Kaja Draksler / Terrie Ex

Agustí Fernández & Sarah Claman

Antipodal Suite

Sirulita Records SR 1803

String players who play in a duo with pianists are in a burdensome situation. Do they add the impulses emanating from their lesser number of strings to those created by the larger instrument’s strings and keyboard for adjunct accompaniment or alter timbres from those 88 keys with contrary techniques? With an emphasis on the later more than a former one guitarist and one violinist show how this is done. Happily each keyboard partner has a close affiliation with exploratory programs.

Illuminatingly as well, each string player has experience that is reflected in these instructive sessions. Staring as a punk-rocker Dutch guitarist Terrie Ex has moved closer to improvised music over the years with fruitful associations with the likes of Ken Vandermark. The player with whom he synchronizes The Swim is Slovenia pianist Kaja Draksler, who besides immersion in Jazz with players like Onno Govaert sometimes deals with pop currents in her own bands. New Zealand violinist Sarah Claman on the other hand has moved from the notated music tradition into New music and improvisation now that she’s based in Europe. Helping her to realize the multi-part Antipodal Suite is Catalan pianist Agustí Fernández, who has followed multiple musical currents over the years, playing with everyone from Evan Parker to William Parker.

Consisting of the over 35-minute “Strel” and “Butterfly”, a much briefer encore, the live Draksler/Ex concert is torqued from the beginning. The guitarist propels bottleneck-styled licks and stretched buzzes as the pianist jumps key patterns at the same time as she vibrates and stops her internal string set. Ex’s fills resemble tongue slaps as they ferociously yelp and bark, while the pianist’s harpsichord-like strums on the piano-harp expose the same sort of toughness. The narrative continues to vibrate past the mid-point, but while Ex’s excess extrapolations include detours into string hammering and distorted twangs, among her expressive patterning, Draksler preserves a continuum in a methodical and metronomical manner. Moving past angled echoes the theme is intensified in the final section as melodic intervals are introduced via resonating tiny bells on the piano strings and supplementary clangs and accents from the guitar. The brief “Butterfly” is a précis of the first track though it includes some music-box like gentling plinks from the pianist at a finale.

More formal, but not formalized the other CD consists of a four-part “Southern Suite” and a six-part “Northern Suite”. Perhaps it’s the slightly longer length, but the playing on “Northern Suite” appears more advanced and livelier than its more restrained meridional twin. The aggressive and kinetic “Northern Suite Part I” for instance balances dynamic pluses from the pianist that slide between references to Lennie Tristano’s and Cecil Taylor’s keyboard mediations to more kinetic keyboard jolts as the violinist aggressively plucks and sweeps her strings before the two head into a broken chord concordance, From that point on Claman’s sul tasto rubs and stops become more dissonant as Fernández’s keyboard wipes out a previous bouncy exposition and turns to faster and more menacing plucks. With dour tones radiating from the piano’s wood slaps and tightly wound string set vibration, to lighten the mood Claman’s triple stopping turns to purposeful tones harmonized with a mumbled vocalized melody, Working to resolve the textural contradictions from two musicians playing at top speeds, “Northern Suite Part VI” moves to a darker conclusion. With Fernández’s note patterns taking on many sound shades from pedal-pushed basso to high-pitched kinetic crashes, Claman’s skittering string stops finally parry with a narrative of scratches. Collectively these show off both players’ technical command as well as sonic affiliation.

Focused on gentler variations the four-part “Southern Suite” features more methodical playing with Fernández combing patterns from strokes of the piano’s inner strings and Claman propelling a higher-pitched melody. Although the last section eases into a string plucked finale with tones balanced as they would be a from a two-guitar folk duo, the duo reaches a crescendo of ferocious invention on “Southern Suite Part III”. With the fiddle strings seemingly smacked with a solid stick and equivalent strokes on the piano’s tightly wound internal strings the jagged scratches evolve in double counterpoint until reaching a crescendo of dual narrowed screeches. At that musical dead end, the only exit point is the methodical tone balance of the conclusion.

Piano-string duos may arrive from different conceptual beginning, yet both attain the goal of creating provocative sound pictures.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Swim: 1, Strel 2. Butterfly

Personnel: Swim: Kaja Draksler (piano and toys) and Terrie Ex (guitar and tools)

Track Listing: Suite: 1. Southern Suite Part I 2. Southern Suite Part II 3. Southern Suite Part III 4. Southern Suite Part IV 5. Northern Suite Part I 6. Northern Suite Part II 7. Northern Suite Part III 8. Northern Suite Part IV 9. Northern Suite Part V 10. Northern Suite Part VI

Personnel: Suite: Agustí Fernández (piano) and Sarah Claman (violin)