Andy Moor & Marta Warelis - Escape (Relative Pitch, 2024)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Marta Warelis galore. Let’s put it in this way, following the stream of the recent double review, courtesy of Stef Gijssels. Pianist, one of the aces of the uncompromised Amsterdam improv scene, member of Stichting Doek, Marta’s ongoing experimentation and research path drove her to team up with the likes of Ken Vandermark, Dave Douglas, Eric Boeren, Michael Moore, Mike Reed, Hupata!, Omawi, PolyBand, Edge Ensemble, Carlos Zingaro, Helena Espvall, Marcelo dos Reis. The subject matter of the review you’re reading is a project that sees Andy Moor as her partner in crime. Londoner, relocated for many years in Amsterdam, founding member of Dog Faced Hermans and Kletka Red but, above all, full time member of timeless legend The Ex, one of the last remaining certainties around. Guitarist, photographer and composer, he collaborated with Anne-James Chaton, Alva Noto, Thurston Moore, DJ Rupture, John Butcher, Thermal and Lean Left, the astonishing super combo with Ken Vandermark, Terry Ex, Paal Nilssen-Love. Recorded at Zaal 100, Amsterdam, June 28 2022, Escape sounds as the perfect blast ignited by the different influences and backgrounds of the two artists: anarcho-punk, free jazz, avantgarde, improv, unleashing seven grenades of sheer sonic pleasure. Being both the performers totally devoted to their instruments in a physical manner (is still vivid in our memory, the way Warelis was playing the interior strings of the piano…), the result is an ongoing, breakneck downhill, not monocromathic but rather offering a prismic, multicolored palette of sound. From Cecil Taylor-esque bad acid trip (Apocalyptic TV) to noisy atonal strumming (Commitment Keys, Highway Trajectory); from intimacy (Incunabula) and quieter mood (Thaw Bush) to mesmerizing, labirynthine treks (Maintenance Cabbage) and sinister, doom atmospheres (Imbue). Everything as the beautiful, umpteenth evidence that improv ain’t anybody’s playground.