Kelley, Greg / Olivia Block

Resolution

Label: erstwhile Country: USA

"[...] Olivia Block makes her label debut, paired with Greg Kelley in his first appearance on Erstwhile since "Forlorn Green", although the overall cast of the session seems more firmly located in her neck of the woods, which is to say very thick and richly layered, possessing a massiveness and spatial volume. She plays a bit of piano here and there (once unfurling a couple of strikingly Tilbury-esque arpeggios, elsewhere within the piano's string-bed) but it's her electronics that predominate, finely integrated with Kelley's trumpet, enough so that it's often difficult to pick out the horn from the diverse soundscape.

Though the five pieces have enormous dynamic range, there's never a sense of sparseness; even at its quietest, you get the impression that even the gossamer strands that are barely discernible are tightly connected and possess great tensile strength. And when things get churning--or tumbling--look out. The sheer sound is marvelous through most of the set, especially those moments, beloved of Block, wherein one experiences loud but slightly dulled bangs, like crates being jostled in the hold of a cavernous ship, similar to the ambiance of her "Heave To" but here augmented by Kelley's ferocious rushes of wind power and tin plate-induced buzz. The fourth cut, "some old slapstick routine" is almost bravura in its deployment of crashes, wheezes, bangs and piano, a marvelous explosion of densities, colors and plasticity.

It's interesting re: the title, Resolution that had we read this in 1970, wed likely think of "moral determination" whereas today, I daresay, we think in terms of sensual acuity. In any case, I hear this as quite a sensual release, and a very good one. [...]"-Brian Olewnick, Just Outside