Quartet Otomo Yoshihide, Axel Dorner, Sachiko M, Martin Brandlmayr

Donaueschinger Musiktage 2005: : Allurements of the Ellipsoid [2 SACDs]

Label: NEOS Music Country: Germany

"Certainly something to please the masters of Zen. The ever-recurring rhythmic patterns, calm, unrushed and reminiscent of the clacking sounds made by the fountains in Japanese Zen monasteries, as with the same stoic rhythm the weight of the water shifts the balance of the bamboo tubes. But the Zen monks would also be impressed by the pure tones that oscillate sometimes at 50, other times at 18,000 hertz, as if they were an acoustic response to the steady rhythms. They force you to concentrate, to immerse yourself totally in the music.

The moments of silence that run through the over 30-minute-long first track of this double SACD by the Otomo Yoshihide Quartet are therefore but a consistent continuation of the overall musical trajectory on a recording infused with extreme austerity and utmost precision.

The newly formed Otomo Yoshihide Quartet made its debut in Donaueschingen in 2005 where it attracted quite a bit of attention. Even the new music specialists were impressed by the strong formal consistency in the approach of the four improvisers. Having defined avant-garde noise rock as well as experimental reductionism with the band "Ground Zero", the Tokyo-based musician of many talents Otomo Yoshihide teamed up with a group of like-minded performers for the Donaueschingen Festival: Along with Sachiko M - who has been his duo partner in "Filament" for many years, contributing irritating, bare sine waves from a tiny sampler, with the test signals sent through an oscillator - Otomo's Quartet also features two leading figures from the European improvising scene, trumpet player Axel Dörner and drummer Martin Brandlmayr.

Both musicians are known as representatives of aesthetic reductionism - hardly ever does Brandlmayr use drumsticks but mostly his hands or brushes to transform his drum-set into a complex percussion instrument; hardly ever does Dörner blow a normal trumpet tone, but instead turns his instrument into a soft sounding air tube, which he also modifies microtonally via a built-in slide mechanism.

However, just as is the case with Otomo, the two musicians have for some time also been heard in completely different contexts: Brandlmayr as a member of the trio "Radian", whose new album features an electronic transformation of echoes of rock music, whereas Dörner recorded the complete works of Thelonious Monk with the band "Die Enttäuschung". Last but not least, Otomo can be heard on these recordings playing an amplified semi-acoustic guitar and two turntables, but not like a traditional DJ, since he does not use records but for the most part uses the pick-ups themselves to generate his sounds.

It was this versatility and open-mindedness that fused the four musicians into an extraordinary unit right from the start during the rehearsals before the Donaueschingen performance. Hence the release, besides the performance program, also consists of the two most remarkable studio takes (SACD 1). The Otomo Yoshihide Quartet manages to impressively circumvent the cliché of reductionism. Although the dynamics of the improvisations is indeed and often extremely reduced, the tonal spectrum is constantly extended through the experimental playing of the four musicians.

Like Helmut Lachenmann, this quartet demonstrates that noises can be used to make meaningful and at the same time sensuous music. That such music also reveals disturbing and rebellious qualities saves it from mere aesthetic emptiness and gives it a contemporary and critical voice. For in times of droning "events", resistance draws its greatest strength from quietness."-Reinhard Kager