Earth Tongues - Rune (Neither Nor, 2015) ****½

[b]By Stef[/b]

With the magnitude of albums we receive, sometimes you listen to albums not even once completely (sorry!), sometimes five or ten times, sometimes dozens of times, and more. This album for me fits in the latter category. It has been my companion for a while, because it requires solid listening, and because you hear new stuff each time you listen.

The trio are Joe Moffett on trumpet, Dan Peck on tuba and cassette player and Carlo Costa on percussion.

The music's ambition is to incorporate music, silence and noise into one coherent sound, an ambition which is actually delivered. The sounds may be brief, like drops in a pond, or extended, like the howl of a distant animal, or forceful, like a hammer hitting a rock, or deeply emotional like ... well ... humans. It is a great mixture of organic sounds, that seem to be created by themselves, or precise and decided interventions to create effects. There is a total absence of power or violence, quite to the contrary, all sounds arise from the silence, emerge from it, which gives the improvisers the opportunity to increase the accuracy of what they play. No sound seems superfluous, no sound is wasted, every sound has value, every sound has beauty, and when resonating with other sounds and silence, even more so. You could qualify the sound as low-density/high-intensity. It is austere at times, disconcerting at others, yet it always has a magnificent purity. I love it.

You can listen and download or buy from Bandcamp.