Philippe Deschepper & Noël Akchoté- MMXXIV AD (Ayler 2024)

By Nick Ostrum

This one is it. The final release from an Ayler Records going on indefinite hiatus, which is never a good sign. It is fitting that this one, titled in Roman numerals MMXXIV, involves guitarists Noël Akchoté, who has been featured on Ayler Records various times, and Philippe Deschepper, who is new to me and the label’s catalog.

In true Akchoté fashion, many of the compositions are from other artists – three from Paul Motian, one each from Steve Swallow and Ornette Coleman, one from fellow French double-bassist Henri Texier. However, likewise in true Akchoté fashion, he and Deschepper make them their own. It took some effort, for instance, for me to connect the version of Sex Spy captured here with the Prime Time version. In this one, there is not hint of funk and, beyond a loose melody, only gestures toward the original. She Was Young, the Swallow composition, is more identifiable, but, again, without more meandering, especially when as the melody volleys between two guitars. Indeed, these as well as Motian pieces, sound like fragmented and reconstituted versions of the original. Something of the core is there, but this is more homage in difference than in feeling or faithfulness.

It is more difficult for me to weigh in on the fractures and reconstitution that went into the Deschepper and Akchoté compositions. However, to these ears, the stylistic commonality reaches back to Akchoté’s masterful 2021 release Loving Highsmith, which likewise featured Akchoté with complimentary guitarists, though there they were the great Mary Halvorson and Bill Frisell. Deschepper is different but no less masterful. He is tender, maybe even more in tune with Akchoté’s style, though the liner notes assure that this was their first collaboration and, moreover, there is no reason beyond my own subjective knowledge to consider this any more of a product of Akchoté’s vision than Deschepper’s. Frequently enough, it is difficult to distinguish the lines of one from the other, and, once one does, the musicians switch roles, as the repetitious rhythmic lines in one ear shift to freer exploration just as the sounds in the other ear settle into mode or concept. The unifying elements seem to be flurries of earworms and raw stepped waltzes, wherein one can hear the pluck, but rarely a muzzled and mistaken note. Tracks like Sad Novi Sad (a play on the Serbian city ) use more effects and step toward Doors-styled trippiness. Through it all, the guitars intertwine, gnarly. Descepper follows a tendril here. Akchoté traces another one there until it begins to bud. Then, they return to the stem.

Truly transfixing, and a truly fitting album on which Ayler Records can pause and contemplate its future. If this really is it for the label, it is at least an appropriately high note on which to end.

MMXXIV is available as a CD and download from Bandcamp: