FME - Cuts

Okkadisk 61

A simple three-letter acronym, FME represents one of Ken Vandermark’s least esoteric band names. The trio’s music is a similarly accessible, artifice-free blend of reeds, bass and drums conjoined for the purpose of improvisation loosely structured around compositional signposts. Vandermark’s more lofty and artful aspirations take a welcome backseat to a preference for brass-balls blowing, at both full-tilt and slow smolder speeds. Bassist Nate McBride and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love do far more than simply abet or accompany. Without the talents of either man the music would likely founder or possibly even sink under Vandermark’s susceptibility to repetition and stock licks. They distance him from his safety zone and it’s a kick to hear him so tested.

Recorded in a moss-covered cement bunker in Oslo, Cuts follows up the band’s earlier Okkadisk outing Underground and finds them equally enamored of long-form energy-exuding interplay in common with cousin power trio The Thing. What’s most noticeable on this extended five-part set is how Vandermark makes the most of economical source material. The opening medley “Other Side Up/Boadas” morphs from a chest-thumping baritone-driven blowout worthy of pal Mats Gustafsson into a somber clarinet shuffle using little more than riff material as its central fuel source. McBride and Nilssen-Love are instrumental in fleshing the bones of the piece with textured sinew and muscle, the latter’s bass vamp super-gluing the two halves together with massive strumming epoxy.

“Part 2” encompasses three more interlocking episodes, vaulting forward with the freewheeling fast break “Necessary?” where tenor erupts in geysering rhythmic blasts against a surging cymbal-fed backdrop. Vandermark segues into “Reset” with a smattering of percussive reed pops, snapping pizzicato and bowed cymbals adding icy color. But it’s McBride’s bass that rules the final segment “Slip,” shaping another corpulent undulating ostinato, this time with heavy grease-slicked groove affixed. Vandermark switches to baritone and summons a swaggering R&B send-off that wrings the core riff to the point of desiccation. “Static (A Hundred Years) Static” arises out of equally pervious origins echoing the album’s title in its assemblage of fragmentary phraseology sewn together into a brooding patch quilt sum, seams intentionally frayed and exposed.

“Broken (Sentence) Broken” is similarly chopped into sharp-edged rhythmic troughs and ridges. Nilssen-Love slices and dices a chugging groove with sticks while McBride’s bow cuts coarser cleaver-like swathes on amplified strings. Vandermark rides the crenellations with a protracted volley of rhythmic honks and skronks. The second half scales back momentum and settles into dour, drone-dominated tone poem of overlapping tenor and bass before another bruising slugfest finale. A contemplative clarinet closer “Heavy Light” caps the date with another extended bout of inward-gazing tonal explorations. The length and intensity of these tracks may prompt impatient listeners to blanch. But repeat spins reveal both the reasoning and worth behind the girth. Pared down reeds-bass-drums vehicles just might be the optimal conveyance for the zealous side of Vandermark’s musical personality.

~ Derek Taylor