Michel Doneda/Lê Quan Ninh/Núria Andorrà

Anne Efternøler & Lige Børn
Brugskunst
Hobby Horse Records HH 24

Accomplished improvisers understand that the sounds produced not the instruments involved which generate imaginative creative music. It’s that thought which link the players on these discs of singular free sounds. Meanwhile instrumentation on both sessions is more than unusual. One matches  a saxophone and two percussionists; the other a trumpet with three double basses.

El Retorn De L’Escolta matches the soprano and sopranino saxophones of French stylist Michel Doneda, with the percussion expertise of French-Vietnamese Lê Quan Ninh and Spaniard Núria Andorrà. Doneda and Ninh have been an on/off duo for 30 years, while Andorrà has played with Joëlle Léandre and Agustí Fernández. Younger than the veterans on the other album, Brugskunst finds Danish trumpeter Anne Efternøler advancing a set of her compositions with three double bass specialists: American Thomas Morgan and Danes Anders Christensen and Richard Andersson. Efternøler is also part of the Bloomers trio; Morgan is known for his work with Bill Frissell; Christensen has recorded with the likes of Simon Toldam; and Andersson has played with musicians such as Rudi Mahall and Ra-Kalam Bob Moses.

During Brugskunst’s 14 tracks Efternøler varies her brass playing structures among multiple motifs with isolated puffs, note-bending flutters, half-valve peeps and portamento blowing. The bass trio responds or relates in kind, using plucks, strums, stops, drones and plinks, with solitary timbres or in double or triple pairings.

Sometimes supple string strokes are used to introduce tracks with resonating whacks or isolated clicks. More commonly the trumpeter delineates the sequences with tropes such as open horn grace notes (“Ting vi kunne have fragtet”) or a flurry of squeezed shakes (“Du vokser sidelæns ind i mig”)  or wallows in the multiple variations she can wring from a single continuous peep (“All you need is less”).

While certain tracks deflect to imposing but brief  displays of dog whistle-like squeaks, tongue stops or long-lined sighs from Efternøler allied with the bassists’ spiccato stabs or arco slides, the most memorable playing occurs on those tracks that are extended enough so the brass/string architecture is more obvious.

“Mellemtidskrig” for instance builds a moderated string shuffle involving one bassist’s guitar-like strums and secondary pops from the others to intersects with Efternøler’s  stretched portamento. This creates a tense horizontal narrative divided into interlocking sections, as each bassist frails and stops in turn before climaxing with higher pitched group plucks as relaxed brass rips reconfirm the theme. Meanwhile the trumpeter’s rhythmic mouthpiece burbles presage the same splintering function on “Hvor intet ikke høres” as high-pitched brass squeezes move up the scale as low-pitched string patterning work to dissolve the initial quartet connection.

Unlike the multiple concise and extended sequences of Brugskunst, El retorn de l’escolta, subtitled “A la memòria de Marianne Brull” is a single more than 53½ minute track dedicated to a Free Music lover who died the week previously. Saddened and emboldened by the death, Doneda, Ninh and Andorrà use this elongated form to demonstrate their creativity and connection.

Using only two gran casas and affiliated idiophones, the percussionist create an array of textures that are as much blustery as bellicose. Rubs, scrapes, gashes and shuffles across drum tops and reverberations from rims and sides stir up extended motifs that Doneda reflects, using extended techniques on his two reeds. With percussion timbres projected more than pounded, vibrations are created that often echo a similar airiness that the saxophonist launches from his instruments,

Doneda, who has recorded in the past with percussionists like Ingar Zach and Roger Turner, take the purported two verses one situation easily in stride. From the top he builds a strong edifice of  reed bites, split tones, tremolo trills, juddering breaths and refractive buzzes into a multiphonic tapestry where projected air reflects or is reflected by comparable idiophone vibrations.

Although semi-lyrical interludes also figure into his playing Doneda’s airy variables are more likely to expose unbroken reed slides, circular breathed lines and spetrofluctuation. These reed twists and turns in turn find common cause with weighty urgency animated by the percussionists. By mid-point rare idiophone noises that resemble paper being crumbled or dog-like yelps are sounded or scoured from the percussion sets. Besides bell-ringing echoes and power slaps, there are also sequences where one or both percussionists demonstrate that continuous timbral extensions aren’t strictly reed function as continuous drum rolls throb on drum tops.

Reaching a climax of sorts at the three-quarter mark, Doneda’s gargling breaths and shill note bending are met with slaps, thumps and pressurized rubs as drum top pressure and cymbal crashes flatten the interaction to avoid cacophony. Narrowed to forced flattement in the final sequences the subsequent radio-wave-like cackles and mouthpiece suckles produced by the saxophonist are eventually resolved into a horizontal line that joins hollow metal drum pops as the narrative fade away.

Fascinating in their permutations and projections, both ensembles clearly confirm that aural landscapes of novel and provocative sounds can be created with any instrumental grouping.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Brugskunst: 1. Hvor intet ikke høres 2. Hertil og lidt længere 3. Du vokser sidelæns ind i mig 4. Ting vi kunne have fragtet 5. Lene flytter muren med sin Volvo  6. Mellemtidskrig 7. Fynd & Klem 8. All you need is less 9. Charlie følger efter mig 10. En kortvarig mobilisering af kropslige ressourcer 11. Fråds 12. Jeg vil bo der hvor æblerne er sure 13. Født i egen krop 14. Tak for lige nu

Personnel: Brugskunst:  Anne Efternøler (trumpet); Thomas Morgan, Anders Christensen and  Richard Andersson (bass)

Track Listing: El: 1. El retorn de l’escolta – A la memòria de Marianne Brull

Personnel: El: Michel Doneda (soprano and sopranino saxophones); Lê Quan Ninh and Núria Andorrà (percussion)