By Paul Acquaro
I've waited too long on this one. I've been determined to review it for months
now, and there have been a number of false starts and public declarations (to
whomever could hear me) that Beats II would be my next review. So what
went wrong? It's not the album, that's for sure ... so, if there is any reason
that could shift the blame from myself, it would be that it's hard to tell
where to begin with it. DLW creates music that can be hard to pin down. It has
a way of unsettling your equilibrium, and on first approach it can be quite
formidable.
The trio, vibraphonist Christopher Dell, drummer Christian Lillinger, and
bassist Jonas Westergaard have been working together for several years,
developing a musical 'grammar' that has been documented in several trio
releases over the years, starting with Grammar (gligg, 2013),
Grammar II
(PLAIST, 2019),
Beats (PlAIST, 2021) and now Beats II.
Some of the press around Beats II spoke of "multiperspectivity" and
"multidimensionality," which is likely not a bad way to capture in words the
fractional beats and cut-up nature of the recording, but it is a bit
foreboding. The music itself, however, is not. It was recorded as one long
improvised piece then processed/reprocessed in such a way that individual
tracks became sharp fun-house mirror reflections of each other. Hard cuts
between the songs suggest beginnings and ends, but they also could be middles
and related pieces that don't necessarily follow in a recognizable pattern,
but as suggested by the names of the pieces, represent (or are represented by)
colors.
Thus, I think there is where, possibly, I got hung-up. The colors, the
cut-ups, the short tracks that both work with and against each other, and my
wobbly balance after listening. However, if one lets go and allows Lillinger's
staccato hits and Xacto-knife slices of the beat to simply propel
Westergaard's commanding bass lines and Dell's highly syncopated loop-like
melodic statements, it is quite easy to slide into the musical world that they
have been fastidiously building over the years. The opening 'red' lasts all of
16 seconds, but in its short brutal life, it establishes that what you are
hearing will require your full attention. In the follow up, 'yellow' (a
generous two and a half minutes) finds Dell playing a looping set of chords
over slightly shifting time-frames and on 'wine' (a color in the Crayola
Crayon 64-pack, right?) it's Westergaard who embodies the fluctuating pulse.
Throughout the 20 short tracks, nothing is solid, but everything is hard and
sharp. The music is utterly compelling, and at some point, the shards of fun
house mirrors become more like a kaleidoscope of fascinating sound.
Beats II ... once you find your way in, you'll start hearing shapes and
tasting colors anew.
1 comments:
This record slaps, fr.
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