PLOP

Studer/Strinning/Weber
Cut
Creative Sources CS 869 CD

Built around the work of two bass players – one acoustic and one electric –  a drummer and a multi-reed player, each of these European sessions aim and attain completely dissimilar individuality.For all intents and purposes a party record, Nahka-aurinko captures a large session at a Helsinki club where bass guitarist Ville Herrala, drummer Joonas Riippa and Mikko Innanen playing alto, tenor and baritone saxophones and oboe perform as PLOP. All are experienced players having worked with among others Verneri Pohjola and Teppo Hauta-aho, with the reedist also a member of the Littorina Saxophone Quartet. Conversely uncompromised free form improvisation is expressed on Cut’s two extended cuts. The committed Swiss musicians are bassist Daniel Studer, drummer Daniel Weber and Sebastian Strinning playing tenor saxophone, bass and contrabass clarinet, and all have equivalent experience working alongside others such as Michel Pilz, Gerry Hemingway and Giancarlo Schiaffini.

Involved in ceaseless timbral advancement, the Swiss trio build its interactive meld with complete freedom or using cues to suggest further spontaneous routes. The bassist’s widening echoes, cross pulsing and turns to col legno string ricochets or hard stops sets the pace. Suggesting two bows are sometimes in use, Studer’s staccato sweeps, zither-pitched reverberations or positioned thumps build up the tunes’ pressure. The resulting intensity and occasional turns to calming interlude are sustained by the drummer’s rubs, ruffs and tolling as cymbal splashes accent the process to finer points. Moving among his horns Strinning widens the expositions with bright reed whistles, ascending squeaks, scooping honks and repeated split tones.

As important though are those interludes where strangled cries, chalumeau register snorts from the clarinets as well as tones which deviate from the familiar, sounding as if they result from pressing the horn’s bell against a metal sheet or blowing horizontally across the reed. Antiphonic and self-contained, the timbral mixture of wood, string slides reed lowing, Mylar and metal come together most distinctively in the final section of the extended “Cut & Cue”. Reaching a crescendo of bass drum bangs, string scouring and multiphonic saxophone flutters the track is completed with a descending and extended reed cry.

Moving from the sound laboratory to a semi-dancehall groove, the Finnish trio’s five selections jump and jive with the best of them, but with a degree of sonic sophistication related to Ornette Coleman’s electric bands and Sonny Rollins’ Caribbean compositions. This is particularly noticeable on the first couple of tunes where for instance Innanen’s saxophone phrasing and emphasis on “Svar nej” sounds as if it could fit in Coleman’s Prime Time group, especially with drum clip clops and bass guitar string whumps added. However by the conclusion a dissolve from presto to andante leads to a ballad suggestion. With Latinesque percussion shakes and stop-time emphasis, the subsequent “Se kelluu sittenkin” sems to want to be come “Don’t Stop the Carnival”, at least until mirrored bass strums and dot-dash reed fragmentation upend the resemblance with the introductory head returning.

While the saxophonist’s baritone saxophone riffs bring up memories of honkers like Leo Parker, latter tunes not only bow to Blues and Hard Bop but Innanen’s sometimes a capella and often repeated reed vibration also suggest that he may also be burlesquing the tone of these Jazz/R&B players. Certainly his jagged smears and note-bending reflects a contemporary approach that doesn’t neglect note exploration for populist excitement. The originality of using the exotic nasal tones of the oboe to contrast with the shouting and spilling saxophone notes on the concluding “Buffalo Unas” also raises these session above mere party music. Riippa may emphasize a heavy backbeat, but the bass guitarist’s shaking stops and the saxophonist’s slurping multiphonics confirm that the cadenced musical pleasure expressed also includes more cerebral roots.

The apple and orange of multi-reed, percussion and low pitch string trios, Nahka-aurinko  and Cut couldn’t be more different. Yet each satisfies is musical aims.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Cut: 1. Cut & Cue 2. Sea & Seed

Personnel: Cut: Sebastian Strinning (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, and contrabass clarinet); Daniel Studer (bass) and Daniel Weber (drums)

Track Listing: Nahka: 1. Svar nej 2. Se kelluu sittenkin 3. Trois couleurs: brun 4. Herr Innri 5. Buffalo Unas

Personnel: Nahka: Mikko Innanen (alto, tenor and baritone saxophones and oboe); Ville Herrala (bass guitar) and Joonas Riippa (drums)