Two Gems from Gordon Grdina

By Nick Ostrum

This is becoming a pattern on FJB. Gordon Grdina drops a few albums, and we cover them, usually with high praise. This review will continue in that trend.

Guitarist and oudist Grdina has become a singular voice over the years, whether as a solo artist or in various larger ensembles, whether performing his own compositions, those of Tim Berne and other composers, or just improvising. Although he is tirelessly active, he is deliberate about what he releases on his Attaboygirl Records. These tend to be albums, in the sense that they each are thoroughly inspired and, despite the improvisation, to drive toward singular overarching impressions.

Gordon Grdina’s The Marrow with Fathieh Honari (Attaboygirl Records, 2024) 

 

Dedicated to the late Persian-Canadian musician Reza Honari, The Marrow with Fathieh Honari is a case-in-point. Already with two releases under their belt, the core of The Marrow (Mark Helias, Hank Roberts, Hamin Honari (Reza Honari’s son), Grdina) have been at it for a almost a decade. Here, they are joined by the elder Honari’s wife Fathieh Honari on vocals.

It begins with a somber duet between Grdina, on oud for the entire album, and Fathieh Honari. Then come the drums (Hamin Honari) and Helias and Roberts’ strings, which transform the initial incantation into a processional jaunt with oud and cello doubling and Honari and Helias steadily driving from behind. Soloists briefly sprig out wispy tendrils, but the core remains tight. Fathieh rejoins and, as with Emad Armoush’s contributions to Grdina’s Arabic-inspired Haram ensemble, carries the project to a realm ethereal. Persian is beyond me, but that might just add to the mystery that The Marrowevokes. Indeed, when Fathieh ululates, she elicits tinges that go beyond the flesh and bone, to the marrow.

I am tempted to take that analogy further. In contrast to Duo Work (below), Marrow is based around a center, based on Middle Eastern scales and, presumably, song structures. It evokes the intangible: memory, sorrow, hope, fantasy (at least in its inscrutability to this listener), phantoms, and simply being. That is a tall order, but the shaken percussion that inaugurate the second selection, Raqib, the syncopated vamping of Break the Branch, the dreamy drone of Qalandar (which becomes genuinely joyful after the first two minutes), and the simultaneous fullness and fogginess captured in each of these pieces all speak to a state of meditation, either a deeply interior or out-of-body cognitive trip. Even in a succession of strong releases The Marrow with Fathieh Honari stands out. 

Gordon Grdina and Christian Lillinger – Duo Work (Attaboygirl Records, 2024)

Duo Work is another album in the sense of vision and coherence though, aesthetically, it is altogether different from The Marrow. None of Duo Work is composed (as far as I can tell) or calming, sentimental or mystical. Rather this is free-form fusion rock n’ roll noise, through and through.

The overwhelming impression I get from Duo Work(with Christian Lillinger with whom Grdina has worked in Square Peg and with Mat Maneri on Live at the Armory), is a delicious mix of late 60’s Frank Zappa (with more overdubbing and effects) and late career Sonny Sharrock pared down to a duo format with a drummer miraculous endowed with an extra arm or two. All the things one loves about Lillinger are here: his unassailable precision, his unique sense of rhythm within rhythm within rhythm, his strangely alluring time-keeping, his big sound. From Grdina, one hears his precision (of course!) but also his apparent roots in the more experimental reaches of fusion. This is Interstellar Space for guitar and drums, segmented, stripped of the modal celestial appeals and strewn about with a playful urgency of John Zorn’s early crossovers into metal and grindcore. Or maybe it’s a truncated Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar, cut, glitched, modernized, and performed all at once by a band of two. Either way, it is one of the most exciting releases I have heard all year.

I am not sure which, but at least one of these albums is going to be on my year-end list.