Brent Cordero & Peter Kerlin — A Sublime Madness (Astral Spirits)
A Sublime Madness by Brent Cordero & Peter Kerlin
The partnership of Brent Cordero and Peter Kerlin precedes the pandemic, but the 2020 shutdown set the stage for them to make something lasting out of it. At any rate, it cleared their schedules. Furthermore, the tenor of the times created a milieu that the album acknowledges and responds to.
Cordero, who has played keyboards for Psychic Ills and Mike Wexler, provides organ, piano and synthesizer. Kerlin, of Sunwatchers and the Solar Motel Band, plays upright and electric basses. They first recorded as an improvising duo on Kerlin’s album Glaring Omission, which documents his efforts to come to terms with the eight-string bass. But, with time on their hands and the state of the nation on their minds, they set about organizing their music into a cohesive statement. While improvisation still figures in their methods and sonic orientation, the album was assembled in stages, with guest players adding drums, horns, viola and synthesizer to the duo’s original recordings. In essence, the solos function to provide focus and emotional impact to music that takes note of examples that are jazz-adjacent, but not jazz-confined.
“Movement To Protect The People” opens with a churchy organ melody. It sets the stage for an intricate countermelody articulated by an upright bass, which is then overtaken by spare piano notes, which drift in time with Ryan Sawyer’s stately, swinging backbeat. With each change, I found myself waiting for a voice that never arrives — Robert Wyatt’s. The tunes, textures and vibe all sound deeply inspired by his work, and the title suggests that their hearts beat in time with that of music’s most compassionate communist. However, the title of the propulsive waltz that follows, “Decolonize This Place,” articulates a consciousness that is very tuned into the trials of the present; Kerlin and Cordero aren’t just playing out their Soft Machine dreams. And the music is equally tuned into newer information. The effects on Cordero’s organ during the first solo show an engagement with malleable, distorted sound shaped more by pedal-hopping guitarists than post-bebop keyboardists. And a rippling performance by tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis adds to Kerlin and Cordero’s virtual community.
Over the next five tracks a steady stream of musicians, including Jessica Pavone, Ryan Jewell and Daniel Carter, add their distinguishing voices to music that sounds like it is trying to transcend the realities alluded to by titles such as “White Supremacy In Black Face” and “Affordable For Who?” You can’t change the facts on the ground by slapping stirring names on instrumental compositions. But in a time when the American political discourse has morphed into a naked donnybrook over the means by which dissenting voices will be told how to shut up, it feels as necessary to say where one stands as it does to give comfort to those who are standing up.
01.22.26 Improv Nights 2026: A Tribute to Derek Bailey, guest curated by Wendy Eisenberg at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn
with
Eliza Salem drums
Ryan Sawyer drums
Nate Wooley trumpet
Nora Stanley sax
Emmanuel Michael guitar
Charmaine Lee voice/electronics
Patrick Holmes clarinet
Anna Abondolo bass
Conner Simmons bass
Chuck Roth guitar
Mari Rubio violin and electronics
Wendy Eisenberg guitar
06.24.25 A performance of Terry Riley's minimalist classic "In C" at Roulette Intermedium, in honor of Riley's 90th birthday.
Ryan Sawyer drums
Nava Dunkelman percussion
Michael Harrison piano
Marina Rosenfeld piano
Luke Stewart bass
Zach Layton 17-String bass
Wendy Eisenberg guitar
Joel Harrison guitar
David Watson guitar
Kramer piccolo bass
Claire Chase flute
Laura Cocks flute
Patrick Holmes clarinet
Ned Rothenberg clarinet
Sara Schoenbeck bassoon
Ingrid Laubrock saxophone
Matana Roberts saxophone
Kevin Sun saxophone
Jeff Tobias saxophone
Amir ElSaffar trumpet
Kyra Sims French horn
Jay Rozen tuba
Sam Kulik trombone
Chris McIntyre trombone
Reut Regev trombone
Hahn Rowe violin
Erica Dicker violin
Jessica Pavone viola
Alex Waterman cello
Tomeka Reid cello
Luke Dubois electronics
Cenk Ergün electronics
Yuka Honda electronics
Paula Matthusen electronics
Matt Mehlan electronics
Phong Tran electronics
Catherine Brookman voice
Sophia Brous voice
Raquel Acevedo Klein voice
Nick Hallett voice
Du Yun voice
Zeena Parkins accordion
Shelley Burgon lap harp
07.15.25 Michael Foster, Webb Crawford, Steve Swell, Sean Ali and Ryan Sawyer at perform at the Striped Light series at Flux Factory in Long Island City, Queens.
