Patrick Brennan / Abdul Moimême

Rugged tone challenges and resolutions are synchronized distinctively by alto saxophonist Patrick Brennan and dual electric guitar conductor Abdul Moimême on the seven tracks of this duo session. Two inhabitants of the exploratory segment of Free Music, New York-based Brennan’s associates have ranged from Lisle Ellis to Gnawi Ma’alem Najib Soudani, while Lisbon’s Moimême has played with the likes of Steve Adams, and Wade Matthews.

Corralling the guitars-and-objects’ wide vibrations, clangorous shuffles and washtub-like pulsating clouts, Moimême sets up a surging continuum around and within a sequence in which Brennan’s reed smears and split tones gnaw outwards. In an adversarial relationship with the guitarist’s dial twisting frails and metallic smashes throughout, the saxophonist’s reed motifs often also resemble aviary peeps or small animal-like clawing. Eventually though, as guitar string pressure builds, hollow resonations and clarion reed cries maintain the sequences’ staccato strength. By the time the concluding “Witness Ampersand” arrives, Brennan’s and Moimême’s dual procedure allows the improvisations to be expressed with the same power but more quietly even as the track’s sonic crannies are filled.

Other notable factors during the program are the introduction of tinges of tonality and more crucially emotion that is apparent on a session like this which could become a mechanized technical exercise. On the extended “Terrafonia” for instance, residue from Jazz’s aural after-image is present. At one point Brennan appears the verge of playing “Night in Tunisia” before splintering the near-tonal line into harsh multiphonics. On “Ndụ Enweghị Ihe Abụọ/No Two”, while the resolution moves from a rumbling conveyer belt of in-and-out of focus drones plus stings, strums and stabs on guitar strings, completed by altissimo reed squeaks, Brennan’s chalumeau register exposition includes yearning, melancholic textures that climax in a fluid horizontal narrative that locks in with Moimême’s chording.

As far away from a standard saxophone-and-guitar(s) session as can be imagined, for sheer audacity alone Terraphonia deserves attention.

—Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Terrafonia* 2. Nilch’I Telespire . Nilch’I 3. Ndụ Enweghị Ihe Abụọ/No Two 4. Gotabrilhar 5. Mycellerate 6. Tactiludic 7. Witness Ampersand

Personnel: Patrick Brennan (alto saxophone, cornet*) and Abdul Moimême (2 electric guitars played simultaneously with objects)