BLOOP - Proof
Lumo Records CD LM 2021-12
Lina Allemano: trumpet; Mike Smith: live-processing/effects
Recorded at All-Set Coin Recording, Toronto, Canada, July 1-3, 2020
BLOOP is the acoustic-electro duo formed by trumpeter Lina Allemano with processing and effects from Mike Smith. The duo’s specialism is that both players concentrate on free improvisation and the sonic processing is live. The source sounds are from the acoustic trumpet, any additional effects being achieved with specialist, self-made mutes and extended techniques. Some of these ‘special’, though exclusively acoustic sounds are sometimes interpreted as electronically produced. Percussive sounds are created by Allemano’s free hand. What you hear is precisely what was recorded with no ‘post-processing’, editing or overdubs. It should be clear that both players’ improvisations are the result of their interactions and synchronic responses. The overall result is that their configurations are unconstrained, natural and organic, sometimes chimera-like in substance, though not in the monstrous sense of Greek mythology.
Improvising acoustic trumpet, played live through a mesmerising and multifaceted real-time feedback loop, fashions a reverberation of an uncanny aether. There may be echoes, but never repeats, as though such a manoeuvre would desert exquisiteness for the mundane. This phantastic, aural world bounces, flinches, recoils and winces between the two improvisers. They produce contemplative airs imbued with a noiseless quietude, only to follow or punctuate these with confiscations of the melodic variations in favour of more explicitly flinty or metallic medleys.
Whichever way you lean, this music brings a benign and welcome impetus, with startling twists and spirals, driven from within its inherent flood of movement and growth and with an inherent, organic flow and cohesiveness. BLOOP and Proof are Avant-excellence.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Lumo Records CD LM 2021-12
Lina Allemano: trumpet; Mike Smith: live-processing/effects
Recorded at All-Set Coin Recording, Toronto, Canada, July 1-3, 2020
BLOOP is the acoustic-electro duo formed by trumpeter Lina Allemano with processing and effects from Mike Smith. The duo’s specialism is that both players concentrate on free improvisation and the sonic processing is live. The source sounds are from the acoustic trumpet, any additional effects being achieved with specialist, self-made mutes and extended techniques. Some of these ‘special’, though exclusively acoustic sounds are sometimes interpreted as electronically produced. Percussive sounds are created by Allemano’s free hand. What you hear is precisely what was recorded with no ‘post-processing’, editing or overdubs. It should be clear that both players’ improvisations are the result of their interactions and synchronic responses. The overall result is that their configurations are unconstrained, natural and organic, sometimes chimera-like in substance, though not in the monstrous sense of Greek mythology.
Improvising acoustic trumpet, played live through a mesmerising and multifaceted real-time feedback loop, fashions a reverberation of an uncanny aether. There may be echoes, but never repeats, as though such a manoeuvre would desert exquisiteness for the mundane. This phantastic, aural world bounces, flinches, recoils and winces between the two improvisers. They produce contemplative airs imbued with a noiseless quietude, only to follow or punctuate these with confiscations of the melodic variations in favour of more explicitly flinty or metallic medleys.
Whichever way you lean, this music brings a benign and welcome impetus, with startling twists and spirals, driven from within its inherent flood of movement and growth and with an inherent, organic flow and cohesiveness. BLOOP and Proof are Avant-excellence.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
