Back in June, we breezed through Brussels for one day, where — joy of joys! — I found a record store with an Improv section.
It’s called Veals & Geeks, and it is split among at least three storefronts clustered in the touristy Grand-Place neighborhood: a CD-focused store that looks like it was their original location; a nook with vinyl bins and some used CDs; and an outlet for audio gear. They don’t do online sales, steadfast in the belief that these stores can be community hubs for music lovers.
The Improv section, located in the first store, wasn’t large — maybe 20 or 30 items, huddled between Jazz and a special row just for Tzadik — but had clearly been curated by someone who knew what they were doing. Familiar names stood out, like Fred Lonberg-Holm and the sadly departed Peter Brötzmann. In a non-purist way, it included albums not purely improvised but appealing to the same listener base. I think that bin is where Dougie Bowne’s One Way Elevator lived, a disc that I’d heard of but never managed to find. (It’s a high-caliber trio: John Medeski, Fred Hopkins, and Bowne, doing Bowne’s compositions. A happy find.)
In hindsight, I wish I’d bought more. But it was early in our week-long trip to Europe, and I was worried about luggage space, and I was trying to budget myself. I decided to focus on names I was less familiar with (sorry, Fred and Peter). Back home, I spent lots of time with two albums in particular.
Delphine Dora, Bruno Duplant, Paulo Chagas — Onion Petals As Candle Light (Wild Silence, 2012).
This was too endearingly DIY to pass up, packaged in a square paper envelope with a swatch of glossy homemade-looking artwork taped to the front and a store-recommendation tag promising “trance improvisation.” Affixed to the back was a small label, the size of a fortune-cookie fortune, naming the artists and album. The CD face is blank white, no words, and the clerk apologized that he couldn’t guarantee it was the right one. I told him I was happy to take a chance. (It was indeed the correct disc, verifiable on Bandcamp.)
The aesthetic is gentle-rain quietude with a subtle edge. Delphine Dora‘s recordings elsewhere are patient mixes of piano (often prepared piano) with voice, field recordings, and loops. Here, she takes the same approach, leaving plenty of contemplative space while poking and stabbing confidently, often favoring melting-ice high registers. Chagas’ clarinet and flute outline the mood with languid lines. Duplant bows the bass delicately amid the fragile “To Cy Twombly” and adds sparse, confident plucking throughout “Mechanics of Dreams.”
Dora has an extensive catalogue of work on Bandcamp.
Move — Hyvinkää (Unisono, 2016)
Move is a working quintet helmed by Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström. I wanted to get at least one disc with a medium-sized group on it, as well as at least one long improvisation. Hyvinkää, named for the city it was performed in, fit both bills.
The 39-minute piece launches abruptly into a hovering phase, patient discovery befitting the nighttime colors on the album cover. Bells abound — the cool-spectrum chime of vibraphone (Emilio Gordoa), or small sparse pings (Dag Magnus Narvesen at the drum kit). Sjöström’s soprano sax darts against the unfolding backdrop and eventually feeds energy back into it.
The band is rounded out by Achim Kaufman (piano) and Adam Pultz Melbye (bass), both essential to fleshing out the sound and helping drive the action during the more heated phases. The band’s central mood-maker, though, is Gordoa’s vibraphone and its touch of nighttime charm. His unaccompanied solo is a nice treat.
Back home, I learned that Move had released a second CD. Naturally, I had to buy it in physical form to complete the matching set. Move in Moers feels more like a direct conversation; it dives into the chatter, rather than scene-setting. The atmosphere stays restrained, as on Hyvinkää, building up to a boil more than midway through. The conclusion is a satisfying slow surge, a moment of serendipity where the players agree: It’s time.
Visit Move’s website, and find Hyvinkää and Move in Moers on Bandcamp.
Memory Select: Journeys in Creative Music 