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Ombak - Framing the Void

By clifford ⋅ July 28, 2009 ⋅

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It’s long been the case that one doesn’t need to be in New York (or Chicago, or Berlin) to make a name for oneself in improvised music. Still, it seems like only recently that a fair number of regional outfits have gained the niche notoriety frequently reserved for the cosmopolitan. Richmond, Virginia’s Fight the Big Bull, a nonet under the direction of guitarist-composer Matt White, is a harrowing ensemble of inviting arrangements and unruly gutbucket energy that has found acolytes in trumpeter Steven Bernstein and reedman Ken Vandermark; they recorded their first Clean Feed disc last year and are slated for more. But a larger band can rarely exist without at least one nucleus, and part of that center for FTBB is Ombak.

Framing the Void is Ombak’s self-released debut, featuring trombonist Bryan Hooten (who also wrote the tunes), bassist Cameron Ralston, drummer Brian Jones and lone non-FTBB member, guitarist Trey Pollard. From the starting gate, it’s clear that Ombak are an extraordinarily unique group, a swaggering quartet that chomps and bellows like Albert Mangelsdorff fronting prog-rock. The backbeat-heavy “Aware” finds Hooten and Pollard locking horns immediately, brassy and flinty. The guitarist’s brief solo is just on the clean side of fuzz, a wiry assemblage of modal fragments gone as quickly as it began. He comps with muted flecks behind Hooten’s and Ralston’s brief solos and while none unfurls completely here, the foursome hold a tense hand at the table. “As Rome Burns” recalls the somber writing of Clifford Thornton – long, crisp and grey tones from trombone and slide guitar, gooey and out of phase with Jones’s inverted tumble. Delay and metallic scrape form the second textural foundation for Hooten’s piece, which swings mightily between a mean 4/4 and equally forward free-time.

Oddball turns are par for the course – starting out with a loose, funky lope does not preclude ending up in harmonic plink, scraped cymbals and puckered mouthpiece smooch. Slushy tailgate, trombone multiphonics, damaged-blues fretwork and limber percussion stand well on their own, but Ombak are a collective venture whose parallel roads all lead to the same end, however upturned it might seem. With the attention that FTBB are getting, it might not be long before Ombak’s frame has a wider reach.

~ Clifford Allen