Margaux Oswald/Jesper Zeuthen

Margaux Oswald
Collateral Damage
Clean Feed CF 677 CD

Making a name for herself in different creative music contexts is Swiss-born, Copenhagen-based, French-Filipina (whew!) pianist Margaux Oswald, who has worked with everyone from Maria Faust to Frode Gjerstad. These accomplished discs offer ample evidence of this flexibility. Magnetite is a set of three improvisations with veteran Danish alto saxophonist Jesper Zeuthen, who first recorded in the late 1960s, while Collateral Damage is seven slabs of tougher improv with the pianist playing with a Baltic-Scandinavian crew of one drummer, two guitarists and three double basses (!).

Alternating hard and soft textures on their live set, Oswald and Zeuthen spend most time ruminating on the nearly 30 minute “Warble” with two briefer encores. Building up from flutters to energetic split tones, altissimo screeches and undulating expression, the saxophonist’s output is matched with thundering pedal point, piledriver pulses and widening whorls and velocity from the pianist. When either downshifts to reed peeps or singular keyboard clips, these interludes are eventually buttressed with fortified reed vibrations and stropped tones from the piano’s inner strings, wooden body and keyboard. Finally an apotheosis is reached as superfast and ascending variations from both intersect to reach an interconnected conclusion.

If the Magnetite duo alternate hot and cold impulses, then the septet on the other disc’s collateral damage is what affects any low key or quiet passages. With the bassists commonly creating widening arco drones, the resulting packed textures are frequently thickened even further with piano glissandi and guitar strums. Isolated motifs consisting of individual piano pressure, whistling arco thrusts from one of the bassists and high-pitched string stabs from an individual guitarist arise on tracks like “Secilen”. However the number of string players prevents singular identification.

Since the plan appears to be formalizing the extrusion of packed and pressurized sounds as a group effort, horizontal and unyielding textures define the tracks’ sheer power. Interjections such as jagged string bowing, drum top pops, up-the-guitar-neck sluices or speedy single piano key fingering are not so much distractions, but embellishments which further toughen group cohesion.

By the time “Insecle”, the concluding narrative has been reached the thickened buzzes and rumbles have defined a group improvisation that depends on interlocking timbral accumulation. In duo or as a group member Oswald shows she’s able to deftly meet many challenges.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Magnetite: 1. Warble 2. Cheep 3. Chirp

Personnel: Magnetite: Jesper Zeuthen (alto saxophone) and Margaux Oswald (piano)

Track Listing: Collateral: 1. Elcines 2. Secilen 3. Scleein 4. Nicelse 5. Clinese 6. Escinel 7. Insecle

Personnel: Collateral: Margaux Oswald (piano); Niklas Fite and Hein Westgaard (guitars); Aurelijus Užameckis, Rafał Różalski and Uldis Vītols (basses) and Simon Forchhammer (drums)