Halvorson / Bergmann

MixTour

Label: Mudoks Records Country: Germany

"No need to restate who Mary Halvorson is, but hearing pianist Hubert Bergmann at work was a premiere for this reviewer; a satisfying first meeting, to be sure. The improvised set, lasting less than half a hour, was taped in a single afternoon; despite the swift agreement, this recording - the lone time in which the two played together - contains a good number of pros and almost no cons, acquiring value with each new listen.

A brief interlocutory phase starts the duet, both artists touching the respective instrument's strings cautiously yet probingly, atonal implicitness and rarefaction going hand in hand. As the minutes start flowing so does the musicians' unrest, a parallelism of insistent arpeggios becoming the predominant feature. Bergmann moves all around the keyboard in cascades and clusters, distantly recalling Keith Tippett's mesmerizing agitations; Halvorson responds with wounding diagonals and discordant scales - which Robert Fripp post Discipline would approve with a smile - at times twisted by the use of a whammy pedal.

Intervals of charming quietness turn up from the sixteenth minute on, the couple slowing down every once in a while as if willing to check at what point they've arrived, the waters calming a bit through restful piano chords and a little breathing in between the guitar's clean lines. This alternance is a decisive substantiation of the mutual receptiveness which defines the music's quality, eventually classifying MixTour as a welcome introduction to Bergmann's capacities and one among the many interesting releases involving Halvorson."-Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes