namely Carved Water, discussed here in January 2017, with its sound installation approach, and then Skiagraphía, likewise with double electronics as discussed that April, with its relatively silhouetted wave of activity, both featuring viola & reed…. There, contrasts emerge more from major technical differences in the instruments, whereas here they’re derived from the finest grain of articulation.) The use of radio might evoke another sound installation, but Music for Baritone Saxophone, Bass Clarinets & Electronics comes off more as “absolute music,” i.e. as “instant composition” as it’s increasingly observed today, and does so within a broadly shifting field of frequency relations that never seems content with traditional Western (discrete) forms, i.e. as a truly postmodern (or postcolonial) production. (One doesn’t hear echoes of Mozart, then, as one might on some earlier Chrysakis albums….) Rather than the constraints of the traditional keyboard, one hears the electronics as a source of timbral & more broadly, relational innovation. Intensity & exploration track all the way down to the smallest particles, the grain of reed articulation, and up again into a broadly symphonic form — including subtle structural unfoldings via tempo relation (around maintained linear tensions) to yield a strongly balanced & coherent synthesis across perceptual levels. Chrysakis thus seems to have completed a real arc of development in this latest, affectively satisfying album: It can leave one (subsequently, immersively) listening to silence for quite some time.
Jason Alder and Piotr Michalowski
Contradictions: Duets for Contrabass and Contra-Alto Clarinets is released on Creative Sources Recordings CS602
Duration 54 min | Released 1 June 2019
Jason Alder | Leblanc “paperclip” contrabass clarinet | Selmer rosewood contrabass and contra-alto clarinet | Piotr Michalowski | Leblanc “paperclip” contrabass clarinet, Selmer rosewood contra-alto clarinet.
Recorded at Entropy Studios, Redford, MI, August 1, 2017 by Jeff Meier and Mike Khoury
Mixed and edited by Jason Alder
Mastered by Philip White
Cover design by Harold Borkin
AVAILABLE DIGITALLY on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Spotify, Bandcamp, and CDBaby and through most other providers. You can also get a physical copy through Bandcamp or CDBaby.
This CD was recorded during my 2017 Summer of Contra, which included two premieres at ClarinetFest of contrabass clarinet pieces by Thanos Chrysakis and Andys Skordis, as well as a tour with Piotr Michalowski in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Columbus featuring 5 contra clarinets between the two of us (2 paperclip contrabass, a Selmer contrabass, and 2 Selmer contra-altos). We culminated the tour with a recording session. On this album we run the gamut, trying out every combination of instruments and seeing where it could take us. Turns out, lots of places!
Reviews:
“Contradictions: Duets for Contrabass and Contra-Alto Clarinets” is out now by Creative Source Records”. Album was recorded by two great musicians – it’s Jason Alder (Leblanc paperclip contrabass clarinet, Selmer rosewood contrabass and contra-alto clarinets) and Piotr Michalowski (Leblanc paperclip contrabass clarinet, Selmer rosewood contra-alto clarinet). Two musicians have their own style, unique sound and original playing manner. All the music is based on academic avant-garde, the newest tendencies of modern classical and contemporary academical music, the tunes of experimental musicand electronics, as well as free improvisation. The music is moving, bright and passionate – two woodwinds players are experimenting in all fields of musical language. They don’t hesitate to experiment on bright and extended playign techniques, integrate traditional and experimental ways of playing and explore the new zone of sound. The musicians are getting out of the zone of traditional sound – they put the listener to the unusual, interesting, awakening and impressive sound. Both clarinetists have a marvelous playing technique – fantastic virtuosity, suggestive and inspiring playing manner, expressive and driving sound are joined together. They gently fit together as a duo and manage to make fresh, innovative and sparkling sound.
“Contradictions: Duets for Contrabass and Contra-Alto Clarinets” is filled with interesting timbres and expressive melodies. Musicians are dedicated to extract new timbres, original sounds and strange tunes. The music is evocative, fresh and light – it has a difficult pattern, original and rich musical language and contrasting sounds. Contemporary academical, experimental and modern classical music meets here. It’s influenzed by academic avant-garde and the newest tendencies of it. The compositions mostly have synthesized form – it’s highly related to free improvisation. The musicians are balancing between free improvisation and arranged pieces – their music is swinging from strict and very well arranged pieces to abstract, colorful, sparkling and impressive free improvisations. Musicians manage to find the balance between the newest innovations and tradition, academic avant-garde and avant-garde jazz – that’s the reason why these compositions is a nice and organic synthesis between contemporary academical music, experimental jazz and free improvisation. The musical pattern is constructed from dozens of elements. It’s especially rich and enchanting – the melody line is solid and bright, has polyphonic structure and is accompagnied by huge amount of special effects, ornamental facture, abbreviations, strange timbres and expressions. The musicians don’t hesitate to improvise absolutely abstractly and spontaneously – contrasting compounds are joined together. Each compound has its own character, mood and specific playing technique. Repetitive, minimalistic, meditative, solid, lyrical, contemplative, dreamy, harsh, ambient, rough pieces are created by using serialism, puantilism, some tunes of dodecaphony. The tunes related to concrete, spectral and sonoristic music make a huge influenze to these compositions. The musicians are playing with huge spectre of timbres and sounds – they’re dedicated to extract weird, crazy, ambient, frantic and original timbres. That’s how colorful and enchanting instrumental section is created – experimental, organic, provocative, radical and wild ideas go along together with exotic, rare, eclectic and traditional ways of playing, special effects and strange timbres. The rhythmic section is wide and dynamic – it’s changing all the time. From sient, depressed or gloomy the melody jumps on sparkling, powerful and radiant culminations accompagnied by dizzy passages, gorgeous ornamental structures, special effects and repetitive sequences. Both musicians are the masters of their art – they’re demonstrating their own, original and fresh point of view, wide musical knownledge and impressive virtuosity. Their playing manner is inspiring, vivid, expressive and suggestive. Together they get on ambitious adventures, explore the new fields of sound, expand the technical abilities of their instruments and create universal, impressive and innovative sound.
Maciej Lewenstein – 4 July 2019
After Jimmy Giuffre, John Carter, “Clarinettes” by Luis Sclavis, Hamiet Bluiett’s “The Clarinet Family”, and Ircha, led by Mikołaj Trzaska, or Detail In The Air of Traska, Michal Gorczynski and Ken Vandermark (sometimes jumping on a saxophone), clarinet-only recordings have an established tradition in free jazz and free improvisation and do not shock anymore. Still, the present project, played in contrabass and contra-alto clarinets is totally crazy and indeed shocks a little after all these years. The album contains nine tracks, named after instruments uses. The music is peaceful, in a sense minimalist, with plenty of long toes and pitches, but also some sophisticated improvisations. The set starts with “Two Selmer Contra-Altos”, followed a fantastic “Paperclip Contrabass and Selmer Contra-Alto 1”. I dig “Selmer Contra-Alto and Contrabass” for fantastic dialogues between the instruments. “Two Paperclip Contrabasses” is also magisterial and worth any sin. “Selmer Contrabass and Contra-Alto” is also amazing it is one of the slowest and most melancholic and tranquil tunes, again with wonderful conversations between Jason and Piotr.
“Paperclip Contrabass and Selmer Contra-Alto 2”, in contrast, is faster and more expressive. “Selmer Contra-Alto and Paperclip Contrabass 1” and “Selmer Contra-Alto and Paperclip Contrabass 2” use the same instruments, but played by different musicians. I love especially the former another sad ballad with wonderful free improvised, yet melodic motifs. But, the latter is also stupendous. This excellent concept album ends with “Paperclip and Selmer Contrabases”, a nine and a half minute long highlight and another sentimental journey toward the land of ultra-low pitches.
Very highly recommended!!!
Mimika Orchestra
Divinities of the Earth and the Waters is released on PDV Records, PDV029
Duration 70.43 | Released 18 May 2018
AVAILABLE DIGITALLY AND ON VINYL ON BANDCAMP
The Mimika Orchestra is the brainchild of bandleader Mak Murtić. I’m playing clarinet and on one track I jump on bari sax. The album did very well in the Balkan countries, where it was on at least 13 different Best of 2018 World/Jazz/Albums lists in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia.
“Set in the mysterious world of the ancient Balkans, the album is a fusion of progressive and orchestral music, old Slavic and South Slavic / x-Yugoslav / Balkan folk music and contemporary jazz. It follows a story of a protagonist who sees himself as an effigy in a folk festival, finishing with the burning of the doll, i.e. metaphorically seeing the burning as a funeral for himself and for his society. It is a psychedelic / dreamy album dedicated to the late Oberon King (who was Mimika’s previous drummer), to the Yugoslav identity and exposing the richness of Slavic folk music and rhythms as inspirations.”