This particular bridge between the French and American improvising communities joins Claudia Solal (voice) and Benoit Delbecq (piano) with Tomeka Reid (cello) and Katherine Young (bassoon, effects) for 9 tracks across 39 minutes. Solal and Delbecq have not recorded together previously but have a duo due out (at the time of this writing) later this year on RogueArt. Reid and Young have recorded together on Anthony Braxton’s Trillium E and Trillium J operas as well as a reversed transcription of Black Sabbath’s “Into the Void” performed by a 10-piece jazz orchestra called From Beyond. This is the first time the French and American players have recorded together.
The words on this recording are from James Joyce’s Chamber Music, a collection of 36 love poems known for their accessible lyricism, facilitating their frequent use in music. For the Antichamber Music project, the poems aren’t necessarily used in order of the collection, or in full, or even linearly. They can be sung, spoken, or perhaps just intimated. This freedom in choice of material allows Solal to improvise along with the musicians. The project appears to have specific goals, of associated timbres, imaginary quartets and scores, threads, a breadth and bridging of genres, but the information surrounding it is so vague that it seems like it really just stems from a desire to explore the interaction of improvised narrative with improvised instrumentation.
The narrative definitely dominates the interaction. The voice is loud in the mix. Solal might wait for space or allow space but there is very little communication from voice to instrument except for the “mmm-mmms” and “ooohs” mimicking the cello and bassoon in “O Cool is the Valley Now/Sweet Imprisonment;” more often than not, Reid and Young will react and briefly harmonize with Solal, or Delbecq will match her cadence. Except for some some “mmms” and “ooohs” on the aforementioned track and “Forget me Not,” the voice is completely narrative with no extended technique and sung or spoken in a kind of sultry lounge style with no affectation reflecting the content of the material or fragmentation of it. The music bubbling beneath the voice is often sparse and austere, reminding me of Maneri/Maneri/Phillips or the chamber music of Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa. Delbecq has a glassy, delicate, shimmering style until he reaches inside the piano to create a sound closer to mallet instruments (or strum a few beautiful glissandos). Reid appears to move through this space most comfortably, playing arco, plucking, or drumming the body with her fingers like rain on bamboo and readily communicating with every member of the quartet. Young seems particularly restrained on this recording, but her playing is simultaneously soulful, jarring, romantic. The music is bewitching, yet its potential feels unrealized as it must more often play around the voice than with it. “O Cool is the Valley Now/Sweet Imprisonment” and “Forget me Not” are good tracks, and the first and last minutes of the release are sublime, with many glimpses of beauty in between.
Antichamber Music is available digitally and on CD.
14 comments:
Nicely written review, Keith.
Thank you, Colin! I feel a bit guilty about the score (this kind of music needs all the promotion it can get) but the sentiments are honest. I went in with a lot of excitement that Young and Reid were playing together but I think this was a case of just wanting to put Chamber Music to chamber music in an improvised context. I would still recommend this to fans of traditional vocal jazz. And I discovered Delbecq through this, who I've thoroughly enjoyed exploring more.
Thanks for the honest ranking. Sometimes I wonder if you guys almost exclusively review stuff you like and it makes the rankings uniformly high. I understand the desire to promote this type of music but sometimes it just honestly doesn't work, over and beyond the possibility that the reviewer doesn't "get it", so incisive language explaining why is obviously helpful.
In other words, keep up the good work. It's very appreciated.
Thanks so much, Captain! We all pick our own albums, and I imagine we mostly pick what we already have an interest in, so we're kind of set up to be positively skewed.
Hi Captain, we've always had the policy to review music that we like. First, most readers will not even know the music that we find bad, so there's no point in warning them for it (except when it's by "famous" musicians), and second, reviewers typically listen repeatedly to the same album before reviewing it. To do that with not so good or personally appealing music, is not really fun. So we'd rather direct readers to music that is worth listening to. Hence the usual positive ratings.
Thank you, Stef, for that follow up. Fortunately the likes of the reviewers here tend to dovetail with mine enough that I'm either aware of the specific musicians being discussed or open to learning about, so this is a very good resource for me. One thing that nobody has mentioned that also explains consistently high rankings is that for whatever reason in the changing world of how music gets from the players to the listeners, musicians have gotten very adept at only releasing things of a very high quality. The last time I heard a Ken Vandermark release that didn't work for me was a long time ago, and he has a huge catalog. Likewise Joe McPhee to give another example. These musicians and others have become very adept at imagining streams of innovative musical concepts and bringing them to realization in ways that are constantly fresh.
I was unaware of any such policy, and I’m not sure about those reasons. Surely, most readers will be unaware of the music reviewed, irrespective of whether we consider it “good” or “bad”. That’s why the album is being reviewed. Try transplanting such reasoning to book or movie reviews – it would mean that books or movies that the reviewer didn’t like wouldn’t receive reviews because those reading the reviews have not usually read the book or seen the movie. That doesn’t really make sense. And we’re just making assessments, not issuing “warnings”. Obviously, its up to listeners to make their own judgment, and their views will often differ as those of reviewers do. That’s implicit in the nature of a review.
And there’s more to reviewing than just giving something the thumbs up or down – I’ve never been a fan of star rating. In my view, articulating why you don’t think something works is as important as explaining why you consider it successful. It helps us to understand the kinds of things that are going on in the music.
As Keith says, the reason for mainly positive reviews is that reviewers tend to only review albums that appeal to them. There’s no policy at work here; at least no-one’s ever told me about it. The downside – and there’s a downside to most things – is that it can give the impression that everything is fantastic, amazing and incredible. We want to be supportive of free jazz but there’s more to that than just lavishing praise. Are we critically engaged with music that deserves to be taken seriously or merely providing promotional material? It’s a question worth pondering from time to time.
Hi Colin, maybe the word "policy" is too strong a word - we don't have policies - but there is no reason to write a negative review of music that nobody has ever heard about or will ever hear about. It is much better to point readers in the direction of music that might be of interest because of its quality and inventiveness, its unique approach or musicianship, etc. And I agree that having most reviews hover between the 3 and 5 stars does not lead to much discernment. On the other hand, it's an easy indication of the general appreciation by the reviewer. And that is usually a subjective appreciation.
I appreciate there are a lot of albums out there, in excess of 2,000 releases each year, but I’m unclear as to why you say nobody will have heard of albums we don’t review, and never will. Since we can only cover less than half, there’s a strong likelihood that there are plenty of albums getting noticed that are not covered by this site. We are not the only disseminators of information about free jazz.
For the reasons I gave, I don’t have a problem with negative reviews, and recollect that you have written a few in your time.
Good debate. I fall in line with Stef's take on it and have coordinate our reviews accordingly. This review handles the negative criticism quite well and constructively, but there have been a few other cases where we've declined to run something based on its tone or approach. Also, I would rather talk about the music that I enjoy or intrigues me. However, if I did want to write something more critical, I would make sure it's done constructively and supportively. Yes, this lends itself to having high "star ratings", and I think we could collectively work to pull back our "stars" a bit.
Thank you all for the perspectives! I think my own (and perhaps others) concern over the rating here is how it stands relative to other ratings on the site. For me, this rating isn't negative, but means something closer to "there's about as much here that I enjoy as there is stuff that I don't (currently);" my interpretation of the middle of a five-star rating system. This recording was interesting enough for me to return to several times before I settled on these feelings, and I've returned to it since writing about it; it's just less likely that I'll play it much in the future. However, I did feel the need to describe what I didn't enjoy, which usually doesn't happen in our reviews. I agree with Paul that it might be beneficial to spread out our ratings a bit; I think it would provide another avenue for our readers to discern whether or not to try out a recording because it's so often difficult to transcribe the experience of this music. I would go further in saying that when we do rate something 4 or 4.5 stars, we (myself included) could be mindful of and verbalize what didn't make it a 5 star recording. Perhaps this is getting a little too serious for some ambiguous rating system, but our ratings do appear to have some effect (particularly the highs and lows).
Another interesting thing brought up is the concept of repeat listening to a recording of an improvised performance. I do it too, of course, but the way we listen almost seems at odds with the art. A bag of worms to think about and maybe open later.
Thank you all for the perspectives! I think my own (and perhaps others) concern over the rating here is how it stands relative to other ratings on the site. For me, this rating isn't negative, but means something closer to "there's about as much here that I enjoy as there is stuff that I don't (currently);" my interpretation of the middle of a five-star rating system. This recording was interesting enough for me to return to several times before I settled on these feelings, and I've returned to it since writing about it; it's just less likely that I'll play it much in the future. However, I did feel the need to describe what I didn't enjoy, which usually doesn't happen in our reviews. I agree with Paul that it might be beneficial to spread out our ratings a bit; I think it would provide another avenue for our readers to discern whether or not to try out a recording because it's so often difficult to transcribe the experience of this music. I would go further in saying that when we do rate something 4 or 4.5 stars, we (myself included) could be mindful of and verbalize what didn't make it a 5 star recording. Perhaps this is getting a little too serious for some ambiguous rating system, but our ratings do appear to have some effect (particularly the highs and lows).
Another interesting thing brought up is the concept of repeat listening to a recording of an improvised performance. I do it too, of course, but the way we listen almost seems at odds with the art. A bag of worms to think about and maybe open later.
Regarding reviews and ratings, this is why I've long been a fan of Sound Opinions, from Chicago's WBEZ, where they use a basic rubric: buy it, try it, or trash it. It's easy and straightforward. In the niche universe of free/avant music, I'd prefer something like buy it, try it, skip it, because they often use trash for big-name acts releasing poorly executed albums.
It's true that I tend to write about music I'm more favorable about, which is my default way of recommending a buy or try, and if readers are interested in hearing our thoughts on albums that haven't been covered, the comments sections (as well as Facebook to a limited degree) are good ways to interact with the reviewers.
Also, I appreciated this writeup, Keith, and I agree some albums come with certain expectations and don't meet those expectations, nor do they surprise in an exciting, different way. FWIW, Delbecq has loads of excellent albums under his name, and one or two years ago he released a strong album on RogueArt, with Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, and Tomas Fujiwara. http://roguart.com/product/illegal-crowns/101
-Lee
Keith, regarding your point about repeated listening to a recording of improvised music, this has been raised on a number of occasions, resulting in much philosophical debate, but I don’t think there’s really an issue provided you distinguish between means and ends. The fact that music is created spontaneously, in the moment, does not mean that it can only be listened to as such, and dies at the end of the performance. The means by which something is created does not dictate how the result can be appreciated. In addition, as we all know, the indisputable fact is that improvised music does bear repeated listening, so there shouldn’t be a problem, unless you let theory get in the way of experience. The bag should now be worm free :-)
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