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THE WIRE
ISSUE 262, December 2005
Text: Dan Warburton
Sean Meehan
Sectors (for Constant)
SoSEditions 802 2CD
""Reductionism Is Dead", proclaims the title of a forthcoming album featuring Mattin and Mark Wastell. New York percussionist Sean Meehan might not be so sure about that. Since he emerged on the Improv scene at the end of the 1980s, he's gradually pared down his kit to concentrate on a single snare drum, conjuring forth sustained pitches with extraordinary purity of timbre by laying cymbals on the drumhead and gently exciting the surfaces with rosined dowels. The sounds he produces bear no resemblance to a snare drum at all - indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking they're purely electronic. Hardly surprising, then, that his two previous outings found his fragile, delicate drones in the company of the inputless mixing board of Toshimaru Nakamura and the pristine sinewaves of Sachiko M. The Untitled CD with Sachiko M came in handmade white cards, each individually torn in advance.
Sectors, dedicated to the late Constant Nieuwenhuys, co-founder of the Situationist International and avid cymbal player, goes one further and invites the consumer to do the tearing. The two discs - one pale blue, the other pale mauve, with no indication as to which to play first - come packaged in between two sheets of handmade watercolour paper measuring ten by 14 inches. As they were inserted while the paper was still at the pulp stage, the package must be torn or ripped open to get them out. Choosing to listen to Sectors, then, involves a wilful act of destruction - a striking comment on the ephemeral nature of improvised music, recalling Eric Dolphy's famous "once it's gone in the air you can never capture it again" - though some patient souls have extricated the discs without trashing the package. Cynics might quip that the sound-to-silence ratio is so heavily tilted in favour of the latter (actual sound accounts for about a third of the duration of the blue disc, and barely a quarter of the mauve disc) that it's not worth opening the package in the first place. But if you choose not to, you'll be missing out on one of the more radical and beautiful experiences of contemporary minimalism, a worthy companion to Radu Malfatti's die temperatur der bedeutung and his Futatsu with Taku Sugimoto."
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ARTHUR
09
November 2005
Text: Byron Coley / Thurston Moore
Sean Meehan
Sectors (for Constant)
SoSEditions 802 2CD
"New York's Sean Meehan is best known for his insane percussion work. Stuff in that area with Tim Barnes and others has always been a mind-warp. He also does cool visual art, and was last noted for the production of a very wily wooden box that could function as an instrument or a "mere" object equally formidably. His newest piece is Sectors (for Constant) (SoSEDITIONS) which is kinda white-on-white assemblage work that masquerades as paper CDs of solo cymbal work, mounted (more or less inside) some artist paper. I've been looking at it quite a bit today and it has a really nice feel to it. "What the hell else has Sean been up to?" is what we wanna know."
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DISQUIETING DUCK
26
October 2005
Text: Frank Messel
Sean Meehan
Sectors (for Constant)
SoSEditions 802 2CD
Oisann. Hvor i all verden skal jeg begynne? Hva med dagen da jeg tok turen til postkontoret for å hente det jeg skjønte måtte være New Yorkeren Sean Meehans nye soloutgivelse, hans første siden 1992? Nei, forresten, det blir feil. Forsendelsen lå uåpnet et par uker, først på stuebordet, senere på skrivepulten, mellom harddisken og høytaleren. Da jeg endelig sprettet kartongen og trakk ut innholdet, fant jeg to gråhvite håndlagede papirflak i A3 format, i det sammenpressede og forseglede mellomrommet lå to cd-skiver. Ganske raskt forstod jeg at de ikke var å få løs uten å ødelegge omslaget. Nå er det ikke lenger uvanlig at musikere får utløp for sin visuelle kreativitet i arbeidet med omslagsdesignet. Men sjelden er kreativiten så kompromissløs som i Sean Meehans tilfelle. Lytteren stilles overfor en delikat problemstilling: skal omslaget – som jo er et kunstverk i seg selv – beholdes intakt og musikken innpakket, eller skal man velge musikken og kaste omslaget i søpla? Av diskusjoner på nettet fremgår det at enkelte har unngått dette dilemmaet ved å skaffe seg to eksemplarer. Javel ja, spiller Meehan bevisst på platesamlerfetisjismen, kan man spørre, er det en skjult markedsføringsstrategi her? Opplaget på 500 eksemplarer av ”Sectors (for Constant)” hadde garantert blitt borte selv i standard plastcover. Men det er klart, når man ser hvilken snakkis ”Sectors (for Constant)” er blitt i diverse nettfora, er det betimelig å undres over hva den aparte emballasjen har å si for platens fremtidige omdømme.
For meg var det aldri aktuelt å henge ”Sectors (for Constant)” på veggen. Følgelig tok jeg frem en papirkniv og skar cdene fri. Før jeg kunne putte dem i spilleren måtte jeg hente jif-flaska og vaske av rester etter papiret. En omstendelig prosess – egnet til å pirre forventingene i forhold til musikken. Noe annet som gjorde meg mer enn normalt forventningsfull var hvordan selve musikken i ståheien omkring innpakningen, på besynderlig vis syntes glemt eller ignorert. En måned etter utgivelsen fantes knapt en eneste omtale eller beskrivelse av hvordan ”Sectors (for Constant)” faktisk låter. Jeg hadde på forhånd dannet meg en del forestillinger om innpakningen, men når det gjaldt musikken ante jeg ingenting om hva jeg hadde i vente. Det vil si, helt blank var jeg ikke, jeg hadde fra før hørt Meehans duo med Sachiko M (sachikoMeehan, 2003). Men å forestille seg Meehan solo på bakgrunn av den, ville bare være dumt. En soloinnspilling er et helt eget, uforlignelig konsept.
Sean Meehan er perkusjonist og på ”Sectors (for Constant)” bruker han skarptromme og symbaler. Han slår ikke på dem, i stedet berører han dem lett med diverse rotorer og fyller luften med skingerende droner. I tillegg er stillhet eller fravær av lyd strukturelt og komposisjonelt avgjørende. Det finnes mange partier, eller skal jeg si sektorer, av varighet fra et halvt til nærmere ti minutter med fullstendig eller delvis stillhet, eller spenningsladede mørke kamre, hvor lytteren er overlatt til seg selv og sin vekslende grad av mentale tilstedværelse og fokus. For det er ikke til å unngå at tankene vandrer litt underveis, men kanskje er en slik tankemessig omstreifing egentlig både tillatelig og til og med i samsvar med Meehans intensjoner. ”Sectors (for Constant)” er en musikalsk hommage til situasjonisten Constant Nieuwenhuys. Billedkunstneren og urbanisten Constant utviklet på slutten av 1950-tallet – etter brainstorming med Guy Debord – en arkitektonisk og sosial utopisk modell for en by kalt New Babylon. Menneskene i New Babylon skulle leve i et radikalt desentralisert miljø, det skulle ikke eksistere tids- eller bevegelsesmessige restriksjoner (produksjonen skulle være automatisert), distinksjonene mellom arbeid og fritid, offentlig og privat rom skulle opphøre. Sean Meehans nye plate kunne muligens tenkes som soundtracket til Constants New Babylon slik idéen fremstod i revidert form noen år senere. Constant selv begynte etter hvert å tvile på sitt eget prosjekt, og i en serie bilder fremstilles New Babylon som et dystopisk mareritt. På Meehans plate er lydene og stillheten hele tiden på randen av gjensisidg utslettelse, de tærer på hverandre, slik også musikkens lyder og omgivelsenes lyder blander seg og gjør hverandre utrygge og skjøre. For lytteren er det en nærmest uutholdelig situasjon. Musikken er på samme tid ekstremt unnvikende og pinaktig konfronterende, noe som gjør det vanskelig å bli fanget, absorbert, samtidig som det ikke går å forholde seg likegyldig.
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01
September 2005
Text: Greg Kelley
Sean Meehan
Sectors (for Constant)
SoSEditions 802 2CD
"A few years ago, I played a solo set on a rooftop in New York. Sean also played that night. Being an outdoor event and "party atmosphere" I had to rethink my approach and play in some way that would be 1. audible and 2. get people's attention so they'd actually listen. I asked if I could use the PA there, but was told I'd have to use my own mic, which I didn't have. So what could I do? I blasted and shrieked as much sound as I could get out of the instrument, I leaned out over the edge of the roof and used the building next door as an echoplex, I stood on top of a rickety bench that threatened to fall over, and generally physically and mentally exhausted myself trying to create some "music" that would "work" in the "context". Afterwards, I'd felt like I failed.
Sean went up soon after and sat in the corner with his snare drum, pressed a small cymbal onto the head with his thumb and hit the cymbal with a mallet creating waves of sound that filled the rooftop and floated off towards the city limits. A drone filled the air, pitches diving and drifting off, fluctuations caused by the pressure of Sean's thumb. It was a stunning set. And as usual, Sean made it seem like exactly the right thing to do and, like a true master, made it seem easy. At the end of the night, Sean told me how much he enjoyed my set and asked me what I was thinking while I was playing. I said, "Probably the same thing you were thinking during your set." Sean replied, "My thumb hurts?"
Moving forward: Here we have Sean's first solo CD since 1992 - so why not make it a double? And of course, it's exquisitely packaged in handmade paper - take it from someone who's fluffed out his discography with unlistenable objects ("to be played in the mind") in lieu of any kind of solo audio document in the last 13 years to know that the packaging is rather important - otherwise it's just 2 CDs of snare drum! But lucklily it's the best snare drum in the world. And at 500 copies, you'll want to get it while it's hot. Don't spend the next 13 years with sore thumbs at missing out."
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GAZ-ETA
12
May 2005
Text: Tom Sekowski
go to review
>>
Michel Doneda / Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
The trio session "From Between" is an exercise in control by two reed men Michel Doneda and Jack Wright along with percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. These long pieces are all about the art of restraint and show off the means and methods of achieving their craft. Both Wright and Doneda undertake the difficult task of playing in hushed tones, with what sounds like some sort of breathing techniques. What turns my crank the most is how delicately they stretch the tones in the first half-an-hour piece. It's almost as if time didn't exist. None of these players are in any sort of a rush. Tatsuya Nakatani's percussive work is stunning in its delicacy. He massages the cymbals ever so gently and when he uses the brushes, it's always with the utmost care and respect for those playing along with him. One of the signs of a great record is the melting of the sound sources. Sometimes the players produce a whistling sound, and just then, I think to myself, who the hell is that coming out of? Is it one of the reed men, or is the percussionist fiddling around on the cymbals. A fine record from a trio that knows how to use their colourful palette of sounds.
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BAGATELLEN
02
May 2005
Text: Nate Dorward
go to review
>>
Michel Doneda / Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
The elegant cover image reproduced above is, as it happens, virtually impossible to make out on the physical artefact: printed black on black, the texts and images are only legible because of the indentations left by the old-fashioned letterpress printing. Similar games concerning legibility and communication play out inside the packaging – a Jerome Rothenberg poem printed in light grey on white, a CD covered in Morse code (a reference, I take it, to the label name). The music itself has a simplicity and stateliness that often suggest a ghostly afterimage of Cage’s Ryoanji. Percussionist Nakatani places each click and drumtap with the precision of a step taken in a ceremonial dance, and often adds soft touches of chimes. Doneda (on soprano and sopranino) and Wright (alto and soprano) both make their horns sound slender as a reed, often concentrating on thin wire-drawn tones perpetually on the verge of disappearing entirely into the musical ether. The resulting music is far from austere: a kind of gradually unfolding micro drama, comprising a series of tiny vulnerabilities, frayings, insinuations, and stretches of miniaturized song. Like so many of the best improv recordings, this one seems to change shape and emphasis with every listen: delicate, languorously paced, yet tough as steel.
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CADENCE
Michel Doneda / Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani Music from the outer limits is the product of the Doneda/Wright/Nakatani trio on [1]. Two reed players and a percussionist extend the sonic possibilities using sound in its purest and at times most violent state. The recording promotes a high-pitched grain of soprano saxophones and clarinet offset by delicate percussive accents. This exploratory team conducts a serious mission on three selections where tonal reed peaks are reached by Doneda and Wright. They inject breathy phrases leading to sharply defined shrills as they slowly develop a rapport with each other's sensibilities. Surges of electrified pulsation run through their sparring match. Playing a cat and mouse game, Doneda and Wright toy with musically abrupt statements as they cast ideas into their weightless universe.
Nakatani is a natural for this abstract environment. He uses a plethora of percussive instruments to acutely define the arrhythmic pace. Rubbing, scraping, and massaging his drums and percussion parts, he sustains a continuous flow of jolting current that underlies the interaction between the two reed players. Nakatani is an astute listener who complements the atonal reed vibrations with unique and contrasting rumblings. While Doneda and Wright are speaking in a spatial language, he counters in a dialect of his own with ringing bell tones and metal jangling. Peaks of energy are hit regularly by the trio, after which the band reverts to levels of calm and serenity and then rises again to stratospheric heights. The music is not overwhelmingly difficult to absorb, but to understand the trio's mission, full immersion into the black hole they traverse is required. ALL
ABOUT JAZZ
Michel Doneda / Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani Once, a very
long time ago, “jazz” was about “that swing.”
The substance without which it didn't mean a thing manifested itself externally
in the rhythms, the walk, the “fashion” of the hipster. Once
co-opted by Madison Avenue, jazz then kept its hipness either well-hidden
or moved it constantly like a weapon of mass destruction. That knowing
hipness today has no public face, fashion, or spokesman. It is to be found
in the open-ended, hit-and-sometimes-miss music of free improvisation.
A music that takes both patience and, perhaps, a Buddhist meditative mind
to appreciate. Making that music in 2003 and 2004 were three very much
like-minded artists. Saxophonists Michel Doneda, Jack Wright, and percussionist
Tatsuya Nakatani share a sense of relaxed purpose in these three lengthy
pieces. Doneda, who has worked extensively with Le Quan Ninh, also finds
Wright equally at home with a percussionist in these sessions. Each track
tiptoes in and out with no grand scheme. The musicians develop ideas through
breaths, scrapes, tones, flutters, vibrations, and silence. Can you say
nothing really happens? Sure. But you can also listen. Meditate. The brew
here is the the perfect timing of Nakatani's bell and drum, the overblown
saxophone, the breath. How can you tell this is the very finest improvisation
at work? Like the man said, “if you have to ask, you've missed the
point.” I'm sure Mssrs. Doneda, Wright, and Takatani have no desire
to be labeled as hipsters, which is why they are indeed such hip cats.
Michel Doneda / Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani
Tatsuya Nakatani’s
irregular percussion pulse is what holds these two trio sessions together.
Yet the skills of the Japanese-born, South Bronx, N.Y.-based improviser
and sound artist merely underline the objectives of the two hornmen with
whom he’s associated on either CDs. Firmly committed to microtonal
improv, saxophonists Michel Doneda and Jack Wright on FROM BETWEEN and
brassmen Nate Wooley and Steve Swell on _IS AN APPARATION express themselves
in non-linear sound pictures in such a way that not only Free Jazz, but
electronics -- albeit without electronic instruments -- are referenced.
This far into the 21st century, both duos make their point succinctly.
But Wooley/Swell/ Nakatani’s band Blue Collar is more novel, since
the brassmen create with three valves each, while sopranino and soprano
saxophonist Doneda and soprano and alto saxophonist Wright do so with
a multiplicity of manipulated keys. Oregon-born, New York-based Wooley’s
experience encompasses work with saxophonist Assif Tsahar’s big
bands and combo work with Denver’s Fred Hess and easterners Andrew
D’Angelo and Wright, who is featured on FROM BETWEEN. On this CD
though, Wooley utilizes the trumpet not as a brass instrument, but as
a sound source, moving into the area explored by Boston’s Greg Kelley
and Berlin’s Axel Dörner. More surprising is the presence of
Swell, one of the most accomplished New York ‘bone man, usually
found applying modern gutbuck smears in the Free Jazz bands of bassist
William Parker and saxist Sabir Mateen, among many others. Here he proves
that the intricacies of circular breathing and split-second flutter tonguing
are part and parcel of his repertoire. On the almost 13-minute “[92]”,
the longest and most abstract track, the percussionist’s work seems
more upfront since it’s a good five minutes before the first brass
smears appear. Before that the two hornmen have confined themselves to
bubbling bell motions plus the clatter and scrape of valves being loosened.
Eventually Swell turns to foreshortened slide positions, while Wooley
flutter-tongues and squeezes tones until both combine for a single line,
decorating it with vocalized back of the throat grainy mumbles and mouthpiece
thumps. Nakatani’s gentle pings give way to elongated drumstick
scratches on cymbal tops in “[22]” and a constant cowbell
smack that sounds as if he’s playing the intro to “Mississippi
Queen” at one-tenth its speed on “[40]”. The former
sounds as if it’s produced by one electronically tinged instrument,
where echoing -- and watery -- buzzing from the cymbal’s resound
are followed by the oscillating pressure of carefully emphasized brass
timbres. The latter finds the brass tones divided among the patting of
bass drum and cymbals, with the trombonist turning chromatic plunger tones
into a tugboat honk and the trumpeter producing a mosquito-like drone.
Percussion outlay includes gong reverberation, spinning ratchets, drum
thunder and times when Nakatani seems to be creating extra colors by either
rubbing a washboard or loosening the screws and connections on his kit.
Similarly the brass inventory features the men blowing nothing but colored
air through the bell, wordless growls and hollers, middle of the horn
blats and snarls, mouthpiece kisses, sluicing plunger tones and pedal
point blows. Every technique appears to be on show on “[49]”,
as prestissimo snarls and circular breathed whispers from the trumpet
meet basso watery blasts from the trombonist. As emphasized triplets and
half-valve effects appear from both, the percussionist rattles flams and
bounces, strokes his sets of bells and produces ruffs from his snare.
When Swell uses his plunger to exact bass notes and Wooley trills rubato
on top, Nakatani strikes his cymbal with wire brush and repeatedly resonates
a large gong. A more familiar grouping of reeds and percussion, FROM BETWEEN
highlights the increasing internationalism of Free Music. There’s
the Japanese-born Nakatani and Easton, Penn.-resident Wright, who has
concentrated on the saxophone after a time in academe and in revolutionary
politics. Besides Wooley, he has played with Dörner, British bassist
Tony Wren and toured the U.S. with Doneda in 2003. Toulouse-based Doneda
is a self-taught musician, whose improvising partners include American
saxist Bhob Rainey, French percussionist Lê Quan Ninh, dancers,
poets and actors. ONE
FINAL NOTE Serious
listeners of adventurous music hardly need an introduction to reed players
Michel Doneda and Jack Wright. They both have spent the last two decades
as inveterate sound explorers, committed to creating personal vocabularies
from masterful command of the full extended range of their instruments.
While each has produced astonishing solo efforts, they are also equally
committed to the constant search for new and challenging settings for
spontaneous collaborations. ..-. .-.
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01 January 2005
Text: Frank Rubolino
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
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30
November 2004
Text: Mark Corroto
go to review
>>
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
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JAZZWORD +
JAZZEWEEKLY
8 November 2004
Text: Ken Waxman
go to review >>
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
Another session that offers up electronic-like sounds with acoustic instruments,
this CD’s major piece is also its first track. More than 301⁄2-minutes
long “hands behind hands” features the saxophonists exploring
every tint of the reed color wheel as the percussionist provides a restrained
canvas for their aural brush strokes. Beginning with bubbling raspberries
and glottal stops from the saxes, sawing tones from a drumstick on cymbals
gradually presage a shrill squeezed tone from sopranino, languidly expelled
air, an occasional honk and elongated chirrups. As Nakatani feeds irregular
hollow thwacks and gamelan-like cymbal hits to the others, the reedman
turn to squealing higher pitched oscillations that then break up into
click-clanking bumps, wavering slurs and tongue stops. Before Wright finishes
with extended fog horn timbres, his tones sound as if they’re coming
from a comb and tissue paper kazoo. Meanwhile, Doneda produces short,
jagged squeaks. Small animal reverberations from the sopranino turn to
flutter-tongued single tones as the sopranoist blows colored air through
his horn. Finally the drummer counters reed mouse peeping with what sounds
like a top spinning in the studio. Then, one reedist’s split-tone
harmonies combine with the other’s police-whistle shrills for quivering
unison tones that come in and out of focus. Following an extensive period
of circular breathing from both horns, one continues to resonate curved
tones while the other produces more strident trilled notes. Eventually
the joined tones start to resemble sine wave electronics or perhaps ponticello
strings. Faster and more abrasive, the two shorter pieces that follow
offer more of the same atonalism, with tongue slaps, French kissed reeds,
minute sax whoops, snorts, barks, feral murmurs and mumbled flutter tonguing.
More inhibited than with the two brassmen, Nakatani’s quirky accompaniment
includes tam tam-like single colored tones and chime resonation. Only
in a couple of instances does he use ear splitting multi-hued screeches
that result from the drag of a drumstick on a cymbal top. As an aside,
the CD must have the least visually friendly wrapping of any contemporary
CD. Packaged in fine, dark cardboard, details are embossed on the black
paper and are difficult to make out without eyestrain. Despite this visual
affront, the sounds on this CD and the other are more examples of steadily
evolving free music. They can and should be appreciated for unvarnished
veracity.
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12 October 2004
Text: Michael Rosenstein
go
to review >>
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
So this match-up is a natural fit, made all the more commanding by the
addition of percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. Here is improvisation full
of stunning control and riveting detail. With all of the prodigious extended
technique at hand, there is never a trace of flash. Every subtle shading
of breath, overtone, reed resonance, drum-head reverberation, or bowed
metal shimmer is attentively placed within improvisations that gather
with a sense of stateliness and unforced intensity.
Over the course of the opening, 30-minute "hands behind hands",
not a single sound is arbitrary. Eschewing conversational interplay, the
three instead collectively gather and balance timbral density and measured
gestures into a beguiling form. The scrubs and scrapes, skirling squeals,
and grated rasps move in shifting layers. And while the arcs and plateaus
of the improvisation reveal themselves gradually, the flow of the piece
never flags for a moment in focus or intensity.
The 13-minute "of pipe and roots" and 11-minute "...open
this surface to the clouds" are a bit more compact, but lose none
of the drama of the opening piece. Here, events are laid out a bit more.
On the second piece, Nakatani's thoughtfully choreographed metallic clangs
of gongs and temple bells emerge from the reed crescendos to tie the piece
to a gripping conclusion. The final piece draws on the now-established
strategies of paired reed overtones, pad pops, and quavering harmonics.
But even here, the way the three are able to place these in an enveloping
sound-space sets it apart.
This limited-edition release is packaged in a subtly embossed, black,
hand-letter-pressed cover with a ghostly, cream-on-white insert that features
a Jerome Rothenberg poem. Soseditions tagline is "substance over
surface" and the label gets a fitting launch with this alluring recital.
THE
WIRE
ISSUE 248, October 2004
Text: Julian Cowley
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
The initial release from New York City's SoSEDITIONS brings together three uncompromising performers. Percussionist Nakatani marks out quasi-ceremonial spaces where saxophonists Doneda and Wright can nurture their stylistic quirks and eccentricities, shaping their squawks and shrillness, overblown blasts, splintered notes, breathy introspection and muted susurrations into long and arcane joint pronouncements. Using bowing and other sustaining techniques, Nakatani also generates reverberant floating tones that ring and hang in the air among the horn sounds, which soften in response. The expansive opening piece lasts a full half hour; two other pieces of around a third that length have a concentration that's equally effective. The thoughtfully prepared packaging includes a text, "The Orators", by distinguished poet Jerome Rothenberg, who also supplied the titles.
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THE
WIRE
ISSUE 247, September 2004
Text: Dan Warburton
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
Many
practitioners of lowercase Improv nowadays sound like they're going through
the motions. Saxophonists and trumpeters spit, dribble, gargle and drool,
guitarists and percussionists scratch their prostrate instruments as if
they were pimples, and laptoppers sit statue-like behind their luminescent
Apples fizzing like soluble aspirins. But albums like this show that lowercase
definitely need not mean 'lacking in intensity and commitment'.
Saxophonists Doneda and Wright have been active on either side of the
Atlantic for going on 25 years, and each has recently contributed landmark
documents to the solo sax repertoire - Doneda's Anatomie des Clefs on
Potlatch and Sopranino / Radio on Fringes, Wright's Places To Go on Spring
Garden Music - but the eventual collaboration that happened on Doneda's
recent US tour turns out to be even better. Both are sufficiently inquisitive
(and stubborn) not to rest on their laurels.
On from between they're joined by percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, who
studiously avoids standard rattle 'n' clatter in favour of more isolated
and sustained sonorities, imbuing the spacious opening track with the
feel of Japanese court music. No coincidence perhaps that Doneda's muted
tones and Nakatani's bowed bowls sound remarkably like sho¯, or Japanese
mouth organ. "Hands behind hands", and "of pipes and roots"
are studio recordings from May this year, while "…open this
surface to clouds" was recorded live at Brooklyn's BPM Gallery nine
months earlier. As deceptively simple, direct and moving as the music
is Jerome Rothenberg's poem, "The Orators", accompanying the
album, from which the closing track is extracted. Reinforced by SoSEDITIONS'
embossed, scarcely legible track listing, its aura of mystery is well
in keeping with the label's mission statement: substance over surface
- inscribed by visionaries without dimensional boundaries.
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SUNDAY
HERALD
27 June 2004, Innovations
catalogued
Text: David Keenan
Michel Doneda
/ Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
(4 out of 5 stars)
Saxophonist Jack Wright is a fascinating figure. A player who has so internalised
the modes and lessons of first-generation fire musicians like Noah Howard,
Frank Wright, Pharaoh Sanders and Jimmy Lyons, Wright now speaks in tiny
bolts of staccato shot so dense and information-heavy that every breath
seems to be drawn from deep decades of thought.
His initial approach more closely mirrored the furious cathartic form
of early free jazz but in recent years he has adopted a more condensed
strategy, doing away with almost anything approaching a recognisable note
and instead focusing on assembling a new language from long smears of
sound, chains of microtonal gasps and long seconds of charged silence.
It’s a project that’s attracted many collaborators, most around
Boston in the US .
There, the key musical think-tank is Nmperign, a group of improvisers
dedicated to carving form from silence via the tiniest of gestures. Over
the years Wright has worked with several Nmperign associates, especially
saxophonist Bhob Rainey. From Between, the inaugural release on the New
York-based SOS Editions, brings him into the orbit of another key Nmperign
collaborator, experimental percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, with the trio
rounded out by saxophonist Michel Doneda. Here Wright plays soprano and
alto sax while Doneda packs both a soprano and sopranino.
Despite the essentially low-level nature of these improvisations, with
barely articulated hovers and whispers intersecting like ghostly vapour
trails, the music really moves and the playing is forceful even with the
lack of conventional definition. Nakatani’s playing is particularly
unequivocal, sometimes asserting the pulse with nothing more than two
booming stick shots before drifting back into space.
The peculiar globular sound of the soprano, much loved by thinkers like
John Coltrane and Evan Parker, lends itself to eternal, circular patterns
and both players really push at its limits, sounding blood-red leery rasps
that coil around each other like infernal smoke rings. Doneda’s
style is self-taught and beautifully feral, uncluttered by any empty virtuosic
or technical concerns and liberated enough to respond to the demands of
the moment. The whole set comes packaged in a beautiful letter-pressed
black-on-black card sleeve made from environmentally conscious resources.
An imprint to watch for sure.
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DOWNTOWN
MUSIC GALLERY
4 June 2004
Text: Michael Anton Parker
Michel Doneda
/ Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
There's been a deafening buzz in the free improv world about these recordings ever since they were made last spring and fall. The convergence of Jack Wright and Michel Doneda in 2002 and their subsequent US tour in 2003 is one of the mythical events in the history of avant-garde music, two men who had been following parallel paths in the personal reinvention of their instruments and the existential premises of music-making, finding each other like long-lost brothers. At the age of 61 Wright finally found his match.
Stacking miracle on top of miracle, they not only found ideal collaborations
with the revelatory duo of Serge Bagdassarian and Boris Baltshun, but
also one of the two percussionists whose paths were tangled with both
men to the point of inexplicable intrigue, Tatsuya Nakatani (the other
being Le Quan Ninh). Wright's previous encounters with this Boston improv
emigree were case studies in sublime compatibility left unrealized in
the fray of divergent personal evolution, but by the time of these recordings,
Nakatani's intense period of post-Boston exploration and stylistic expansion
in the NY improv scene had brought him to surprising levels of confidence
and virtuosity, and it was impossible for him to stray off-course in the
presence of Doneda's gruelling, hyperfocused micro-catharticism.
Although nearly all his recordings capture unique and successful musical
situations, I would argue that this is the fourth major landmark recording
in Nakatani's career (following the first Nmperign, the "au-un"
duo with Kenta Nagai, and the "13 Definitions of Truth" duo
with Peter Kowald), in the sense of crystallizing a component of his artistry,
and the only one that adequately represents his current capacities in
the area of abstract ritualism. His isolated strikes upon objects are
resonant, sparse, irregularly spaced, and dynamically varied; his scraping,
rattling, and poly-attack textures are oblique (cliche-free) and merge
with sustained saxophone textures; and his bowed metal tones rival the
saxophones in their richness and precision.
There are precedents for this recording in Doneda's past collaborations
with Le Quan Ninh and saxophonist Daunik Lazro, but this disc gives the
impression of a totally new musical language born from the Wright/Doneda
synergy. To my ears, the most salient structural innovation is a perverse
elongation of the musical phrase, a dogged obsession with squeezing every
last second out of a musical thought. Even in moments where there is a
lot of activity and variation, this disc has an eerie slowness, a Feldmanesque
consistency in surface structure. Wright and Doneda make their saxophones
bleed quietly, and keep bleeding. This definitely reflects Doneda's technical
obsessions with insanely precise, high-pitched, sustained piercing tones
and sustained hyperspeed flutters, quivers, and twitters, and runs counter
to a primary trend in Wright's best work of recent years, the extreme
reduction of temporal scale to the millisecond range, where thousands
are phrases are hinted at in mere seconds, an approach that reached its
pinnacle with the double-sax, double-cello quartet of Wright, Bhob Rainey,
Bob Marsh, and Fred Lonberg-Holm.
This disc is not representative of the sort of "individual gestures
+ pauses" style of improv that has become commonplace in recent years,
but it shares the obsessive anti-expressionism of this movement, not to
mention the focus on unconventional instrumental sounds and low volumes.
The difference is the SHEER SEETHING VIOLENCE of this music. It's not
dense or noisy; it's not an onslaught of screaming and wailing saxophones,
but it's as simultaneously safe and frightening as a wild beast in an
extended moment of repose, with incidental growls, cackles, and thrashing
bodily jerks serving as a reminders of its other ways of being. This music
is to balls-out apocalyptic free jazz assaults like Scelsi is to Wagner--the
visceral intensity is still there, but it's been trapped in a tiny bottle.
If I had to make a short-list of the most profound developments in current
improvised music, it would be this disc and "Good" by the BSC.
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IMPROJAZZ
Text:
Guillaume Tarche
Michel Doneda
/ Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
Est-ce le toucher de la magnifique pochette (à déplier*), sa texture et le relief de la typographie** ? sa teinte anthracite, encre de seiche, nocturne ? Comme si l'appréhension de la musique enregistrée ici requérait une participation sensorielle élargie.
En trois improvisations, Jack Wright (ss, as - voir les deux volets de
son entretien dans nos colonnes : n°101 & 102), Michel Doneda
(ss, ssino) et Tatsuya Nakatani (perc), de leurs crénelures, râpes
et filants filons soufflés, perforent et crêpent (par relais
et traversées [from between : ce-qui-vient-de-entre], autour de
la large marmite de sons mats des percussions) l'espace, le travaillant
dans un mouvement d'une intense activité dont la manifestation
audible est autant saisissable dans le creux que dans la turbulence ténue
des sons, ces aspérités de l'air. Voilà une musique
habitable, profondément humaine, directe, de présence et
de circulation, d'entre-jeu, concentrée et lâchée,
que l'on investit physiquement avec un sentiment d'évidence (be
no stranger to air, dit le poème de Jerome Rothenberg inséré
dans la pochette) et de bonheur.
*on se souvient des formats originaux sous lesquels se présentent certains enregistrements récents de Doneda : Montagne noire (Poil 0797 Ouïe-Dire), Brame (Coliphonie CP 0209 Ouïe-Dire), Sopranino Radio (Fringes 13) ou Montségur (Puffskydd).
**on aura spontanément corrigé l'année d'enregistrement mentionnée : il s'agit de 2003 (mai et septembre).
( english translation )
Is this the touch of the splendid small pocket (to be unfolded *), its texture and the relief of the typography **? its colour anthracite, ink of cuttlefish, night? As if the apprehension of the music recorded here required a widened sensory participation. In three improvisations, Jack Wright (ss, have - to see the two shutters of its maintenance in our columns: n°101 & 102), Michel Doneda (ss, ssino) and Tatsuya Nakatani (perc), their crenellations, graters and spinning blown seams, perforate and crimp (by relay and crossings [ from between: it-which-come-of-between ], around the broad pot of sounds chechmates of the percussions) space, working it in a movement of an intense activity whose audible demonstration is seizable as much in the hollow than in the thin turbulence of the sounds, these asperities of the air. Here is a livable music, deeply human, direct, of presence and circulation, of between-play, concentrated and released, that one invests physically with an obvious feeling (Be No stranger to air, said the poem of Jerome Rothenberg inserted in the small pocket) and of happiness.
* one remembers the original formats under which certain recent recordings
of Doneda arise: Black mountain (Hair 0797 Hearing-Statement), Slab (Coliphonie
CP 0209 Hearing-Statement), Radio operator Sopranino (Fringes 13) or Montségur
(Puffskydd).
** the year of recording mentioned will have been spontaneously corrected:
it is about 2003 (May and September).
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YOSHIHIKO
NONOMURA
Text: Yoshihiko Nonomura
Michel Doneda
/ Jack Wright / Tatsuya Nakatani
from between
SoSEditions 801 CD
