Cartographie de rythmes #1

Ingar Zach/Michele Rabbia
Musique pour deux corps
SOFA 589

Pedro Carneiro & Pedro Mello Alves
Bad Company
Clean Feed CF 574 CD

Creating a percussion session, especially a duo, can be difficult since participants must ensure that the instrument’s raw power doesn’t overcome the cadence, pitch and tempo of the program. Luckily these European sets do so with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of invention. French drummers Sylvain Darrifourcq, who works with Valentin Ceccaldi, and Toma Gouband, who has played with Evan Parker, use a unique set of idiophones to interpret five contemporary compositions by countryman Karl Naegelen. Meanwhile Norwegian Ingar Zach of Huntsville, and Italian Michele Rabbia, who was part of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, add tranducers and electronics to their drums during 11 free improvisations. Probing slightly different textures, Portuguese drummer Pedro Melo Alves of the Red Trio adapts his prepared kit to 10 duets with Pedro Carneiro’s marimba with quarter tone extension, which the notated music specialist has also played with Carlos Zíngaro.
Contrasting the textures that can be sourced from a low-pitched gran casa with the linear crackles produced from a lithophone, Ceccaldi and Gouband project rumbles, rolls, plinks and snaps as they personify Naegelen’s vibrating score. Although the slow-moving duet evolves at an andante pace with hollow-log-like clatter a constant pulse is always present. The program picks up speed and pressure by “Minimal” and “Continuum”, the penultimate and concluding tracks. Alongside the continuous clicks and wooden resonation during the first tune, output separates into maracas-like shakes on the top and bass drum thumps on the bottom. Despite its title, “Continuum” resolves these contradictions as tough tom-tom and kodo-drum-like reverberations unite to become louder and faster in increments. Reaching an allegro tempo all the aural space is commanded, with Mylar rubs, thin whistles and voltage feedback added as a climax.
Converted energy from the tranducers add voltage drones along with percussion clatter and shakes starting from “Proprioception”, Zach and Rabbia’s first improvisation. With affiliated tones ascending and descending the concentrated timbres also expand outwards. Distant or close up, wiggling clatters are succeeded by jet-plane-like whooshes that resonate across the sound field, with voltage synthesis often arching in such a way that spatial affirmation adds additional colors to the program. By the time “Joy” is attained, massive cymbal reverb joins with organ-like tremolo chords and ring modular gongs to stretch the scraping timbres still further. While the electro-acoustic variations are resolved by the final improvisation, measure percussion pops and twisting voltage buzzes promise further investigation. Future paradigms have already been suggested with “Memory Behavior” where buzzing electronic crackles judder in one direction, while rhythm from the drums create down-to-earth beats that could be on a Rock or C&W session.
Adding a unique tone to a percussion duet is Carneiro’s marimba, since the tone bars pressure and resonator tube echoes add a melodic lilt to the pop, ruffs and scrapes that Alves’ prepared drums rumble below them. Some of this interaction results in more moderated expositions, mating drum shuffles and cymbal scratches with graduated rosewood bar resonation for horizontal concordance, Other times, as on the concluding “Making A Veritable Religion”, the connection is more sophisticated as the marimba player stretches the exposition with a working ant-like procession of notes that when colored with swift drum clanks create a reverberating finale that is both hard-edged and subtle. Variations of how these diverse elements can be connected are expressed in the most protracted fashion on “From A Starless Sky” and “From Street To Street”. On the first, wood resonations create a lyrical interlude that is extended and developed despite percussion crunches. Hard mallet slaps on the second tune lead to rattling and bell-ringing reverb. which when mated with hardened drum ruffs confirm the duet’s percussiveness.
Although these percussion duets may march – or at least play – to different drum (and marimba) beats, each is a valuable example of how well these challenging situations can work out.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Vitesses: 1. Impacts 2. Vitesses Approchantes 3. Déphasage Circulaire 4. Minimal 5. Continuum

Personnel: Vitesses: Sylvain Darrifourcq (drums, percussions, objets); Toma Gouband (drums, percussions, vegetal lithophones, bows) and Karl Naegelen (compositions)

Track Listing: Musique: 1. Proprioception 2. Permeability 3. Le Traité Des Couleurs 4. Cellule Lyrique 5. Typology 6. Radiographie Sonore 7. Joy 8. Morphology 9. Mutation II 10. Memory Behavior 11. Zimbol

Personnel: Musique: Ingar Zach (percussion and tranducers) and Michele Rabbia (percussion and electronics)

Track Listing: Bad: 1. Revelry 2. A Touch Of Self. Satisfaction 3. Restlessly In Circles 4. From A Starless Sky 5. A Secret Domain 6. Between Retreat And Return 7. A Totally Unexpected Joy 8. From Street To Street 9. Gross Exaggeration 10. Making A Veritable Religion

Personnel: Bad: Pedro Carneiro (marimba with quarter tone extension) and Pedro Melo Alves (prepared drums)