Dunmall / Lytton / Wishart - in your shell like

Paul Dunmall with Paul Lytton & Stevie Wishart
in your shell like
Emanem 4111

Dunmall: border bagpipes (1, 4), soprano saxophone (1, 3, 4, 5), tenor saxophone (2)
Lytton: percussion (2, 3, 4, 5)
Wishart: hurdy-gurdy (1, 4, 5)

Like any American not from New York or Cupertino, I have that vestigial synapse which fires whenever bagpipes keen; resuscitated bellows on a dewy heath, funerals in unfortunate weather, unkempt beard iced, Simply Red videos, etc. With the first piece, both drone anchors of border pipes and hurdy-gurdy inevitably cancel each other out, however once the straight horn is fetched an unmistakable concord asserts itself. Sans Lytton, Dunmall on soprano sees it fit to employ the hurdy-gurdy as subterfuge, hiding behind blankets of drone, deliberate in characterizing the nimbler saxophone as something it’s conventionally not, merely active in order to shake things up gently and in turn bump Wishart’s inner tube in different directions. It’s a listener’s game trying to figure out who is where and when. . .couple drops almond extract, Paul’s present just to file the stuff flush and the results are a joy to behold.

Don’t let the alliterative name of what is formally called the vielle a roué throw you. This isn’t Morris Dancing or brunch n’ bluegrass at the brewpub. Frau Wishart is thankfully refined throughout and I am already anxious to investigate her contributions elsewhere.

From 'Shells And Other Things' to the appropriately titled 'Nothing To Do With Shells,' the contrast couldn’t be starker. The second track, a tenor/trap duet of late 60s vintage features Dunmall as Trane-like as I’ve ever heard him, more notably in tone than drive. It's an intensely scalar attack that rarely convinces. The transition from first to next mimics that of the opening two pieces of Dunmall’s recent collaboration with Paul Rogers, Awareness Response, whence an anticlimactic plod through hoary forms follows a stunningly beautiful opening of border pipes and bass. It’s not uncommon that Dunmall’s recordings force me to think about them track to track. Something startling often tumbles into something worn, an uncomfortable fade to white.

Apparent even this early on is that our percussionist is in incredible form, alert as ever, recalling his middle 70s adaptivity and control sparring with Evan. While the tenor is discursive still, worlds from the soprano of the first track, Lytton’s clarity might save the day. He works here as brash ringleader, maybe the converse of a Nigel Morris’ very cautious sea foam washes. After ten minutes the lock’s been picked and tempers cool, a collective gesture that turns things around for the better. Is that a 'Rhapsody In Blue' quote at 11:08? "You mock me." Probably not. In light of this loquacious, if disorganized piece, Dunmall has never masked his intimacy with the jazz tradition, but that’s immaterial when it comes to whether things pan out or get panned.

‘The Ears Have It’ finds the potentially incongruous bagpipes/hurdy-gurdy combination somehow circumvented. Both instruments maintain drones beneath and although it takes a bit of time to mature, a quiet concrescence takes shape after a bit, the hurdy-gurdy sparse yet still lending that fantasy novel esoterica to the whole. Dunmall stretches the multiphonic capabilities of his pipes here to warm effect, but the following piece is where it happens. This number reminds me of the Saturday evening West Armenian Folk Show on a trusty but withering-into-whiteness local public radio station (doubtless the least popular hour of radio within, say, fifty miles of my 7-Eleven). These are sylvan, Old World improvisations, replete with that similar dark folk awakened on the recent Russell/Völker/Werchowski Three Planets.

I’ve never cared much for Emanem’s cover art but with this, as is evident in a few recent examples, the color scheme and visage so accurately address the music on the disc. Stinky, meretricious pink At The Vortex, earthy British Racing Green Four In The Afternoon, sleazy late-night gospel hour Angel Gate, In Your Shell Like brown and orange solstice rite.

Dunmall releases very rarely seem to come across as cohesive albums of music, save the two spanking recordings of his trio with Adams and Sanders I’ve heard, a conception which stands out still to me as his most unfettered and confident. Perhaps the fact that there doesn’t seem to be much preconceived or serial here is the child of pure improvisation, that quality the label in question relies upon so outwardly when purveyors File under: Free Improvisation.

I dislike the new Eminem video where his black friend gets shot. Other works, in their shell like need to be debearded first. This is very soundtrackish, though not damningly so--Dark Crystal maybe. This won’t change opinions per chance you’re not too keen on Dunmall. Just keep in mind the refreshment of this instrumentation has nothing whatsoever to do with novelty. Build a big bonfire with this one in your walkman.

~Michael Schaumann