Unzeit Quartett

Massaria/Kneer/Hertenstein
The Absence of Zero
Setola Di Maiale SM 4560

Moving back and forth between the gestalt of the New York and the Berlin creative music scenes, German-born percussionist Joe Hertenstein has played with everyone from Pascal Niggenkemper to Jon Irabagon. While some of his sonic forays move way past Jazz these sessions record dissimilar sallies into free improvisation as played in the German capital.

The Absence of Zero’s five tracks, which link Hertenstein with local bassist Meinrad Kneer and Italian Andrea Massaria playing guitar and effects, adds elements of noise and Metal during a fired-up and sometimes overwrought three-part improv. Related more to acoustic abstraction, the Unzeit Quartett’s seven improvisation involve the drummer, locals bassist Matthias Bauer and soprano saxophonist Frank Paul Schubert, as well as French pianist Céline Voccia.

Stabbing guitar flanges define the trio disc’s orientation for the first minutes as reflective string twanging backed by double bass string pops, cymbal color and ratamacue drum patterns soon ascends to rapid slurred fingering from the guitarist, further propelled with electronic whizzes and squeaks. This pattern continues throughout the disc, although Kneer’s refined spiccato strokes and Hertenstein’s addition of tropes such as bell-tree ringing and metallic triangle pops confirms this is a progressive not a punk session.

That’s clear on tracks like “Zero Two” and “Zero Three”. With double bass techniques appending unusual motifs such as tuning peg vibrations and col legno bow smacks plus sophisticated idiophone asides from ratcheting maracas-like shakes, zither-like scratches and unattached cymbal resonation, the distillation of exploratory turns is maintained. It doesn’t mean that the guitarist’s interpolation of jagged strums and Rock-like flanges are curtailed. It’s just that they, along with voltage shakes, are given a context in which to evolve.

The transparent intersection which adds measurement to miasma reaches a crescendo and a climax on the final track. As the bassist busies himself with thick sul ponticello strokes and the drummer doubles up on his press rolls and ruffs, the guitarist’s strained prestissimo stops and frails fit into a layered narrative whose echoed buzzing encompasses the tough and transcendent strands of these improvisations.

Designed more for moderation and multiphonics than miasma, the quartet members on the other disc sustain linear development alongside timbral deviations. Throughout there are matches among Schubert’s elongated puffs, trills and stutters, Bauer’s measured pumps, /Hertenstein’s rebounds and Voccia’s ability to shape her keyboard coloration with unexpected leaps from tinkling plinks to pedal point emphasis without upsetting the expositions.

Maintaining equilibrium with his mostly clarion-range playing is the saxophonist. This means that even as he whooshes through his horn balanced air without key movement and bends tones to emphasize buzzes or altissimo twitters when needed, the saxophonist maintains links to transient melody as well as timbre mining. An intermittent walking bass line and linear drum rumbles contribute to this.

So on tracks such as the penultimate “Eiszeit” and “Steinzeit”, when the pianist asserts herself by emphasizing the timbres between the keys on the second tune or expands her note clipping to near percussiveness on the first, parameter are maintained. Especially on the penultimate “Eiszeit” the lively momentum established at the top isn’t upset by cascading keyboard dynamics or soundboard echoes any more than Schubert’s turn to whistling altissimo or dissected split tones upset the linear flow maintained by backbeat rumbles, double bass string swells and eventually, energetic keyboard pumping.

Each disc may vary in the number of players, instrumental texture disparity and even loudness. But together they include profound forward motion to realized goals. As well as, of course, showing the variety available in the Berlin improvised landscape and the talents of its players.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Absence: 1. Zero One 2. Zero Two 3. Zero Three 4. Zero Four 5. Zero Five

Personnel: Absence: Andrea Massaria (guitar and effects); Meinrad Kneer (bass) and Joe Hertenstein (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Unzeit: 1. Unzeit  2. Bestzeit 3. Freizeit 4. Mahlzeit 5. Steinzeit 6. Eiszeit 7. Auszeit

Personnel: Unzeit: Frank Paul Schubert (soprano saxophone); Céline Voccia (piano); Matthias Bauer (bass) and Joe Hertenstein (drums)