INGRID LAUBROCK - Serpentines
Intakt Records: Intakt CD272
Ingrid Laubrock: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, glockenspiel; Peter Evans: piccolo trumpet, trumpet; Miya Masaoka: koto; Craig Taborn: piano; Sam Pluta: electronics; Dan Pleck: tuba; Tyshawn Sorey: drums.
Recorded Systems Two, Brooklyn, May 24th 2016.
This is a CD from those borders between the composed and the improvised, between contemporary ‘classical’ (composed, concert music) and jazz, where Ingrid Laubrock has shown herself to be completely at home. For a cosmopolitan artist, now residing in New York, it makes sense for her music to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. On this recording, the international geography is further developed with the use of Masaoka’s koto. In the liner notes, Florian Keller says that Laubrock ‘extracted everything which could possibly be done with the koto within this project through a lively exchange with Miya.’ The same could be said of Pleck’s tuba, which rumbles along across the backdrop of each of these pieces, and indeed from the other instruments here.
On this set, Laubrock’s composition provides the scaffolding for the players to improvise their parts, and for Pluta’s subtle electronics modifications and manipulations to discover darkened corners as the pieces unfold. The group (without Evans) played at the 2015 Vision Festival and this set could be seen as Laubrock writing from this to explore their potential interactions. Some of the set drifts languidly, while other parts (especially track 4 ‘Squirrels’) pick up the pace and gallop along spurred on the Sorey. Beneath the instruments, a rhythmic pulsing from Pluta’s electronics becomes indistinguishable from sounds blown across instruments or from strings gently tousled rather than plucked. While there are five discrete pieces, it is not always easy to find the joins between them: the silence as one track ends and another begins feels as much part of the music as the shifting sounds within each piece. This is set works well as suite of undulating patterns that switch tempo and mood restlessly. I can see why ‘Serpentines’ is such an apt name for the set.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Intakt Records: Intakt CD272
Ingrid Laubrock: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, glockenspiel; Peter Evans: piccolo trumpet, trumpet; Miya Masaoka: koto; Craig Taborn: piano; Sam Pluta: electronics; Dan Pleck: tuba; Tyshawn Sorey: drums.
Recorded Systems Two, Brooklyn, May 24th 2016.
This is a CD from those borders between the composed and the improvised, between contemporary ‘classical’ (composed, concert music) and jazz, where Ingrid Laubrock has shown herself to be completely at home. For a cosmopolitan artist, now residing in New York, it makes sense for her music to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. On this recording, the international geography is further developed with the use of Masaoka’s koto. In the liner notes, Florian Keller says that Laubrock ‘extracted everything which could possibly be done with the koto within this project through a lively exchange with Miya.’ The same could be said of Pleck’s tuba, which rumbles along across the backdrop of each of these pieces, and indeed from the other instruments here.
On this set, Laubrock’s composition provides the scaffolding for the players to improvise their parts, and for Pluta’s subtle electronics modifications and manipulations to discover darkened corners as the pieces unfold. The group (without Evans) played at the 2015 Vision Festival and this set could be seen as Laubrock writing from this to explore their potential interactions. Some of the set drifts languidly, while other parts (especially track 4 ‘Squirrels’) pick up the pace and gallop along spurred on the Sorey. Beneath the instruments, a rhythmic pulsing from Pluta’s electronics becomes indistinguishable from sounds blown across instruments or from strings gently tousled rather than plucked. While there are five discrete pieces, it is not always easy to find the joins between them: the silence as one track ends and another begins feels as much part of the music as the shifting sounds within each piece. This is set works well as suite of undulating patterns that switch tempo and mood restlessly. I can see why ‘Serpentines’ is such an apt name for the set.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
