Nicolas Souchal / Fred Marty

Axel Dörner/Seijiro Murayama

Duo Chandos

SIND_052019-1

Two voyages to the furthest reaches of plant trumpet find two European explorers testing the limits of time and space in vastly different but similarly profound duo situations. Expressing their interpretations that emphasis the diffuse rather than specific brass characteristic of their instruments are French trumpet/flugelhornist Nicolas Souchal and German slide trumpeter Axel Dörner. Dörner, who has played with everyone from Rudi Mahall to Evan Parker, is a veteran genre-shatterer, and this time his partner is Japanese soundsinger Seijiro Murayama, who lives in France, and plays with Jean-Luc Guionnet and Éric La Casa among others. Slightly younger, Souchal, who plays with other experimenters like Jean-Brice Godet and Yoram Rosilio, is joined by bassist Fred Marty, who has worked with Frédéric Blondy and Lê Quan Ninh, among many others.

During the course of Saillances, despite the structure and characteristics of each instrument, there are times during which their timbres are almost indistinguishable. This is especially noticeable on “Asintés”, when the trumpeter’s unaccented air propelling bleeds into the bassist’s horn-like-tone resembling string rubs. Elsewhere, more powerful, perhaps without attached mouthpiece blows from Souchal break away from any affiliation to judder up and down in counterpoint to Marty’s spiccato sweeps. Eventually the two negotiate intersection with stentorian bass string sweeps and bitten capillary tones.

Before and afterwards the brass player’s deep inner horn dives and the string player’s bent note strategies express themselves in multiple modes. Souchal’s output takes on literal high-note bugle qualities on “Telluriques” for instance, while Marty pats to expose the bass’s bottom textures. Or take “Répercussions”. When the bassist seems to be tearing his woody instrument apart in the foreground, the trumpeter’s background response is couched in angry canine-like yelps and barks. There are also sequences where the interaction is limited to near-silent string vibrating along with compressed back-of-throat gasps as well as one where Souchal sounds like he’s playing many trumpets at the same time,, with the swelling tones in double counterpoint with Arco whumps. Overall the disc’s apogee is reached on the extended “Affins”. As unvarying seesaw grinds from Marty set the scene, the trumpeter’s spiky response moves from air propelled as if blowing into a balloon to pinched hisses and cries and finally to a muted disintegrating texture. The last leeches into Marty’s below-the-bridge pumps, making Souchal’s elaboration appear effacing and exploratory.

Only one constructed instrument is audible on Duo Chandos, but the manner in which Murayama uses his voice gives him the same flexibility and extended technical virtuosity as any human-constructed sound-maker extant. From the beginning when Murayama lets loose with verbal gurgles and chatters it’s clear that during the three affiliated improvisations that the vocalist’s strategy will involved every part of his mouth, lips, throat, larynx and epiglottis. This way he’s able to gargle, shrill or low many varieties of timbres, sometimes more than one at a time. Dörner meets the challenge with half-valve effects, rubato wind pushes and brief sniffs, at points creating a contrapuntal rhythm which can resemble dog barks mixed with the singer’s infant-like cries. Paced with terse pauses low-pitched brass burble are mated with nearly identical sounding chest tones from the singer in the same way that groaning textural deconstruction from Murayama slide alongside dark tongue thrusts and stops from Dörner. Working out aural mirror images, the brass lines almost sound human, the same way mouth-throat extensions could almost come from an instrument.

Although the initial track is completed with aviary tweets from the trumpeter and rooster crows from the vocalist, a coda of stone-rolling-like textures suggest an unstoppable continuation and the duo continues their interface for the next almost 25½- minutes. While the concluding “(8.59)” is most notable for intermittent silences which intimate the inevitable diminuendo to the final ending, more virtuosic motifs are spryly exposed in the earlier minutes. As the Dörner- Murayama duo’s output is distanced or affiliated more timbral cooperation is advanced, with types of intonation, contemplated, tested and traded for the next one. Murayama expresses himself in frothy yodels and tongue stops as Dörner’s inchoate pulses are percussive or even resemble radio-tuning static. If the vocalist’s vocal friction croaks from the bottom of the scale, then the trumpeter’s response encompasses slide-whistle-like twitters. Sibilant tones from the trumpet bring forward altissimo gurgles, quacks and hiccups from the vocalist. Careful listening evokes more astonishing multiphonic flights, plus double octave evolution and melding.

Not defining statements but experiments for more study and contemplation, duo improvisation and brass evolution are well served by these CDs.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Duo: 1. (14.52) 2. (15.24) 3. (8.59)

Personnel: Duo Axel Dörner (trumpet) and Seijiro Murayama (voice)

Track Listing: Saillances: 1. Amerce 2. Telluriques 3. Affins 4. Répercussions 5. Asintés 6. Regain 7. Sédimentation

Personnel: Saillances: Nicolas Souchal (trumpet and flugelhorns) and Fred Marty (bass)