Muddersten

Sébastien Texier-Christophe Marguet
Célébration
Melodie en sous-sol MESSOO05

Tubby the Tuba and Guitar Hero be damned. The key element of purposeful creative music is how instrumental textures can be modified so that they sound completely individual depending on the situation. Triple Music and Célébration prove this. Although both feature tuba and guitar there’s no resemblance whatsoever in their interaction with each other or with additional instruments.

Triple Music is an almost continuous examination of electro-acoustic improvisation where one track seamlessly flows into another. Its protagonists are long-affiliated Norwegians, Martin Taxt with microtonal tuba and electronics; Håvard Reite Volden playing guitar, tape loops and a drum machine; and Henrik Olsson using piezo, turntable and electronics. Singly or together the three have worked with Carlo Costa, Tomasz Dąbrowski and as part of Microtub. Created under another flag, Célébration is instrumental agit-prop with 10 dynamic originals celebrating auspicious historical dates that advanced world freedoms composed by the French quartet’s two leaders. François Thuillier plays tuba; Manu Codjia, guitar, while Sébastien Texier is on alto saxophone and clarinet with the drumming of Christophe Marguet added. Each player has experience with varied associates such as Andy Embler, Ramon Lopez, Joëlle Léandre and Henri Texier.

An evolution rather than a composition, Triple Music’s  three sequences are as much about the whooshes, buzzes and swells from the electronic interface as any acoustic patterns. Concurrent with the rhythmic and melodic transformations take place, ring modular-like gonging, looped and oscillation crunches and wave form crackles and crinkles are frequently upfront, or propelled in tandem with acoustic instrumental echoes. Still when consistent string strums or basement level brass wallowing is heard, especially during the extended “Triple Music I”, the effects not only add tones and timbres to help effect contrapuntal harmonic changes, but also actualize humanness as well as programming.

The succeeding tracks intensify the gradual shifts in textures and dynamics. As broken chord affiliations balance abrasive voltage swirls and laceration including helicopter rotor blade-like whirrs, brief electronic jangles and shuffling idiophone chops, the acoustic response involves guitar twangs and deepening tuba lowing.

With following sections amplifying or actualizing the trifold intersection, the defining climax of the disc occurs in the second sequences of the primary track. Balance is maintained as footstep-like electronic stops and bell-like drones create thinner and thinner tonal ambiguity at the same time as acoustic clips and vibrating patterns preserve the shape of the ongoing timbral undulations.

While the guitar and tuba intonations are often masked or transformed on the other disc, there’s no mistaking which instruments Thuillier and Codjia are playing on Célébration. Thuillier, whose experience encompasses considerable work in the notated New music field moves from growls and flutters  to puffs, huffs and even heraldic slurs. This is most obvious on “1789”. This glorification of the French Revolution features the tubaist burbling triumphant portamento tones above martial drum smacks, as strained and scouring guitar flangers and saxophone buzzes create a contrapuntal answering line.  A gravelly tuba solo plus bell-tree shakes and drum jolts lend a near kwelva-cadenced beat to the gaiety on “Mandela” celebrating the South African leader’s prison release. Guitar/clarinet slips and slide add to jubilation as chuga-chuga rhythm guitar licks adumbrate a clever stop-time ending.

Thiesse’s finger-style string emphasis harmonized with clarion reed trills is also part of the note-bending and tongue slap popping triumphant elaborations of tracks such as “Paris libéré’ dealing with end of German occupation of the city in 1944, and “Mon esprit”, emphasizing when women attained national suffrage in the same year. The first tune includes an extended almost Rock-like solo from Marguet which doesn’t upset the overall swing groove, while the later piece moves from ringing emphasis at the top to perhaps misogynist-expressing toughness in the middle to eventually return to the note-bending festivity of the introduction as the finale.

Each quartet member expresses himself notably throughout with additional pivots like hunting-horn-like warbles from Thuillier; flanges and reverb from Codjia; Marguet’s drum shuffles; and some pumping motifs from Texier. If there is one drawback it’s that Texier’s alto solos are so linear and trilling that they often move into Paul Desmond territory, a distraction for the otherwise  serious if animated themes.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Triple: 1. Triple Music I 2. Triple Music II 3. Triple Music III

Personnel: Triple: Martin Taxt (microtonal tuba and electronics) Håvard Reite Volden (guitar, tape loops and drum machine) and Henrik Olsson (piezo, turntable and electronics)

Track Listing: Célébration: 1. Yellowstone 2. Quit India 3. Transicion 4. Mon corps 5. Mon esprit 6. Les œillets 7. 1789 8. Paris libéré 9. Abolition 10. Mandela

Personnel: Célébration: Sébastien Texier (alto saxophone and clarinet); François Thuillier (tuba); Manu Codjia (guitar) and Christophe Marguet (drums)