Sophie Agnel/John Butcher

Sophie Agnel/Michael Zerang
Draw Bridge
Relative Pitch  RPR1197

A sophisticated and experienced improviser, French pianist Sophie Agnel frequently plays with Gallic innovators like Daunik Lazro and offshore associates such as the UK’s Steve Noble. A reunion, Rare unites the pianist with UK tenor/soprano saxophonist John Butcher, who has likely partnered more international musician than she, while Draw Bridge is the pianist’s initial recording with US drummer Michael Zerang, whose playing situations radiate partners from his Chicago hometown to 39 countries.

One distinguishing feature of Agnel playing is her overt percussiveness, smacking the keyboard or the instrument’s wood with full force, strumming the piano’s internal string set or vibrating objects upon them. The upshot is that Butcher often appears to be improvising alongside a pianist and a drummer, while at points Draw Bridge could be a percussion duet,

Recorded at Québec’s Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, the rare inferences projected on Rare show the duo probing points of cohesion and challenge. A savvy creative music practitioner, Butcher’s expertise in extended techniques helps move the five-part improvisation far beyond the expected. Starting with solid horizontal air smears, he quickly escalates to undulating flutters, irregular note bending  and circulating toneless breaths. Just when it seems his interest lies in mostly vibrating snores at a languid pace with dissonance widened extended to capture every multiphonic tone extremity, he switches to domineering slap tonguing and body tube whooshes using staccato snarls, yelps and reed mastication to complete Agnel’s unrelentless and stressed actions.

Dynamically knitting together bell-tolling echoes and single note clanks on the keyboard, Angel reaches intensity as she torques tremolo slides and individual key stabs into a passionate horizontal line. Scattered among these processional dynamics which slide into pedal point as often as they tickle the most elevated keys she breaks up the time by interspacing guitar-like inner string twanging and shuffling metal objects on the same string set.

The distinctive instance of her mixture of pianism and percussion occurs on Rare II since the equivalency between her thickened funereal note tolling and Butcher’s concentrated saxophone buzzing includes brief interludes where release lessens the tension enough to reveal quasi-delicacy in her playing as Butcher’s split tones turn linear.

A different sort of intensity dominates the nine Agnel-Zerang studio duets, since her percussion-like contours are paramount. This is no Rich vs Roach face-off though. While the pianist pivots to faux drumming intimations, Zerang is above all a percussionist. Unlike the saxophonist’s reed, wood and metal contours propelled by breath, sheer physicality gives the drummer’s processes more dynamics. Crucially though his focus throughout is scrubbing woody textures, clanging small and large cymbal, ringing bell trees and ratcheting unexpected shrieks as opposed to creating regularized ruffs. Cogitation trumps clout.

Instances of this are prominent on tracks like “Swing Point” and “Cable-Stayed”. On the former it’s Agnel’s stopped piano key throbs that create the defining groove, while Zerang’s whistling squeaks and steel-drum-like tremors provide the expressive flourishes. On “Cable-Stayed” Zerang’s prestissimo sandpaper-like scrapes, striated notching or solid drones play a similar role as the pianist’s processional chording introduce and complete the exposition with a mid-tune pause for a drum swells and string glissandi duet.

Zerang’s strategy isn’t all yelping ruffs, metal reverberations and cogwheel-like rotation  however. During the introductory “Bascule” and the concluding “Cantilever” he marshals drum crunches and cymbal scratches to galvanize a percussive groove thick enough for Agnel  to showcase gentle reverb and story-telling key ripples.

Resourceful and rambunctious in equal measures these discs show how well Agnel comports herself with adroit challenges. Perhaps a trio section with Zerand and Butcher would be even more exciting.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Rare:   Rare I 2. Rare II 3.  Rare III 4.  Rare IV 5.  Rare V

Personnel: Rare: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones) and Sophie Agnel (piano)

Track Listing: Bridge: 1. Bascule 2. Arch 3.  Beram 4. Cable-Stayed 5. Folding 6. Vertical Lift 7. Swing Point 8. Integral 9. Cantilever

Personnel: Bridge: Sophie Agnel (piano) and Michael Zerang (percussion)