Martin Küchen & Sophie Agnel

Soloists and collaborators in ensembles ranging from duos to big bands, Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen and French pianist Sophie Agnel have finally recorded an improvised duet. Yet while the two sometimes work with musicians who play the other’s instrument – such as Daunik Lazro in the pianist’s case and Agustí Fernández in the saxophonist’s for instance – they add textures here with Küchen adding percussions and electronics and Agnel, objects.

Besides that Detour Tunnels of Light would never be confused for a disc by Dave Brubeck-Paul Desmond or any other conventional players. When not roughly pounding the instrument’s wood or jiggling metallic or other objects on the strings, as often as she clips, clinks and provokes keyboard patterns, Agnel produces string and soundboard echoes with mallet blows. While voltage surges aren’t that prominent Küchen adds idiophone smacks and whaps at the same time he explores the outer reaches of the saxophone vocabulary. Altissimo and higher-pitched squeals are frequent, as are narrowed passages which could come from a pennywhistle. Reed elevation isn’t his only action either, since entire passages are made up of watery gurgles, wounded animal growls, constantly expanded overblowing, tongue stops and blaring split tones.

Despite all this, the two, especially the pianist, maintain a logical flow as they cycle through strained multiphonics and sound magnification. Agnel introduces a sparkling melodic interlude to “The Gould Passage” that’s cut off by a reed whine. And in the last section of the final “Two Deux”, following duck-like reed honks and vibrating smears, she reasserts the duet concept by matching dissected reed trills with a dampened keyboard clunks and nudges saxophone cries into collective stasis. The real detour illuminated on this disc is how the two circumnavigate individual expanded timbres to jointly reach the light of creativity at the end of the tunnel of experimentation.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Fem Cinq 2. The Gould Passage 3. Fyra Quatre 4. Two Deux

Personnel: Martin Küchen (sopranino saxophone, percussions and electronics) and Sophie Agnel (piano and objects)