#pyroclastic

[thenewobjective]

Kris Davis and the Lutosławski Quartet ~ Solastalgia Suitę

Dramatic, confrontational and unapologetic,Kris Davis and the Lutosławski Quartet‘s Solastalgia Suite tackles the climate crisis head on, with the intention of shaking listeners from their apathy before it is too late. The title is a new word coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht to reflect “a form of homesickness while we are still at home.”  Pianist and Pyroclastic Records founder Davis had been…

Kris Davis and the Lutosławski Quartet ~ Solastalgia Suitę

[sound-bombing]

Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson - Searching for the Disappeared Hour (Pyroclastic, 2021) Genre: Avant-Garde Jazz, Post-Bop Artwork: Dike Blair Bandcamp

[dustedmagazine]

Modney — Ascending Primes (Pyroclastic)

Ascending Primes is a number game. Violinist, composer and improviser Modney (née Josh Modney) grew its music from his ongoing interest in the intellectual logic and sensate satisfaction imparted by just intonation (hereafter referred to as JI), a tuning system that favors whole number ratios over the book-cooking compromises of the more widely known equal temperament, which has been the world’s tuning standard since that beautiful sound-culture neutralizer, the piano, made its way around the globe.

Modney found in JI a method that made sense of his instrument; it simply sounded better. But he hasn’t kept the pleasure to himself. The performance units he has assembled for this double album advance in steps dictated by the progression of prime numbers — one, three, five, seven and finally 11 players. His violin, sometimes amplified, is the only instrument to appear in every aggregation. As the ensembles expand and change, so does the music. It is never simple, but neither is it cluttered or unnecessarily busy. Playing alone, the sound of each of Modney’s violin string leaps out, illuminated by the overtones that JI enables and coarsened by liberally applied distortion.

The smaller line-ups are non-standard but exemplify the chamber music aesthetic of exposed interaction between players. At different points Sam Pluta’s electronics and Cory Smythe’s JI-tuned piano disrupt the flow. But as the ensemble’s increase in size and diversity of instrumentation, jazz elements creep in. Ben Lamar Gay’s puckering cornet and Charmaine Lee’s swooping voice adopt jazz-informed, solo voices within the septet, poised atop the multi-directional rhythms of Dan Peck’s tuba and Katie Gentile’s drums. The largest ensemble is also the most inclusive, marshalling hackle-raising strings, gut-rumbling horns, rhythm-opposing clusters, angelic/demonic vocal exchanges and straight-up noise into a sequence of events that seem to be pushing against implacable time-keeping.

There’s a lot of JI music, especially that made by string players, that seems to treat tuning system’s sonorities as ends in themselves, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But Modney has taken another tack. Like Anna Webber, who appears in the largest ensemble, he puts the sounds to work alongside the genre elements to create music that is stylistically unlimited and viscerally affecting.

Bill Meyer

[dustedmagazine]

Ches Smith — Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic)

Percussionist and electronic musician Ches Smith enlists a who’s who of postmodern jazz/contemporary classical collaborators on his latest Pyroclastic recording, Laugh Ash. While his imaginative use of instruments and electronics has for years been distinctive, this recording finds Smith truly coming into his own as a composer.

The opening track, “Minimalism,” begins with a rangy tune played by trumpeter Nate Wooley and sung by Shara Lunon. The rest of the ensemble, made up of winds (flutist Anna Webber, clarinetist Oscar Noriega, and tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis), strings (violinist Jennifer Choi, violist Doyle Armbrust and cellist Michael Nicholas), bassist/keyboardist Shazmad Ismally, and Smith, takes up a furious ostinato, over which Lunon intones a spoken word monologue. A quick flourish finishes this curtain-raiser.

“Remote Convivial” is composed of an additive group of melodies for winds against another busy strings-and-percussion ostinato. Lewis and Choi engage in a squalling interlude, accompanied by a funk bass line from Ismally and economical drumming from Smith. All of a sudden, the music veers off, the acoustic instruments cease, and synths create sounds that recall early digital bleeps. As if this never happened, the group resumes, with an angular melody, sustained wind chords, and a busy string ostinato. The strings drop out, and Lewis, Webber, and Noriega close out the piece, repeating the tune over simple quarter notes from Smith.

“Disco Inferred” submerges the dance style in several polyrhythms played by the rest of the ensemble. Smith unleashes a synth interlude that reappears several times and keeps the groove moving while the other plays go their own way. “Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom)” and “Shaken, Stirred Silence” are afforded time for the musicians to stretch out. Strident chords for winds and undulating repetitions for strings are juxtaposed with solos by Wooley, Lewis, and Noriega. Lunon contributes more spoken word, her voice incantatory in demeanor.

“Unyielding Daydream Welding” begins with sustained octaves that soon start to undulate. A third of the way through, the drums and electronic beats kick in, over which waywardly crossing lines and vocal ah’s provide abundant syncopation. Lewis solos in a muscular outro. The final piece, “Exit Shivers,” begins with thunderous percussion, thrumming bass, a plethora of glissandos, and an altissimo sustained note. In another musical oasis, strummed cello, dyadic clarinet lines, and microtonal bends on flute create a slice of soft chamber music. After a thunderous crescendo, accompanied by string glissandos, Webber once again provides a discordant, effects laden solo. Noriega and Webber then trade bird calls while Smith adds metallic percussion to the proceedings. Lunon and the winds begin the final section, in which propulsive drumming and modern jazz-inflected playing solidifies the background. Noriega adds a virtuosic coda, followed by slow-moving tutti verticals to conclude.

The combination of intricate, composed pieces, often diverging at formal boundaries, and fulsome improvisation from everyone in the group makes for a compelling totalist offering that is one of my favorites thus far in 2024.

Christian Carey

[sakuraswordly]

What is pyroclastic material? - MiMaEd

What is pyroclastic material? What is pyroclastic material? When volcanoes erupt energetically, they eject pulverized rock, lava, and glass

[dustedmagazine]

Kris Davis — Diatom Ribbons Live At The Village Vanguard (Pyroclastic)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

The bio on Kris Davis’ website borrows a line from the New York Times which described the Canadian pianist as the beacon that told listeners where in New York City one should go on any given night. Diatom Ribbons Live At The Village Vanguard proposes a more expansive understanding of her relationship to jazz, because the ensemble’s music is a zone where Davis’s notions about was worth hearing in the 20th century gets processed and beamed out into the 21st.

The first project’s first, self-titled iteration wasn’t really the work of a band as much as it was the manifestation of a concept. The musicians at its core were Davis on piano, Trevor Dunn on electric bass, Terri Lynne Carrington on drums and Val Jeanty wielding turntables as a source of sampled speech, natural sounds and scratches. They were supplemented by six other musicians playing electric guitar, saxophones, vibes and voice, who enabled Davis to incorporate blues, rock, hip-hop and classical elements into her already-inclusive vision of the jazz continuum. The two-disc Diatom Ribbons was ambitious, but also a bit exhausting to negotiate.

This similarly dimensioned successor comes from a weekend engagement at the Village Vanguard. The latest material, which hinges around a three-part “Bird Suite,” and the ensemble’s lack of augmentation — besides the core group, there are no horns and just one guitarist, Julian Lage — results in a more cohesive statement of Davis’s thesis, which echoes a point that Charles Mingus already made a long, long time ago; you do Charlie Parker no honor by trying to play like him. He is the namesake of the three-part “Bird Suite,” which is the album’s center of gravity. Buttressed by Jeanty’s snatches of speeches by Sun Ra, Stockhausen, and other visionaries, as well as liberally reinterpreted tunes by Wayne Shorter, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Geri Allen, the music seems to be arguing that today’s jazz musician, like Bird, need to deal with everything that’s happened, and then come up with something personal.

To that end, Davis makes a hash of old, dualistic notions like inside/outside, improvised/composed or jazz + (one other genre) hybrids. Properly prepared, hash is pretty tasty, and that’s the case with this overflowing platter of pristine lyricism, bebop-to-free structural abstractions, shifting rhythmic matrices and multi-signal broadcasts of sound and voice. This is the good stuff, Davis seems to be saying, and a music maker following a jazz trajectory needs to deal with it all. But, while the music of the Diatom Ribbons ensemble is way more creatively inclusive than all those bebop copycats Mingus used to rail against, it’s a highly personal reordering of what is known, not a total paradigm shift into the new. Come to think of it, however, Mingus’ own undeniably magnificent accomplishments were more on the order of what Davis is doing here than Charlie Parker’s transformation of the music of his time.  

Bill Meyer

[rachelpimm]

http://www.luckysci.com/2014/08/types-of-volcanic-rocks-and-deposits/

[dustedmagazine]

Ingrid Laubrock — The Last Quiet Place (Pyroclastic)

Photo by Nicki Chavoya

The Last Quiet Place by Ingrid Laubrock (Pyroclastic Records)

Experimental art music sextets rarely create quiet places, but at least they can muse on them. For her latest set of compositions, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock brings in both regular and new collaborators to help her respond to worries about mass extinction, the need for internal quiet and the lack of undamaged places in the world. The driving themes sound morbid, but The Last Quiet Place works more energetically than its title or topics might suggest.

The ensemble's strength lies in their flexibility. Laubrock and guitarist Brandon Seabrook have worked together enough that they have a natural partnership, enabling Seabrook here to frequently step out of his comfort zone. While his best work has often been abrasive and kinetic, on this album he plays more with texture and subtle changes, as just one element of a heavily integrated group. That connection remains important as the sextet slides between moods and even genres. At times they gravitate toward chamber music; a minute later they move into contemporary jazz. Hints of minimalism release into rock-influenced catharsis. Under Laubrock's direction, the whole thing coheres into a singular sort of meditation, the group doing anything except a scattershot approach. 

Laubrock focuses much of her composition on the strings, a reasonable choice given the presence of Tomeka Reid (cello), Michael Formanek (double bass), and Mazz Swift (violin). “Afterglow” provides a wonderful example of the way she passes the lead from her own sax to the other members of the act. The wind-to-string transition subtly recolors the song, and when Laubrock takes over again, the end of the piece has a formally satisfying feel after exploring a short range of hues in depth. 

“Grammy Season” marks an album highlight as each member trades roles. A longtime Laubrock collaborator, drummer Tom Rainey mixes the beats, frenetic at times and pounding as others, shaping the track as the other musicians come in and out. The piece suggests several trios coming in and out, with Rainey remaining constant. Seabrook gets to skitter a little more here, the structure of the song keeps everything on track, broken into defined segments that all build toward something before releasing into nervous and then resigned quietness, a sort of aftermath that follows frantic activity. 

We might not associate Grammy season (the time and not the track) with human destructiveness, but Laubrock's title speaks to the way we rush toward an empty nothingness. “The Last Quiet Place” offers moments of meditative repetition, but the larger work across the album mixes a warning into its playfulness. The sextet never sounds down, even while processing difficult topics. While we can all benefit from peaceful solitude, some kinds of noise remain beneficial to our well-being. 

Justin Cober-Lake