Hughes Mayot/Rafaelle Rinaudo/Sophie Bernado

Henrik Murkeby Nørstebe/Daniel Lercher/Julie Rokseth
Off the Coast
SOFA 570

Not used much in Jazz because of most players’ tendency to emphasize its lilting and dulcet tones, harps entered improvised music because imaginative string-strummers are able to try out novel approaches while extending the instrument’s sound palate. Although the trios here each include a harp, the method in which the multi-string instrument’s contributions are integrated into the program pinpoints crucial contrasts.

Off the Coast records how Julie Rokseth brought her Celtic lever harp and Pictish harp to the remote Sula Island to participate in a site-specific recording session with fellow Norwegians Henrik Murkeby Nørstebe playing trombone, half-clarinet and breath piano and Daniel Lercher using laptop, field recording and bass clarinet. Synthesized textures preserved from this former fishing community, including an 80-year-old resident’s brief ballad singing, are matched with instrumental tones, especially distinctive string pulsations that provide rhythmic suggestions or amplify ethereal wind gusts. A studio disc, Ikui Doki features the harp and effects of Rafaelle Rinaudo with fellow French improvisers Hugues Mayot playing tenor saxophone and bass clarinet plus Sophie Bernado’s bassoon and voice. While Rinaudo’s strings are often used to toughen the pace as if it was a double bass, a pastoral quiet still suffuses the disc.

Moving among his instruments on the first disc, Nørstebe’s jackhammer-like pumps are most prominent on the title track where they’re cannily mixed with sea noises and droning oscillated whooshes. With oldster Aksel Johansen lilting shanty serving as a leitmotif, the burbles and lapping timbres on “Inside Elements” and the two subsequent tracks conflate natural, processed and acoustic instrument microtones. At the same time, reed growls and synthesized peeps dent the unrolling drones propelled by harp rubs and rebounds. With texture churning from the computer crackling alongside Rokseth’s study and consistent thumps, setting up the conclusive and lengthy “Winding”, the trio’s light/dark timbral strategy is put into boldest relief. Sharp reed whistles and air-influenced string shimming corkscrew upwards even as the track as a whole moves at a glacial pace. Eventually the dappled sound coloration gives way to processed harp plucks, harmonica-like reed tremolos and finally expands into a melody which fades away with pipe-organ-like suggestions.

As rugged and rustic as the tracks on Off the Coast may be, they avoid the sylvan euphony that haunts many of Ikui Doki’s dozen tracks. There’s even a tune entitled “Chant Pastoral” here, where Bernado’s bel-canto voice is harmonized with Mayot’s clarinet in such a way as to resemble a courtly 16th Century duet between recorder and voice. Overall Bernado’s French-accented English lyric reading, while harmonious and gentle, detracts from the powerful contrasting ostinatos she creates with bassoon. Additionally, while “Almanita” includes a blend of clarinet-bassoon-harp flutters that resemble 1950s’ Cool Jazz, “Debussy l”Africain” (sic) is a pretty ballad sung in English with impressionistic harmony, that encompasses an interlude of string plucks and clarinet arpeggios. Freer still is “Cats & Dogs” where the harpist picks out a Rock guitar-like ostinato in order to face the sizzling backbeat propelled by Mayot’s tenor saxophone.

Still the most inventive use of these so-called unusual instruments is on “My Taylor is a Reich”, perhaps referring to both Cecil (Taylor) and controversial Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm (Reich). Almost as iconoclastic as those two theorists’ work, the basic exposition features lowing bassoon slurps ascending to double-tongued, deep-toned snarls and split-tone variations, mixed with presto harp glissandi. Climaxing with Rinaudo’s positioned strumming, the theme leaks away via balanced flutter-tonguing from Mayot.

Unequivocally distinctive sounds, with classic and exploratory elements integrated within, both discs point out novel expressive avenues for non-standard instruments in a free music context. Neither quite attains the desired synthesis, but both are on the way to make it work.

–Ken Waxman

Personnel: Off: Henrik Murkeby Nørstebe (trombone, half-clarinet, breath piano); Daniel Lercher (laptop, field recording, bass clarinet); Julie Rokseth (Celtic lever harp, Pictish harp) and Aksel Johansen (voice) #

Track Listing: Ikui: 1. Pemayangtse 2. Jingle #1 3. LSP 4. Songe Pastel 5. Chant Pastoral 6, Tigher 7. Cats & Dogs 8. Jingle #2 9. My Taylor is a Reich 10. Almanita 11. Debussy l”Africain 12. Secretly in Silence

Personnel: Ikui: Hugues Mayot (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet); Sophie Bernado (bassoon, voice) and Rafaelle Rinaudo (harp, effects)