+minus - [first meeting]

+minus
[first meeting]
Trente Oiseaux
T00041

I’ll admit there’s something refreshingly disarming about this recording in the sense that, in some ways, it’s almost an “old-fashioned” quiet improv recording. We’ll leave aside for the moment the fact that not all of it is improv and that’s it’s pretty well up to date. But the immediate, sensual impact is something akin to what one may have felt hearing Iskra 1903 for the first time: an extreme naturalness of approach, a rightness that obviates, or at least makes secondary, any theoretical discussion. That is to say, one simply hears three wonderful musicians.

These musicians are bernhard gunter, Mark Wastell and Graham Halliwell, collectively adopting the name +minus, a band only since November of 2003. To be sure, there is something a bit unique about the way they go about their duties. Three of the pieces are based on compositions by gunter, giving improvisers Wastell and Halliwell a different set of challenges than they’re normally exposed to. Of course, the reverse is also true—gunter is thrown into an at least quasi-improvisational format. Contrary to the instruments gunter and Wastell are known for, the former wields a cellotar, an electric, five-string instruments whose range Wastell exclaims includes sounding like “a cello, a violin, a sarangi and a viola da gamba”, whilst the latter, according to the credits, abandons his cello and instead makes great use of bowed Nepalese bowls and “amplified textures”. Not surprisingly, the music tends toward the quiet and meditative, filled with soft, extended lines and whispered rumblings. The cellotar is heard to great effect on the opening of the third track, “[minus] two” and lends a fascinating anachronistic air when heard against the amazing feedback generated by Halliwell’s alto. This last deserves special mention. I take it he’s using a similar attack to that recently favored (pioneered?) by John Butcher but, in a group context, it’s incredibly subtle and beautiful. After my first hearing of the disc, having neglected to check the credit listing, I thought to myself, “Well, where was Halliwell?” It turns out, on closer, better-informed listening, he’s all over the place but so perfectly integrated into his surroundings that he’s almost invisible.

I’ll be damned if I know much more of what to say about [first meeting] except that it’s remarkably consistent, full of unexpected but perfect decisions and, as a whole, is exceedingly lovely. Check it out.

(www.trenteoiseaux.com)

~ Brian Olewnick