Kyle Bruckmann - Wrack

Red Toucan 9323

Entymology, the last disc I heard by Kyle Bruckmann, was fairly true to its title. A solo recital for double reeds that found the youthful improviser extolling and emulating the sounds of various insect entities. The chitter of a cicada here, the saw-legged chirrup of a cricket there. Overall the experience left my ears piqued, but also a bit puzzled and stung. Some of the pieces seemed more like egghead exercises in tone and breath control rather than listener friendly morsels of music.

Bruckmann’s desire to play a good many of his creative cards all at once may have got the better of him on that early outing, but a few years have since passed since then. He still lives in Chicago and has managed to plug prominently into the scene there pretty quickly. Wrack, his new Red Toucan project, features an ensemble of Windy City cohorts, two well known, and two less so. Trombonist Jeb Bishop and drummer Tim Daisy comprise two fifths of the Vandermark 5, a high profile outfit whose reputation usually precedes it. Bassist Kurt Johnson and Violist Jen Clare Paulson are fresh faces to me. Though based on their contributions here, I’m looking forward to hearing more from each in the future.

Bruckmann seems well aware of the relative scarcity of his instruments in the context he’s chosen. Marshall Allen, Robbie Hunsinger and Yusef Lateef are about the only other oboists I can easily name in improvised music. Sonny Simmons is almost in a league of his own when it comes to English horn. Even so, Bruckmann never exploits the novelty factor. He and Bishop frown together expressively on “Rather Dour,” tracing dreary lines out of each stereo channel as drums and strings build and recede in glowering bursts in between. Daisy is a bit too liberal with his bomb dropping, but the gravity of his sticks actually works well in respect to the overarching grouchy mood.

“Elegy for a Boiled Frog,” has to be one of the sensory-stimulating titles in recent memory. Structurally it spools out across wavering harmonic ripples in an odd aural approximation of the luckless amphibian’s final death throes. Bishop burps out a run of moist ribbits and Bruckman’s legato arcs blend with the damp arco drones of the strings. Daisy locks down a groove with Johnson’s fleshy ostinato and the piece soon loosens up into a showcase for the drummer as various ensemble combinations bounce off his variegated beats.

Classical strains come prominently into play on “Extenuating Circumstances” and “Sins of Omission.” The former piece falters under a dizzyingly repetitive pace of development, but latter benefits a swifter running time and tighter scripting between horns and strings. “Mitigating Circumstances” meshes closely harmonizing layers against Daisy’s malleted gong accents in another somber display of close-knit orchestration. But again the track length outlasts the tenacity of the thematic glue on hand.

Ominous industrial preoccupations hold sway on “Gearshifts & Paratheticals.” The band mimics the mechanical noises of the Chicago shipyards and train stations via steam whistle snorts, chugging crankshaft percussion and the squeaking machinery of stringently bowed strings. Bruckmann brings things back to familiar turf with a brief takedown of Ornette’s “Lonely Woman” that accentuates the dirge-like aspects of the melody. It’s telling that the most overtly mellifluous music on the disc comes from another composer.

Even with a few flaws in the carapace, this is an enveloping album of music. One that also holds true to its title, especially in restless temperament of its leader. Bruckmann still seems caught in the tug of war between a composer’s premeditation and an improviser’s extemporaneous impulse. Then again, the musician who ceases growing is the one who should bundle his instruments up in mothballs and relegate them to the far corner of the attic. Somehow I think that’s a choice Bruckmann’s never going to have to face.