emergency string xtet

Outsound New Music Summit: Jill Burton Trio, Obstreperous Doves, Emergency String (X)tet

The 2014 Outsound New Music Summit concluded with a night of improvising ensembles, including a couple of very memorable performances.

The evening being with the Obstreperous Doves, a project by Bill Noertker that brought together Nava Dunkelman, Christina Stanley, Karl Evangelista, and Dave Mihaly in an exploration of assertive and complex improvisation.

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[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

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[Photos by Michael Zelner]

Besides giving us a chance to use the word “obstreperous” – and it is indeed a fine word – the ensemble allowed the talents of all five artists to blend while still letting them each have a voice. Christina Stanley provided noisy and harmonic violin sounds as well as her voice, including a strange but amusing story layered on top of pieces. Nava Dunkelman offered up a wealth of percussive sounds that also sang at times. Karl Evangelista was in usual form with his intense and intricate guitar playing. The group lived up to its name with lots of noisy percussive sections, but also moments of more harmonic jazz phrases, and quiet instances as well.

The Obstreperous Doves were followed by the Bob Marsh’s ensemble the Emergency String (X)tet. They premiered a Terrascore by Marsh composed for his 70th birthday.

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[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

A terrascore is “a musical geobiographic representation of an individual.” In this case it focused on locations significant to Marsh’s artistic life: his home town of Detroit, Chicago, Berkeley and San Francisco. The ensemble improvised with Marsh conducting from a score based on geographical information from these places, along with field recordings that he made. I’m pretty sure I recognized the one that represented the area around the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. The other members of the ensemble included Mia Bella D’Augelli, Jeff Hobbs,
Christina Stanley (pulling double-duty on this night), David Michalak, Doug Carroll, and Kanoko Nishi-Smith.

The final performance was a trio that brought together vocalist Jill Burton with Tim Perkis on electronics and Doug Carroll (also pulling double-duty) on cello. This was a first-time collaboration by the three of them. The result very captivating performance. It started with a very mysterious and haunting solo by Jill Burton, who then demonstrated the range of her extended vocal techniques blending with Perkis’ liquidy electronic sounds and Carroll’s scratchy percussive cello. It was also a theatrical performance, with expressive gestures and movement by Burton coupled with Carroll’s cello antics, sometimes turning the instrument backwards or upside down. But all along with a sonically beautiful and varied experience, that contained the right amount of silence amidst the energy of the sounds.

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[Photo by Michael Zelnzer]

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[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

It was a very strong finale to this year’s summit, and it was interesting to compare and contrast the book ends of the Jill Burton trio with Pitta of the Mind from the opening. It was probably among the best years overall since I started attending this event in 2008; and I look forward to what comes next year.

Rent Romus and Emergency String (X)tet, Meridian Gallery

Last month, I attended the CD release of Emergency Rental at the Meridian Gallery. Emergency Rental is a collaboration between the Emergency String (X)tet and Rent Romus “exploring sound in and outside the elements of free improvisation between saxophone and strings.”

The personnel for the Emergency String (X)tet changes (hence the “x”), but does have a stable core of regulars. Founder Bob Marsh was joined by Doug Carroll on cello, with Adria Otte, Angela Hsu and Jonathan Segel on violins, Kanoko Nishi on bass koto, and Tony Dryer on contrabass.

Overall, the music moved back and forth seamlessly between free improvisation with extended techniques and passages that borrowed from more idiomatic jazz ideas. Early on, there was a bit of a shuffle beat and jazz-like saxophone lines set against more anxious tones from the strings, a mixture of both long tones and pizzicato. There were times when the saxophone and strings seemed to match one another in both tone and musical structure, such as a section that featured glissandi and scraping tones. The next section featured long bass notes and more scratching melodies set against a very lyrical saxophone line. This gave way to loud growling saxophone against a rich pad of strings.

One piece focused on extended techniques, including prepared strings with chopsticks and other items placed between the strings and bodies of the instruments – something I have often seen the Emergency String (X)tet do. Doug Carroll also reoriented his cello upside-down and sideways at various times. Romus played his saxophone without a mouthpiece, blowing directly into the body the way one might on a brass instrument. He also used a sound that I dubbed the “angry breath noises.”

The second half started off very percussive, and even though the ensemble was entirely acoustic, this section reminded me of the analog electronics in early electronic music like Stockhausen’s Kontakte. This segued into a more idiomatic duo of saxophone and walking bass was set against atonal glissandi from the other strings. There were other interesting sections, such as a syncopated rhythm that came together and broke apart, and a section of pure percussion by all the instruments that reminded me of tapping and bouncing balls.
Emergency Rental, which marks Romus’ 25th album release, is available from Edgetone Records.