#tom rainey

[garadinervi]

Nels Cline, Consentrik Quartet, (2xVinyl/LP, CD, Digital album, Poster), feat. Ingrid Laubrock, Chris Lightcap, and Tom Rainey, Blue Note Records, 2025

Nels Cline: electric guitars, acoustic guitars, effects, production, additional mixing Chris Lightcap: acoustic bass, effects Ingrid Laubrock: tenor saxophones, soprano saxophones Tom Rainey: drums

Cover Painting: © Hiroki Katayama ('Magata Jinja') Package Design: Todd Gallopo Photography: Nathan West

[dustedmagazine]

Brandon Lopez — Nada Sagrada (Relative Pitch)

Nothing sacred. That’s what the title of this fiery feat of improvisation means in English. It’s a fitting moniker, one that reflects the current state of the world and the incredible uncertainty brewing within the global military and economic powerhouse. As free speech, due process and the rule of law disappear, it’s clear that there isn’t much that is sacred anymore. This situation is centuries in the making, however. The eye of Christopher Columbus peering from the CD sleeve is a stark reminder that violence, oppression, and the lust for power are timeless “features” of human society. Before a note of music sounds, Brandon Lopez is making a political statement with Nada Sagrada; it is both loud and clear.

As a bassist, Lopez defies the sacred conventions of his instrument, inventing his own language with it. He plays every inch of the bass, slapping, scraping, hitting and wiping it as if it’s a large drum. He plucks, strums, bows and attacks the massive instrument with flurries of gesticulation. When choosing sparring partners, he looks for likeminded innovators, those who march through unique sonic territory without regard to what’s considered conventional. His septet combines many of these sound warriors into a single molten mind, the epitome of sonic groupthink.

Nada Sagrada began as “the gospel of sans,” a multimedia commission he performed with his septet at the 2023 Vision Festival, accompanied by Gill Arno’s live visual manipulations. Mixed down for pressing onto CD, the 40-minute-long composition takes up space without inducing claustrophobia. There are moments of dense thorniness where the full ensemble unleashes fiery energy, but these are balanced by quieter periods marked by a subset of the players probing each other with a refreshing subtlety.

This is a unique marriage of strings (Lopez’s bass, Mat Maneri’s viola and DoYeon Kim’s gayageum), electronics (Cecilia Lopez providing synthesis and Zeena Parkins playing electric harp), and drums (courtesy of Gerald Cleaver and Tom Rainey). Parkins and Cecilia Lopez conjure otherworldly textures that dance around and weave through deep arco drones and the sprightly plucks of the gayageum. Cleaver and Rainey lock onto each other, bringing about periods of intense polyrhythmic clatter. When the tide turns toward the introspective, the drummers fall back to a low energy orbit, adding spare frictional interjections and supportive patter when appropriate. Collectively, the players invoke their subconscious sensory network to realize this passionate and thought-provoking piece. It’s a call to arms, harkening back to the radical roots of fire music itself.

Bryon Hayes

[evilhorse]

I have a proposition for you gentlemen…

[pat1dee]

Thanos and Vanth Dreadstar by Tom Rainey

[evilhorse]

Idiots! Stubborn idiots!

[dustedmagazine]

Nels Cline 4 — Currents, Constellations (Blue Note)

When they teamed up for 2014's Room, avant-garde guitarist Nels Cline and traditionalist (of sorts) Julian Lage explored how their varied approaches could merge. That record played with harmonics, tones and styles, fitting attitudes together and seeing what would happen as two artists trod into each other's territories. Although a complete statement, Room could also be seen as an initial foray, and now the two guitarists have expanded into the Nels Cline 4 quartet, adding bassist Scott Colley (who also played on Lage's recent Modern Lore) and drummer Tom Rainey. With the expansion, the artists take on more varied experiments, playing with some jazz tropes along the way.

 The album opens with a chord almost straight from Cream's “I Feel Free” (but too dissonant for that), then surprisingly moves into a Rainey solo. While the album contains plenty of guitar heroics, those first moments of “Furtive” state that Currents, Constellations means to be a group study. As the piece gets underway, Cline provides the theme, but Colley's bass drives the performance. He plays linear lines, but they don't pause, and its his furtiveness more than anything that creates the mood.  

“Swing Ghost '59” takes a playful look back at jazz. The band swings — really — before completely undercutting that sound. You hear something like Glenn Miller for a second, but not for long. The trick lies in the piece's title: naming a swing track for the year where jazz took major strides into more experimental approaches and demanding compositions doesn't bode well for those dotted eighth notes. The group follows this track with “Imperfect 10,” the sort of piece that sounds more at home in Cline's oeuvre, mixing its jazz with rock influences. 

With “Amenette,” Cline and Lage revisit their own history, reworking a track from Room. Given an extra two minutes and strong drumming from Rainey, the previously bright track takes on an underground feel. “River Mouth (Parts 1 and 2),” rather than smoking in the basement, moves to an expansive outside. Cline handles the lead guitar over Lage's patterns, though sometimes joining their lines. The piece moves loopingly forward, occasionally winding back on itself, but always growing and expanding, broadening like its titular geographic feature until its quiet closing.  

The disc ends in memoriam with “For Each a Flower,” which feels more like a Cline solo piece than anything else here. He reflects in sorrow while his three bandmates support him. It's a bit of an odd closing for an album so full of ideas and energy, but it works as a lovely piece of exit music. With such a harmonious finish, it's easy to imagine that this quartet will drift back together before too long.

Justin Cober-Lake

[soundgrammar]

Listen/purchase: Implicatures by Sam Weinberg Trio w/ Chris Lightcap & Tom Rainey

[thoregil]

2022-09-30 Brandon Lopez / Ingrid Laubrock / Tom Rainey - Fri resonans, Dokkhuset

2022-09-30 Brandon Lopez / Ingrid Laubrock / Tom Rainey – Fri resonans, Dokkhuset

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