Rivière Composers’ Pool

Summer Works 2009
Emanem 5301

Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet +1

3 Nights in Oslo

Smalltown Superjazz STSJ197CD

Anthony Braxton/Gerry Hemingway

Old Dogs (2007)

Mode Avant 9/12

Sun Ra

The Heliocentric Worlds

ESP-Disk 4062

Something in the Air

By Ken Waxman

Boxed sets of recorded music have long been a holiday gift. But sophisticated music fans won’t settle for slapped together “best of” collections. Boxes such as these, collecting multiple CDs for specific reasons, should impress any aware listener.

Anthony Braxton/Gerry Hemingway’s Old Dogs (2007) Mode Avant 9/12 for instance, is another installment in the ongoing recorded history of multi-reedman Braxton. The four CDs feature him and percussionist Hemingway, an integral part of the reedist’s bands from 1983 to 1994, but who has rarely played with him since that time. Each 60-minute inventive Invention was recorded in real time without edits or alternate takes. Extrasensory cooperation is demonstrated as Braxton moves among seven saxophones and Hemingway a percussion collection. Should Braxton’s soprano saxophone obbligato turn staccato and superfast, Hemingway responds with centred vibraphone pings plus affiliated marimba pops. If subterranean contrabass saxophone tongue stops and watery glottal punctuation raucously sound, then abrasive ruffs on ride cymbals and drum rims produce nearly identical timbres. Hemingway’s percussion command is such that in a heartbeat he can produced a tone midway between that of a dumbeck and a set of tin cans to contrast with the reedist’s irregular tonguing; then as swiftly bring his entire kit into play using press rolls and ruffs to replicate foot-tapping swing that complements Braxton’s rare forays into masterful, story-telling runs on tenor saxophone.

Another masterful saxophonist is German tenorist Peter Brötzmann. He never does anything by halves and Chicago Tentet +1’s 3 Nights in Oslo Smalltown Superjazz STSJ197CD consists of five CDs. No essay in self-aggrandizement, three of the discs feature band subsets. The two CDs featuring the ensemble are filled with the palpable excitement from 11 players collectively honking, fluttering and snorting. There’s space for all, with saxophonists Brötzmann and Mats Gustafsson creating reed gymnastics that encompass fortissimo runs, nephritic split tones and glottal punctuation. Contrapuntal brass layering melds Per Åke Holmlander’s elephantine tuba snorts, gut-bucket slurs from trombonists Jeb Bishop and Johannes Bauer, as drummers Paal Nilssen-Love’s and Michael Zerang’s flams and cymbal pressure chug underneath. Although it may seem that harmonies created by yapping horn blasts and polyrhythmic string friction from bassist Kent Kessler and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm are opaque, the band has such control that the climax isn’t blood vessel bursting flashiness, but contrapuntal divisions exposing every texture. Two smaller groupings stand out. The tenor saxophone battle between Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee allows undulating trills to bring needed balance to the duo’s initial ghostly shrieks and altissimo split tones. Elsewhere, Bishop, Bauer, Holmlander and McPhee on pocket trumpet, meld such extended techniques as metal buzzes, pedal-point burbles and peeping lip trills without losing chromatic mooring.

Similarly the three CDs which make up Rivière Composers’ Pool Summer Works 2009 Emanem 5301 are divided among sessions by a quartet of Americans, bassist Kent Carter and woodwind player Etienne Rolin, plus Germans, violist Albercht Maurer and clarinetist Theo Jörgensmann, plus trio and duo interaction. What’s instructive is how the musicians’ smaller meetings suggest ideas that eventually coalesce into the title suite. On the successive Music for a Ghost Story and Dance to This, Jörgensmann/Carter/Maurer build up wide-ranging modulations into a capriccio-like showcase including Jörgensmann’s flying glissandi, Carter’s string slaps and Maurer’s portamento runs. These movements are put to good use during the CD-length suite. From the exposition, where Rolin’s broken-octave basset horn extensions, chanter-like respiration from Jörgensmann’s clarinet, high-energy viola lines and sul tasto bass runs expand the theme, the variations cycle through quartet, trio, duo and solo episodes. If the clarinet outputs altissimo screeches, it’s calmed by Carter’s sul tasto stops; while speedy violin glissandi set the stage for mid-range reed licks. Putting aside bel canto or dissonant timbres, the climax downshifts to clarinet glissandi which push all into a gentling, diminuendo finale.

The wild card in this group is Sun Ra’s three-CD set of The Heliocentric Worlds ESP-Disk 4062. It confirms the composer/pianist’s legacy as an avant-garde Duke Ellington. Key players, such as saxophonists Marshall Allen and John Gilmore, plus Ra himself on pioneering electronic keyboards, solo impressively. Not only does the re-mastered 1965 set contain a recently discovered third disc, but each CD includes bonus material: a documentary film, a photo archive and contemporary writing. Like Ellington, Ra’s intricately shaded and organized arrangements create symphonic timbres with only 13 musicians. Phantasmagoric and polyphonic, extended tone poems like The Sun Myth are shaped by full-band expressions plus harmonies which contrast tuned bongos and sul ponticello bass thumps, or elsewhere contrapuntal saxophone vibrations and boogie-woogie piano runs. While The Cosmos takes its shape from call-and-response horn work, on other tunes Ra’s musical alchemy encompasses formalist piano tones, chalumeau bass clarinet smears and frenetic trumpet triplets.

Each of these attractively packaged boxed sets demonstrates how expansive musical quality can be presented in an intelligent fashion. And each – or all – would make a fine addition to your CD collection.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #4

December 9, 2010

Trio Hot

Jink
Nemu Records 008

Schinder/Holzbauer/Lillmeyer

Rot

Creative Sources CS 151 CD

Utilizing two strings and one woodwind, a recital formation favored by Schubert and Debussy – and in jazz by Jimmy Giuffre – each of these ensembles brings unique, ambitious strategies to the resulting blend. Both paths are valid, with the divergence mostly related to preferences for acoustic over electronic interface or vice versa, and of the improvisations clinging to remnants of the song form verses a commitment to absolute abstraction.

Both CDs were recorded at approximately the same time and both trios are made up of musicians of approximately the same age and German background – except for Trio Hot’s Belgian bassist Peter Jacquemyn. Senior improviser of the bands is Theo Jörgensmann, who plays G-Low or basset clarinet. He has recently been involved with bands filled out by the Polish bass-and-drum playing Oleś brothers. Member at various times of drummer Andrea Centazzo’s Mitteleuropa Orchestra and flugelhornist Franz Koglmann’s Pipetet, as long as 30 years ago he organized an all-clarinet ensemble. Trio Hot is filled out by Jacquemyn, who creates dance projects and improvises with the likes of violinist Gunda Gottschalk and saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan when not working as a sculptor; and Köln-based violinist/violist/vocalist Albrecht Maurer. Adapting modern techniques to period instruments in other contexts, Maurer’s improvisational work includes membership in bassist Kent Carter’s trio.

Rot’s participants are all Munich-based. Lecturer in guitar and New music at the Richard Strauss Conservatory and at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Harald Lillmeyer is also a member of the Go Guitars ensemble and has played so-called classical music. So has cellist Margarita Holzbauer, as well as having an involvement in sound installations, film and theatre music and improvisation. Like Trio Hot, this formation’s senior member is also a reedist: soprano saxophonist and bass clarinetist Udo Schindler. Involved with self-invented techniques to enlarge the limits of reed sounds, he has worked with Go Guitars plus improvisers such as trombonist Sebi Tramontana.

Schindler’s research extends to the integration of electronic media in performance, and on the 14 untitled pieces here, the contrapuntal mating of his reed plus Holzbauer’s squeaks or plucks – sometimes lyrical, but more frequently powerful and abrasive – add the requisite shading when the others’ unconnected timbres approach chiaroscuro and threaten to remain understated to the point of inaudibility.

More notable are when sul tasto patterning as well as below-the-bridge spiccato from the cellist bring out connective responses from the guitarist and reedist. At one point, for example, that strategy causes Lillmeyer to put aside folksy strumming for sudden bursts of feedback and Schindler to mutate his blowing into a cyclone of intermittent peeps and continuously breathed trills.

Elsewhere, Lillmeyer’s outer-space-like oscillations meet up with quivering bass clarinet split tones forced from the bell with intense overblowing, as the cellist accompanies the others with harmonics. Honking reed altissimo trills and basso sul tasto cello actions entwine contrapuntally until the crackling pulses push the program into silence. Klangfarbenmelodie is often apparent along with the polyphonic tone variants that encompass wobbly, staccato or fortissimo tones. Juicy reverb and echoing whistles from the reedist; shuffle-bowed ricocheting lines and hammering against wood and strings from the cellist, and blustery drones and processed electronics pulses show up singly or in triple counterpoint as well.

Similar multi-directional textures appear on Jinx, with Jörgensmann’s unusually low-pitched straight clarinet trills, Jacquemyn’s string-bass methodology plus Maurer’s versatility when he appends wordless countertenor cries to his violin work on show.

That tandem correlation is used to good effect on “Angelity”, when lyricism results due to string multiphonics and Maurer’s semi-scatting. Coloratura clarinet tones and scrubbed bass stopping then mate the dissonant to the dreamy. This cohesion contrasts with “Setting Up The Market” with both string-players snapping and popping their catgut as Jörgensmann’s top-of-range coloring somewhat resembles shrill nose-blowing. With timbres splaying every which way, including extended fiddle staccato and reed-biting trills, the title tune seems to include some of the pitch-sliding layering of “Parisian Thoroughfare”, including call-and-response vamps from the clarinetist and Maurer.

That Bud Powell-penned jazz classic isn’t formally acknowledged here, however the deconstruction of another famous composition by a bop pianist – Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight” – is. Beginning with legato string sweeps from Maurer, double bass smacks and single-line clarinet trills and peeps, it’s apparent that these high-pitched counter measures are variation on the as-yet unstated theme. Cutting through the inchoate interludes, Jörgensmann blows a neo-romantic variant joined by chromatic sweeps from Maurer. When the andante walking bass lines appears so does the melody. Still the familiar theme is exposed in a less-than-straightforward manner with Jacquemyn slapping bongo-like on the bull fiddle’s wood, Maurer strumming and picking and Jörgensmann spluttering mercurially.

Fine examples of mature Euro-Improv trio sessions, the usual evasive and derogative meanings of Jink and Rot are not proper descriptions for these sessions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Jink: 1. Straight Into 2. You Zuo 3. Zoo on the Road 4. Round Midnight 5. Jink 6. Angelity 7. Setting Up The Market 8. Dax Dance 9. Gesture Talk 10. Stop And Go And Run 11. Zbiggery 11. After All

Personnel: Jink: Theo Jörgensmann (G-Low clarinet); Albrecht Maurer (violin and voice) and Peter Jacquemyn (bass and voice)

Track Listing: Rot: 1. 4:56 2. 4:33 3. 4:06 4. 2:13 5. 3:43 6. 4:26 7. 1:49 8. 5:50 9. 2:18 10. 4:22 11. 4:42 10. 1:17 13. 4:06 14. 7:45 15. 4:14

Personnel: Rot: Udo Schindler (soprano saxophone and bass clarinet); Harald Lillmeyer (guitar and electronics) and Margarita Holzbauer (cello)

August 13, 2009

Schinder/Holzbauer/Lillmeyer

Rot
Creative Sources CS 151 CD

Trio Hot

Jink

Nemu Records 008

Utilizing two strings and one woodwind, a recital formation favored by Schubert and Debussy – and in jazz by Jimmy Giuffre – each of these ensembles brings unique, ambitious strategies to the resulting blend. Both paths are valid, with the divergence mostly related to preferences for acoustic over electronic interface or vice versa, and of the improvisations clinging to remnants of the song form verses a commitment to absolute abstraction.

Both CDs were recorded at approximately the same time and both trios are made up of musicians of approximately the same age and German background – except for Trio Hot’s Belgian bassist Peter Jacquemyn. Senior improviser of the bands is Theo Jörgensmann, who plays G-Low or basset clarinet. He has recently been involved with bands filled out by the Polish bass-and-drum playing Oleś brothers. Member at various times of drummer Andrea Centazzo’s Mitteleuropa Orchestra and flugelhornist Franz Koglmann’s Pipetet, as long as 30 years ago he organized an all-clarinet ensemble. Trio Hot is filled out by Jacquemyn, who creates dance projects and improvises with the likes of violinist Gunda Gottschalk and saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan when not working as a sculptor; and Köln-based violinist/violist/vocalist Albrecht Maurer. Adapting modern techniques to period instruments in other contexts, Maurer’s improvisational work includes membership in bassist Kent Carter’s trio.

Rot’s participants are all Munich-based. Lecturer in guitar and New music at the Richard Strauss Conservatory and at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Harald Lillmeyer is also a member of the Go Guitars ensemble and has played so-called classical music. So has cellist Margarita Holzbauer, as well as having an involvement in sound installations, film and theatre music and improvisation. Like Trio Hot, this formation’s senior member is also a reedist: soprano saxophonist and bass clarinetist Udo Schindler. Involved with self-invented techniques to enlarge the limits of reed sounds, he has worked with Go Guitars plus improvisers such as trombonist Sebi Tramontana.

Schindler’s research extends to the integration of electronic media in performance, and on the 14 untitled pieces here, the contrapuntal mating of his reed plus Holzbauer’s squeaks or plucks – sometimes lyrical, but more frequently powerful and abrasive – add the requisite shading when the others’ unconnected timbres approach chiaroscuro and threaten to remain understated to the point of inaudibility.

More notable are when sul tasto patterning as well as below-the-bridge spiccato from the cellist bring out connective responses from the guitarist and reedist. At one point, for example, that strategy causes Lillmeyer to put aside folksy strumming for sudden bursts of feedback and Schindler to mutate his blowing into a cyclone of intermittent peeps and continuously breathed trills.

Elsewhere, Lillmeyer’s outer-space-like oscillations meet up with quivering bass clarinet split tones forced from the bell with intense overblowing, as the cellist accompanies the others with harmonics. Honking reed altissimo trills and basso sul tasto cello actions entwine contrapuntally until the crackling pulses push the program into silence. Klangfarbenmelodie is often apparent along with the polyphonic tone variants that encompass wobbly, staccato or fortissimo tones. Juicy reverb and echoing whistles from the reedist; shuffle-bowed ricocheting lines and hammering against wood and strings from the cellist, and blustery drones and processed electronics pulses show up singly or in triple counterpoint as well.

Similar multi-directional textures appear on Jinx, with Jörgensmann’s unusually low-pitched straight clarinet trills, Jacquemyn’s string-bass methodology plus Maurer’s versatility when he appends wordless countertenor cries to his violin work on show.

That tandem correlation is used to good effect on “Angelity”, when lyricism results due to string multiphonics and Maurer’s semi-scatting. Coloratura clarinet tones and scrubbed bass stopping then mate the dissonant to the dreamy. This cohesion contrasts with “Setting Up The Market” with both string-players snapping and popping their catgut as Jörgensmann’s top-of-range coloring somewhat resembles shrill nose-blowing. With timbres splaying every which way, including extended fiddle staccato and reed-biting trills, the title tune seems to include some of the pitch-sliding layering of “Parisian Thoroughfare”, including call-and-response vamps from the clarinetist and Maurer.

That Bud Powell-penned jazz classic isn’t formally acknowledged here, however the deconstruction of another famous composition by a bop pianist – Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight” – is. Beginning with legato string sweeps from Maurer, double bass smacks and single-line clarinet trills and peeps, it’s apparent that these high-pitched counter measures are variation on the as-yet unstated theme. Cutting through the inchoate interludes, Jörgensmann blows a neo-romantic variant joined by chromatic sweeps from Maurer. When the andante walking bass lines appears so does the melody. Still the familiar theme is exposed in a less-than-straightforward manner with Jacquemyn slapping bongo-like on the bull fiddle’s wood, Maurer strumming and picking and Jörgensmann spluttering mercurially.

Fine examples of mature Euro-Improv trio sessions, the usual evasive and derogative meanings of Jink and Rot are not proper descriptions for these sessions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Jink: 1. Straight Into 2. You Zuo 3. Zoo on the Road 4. Round Midnight 5. Jink 6. Angelity 7. Setting Up The Market 8. Dax Dance 9. Gesture Talk 10. Stop And Go And Run 11. Zbiggery 11. After All

Personnel: Jink: Theo Jörgensmann (G-Low clarinet); Albrecht Maurer (violin and voice) and Peter Jacquemyn (bass and voice)

Track Listing: Rot: 1. 4:56 2. 4:33 3. 4:06 4. 2:13 5. 3:43 6. 4:26 7. 1:49 8. 5:50 9. 2:18 10. 4:22 11. 4:42 10. 1:17 13. 4:06 14. 7:45 15. 4:14

Personnel: Rot: Udo Schindler (soprano saxophone and bass clarinet); Harald Lillmeyer (guitar and electronics) and Margarita Holzbauer (cello)

August 13, 2009

Theo Jörgensmann & Oleś Bothers

Alchemia
hatOLOGY 646

Proof once again that age differences are nearly meaningless when cohesive music-making is involved, this live concert demonstrates the sonic unity between German basset clarinetist Theo Jörgensmann (b.1948), Polish bassist Marcin Oleś (b. 1973) and drummer Bartomiej Brat Oleś (b. 1973).

One of the most cohesive improvising rhythm sections since the team of bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb, the Oleś brothers may have even more ESP: they’re twins. As importantly, this Cracow date demonstrates how comfortable and inspired both they and the veteran reed man have become with one another following three previous CDs.

Alternately sonorous and staccato, Jörgensmann makes full use of his instrument’s pitch – one third lower than the regular clarinet – but is still capable of coloratura sallies. With his tone lyrical and malleable on a piece like Brat’s “4 x 4” he suggests a Swing Era orientation, then turns it around with screeching glottal punctuation to confirm his modernity. Meantime Marcin strengthens the slinky tempo with soundboard reverb while Brat bounces, drags and ratchets textures from his kit.

Both brothers composed “Menace” the CD’s showpiece, which, without missing a beat, eventually fades into Jörgensmann’s “Giuffree”. His sing-song keening on the later confirms his admiration for chamber-jazz pioneer Jimmy Giuffre, yet pinpoints his “free” distance from the honoree.

“Menace” isn’t really menacing, but an andante line which allows each man full expression. Encompassing wind-tunnel-like squeals, disjointed glissandi plus tongue slips and flutters, the clarinetist negotiates triple counterpoint with one brother who contributes cymbal slaps, timed ratamacues and speedy rim shots and the other whose plans incorporate airy plucks, thumping reverb and woody slaps with perfectly balanced round notes. Eventually the three achieve such harmonic intertwining that it suggests that Jörgensmann’s ancestry may have Polish musical roots and vice versa.

-- Ken Waxman

-- In MusicWorks Issue #102

November 20, 2008

Oles/Jörgensmann/Oles

Miniatures
(Not Two)

Oles/Trzaska/Oles
La Sketch Up
(Kilogram Records)

by Ken Waxman April 26, 2004

Musical siblings have been a familiar sight in jazz going back to the 1920s, when clarinetist Johnny Dodds and drummer Warren “Baby” Dodds played with Louis Armstrong. Just think of the contributions of brothers Lester and Lee Young, Nat and Cannonball Adderley and Butch and Wilber Morris for other examples.

Yet, except for bassist Addison and flugelhornist Art Farmer, the number of twins who function at the same high level of musical talent has been limited. At least, that is, until the Polish Oles brothers came along.

Krakow-based bassist Marcin Oles and drummer Bartlomiej Brat Oles, born January 4, 1973 in Sosnowiec, have become two of that country’s most in-demand players. It’s not just that they’re a first-class rhythm section, as they’ve proved in recordings with American saxophonist David Murray among others, but that they’re fine instant and singular composers as well -- as they show on these trio sessions. “Brat”, by the way doesn’t mean what it seems for English speakers; it means “brother” in Polish.

A co-op effort, La Sketch Up matches the twins with a local reedist of a slightly older generation. Mikolaj Trzaska, who plays alto and baritone saxophones and bass clarinet here, leads his own bands and has worked with American brassman Lester Bowie and fellow Pole, trumpeter Tomasz Stanko.

Even more impressive is Miniatures, which is anything but reductive. Recorded less than five months after the first disc, it finds the two Oles working out on a program of mostly their own tunes helped immeasurably by Theo Jörgensmann playing a basset clarinet, which is pitched one third lower than the usual clarinet. Jörgensmann, who is old enough to be the twins’ father, is a German jazz and New music explorer who has been refining his sound since the 1960s. Along the way he co-authored the book “Ethics of Improvisation” and has played with, among others, Canadian trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, as part of Clarinet Contrast with Michel Pilz and American Perry Robinson, and recently recorded a salute to Ornette Coleman -- an Oles favorite as well.

Besides their theatre music and other gigs, the brothers have played in similar single-reed-and-rhythm trio combinations since 1998, which may explain the excellence of the second date. But, of course, the creative inspiration provided by the German visitor helps as well. Listen to his a cappella showcase on “Theo I”, for example. Using a combination of light-toned cadenzas, quick false fingerings and doits, he manages to play the sort of overtones and multiphonics that has him stand out in both avant-jazz and contemporary classical circles. Plus he does this while maintaining a pleasant tone.

Jörgensmann can also make it appear as if he’s blowing two reeds at once, as he does on “Budda”, where dark, legato timbres gradually transform themselves into vibrated split tones. Before the theme morphs into an offbeat tango -- or is it a polka? -- his horn produces a wide-ranging glissando that’s backed by circular flams and gyrating bell tree sounds from the drummer, while the bassist picks out a bottom heavy continuum.

Unsurprisingly, Jörgensmann knows his jazz history as well. At one point he creates some mid-range Jimmy Giuffre-like lines that meet up with Brat’s shimmering ride cymbal and Marcin’s percussive pizzicato work; at another juncture he matches what appear to be strummed [!] drum heads and a walking bass line with a bouncy, double tongued Benny Goodman-style trill. Then there are the intense, vibrato-laden split tones he shows off elsewhere.

“Cocolique”, which seems to be a restrained version of “4-4” that proceeds it, finds the reedman introducing some Klezmer-style inflections on top of Bartlomiej’s bounces. And the piece ends with a quick slide down the scale. On “4-4” itself, Jörgensmann maintains a clear, clean tone even when his reed cries and smears. Triple tongued skimming from a high, shrill pitch down to chalumeau level doesn’t seem to affect the deft timbre either. Meantime Brat is shimmering his cymbals and Marcin shuffle bowing -- that is when he’s not interrupting the bow work for the odd hearty pluck.

In his solos, the bassist is most impressive on the title track, with an a cappella introduction that is mostly abrasive ponticello. Once the clip-clops of the drums and resonating cymbals are evident, however, he double stops subtle inflections over the rhythm.

Compared to the concordance evident with Oles/Jörgensmann/Oles, Trzaska’s contribution seems definitely low energy on the other disc, even with his use of three horns. His preference for balladic tempos and breathy, mellow output limits the Oles brothers’ contributions, no matter how many atonal-style paradiddles or guitar-like flatpicks they individually contribute.

Because of this weakness, the stand out track on the suite that makes up La Sketch Up is “VI”, which at almost nine minutes is coincidentally the longest track as well. Starting slowly, with grating, repetitious thumps from Marcin, and Trzaska investigating the bottom notes of the bass clarinet, cowbell and rim shots from Bartlomiej help propel the piece into a John Coltrane-like single chord vamp. With the bassist providing the ostinato and the reedist playing the same three-note pattern over and over, the theme slowly moves from monotony to repetition to ecstasy. Marcin’s steel-fingered plucks soon spur Trzaska to pull out his baritone sax, and with it the older man smears basement-low timbres or leavens the theme with reed splitting falsetto shrills.

“VIII” and “IX” have something going for them as well. Although short in time, the former finds the saxist again slithering his way into Trane territory. Here he manhandles nearly every note to its upper partials … and then some. Quickly enough his squeals and slinks outmatch the regular tones. On the later, astute stickwork from the drummer and fingerpicking licks from the bassist bolster Trzaska’s hesitant, higher-pitched reed timbres. As Marcin hold the beat and Bartlomiej colors it -- and at times threatens to turn it around -- Trzaska forces out a pre-modern type of fluttering alto line with a wide vibrato -- concluding with bubbling, perfectly round tones.

As for the rest of the disc, despite some focused shuffle bowing and rumbling pizzicato from the bassist, and nerve beats and rim shots from the drummer, Trzaska’s matter-of-fact output lacks vim. Judging from his reputation, though, it’s likely he does better elsewhere on other discs featuring the Oles twins.

Miniatures is definitely a CD to seek out. And even La Sketch Up will expose you to a memorable bass and drums duo that should be as well known in Western Europe and beyond as in the Eastern bloc. Maybe that will happen soon.

April 26, 2004