Bellbird

Together since 2021, this Montréal-based quartet demonstrates tight-knit cooperative performances during this set of group compositions. With Allison Burik on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, Claire Devlin playing tenor saxophone, bassist Eli Davidovici and drummer Mili Hong, the four work through tunes that are rugged and expanded when they should be and compressed and exquisite elsewhere.

The last adjective is a bit of an overstatement since Bellbird, the band, eschews aviary delicacy and instead often replicates the tonal flexibility coupled with squawking stridency sometimes found in wild fowl. Although Davidovici’s downward slaps mostly regularize the program, Burik and Devlin layer the expositions with aleatory honks, snuffles and cheeps, offering obbligatos or harmonization with the other reed, whether it’s for sliding toughness on the title track or gentling melancholy expressed on “Morning Dove”. Hong too switches constructively from ruffs and rumbles that alongside Davidovici’s strident arco string swabs buffer a forceful tune like “Blowing on Embers”, or overcome reed dissonance with brush strokes that promote the gentle harmonies of “Phthalo Green”.  

Overall, the quartet’s sound reaches its zenith on the extended Eternity Perspective. Contrapuntal as well as cooperative, snarly bass clarinet scoops paced by martial drum patterns centre the piece until one saxophone timbre floats over the other until following an interlude of reverberating double bass thumps, a false ending adumbrates a lush logical diminuendo.

Intertwined enough to suggest ESP, Bellbrd is one aviary species that deserves watching and hearing.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Firefly Pharology 2. Murmuration 3. Soft Animal 4. Blowing on Embers 5. Phthalo Green 6. The Call 7. Morning Dove 8. Eternity Perspective

Personnel: Allison Burik (alto saxophone and bass clarinet); Claire Devlin (tenor saxophone); Eli Davidovici (bass), and Mili Hong (drums)