Jan 31 2014
The Safety Net: Gordon Grdina’s East Van Strings – “The Breathing of Statues”
There is a formless quality to The Breathing of Statues, a sense that the varied articulations contributed by the four members of Gordon Grdina’s East Van Strings present an immediate obstacle to tethering this music to any one influence, while simultaneously forging a sonic identity through a collaborative sheer force of will.
Grdina had Bartok in mind when he began writing the music for this recording. At the same time, he was immersing himself, and his oud, in Arabic music forms. He enlisted three musicians he’d had fulfilling experiences playing free improvisation with. Each of these musicians brought to the table their own influences and backgrounds, in classical, in folk, in avant-garde, in minimalism and ambient drone. And then, with Grdina’s compositional framework in hand, they came together to collaborate, to improvise, to record this music. It goes a long way to explaining why this album sounds like many things at once while sounding like only itself, a singular expression of that moment.
Your album personnel: Gordon Grdina (electric guitar, oud), Eyvind Kang (viola), Jesse Zubot (violin), and Peggy Lee (cello).
Opening track “Selma” is an extended sigh. Grdina’s oud lightly treads a path through warm gentle tides of harmonics. This lovely atmospheric bliss is only touched upon a few more times, most notably on “Nayeli Joon,” which begins as a collection of dispersed harmonies, untethered from one another, coalescing into a thread of beauty, endless. There is also the title-track “The Breathing of Statues,” which intersperses the rich harmonic waves with Grdina’s oud delving into the Arabic influence, specifically via the maqam mode, an approach in which the melody is key, both for construction of the song, but also as the launching pad for improvisation.
The blissful sound’s opposite side is also explored by the quartet. “Silence of Paintings” is turbulence and chaos. “Holy Departure,” the album’s second track, clashes with previous track “Selma,” and, initially, the strings clash amongst themselves before their slash and burn tactics emerge as a collaborative effort. “Webern” enters the room strong and abrupt, then comes to a lurching stop, wobbling back and forth, directionless, standing in place but constantly in motion.
And then there are those tracks that fall somewhere in between the two extremes of harmonic bliss and atonal dissonance. “Santiago” is music of the great expanse… the sensation of tiny sounds massively resonant in a sea of tentative silence. And “Wide Open,” which concludes the recording, spaces out its varied expressions, but bridges the gaps across the silence with warped notes bent into strange beautiful forms and bursts of shattered melody that behave as stepping stones across a river of choppy rhythmic waves.
A compelling album, not easily categorized, and willing to put itself fully on display. An album possessing no reservations.
Released in 2009 on Songlines Recordings.
Download a free album track at the Songlines site, courtesy of the artist and label.
Music from the Vancouver, BC scene.
Available at: eMusic | Amazon CD
The Safety Net, a Bird is the Worm series that highlights outstanding older albums that may have flown under the radar when first released.
Other Things You Should Probably Know:
I recently published a review of Grdina’s recent release No Difference, which possesses a different sound than Breathing, and compelling in its own way. Read HERE.
Cellist Peggy Lee‘s last recording, Invitation, received the #7 slot on the Bird is the Worm Best of 2012 list. It’s one of many of her recordings I enjoy. Read a review HERE.
Eyvind Kang has been involved with some of Bill Frisell’s best recordings (among other projects, including albums under his own name). If you see his name listed in the personnel, you should strongly consider purchasing the album asap.
Jesse Zubot is the founder of the Drip Audio label, which has released albums reviewed on this site by Peggy Lee and Ratchet Orchestra. Check ’em out, HERE.
And if you want to hear another recording that utilizes the maqam approach to music, check out the self-titled debut of Nashaz, which received the #30 slot on the Bird is the Worm Best of 2013 list. Review HERE.
*****
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Feb 2 2014
The Safety Net: Azure – “When She Smiles”
And those tones mostly resemble a moody rainy-day jazz-rock blend not that far removed from the seminal 2008 recording Seasons of Change by the Brian Blade Fellowship, a band that really set the scene for expressions of that ilk. It’s a contemplative ambiance that remains unbroken even when the quartet turns up the heat or advances with a determined cadence, and it’s music that anchors itself to a strong melody right from the start, returning to it willfully before the conclusion of each song.
It’s just a mesmerizing, vibrant recording, and when I realized how I’d been listening to this album for years, returning to it often, I decided that today I’d write something up for the Sunday post.
Your album personnel: Pierre-Francois Blanchard (piano), Rogier Schneemann (guitar), Eric Heijnsdijk (bass), and Antonio Pisano (drums).
The quartet leads right out with the first melody on the album opener (and title-track) “When She Smiles.” Typically, it’s either pianist Blanchard of guitarist Schneemann that fills this role. And whoever it is that’s not voicing that initial melody, that person is right there comping some additional form to an already well-crafted melody. Pisano keeps a pretty decent chatter going on drums throughout both the album’s opening song and the entirety of the recording, but does so in a way that adds shading between the lines rather than stamping the boundaries of who can go where. Bassist Heijnsdijk tends to stick to the background, casting out shadows of the melody to provide some contrast to guitar’s and piano’s brighter notes. However, on the opening track, Heijnsdijk has a nifty solo, showing that when he steps up to speak on bass, he has something valuable to add to the conversation. The opening track exemplifies that evocative, yet casual demeanor.
“Rnp” is emblematic of the other qualities of this recording. The quartet jumps right out of the gate at full speed, but deftly modulates the tempo to where the gradual slow-down is almost unnoticeable until piano settles into a leisurely gait. When guitar takes over the reins, however, the intensity rises up, and the quartet follows right along. And, again, the shift is a seamless transition. The song goes out with a final statement of melody, coming full circle on this driving tune.
Several tracks have Blanchard setting a moody tone on piano, and not releasing his hold until the final note. “B-y-you” has the dark tones of piano contrasted against the bright notes of guitar, piano sounding structured and guitar picking its spots with a freer abandon. “A Mon Amour” behaves likewise, but bass and drums develop huge swells of intensity to rise up and crest, before crashing back down to a state of serenity. “Ballade Pour Une Pâquerette” is a whisper of a song, ballasted by the gentle hush of cymbals and the wavering twang of guitar.
There are a couple tracks that behave more as the strikes of lightning and thunder that occasionally pierce the ambiance of rainy day music. “By Heart” digs deep into a groove. Guitar, drums, and bass carve it out while piano skitters along its surface. However, even when Schneemann turns up the heat on guitar and burns its mark into the melody, the quartet still maintains a light and easy bounce.
“Azur” sets out with a choppy tempo, and by the end of the song, it’s entrenched even deeper, whereas “Inmost” settles right into a gentle ballad and doesn’t let go. And despite their differences, the well-crafted melody is the commonality that ties it all into a neat little package.
The album ends with the lovely “Berceuse Pour Maëlise,” a solo piano piece. And while it does seem a bit illogical to conclude with a solo piece on an album built on strong interplay and balanced contributions by the quartet members, its melancholy tone and lively disposition serve to accentuate the best qualities of this album in a most graceful way.
A sublime finale for an engaging, mesmerizing album.
This Self-Produced album was released in 2009.
Jazz from the Netherlands.
Available at: eMusic | Amazon MP3
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2009 Releases • 3 • Tags: Azure, Self-Produced