Ingrid Schmoliner / Adam Pultz Melbye / Emilio Gordoa — GRIFF (Inexhaustible Editions)
Photo by André Symann
GRIFF by Ingrid Schmoliner / Adam Pultz Melbye / Emilio Gordoa
Judging by association and appearance, you might expect this trio to play jazz, free improvisation or New Music. But while such influences come into play, they certainly aren’t the whole game. GRIFF (in all caps, it’s the album’s title; with conventional capitalization, it has become the trio’s name) presents a strikingly singular sound that derives from other aspects of the trio’s collective cv.
Ingrid Schmoliner is an Austrian pianist whose work encompasses electro-acoustic improvisation, art song accompaniment and solo prepared piano concerts. Adam Pultz Melbye is a Berlin-based Danish bassist who has improvised with Evan Parker and Michael Zerang, but whose interdisciplinary work includes the development of performance ecosystems involving dialogues between acoustic instruments and digital technology. The Mexican-born, Berlin-based vibraphonist / percussionist Emilio Gordoa also works frequently in multidisciplinary situations involving dancers, film and sound installations. Both Schmoliner and Gordoa make extensive use of preparations and extended techniques to push back against the perceived limits of their respective instruments’ potentials.
“But Still” opens the record with a single, repeated bass note. After a couple minutes, the other musicians join with similarly sparse contributions. Then the piano, which has been prepared in order to damp its natural resonance, and the vibes start adding further elements that seek to disrupt the cadence that has been sustained throughout, but never quite throw it off course. The parts lock into place like minimalist composition, but the later additions function like out of phase loops, complicating the simple rhythm in ways that’d make a dancer stumble.
The piano, readjusted so that some notes reverberate while others set objects wobbling against the instrument’s interior, takes the lead on the next track, “From Real.” In time, stark metallic chimes and bass action that echoes the piano’s preparations surface, only to spook the piano into silence. The piece progresses as a cat-and-mouse sequence of provocations, imitations, and withdrawals in which no one’s playing changes much, and yet the music sustains a patient but constant flux.
As the album progresses, it becomes apparent that the group is a human analog to Melbye’s performance ecosystems. The piano and mallet parts can sound almost machine-like. But the ways the music mutates, especially when the bass and vibes resort to sustained tones, feels too intuitive to be programmed. Simultaneously puzzling and inviting, GRIFF is a welcome invitation to keep on guessing.
El sello Relative Pitch Records es un sello fundado en Nueva York en 2011 por Mike Panico y Kevin Reilly, especializado en Jazz Avant-Garde, Free Jazz e Improvisación libre. Las tres últimas referencias publicadas por este sello se mueven por los terrenos más libres de la música improvisada: Geometry Of Caves (Joe Morris, Taylor Ho Bynum, Tomeka Reid, Kyoko Kitamura), Fullmoon (Stephanie Richards
HDO 150. Tony Malaby - Rotozaza - KTHXBYE. Formas de improvisar [Podcast]
HDO 150. Tony Malaby – Rotozaza – KTHXBYE. Formas de improvisar [Podcast]
Tres propuestas en HDO 150: Incantations (Clean Feed) de Tony Malaby (a quien acompañan Ben Monder, Eivind Opsvik y Nasheet Waits); Zero (Leo Records) del cuarteto de improvisadores alemanes Rotozaza (con Rudi Mahall, Nicola L. Hein, Adam Pultz Melbye y Christian Lillinger); details (Raw Tonk) de KTHXBYE (con Stian Larsen, Brage Tormaenen y Colin Webster). Tres caras, otras tres, de la…
