#rich halley

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Vol. 3, No. 2

Moon Duo

Whether singles or groups, new or old, jazz or rock, 7"s or digital-only releases, or any number of other boxes you could wish to check, this installment of our Dust column probably has it. Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Derek Taylor, and Ian Mathers contribute short reviews on everything from long-toiling Oregonian saxophonists to bedroom producers from Ontario. Acts include Donovan Quinn, Moon Duo, Eye, DenMother, Crystal Myslajek, The Urge Trio, Mint Mile, and the Rich Hally 5.

Donovan Quinn—Dad Was Buried In His Leather Jacket 7” (Soft Abuse)

So you say you love vinyl? It’s one thing to extol the virtues of a broad black long player, but quite another to embrace the medium in its most concentrated form—the multi-song 33 rpm 7”. Donovan Quinn proves his love on four-song EP by glorying in the sonic squashedness that comes from cutting 13 minutes into 14 inches and then making said minutes so catchy that you’ll play it over and over, thus guaranteeing imminent decay. Backed by buds from 200 Years and Skygreen Leopards, he returns to the casual pop lope that he toned down in favor of country introspection on his last full-length solo record, Honky Tonk Medusa. Since Nikki Sudden is otherwise engaged, Dan Treacy remains a convalescent, and David Kilgour’s taking his time, it falls to Quinn to argue the merits of this stuff. Don’t fight him; he’s got four good answers right here.

Bill Meyer

Moon Duo—Occult Architecture Vol. 1 (Sacred Bones)

Occult Architecture Vol. 1 by Moon Duo

The first of two in a set for 2017, Occult Architecture Vol. 1 plumbs the mind-cracking properties of gnostic repetition. Like Ripley Johnson’s other project, Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo employs tight circling riffs of guitar and drums to crack through expectations. “Cold Fear” hammers relentlessly at a four-note riff, a catch like a heart murmur syncopating its inexorable forward motion; you can’t listen without paranoia, claustrophobia angst, and yet the airy vocals, the throbbing synthetic keyboards (that’s the other half of the duo, Sanae Yamada) murmur of escape. Most times, Moon Duo seems to distill whole rock songs into a single measure, refracted into a million repetitions as through a funhouse mirror.“Creepin’” vamps a blues rock riff into oblivion, transforming heat and friction and diesel dust into something otherworldly. Only “White Rose” is given the room to stretch its limbs, unfurling in distended guitar scrawls and buzzing drone, past measures that spin by like telephone polls on a long haul towards the horizon.

Jennifer Kelly

Eye—Other Sky (Ba Da Bing)

While New Zealanders can’t really claim a lock on free form noise rock, they sure know how to do it right. Eye has lineage on its side; drummer Peter Stapleton has played in Dadamah and the Terminals (caveat – my old label Roof Bolt put out a Terminals record 20 years ago, but no, I can’t sell you one), guitarist Peter Porteous in Empirical, and synthesist Jon Chapman in Rory Storm and the Invaders. But it’s what they do with their heritage that makes this stuff register. “Tension Cue” starts things off with a juggernaut of forward driving beats and low register rumble that sounds rather like someone listened to Mission Of Burma’s cover of “Heart Of Darkness” and said “this is nice, but a bit too cluttered,” and then set about making things right. “Black Lightning,” on the other hand, layers sizzling percussion, butterfly electronics, and guttural fuzz into a remorseless build-up and discharge of energy. With music like this, longer is better; the tracks that work less well are the ones without room to stretch.

Bill Meyer

DenMother—Blood: A Memoir (Self-Release)

Blood: a memoir | 2016 by DenMother

Canadian electronic singer-songwriter DenMother spent much of this decade under the radar amassing what was quietly one of the most impressive oeuvres out there. But along with geographical changes (Toronto to the Maritimes, most prominently) and personal turmoil, she pulled her work down and went into hibernation. Luckily the end of last year saw a return, with edited versions of older releases once again on her Bandcamp account and this new release, giving an account of a difficult year. As always the production is somehow lushly minimalist, hazy and harrowing, with DenMother’s frequently echoed and distorted vocals weaving in and around its surroundings. Blood: A Memoir is definitely a welcome return for those of us who have been following her work, but it also makes a fine starting point for the uninitiated. Here’s hoping for more this year.

Ian Mathers

Crystal Myslajek—Circadia LP (Water Wing)

Circadian rhythms are the 24-hour cycles that we enact or disrupt as we go through our days or louse up by jumping time zones. But what do you get when you drop the n? Is Circadia a place? Sure sounds like it, but I defy you to find it on a map. The act of making something new with a small omission corresponds quite nicely to the act of making a new song that someone might, against the tides of nostalgia and glut, actually want to hear. Crystal Myslajek mines a very different vein here than she did a couple years back with the trio Brute Heart. She plays piano and coos a few syllables across the six tracks on this LP; somber and ruminative, her keyboard figures bring to mind Peter Jefferies c. Last Great Challenge in a Dull World. Bolstered by a hint of brushes on drums and the very occasional swell of a bowed string or a twisted synth knob, Myslajek’s music evokes an icy, late-night vibe that offers a clue to the album’s name and acknowledges one of music’s powers — to freeze a day.

Bill Meyer

The Urge Trio—Live at the Hungry Brain (Veto)

Snapshot of a single musical set recorded at Chicago, October of 2015, Live at the Hungry Brain teams Swiss reedist Christopher Erb with reedist Keefe Jackson and cellist Tomeka Reid, two of the city’s vanguard improvisers. Erb and Jackson overlap on tenor saxophone with each bringing secondary horns to stage as well. A vibrant and vacillating contest of conflating and contrasting tones and textures ensues for much of the 33-minute duration. Dry and bristling reed pops percolate with brittle pizzicato. Overtones and harmonics born of pursed embouchures and cantilevered strings float and flitter in the air like bio-luminescent fireflies. Jackson’s bass clarinet takes on the moistly gurgling properties of an amphibian pond dweller while Erb mimics the loquacious faux-speech of a tree-perched avian of unknown origin on soprano. Vintage European free improvisation is an obvious antecedent with a section mid-performance where Erb almost sounds like Brötzmann in his coarse, leather-lunged cadence, but any semblance of imitation ultimately seems incidental. These are three players comfortable in a common musical tongue derived from the moment and separate from any established language.

Derek Taylor

Mint Mile—The Bliss Point (Comedy Minus One)

The Bliss Point by Mint Mile

The late, great Silkworm continues to spin out offshoots, first the wonderful but (understandably) morbid Bottomless Pit, now Mint Mile, which is just as raucous and wounded, but somewhat less constrained by personal history. Both Tim Midyett and Andy Cohen play prominent roles in the project; Midyett’s reedy tenor, plus the layers and layers of six-string sound, give a strong whiff of Silkworm. But there are other players, too, Matthew Barnhart and Howard Draper from Tre Orsi, Jeff Panall of Songs:Ohia and Justin Brown of Paillard. Four of six of participating musicians play some variety of guitar, at least part of the time. “City of Speed Traps” blisters and roars with a quintessentially late-1990s heaviness, taking its slow time to let dissonance and distortion bloom, while “Bellflower” flirts with country rock in its acoustic and lap steel (that’s Draper) tones, though a very loud variety of it. “Park,” the best of the lot, rattles its cage with a kind of flannel-shirted, five-o’clock- shadowed belligerence in line with another Chicagoan guitar band, Eleventh Dream Day; its clanking bass line and slashing guitars convey pure hurting resilience (“Whatever gets you by,” indeed.) The four-song EP closes with “Youngold,” a mostly acoustic outing, lit by lovely arcs of steel guitar (Justin Brown this time), but while quieter, the song aches with urgency. Lifers all, still at it, and it still matters.

Jennifer Kelly

Rich Halley 5—The Outlier (Pine Eagle)

“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” Clint Eastwood was talking about frontier justice, not jazz, when he uttered those words in Unforgiven, but they still apply to folks like Rich Halley. Pushing 70, he’s an authoritativetenor saxophonist who writes sturdy tunes and holds together a band that grasps his concepts. He’s done the work to build an audience, playing small joints in the Oregon woods and for a number of years organizing the Penofin Jazz Festival, which brought folks like Fred Anderson and Tony Malaby to the Pacific Northwest. But living in Oregon never elevated any jazz musician’s profile, so no matter how much good work he does he seems not to get much notice. Will it mean much to you to say that this record is a standout amongst Halley’s oeuvre? Maybe it’ll mean more to say that the front line of Halley, trombonist Michael Vlatkovich, and baritone saxophonist Vinny Golia make vibrant multi-color weaves out of Halley’s tunes, and that bassist Clyde Reed and drummer Carson Halley (son of Rich, which can’t hurt) ably bridge the lurching funk prescribed by Julius Hemphill back in the 70s with a tumbling, free-flowing pulse. Let’s just say that if you check out his work you’ll be allotting just deserts to a fine, under-recognized jazz man and also doing yourself a favor.

Bill Meyer

[dustedmagazine]

Rich Halley — Terra Incognita (Pine Eagle)

Rich Halley tends to attack. He has a core group locked in and, leading with his tenor, he pushes forward vibrant and energetic jazz. The attitude doesn't change for Terra Incognita, but — as the title suggests — much of the ground covered is unfamiliar. Halley partners with Matthew Shipp, his first work with a pianist in years, who brings along his rhythm section of bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. Despite, or maybe because of, the newness of the ensemble, Halley finds increased freedom in his playing; if he was assertive before, he and his bandmates simply explode now.

Opener “Opening” (possibly titled to resist cliched writing like this sentence) makes the point immediately. Halley eases in, but never settles. Shipp remains restless throughout. He supports as needed, but even that feels urgent as the group bounds into its unknown territory. All four musicians are content to get lost, or at least to be wherever they find themselves. Shipp and Halley quickly find their conversational weave, and if everything sounds just a bit unhinged, that's the joy of it.  

“Forager” finds the band in a much more conventional setting. Halley's melody builds on themes and the song carries more of a through line. The steadier pacing allows his big tone to come through more clearly. Between that tone and the structure, it's as close as the quartet gets to classic jazz, and it should satisfy fans of more traditional music. That balance becomes one of the strengths of the album. While everything is improvised, the quartet can sound, sometimes in a single track, as if they're equally hearing Ornette Coleman say, “Go nuts,” or Sonny Rollins saying, “Focus a little.” As great as Shipp is, it's clearly Halley's album, and his willingness to follow various lines of thought toward a single vision allows the album to be bombastic and surprising while allowing for plenty of clear interplay.  

The change of mood for “The Elms” highlights the breadth of the group's work. Halley centers his playing on tones, creating an almost ghostly presentation. Shipp's left hand grounds the whole piece, but his right plinks away to match Halley's ethereality. The two eventually more toward something more tangible and melodic; you can hear them build the new idea together. Placed in the middle of the album, the piece makes for a meditative center before the more propulsive title track reminds us of how unconstrained these musicians are feeling.  

The disc closes with “The Journey,” a 17-minute walk through their thoughts on this collaboration. At times, Halley settles into a trad groove and Baker wants to swing. After Halley lets loose, Shipp gets a turn for some tense playing (unfortunately too low in the mix) and Bisio steps to the front. The track winds down —  maybe everyone's properly spent by now — and it makes for an appropriate farewell. Over the course of the recording, the group figured out where they were on their adventure, and “The Journey” properly marks out that space, somehow wrapping up one of the most energizing releases of the year.  

Justin Cober-Lake

[dustedmagazine]

Rich Halley 4 – Creating Structure (Pine Eagle)

Outposts in improvised music are common, locales where a few or maybe slightly more musicians bitten by the bug of freer forms of expression ply skill sets that aren’t often conducive to a steady gig stream. Portland-based saxophonist Rich Halley is one such player. He’s been quietly financing and facilitating albums by his quartet for over a decade, building a body of work that sits comfortably with better known peers.

The primary difference between Creating Structure and past efforts by the ensemble is telegraphed in its title. Rather than relying on compositions, the ensemble engaged in a session devoted to free improvisation. Halley notes that free improv is a regular part of the band’s repertoire, but the disc marks the first compendium wholly devoted to their spontaneous conversations. Sixteen pieces occupy just over an hour of temporal space and the majority of them hew to a refreshing economy of expression.

Trombonist Michael Vlatkovich makes for a fine horn partner, but bassist Clyde Reed and Halley’s son Carson on drums are just as attuned to the strategies in play. “Riding the Trade Winds” finds the leader playing rhythmically and soulfully over a staggered bass and drum commentary that morphs in out of a calypso-like beat. Vlatkovich adds textured interjections on whistles and small percussion. The ensuing feel echoes the sort of thing Sonny Rollins was known for at the cusp of the Sixties, certainly not a sour well to dip from. “Echoes of the South Side” finds Halley blowing along an analogously emotion-rich track as Reed strides his strings with purpose.

Other pieces echo their titles in sound. “Angular Momentum” launches at a frenzied clip with the horns honking and strafing over a drums and bass tumult. “Metal Buzz” explores a loose fanfare form with tenor and trombone twining and combining as the other players sit out. As if to even the ledger, “Street Rumors” shifts focus, at least initially, to bass and drums with the leader and Vlatkovich tasked with building crenellated textures around Reed’s bulbous anchoring lines. The younger Halley demonstrates aptitude at sustaining a propulsive and flexible center even when parameters are less than obvious.

Players like Halley and his compatriots are easy to pass over in an idiom of music that is already niche-sized in its more known commodities. Listeners do so at their own disservice though, as what these players are producing is well worth time invested in procurement and consumption. The likely appearance in the not-so-distant future of another entry documenting their comparatively isolated endeavors is comforting thing.

Derek Taylor

[burlveneer-music]

Rich Halley 4 - The Get Go from The Wisdom of Rocks

Rich Halley: tenor saxophone Michael Vlatkovich: trombone Clyde Reed: bass Carson Halley: drums

[rjjohnson-blog-blog]

Rich Halley - Back From Beyond

The Rich Halley Quartet's newest release comes almost exactly a year after their last album, Requiem For a Pit Viper, a work which captured the free wheeling yet focused approach of this Quartet.  Back From Beyond is not only a more cohesive effort from the band in terms of their personal sound, but also demonstrates the overall musicality of each player within a constantly varying musical atmosphere.

Back From Beyond is, compositionally, a far more diversified album.  Though the obvious influence of free jazz pioneers such as Ornette Coleman and the Sun Ra Arkestra remains present, bits of bebop and funk grooves find their way into the textures of many tunes.  Spuds, an original composition which opens the album, begins as an up-tempo bebop tune, but quickly shifts into a loose free improvisation involving each musician to varying degrees throughout the tune.  At times, Halley's lines maintain a strong swing feel, and seem to outline an obvious chord structure, showcasing his study of the more conventional saxophonists within the jazz idiom.  Halley is adept at controlling the more extended techniques of the saxophone used for free improvisation, such as over-blowing and firing off late Coltrane-esque flurries of notes.  Both the avant-garde and straight ahead jazz find their way into his lexicon.  Halley's tone is reminiscent of Joe Henderson, and possesses a natural growl which seems to cut through the whirlwind of sound being generated by the band.  Other moments during this tune feel completely removed from any sort of structure whatsoever, especially during bassist Clyde Reed's extended solo.  This type of musical freedom does not overextend itself into the realm of abrasive free jazz, but rather remains relevant without becoming redundant.  

The increasingly sympathetic style of the band, even during times of intense buildup, coupled with a more sensitive dynamic approach makes this record much stronger than Requiem For a Pit Viper.  This release lends itself more readily to repeat listens, especially amongst a jazz audience.  This is not to say that the musical quality has been decreased in favor of a more commercial aesthetic.  Rather, the Quartet has simply evolved and crafted their concept into a much stronger offering. 

Rich Halley - Back From Beyond (Pine Eagle Records 2012)

Rich Halley - tenor sax, wood flute, percussion, Michael Vlatkovich - trombone, percussion, squeak toys, Carson Halley - drums, percussion, Clyde Reed - bass

[rjjohnson-blog-blog]

Rich Halley Quartet - Requiem for a Pit Viper

Rich Halley's new album is an exploration of the free jazz genre.  Halley's compositions contain structures and melodies, but the loose rhythmic flow of the band, combined with the aggressive sonic style of Halley, make this album more easily comparable to the type of jazz Ornette Coleman pioneered in the 1960's.  There isn't a lot of straight ahead swinging on this record.  The rhythmic approach seems closer to something which listeners might expect from Paul Motian's bands.  The musicians move along at their own pace, and the music continues to have a natural ebb and flow.  As a saxophonist, Halley's strong points are his tone and the ability to use extended techniques on the saxophone in a precise manner.  His sound is rich and full, somewhat reminiscent of Joe Henderson.  However, Halley makes frequent use of overblowing and other typical free jazz techniques, which instantly distinguishes him from the usual bebop saxophonists.  Halley uses these sounds to his advantage, and never seems to go overboard in his improvisations.  Despite the fact that this is certainly a very avant-garde album, it is still accessible to jazz listeners overall. I would compare Halley's direction with that of Brooklyn based saxophonist Bill McHenry.  The music is free, but will never test the listener's patience.  You don't have to be a musician to enjoy this music.

Rich Halley Quartet - Requiem for a Pit Viper - Pine Eagle Records (2011)

Rich Halley (tenor sax), Michael Vlatkovich (trombone), Clyde Reed (bass), Carson Halley (drums)