Mats Gustafsson / Erwan Keravec

This CD should more properly be titled Exhale, since the six duo tracks here are almost textbook definitions of a quintessential blowing session. That is blowing session is the exploratory rather than the jamming variety, for the two participants calling their duo Luft are sound seekers in the most fundamental sense. On one hand there is Swedish reedist Mats Gustafsson, known for his work with everyone from Joe McPhee to the Ex and from musical leaps from Free Music to noise, often during the same session. On Inhale he plays French flageolet, G clarinet, alto flutephone, soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones. His partner, armed with only the blowstick, bag, drones and chanter of a bagpipe, is Breton Erwan Keravec. However the bagpiper often propels his instrument out of its folk context to collaborate with dancers and improvisers such as Beñat Achiary and Jean-Luc Cappozzo.

Accelerating from tongue slaps and warbles on Gustrafsson’s part and plump vibrating suction from Keravec’s instrument, the separately propelled air wriggles into close proximity by “Naked 2000 volt”, the third and lengthiest track. Splintered, sounded and screaming textures from Gustafsson that move into horror-movie-like blood curdling cries are met by grounded inflated air pockets from bag manipulation and tuning slides that appear to go on without pause. The dual squirming breaths are as complementary as an ox pecker and a rhinoceros. Finally, after the pressurized broken chords fuse into a solid squirming mass, release comes slowly as the two run out of breath.

The bagpiper’s timbral contributions that occasionally sound as if he’s someone trying to relieve constipation, are solid and unyielding, compared to the needle-thin twitters from the flutephone, which on “Shaken, she lifts a Chair” at one point touch on a near-conventional melody. But the true definition of Luft’s strategy is on the final “And lay broken”. Rather than offering fragmented methods, the two mulch saxophone key percussion and cascading gusts of bagpipe air into full-fledged bellowing, with the lead and accompanying roles switching back and forth. Finally equilibrium is attained with the wriggling theme taking as much from Gustaffsson’s magisterial solitary pitch manipulations as Keravec’s multiple variations.

Now that Gustafsson and Keravec have demonstrated how many textural nuances can be explored with supposedly inhaled improvisations, an equally strong program should also arrive with Volume 2 when the two are no longer Waiting to Exhale.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Relativity for a Moment 2. He tied his breathing 3. Naked 2000 volt 4. Collapsing Time 5. Shaken, she lifts a Chair 6. And lay broken

Personnel: Mats Gustafsson (French flageolet, G clarinet, alto flutephone, soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones) and Erwan Keravec (bagpipes