Jeff Arnal/Curt Cloninger

Lucas Niggli/Matthias Loibner
Still Storm
Intakt CD 386

Creating a proper balance between action and response in a duo is a challenge often met by these two accomplished percussionists. Grappling with strategies is further complicated on these sessions though, since each drummer is partnered by a player of one of the oldest and one of the most modern instruments. However the situation is resolved with musical strategies as unique as the instruments themselves.

American percussionist Jeff Arnal, who has played with sound experimenters like Gordon Beeferman, works out over three extended tracks with new media artist/part-time musician Curt Cloninger, who plays a modular synthesizer. Working back about 1,000 years from the invention of the synthesizer to that of the hurdy-gurdy, drummer Lucas Niggli, who has played with Barry Guy, seesaws textures over 16 brief tracks with fellow Swiss Matthias Loibner, a contemporary expert on the wheels-and-strings apparatus created and refined from the ninth to the 12^th centuries. In spite of their diverse history the modern and ancient instrument share comparable tonal characteristics: each has the capability to sound like other musical devices.

For Arnal, what that means is concentrating his drum patterns to changeable synthesizer incentives. Ruffs, paradiddles, crashes and other stimuli are brought into play as the plugged-in machine refracts dedicated electronic pulses, keyboard-like actions and occasionally reed-like whistle and peeps. For example, after dealing with aviary field recordings, file exchanges and Cloninger projecting textures that range from organ-like cascades to highly electrified Sci-Fi soundtrack wriggles on “Live At Citizen Vinyl”, Arnal’s and Cloninger’s modulations finally diverge. Synthesizer buzzing takes on careening snow-plow-like characteristics which the drummer counters with bouncy paradiddles and pumps and  continues his patterns after Cloninger switches to wriggling undulations. When at mid-point, electronic textures take on pipe-organ and hurdy-gurdy-like vibrations, it’s the drummer who concentrates his pops and ruffs to create a continuum. Finally the climax situates the narrative between drum clip-clops and undulating synth whooshes.

If synthesizer timbres on the other CD occasionally resemble those of a hurdy gurdy, then Matthias Loibner’s hurdy gurdy improvising is so capricious that it resembles a variety of other instruments. On “Auf Socken” for example, in response to Niggli’s slapping plops and pops the instrumental textures variously sound like those of an organ, a guitar and an arco violin. Then on “High Moon”, which suggests a contrafact of “How High is the Moon”, the near-Jazzy interface makes it appear that the wheels-and-strings apparatus is an electric piano or synthesizer playing alongside the drummer’s rumbling backbeat. Throughout the timbral cornucopia of sounds tweaked by Loibner, the hurdy gurdy attains other sonic guises and Niggli follows suit. The consecutive “Singing no Song” and “Saltwatermelons” for instance move past an initial impersonation of rustic guitar and bongos free associating in the wilds to a second improvisation that could result from a sitar and tabla mix. Thematic congruence that uses Niggli’s restrained tapping mixed with low-key sweeps from Loibner are also present when a romantic style theme is needed.

Still the duo’s true measure is both players’ ability to move past the norms. Niggli’s percussion set up can scratch out guiro-like ribbed rubs as counterweight to the hurdy gurdy’s string scratches as on “Dark Desire”. Or the misty buzz on a double bass-like thump on the concluding “Nebelblüten” is disrupted by cymbal clashes and echoing drum beats. The percussionist can even sound as if he’s clapping and clipping tuned bones instead of his sticks on “Bakossi Bird”. That’s in order to challenge what elsewhere could be strained violin string undulations. However it’s “Jungle Juggle” that best characterizes the duo’s unique interaction. Near vocalized ghostly cackles arising from the hurdy gurdy become a wheel-cranked concentrated drone, only to have it affiliated then shattered by resonating gong echoes, ratcheting pulls from Niggli. A final percussion interlude clips away the theme to its essence.

Over the centuries percussionists have been involved in musical cooperation with a whole collection of other instrumentalists. These idiosyncratic duets prove that distinctive improvisations still result when pairing drums with partners who create either primitive or modernistic sounds.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Instinct: 1. Walking In Rotterdam 2. Modulating Bodies (i-vii) 3. Live At Citizen Vinyl

Personnel: Instinct: Curt Cloninger (modular synthesizer) and Jeff Arnal (percussion)

Track Listing: Still: 1. Weinende Gletscher 2. Singing no Song 3. Saltwatermelons 4. Behind the Mist 5. The Valley Beyond 6. Dark Desire 7. Shal l We? 8. Jungle Juggle 9. Auf Socken 10. Critical Mass 11. Still Storm 12. High Moon 13. Il tempo sospeso 14. Bakossi Bird 15. Ozone Drone 16. Nebelblüten

Personnel: Still:  Matthias Loibner (hurdy-gurdy, electronics) and Lucas Niggli (drums and percussion)