The first meeting between New York alto saxophonist Tim Berner and Australian string player Chloë Sobek, performing on the violone, a precursor to the modern double bass, in five improvisations recorded outside of the studio to create an intimate space for their spontaneous, articulate and well-balanced dialogs, from rapt introspection to blazing intensity.
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Chloe Sobek-violone
Tim Berne-alto saxophone
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UPC: 5904224872625
Label: Relative Pitch
Catalog ID: RPR1183
Squidco Product Code: 34823
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded on June 17, 2023, by Joe Branciforte.
"This is the first collaboration between Australian improvisor Chloë Sobek who plays the Renaissance precursor to the double bass, the violone and New York saxophonist Time Berne."-Relative Pitch
"[...] Before recording, the two artists had never met. Actually, Berne was even largely unfamiliar with Sobek's unique instrument, the violone, a Renaissance precursor to the upright bass that is arcane by today's standards. Her work often incorporates electronics and concepts from musique concrète. Of course, alto saxophonist Berne is no stranger to the experimental or pushing music forward in new directions, whether with his own groups like Blood Count or Snakeoil, or collaborations with Julius Hemphill, John Zorn, or David Torn. But the creation of Burning Up essentially put both artists in a construct built upon uncertainty. It creates a space in which neither can do anything but respond to one another in the most creative way they can imagine.
The results are incendiary. The opener, "Scorpius," starts with Sobek's skitteringly frenetic hits with a bow and adds staccato fractured lines on Berne's sax. But it gradually becomes more unified, with long wails on the horn and a gentle but insistent movement on strings. "Disquiet Souls," at times, sounds like a through-composed - albeit loosely so- piece due to the way both artists create lines that smolder and fuse with one another. But, like the rest of the album, it is not preconceived. Throughout, Burning Up is a fascinating musical inferno caused by complete artistic freedom devoid of preconceptions. The music destructively clears through all the existing brush to blaze startlingly new paths. But it is often done to allow new growth to emerge."-Rob Shepherd, PostGenre, from the introduction of an interview with Sobek & Berne
Get additional information at Post-Genre
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Chloe Sobek "Chloë Sobek is a composer-performer based in Naarm, Australia. Her work is currently centred on the development of a post-anthropocentric sonic practice that encompasses a diversity of enquiry from acoustemology through to noise music. She is invested in what creative practice can do to deconstruct and reshape the way we conceptualise our collective futures. Chloë's practice is built around the Renaissance precursor to the double bass, the violone. Her creative process couples maximalist and musique concrète sensibilities such as audio-montage and electronic processing, with a handling of sound as a senate object, unlinked and undefined by its source. Chloë has won the 2022 Allan Zavod Performers' Award, the Monash Jazz and Improvisation postgraduate award (2021), the Marten Bequest Scholarship (2020) and the RMIT Vice Chancellor's Award (2019). Chloë has also been awarded funding from the Australia Council of the Arts, the City of Melbourne, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and was a scholarship student at the Australian National Academy of Music. She has presented research and work at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, at TENOR2022 and is co-editor of Recent Networked Music: Performing in and Composing for the Ether issue of Contemporary Music Review (Taylor and Francis). Recent composition and performance highlights include, with the support of the Australia Council of the Arts, the commission to write, record and perform a work for Outlier (Lizzy Welsh and Chloë Sobek) and Tilman Robinson at Melbourne Recital Centre and The Theatre Royal (2021). With the support of the Marten Bequest, the commission to compose and perform a contemporary work for violone (2020) and with the support of the Castlemaine State Festival, the commission to compose and perform an animated score for Outlier (2019)." ^ Hide Bio for Chloe Sobek • Show Bio for Tim Berne "Tim Berne (born 1954) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Described by critic Thom Jurek as commanding "considerable power as a composer and ... frighteningly deft ability as a soloist", Berne has composed and performed prolifically since the 1980s. His mainstream success has been limited Ð Berne recorded two albums for Columbia Records Ð but he has released a significant body of work over the decades spanning dozens of critically acclaimed recordings. Though Berne was a music fan, he had no interest in playing a musical instrument until he was in college, when he purchased an alto saxophone. He was more interested in rhythm and blues music Ð Stax records releases and Aretha Franklin, especially Ð until he heard Julius Hemphill's 1972 recording Dogon A.D. Hemphill was known for his integration of soul music and funk with free jazz. Berne moved to New York City in 1974. There Berne took lessons from Hemphill, and later recorded with him. In 1979, Berne founded Empire Records to release his own recordings. He recorded Fulton Street Maul and Sanctified Dreams for Columbia Records, which generated some discussion and controversy, due in part to the fact that Berne's music had little in common with the neo-tradionalist hard bop performers prominent in the mid-1980s. Some regarded Berne's music as uncommercial. In the late 1990s Berne founded Screwgun Records, which has released his own recordings, as well as others' music. Beyond his recordings as a bandleader, Berne has recorded and/or performed with guitarist Bill Frisell, avant-garde composer/sax player John Zorn, violinist Mat Maneri, guitarist David Torn, cellist Hank Roberts, trumpet player Herb Robertson, the ARTE Quartett and as a member of the cooperative trio Miniature. Recent years have found Berne performing in several different groups with drummers Tom Rainey and Gerald Cleaver, keyboardist Craig Taborn, bassists Michael Formanek and Drew Gress, guitarists Marc Ducret and David Torn, and reeds player Chris Speed. He is one-third of the group BBC (Berne/Black/Cline) along with drummer Jim Black and Nels Cline of Wilco. The group released a critically acclaimed album called The Veil in 2011. Berne's complex, multi-section compositions are often quite lengthy; twenty- to thirty-minute pieces are not unusual. One critic wrote that Berne's long songs "don't grow tiresome. The musicians are brilliantly creative and experienced enough not to get lost in all the room provided by these large time frames." " ^ Hide Bio for Tim Berne
9/4/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
9/4/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
Track Listing:
1. Scorpius 9:21
2. Disquiet Souls 9:38
3. Icarus And The Phoenix 8:01
4. Signe 6:34
5. Burnishing 12:51
Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Stringed Instruments
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Duo Recordings
New in Improvised Music
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