The Squid's Ear Magazine


ISM (Pat Thomas / Joel Grip / Antonin Gerbal): Metaphor (Umlaut Records)

Performing at Knuttel House, in Tokyo, Japan in 2018, the wonderfully complex and trio of Pat Thomas on piano, Joel Grip on double bass, and Antonin Gerbal on drums, bridging traditional jazz piano trio with contemporary forms, in the first of a 2-part installment, each track named for a flower as they balance dense highly active playing with abstract lyricism.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Pat Thomas-piano

Joel Grip-double bass

Antonin Gerbal-drums


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UPC: 5060179706375

Label: Umlaut Records
Catalog ID: umcd0030
Squidco Product Code: 27631

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: Sweden / France / Germany
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Knuttel House, in Tokyo, Japan, on November 24rd, 2018, by Taku Unami.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"To follow up on their first album Nature in its inscrutability strikes back (Umlaut Records 2015), the unclassifiable European trio سم [ISM] will release two new recordings captured during a studio session in Tokyo on November 2018. The first part titled Metaphor will be released on CD in Japan and Europe for spring 2019 while the second installment - the LP Japanese Flower - will be released by the end of the year.

This long and dense diptych exposes and propels a music populated by sound fictions that pulverise the listening habits of the jazz trio format. Sometimes polyphonic, meditative, pulsed and repetitive, abstract or falsely simple, this music carried by three high-flying improvisers is intended to be crude, direct, labyrinthine, always rooted in sound mattere, as consisting of abrupt breaks and renewed continuities. Like the floral compositions of the Ikebana artist Junichi Kakizaki (who oversaw the design of this diptych), this music is " like a flower " in the sense that " it enjoys a unique custom or system, or philosophy, ideology and artistic sense ". The four pieces engraved on these two albums each bear a name of flower - this music becoming a metaphor of the plant.

[ISM] is a name written in ink. A dash through European creative music. A round trip, Berlin - Oxford, via Paris. اسم [ISM] is Pat, Joel and Antonin in a dotted silence without name. Acoustically, the trio creates abstract forms close of written contemporary music with sounds reminding us of ancient traditional jazz trios. The groove wich appears in this music is dense, extreme but always quiet. Music in a continuous flow of high voltage charges. In Arabic, اسم [ISM] is a way to connect between different cultural and imaginary worlds. اسم [ISM] is an Arabic word, which means The Name."-Umlaut Records


Artist Biographies

"Born 27 July 1960; Piano, electronics. Pat Thomas started playing at the age of 8 and studied classical music and played reggae. He began playing jazz at sixteen after seeing Oscar Peterson on television then listened to snatches of jazz on the radio before, in 1979, playing his first serious improvised gigs. From 1986 he played with Ghosts which was Pete McPhail and Matt Lewis.

In addition to programming his keyboards, Pat Thomas also utilises prerecorded tapes. He told Chris Blackford (1991), 'As far as the tapes are concerned I'll probably just sit in front of the TV and tape whatever's going on and so some editing afterward to decide what might be useful. ...But I don't actually put a label on each tape saying what's on there, so when I come to use them I don't know what I'm going to be playing. That obviously prevents me from setting things up. I pick them at random and see what happens. So I'm just as surprised as anybody else at what comes out'.

In 1988 he was awarded an Arts Council Jazz Bursary to write three new electroacoustic compositions for his ten-piece ensemble, Monads: Roger Turner and Matt Lewis, percussion; Pete McPhail, WX7 wind synthesizer; Neil Palmer, turntables; Phil Minton, voice; Phil Durrant, violin; Marcio Mattos, bass; Jon Corbett, trumpet; Geoff Searle, drum machines. The intention was to feature different aspects of electronics using improvisation so, for example, one piece - Dialogue - featured Pete McPhail and Neil Palmer, another concentrated on the interaction of percussionists and drum machines, and a third piece had Phil Minton and Jon Corbett improvising with a computer. The pieces were performed at the Crawley Outside-In Festival of new music in 1989.

Pat Thomas was invited by Derek Bailey to play in Company Week in 1990 and 1991 and he also took part in the Ist International Symposium for Free Improvisation in Bremen with the guitarist. He has been a member of the Tony Oxley Quartet (documented on Incus CD 15) and played in Oxley's Angular Apron along with Larry Stabbins, Manfred Schoof and Sirone at the 8th Ruhr Jazz Meeting and in the percussionist's Celebration Orchestra. He plays with Lol Coxhill in a range of combinations from duo to being a member of 'Before my time', is a member of Mike Cooper's Continental Drift, and he has a well established duo with percussionist Mark Sanders and a trio with Steve Beresford and Francine Luce. In 1992 Pat Thomas formed the quartet Scatter with Phil Minton, Roger Turner and Dave Tucker; funded by the Arts Council they toured the UK in 1993 and again at the beginning of 1997.

On the 'Festival circuit', Pat Thomas has appeared at: the Young Improvisors Festival at the Korzo Theatre, Den Haag (with Jim O'Rourke, Mats Gustafsson and Alexander Frangenheim); Angelica 95 in Bologna, Italy; the Stuttgart 5th Festival of Improvised Music 96 (with Fred Frith, Shelly Hirsch, Carlos Zingaro and others); and the 3rd International Festival 96 in Budapest (with Evan Parker, Phil Minton, John Russell and Roger Turner).

-EFI (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mthomas.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"For a number of years now, energetic double bassist, filmmaker and producer Grip has played an important role for the new scenes of improvised music in Europe. As founder of Umlaut Records, he opened up for creative forms of organizing collectives of musicians and promoting their music internationally. Since 2003 he has been one of the main organizers of Hagenfesten in Dala-Floda, Sweden, a stand-alone festival, and quite frankly possibly the most pleasant venue for free improvised music not only in Sweden but in the whole of Europe. Few other places offer quite the same endearing combination of sophisticated musical risk-taking, and up-beat, social get-together. GripÕs musicianship is informed by a similar knack for welding musical sophistication with social communication, often with an analog film camera at hand. With a handful of short films Joel Grip met mexican filmmaker Mauricio Hern‡ndez and shortly the film production company Umlicht was established. They are right now working on their third and forth feature film together. Umdicht is amplifying the pencil of Joel GripÕs hand, partly through the irregular issue of Lšsa Blad and partly in the future release of books."

-Joel Grip Website (http://www.joelgrip.com/Joel/biograf.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Since the release of File under: Bebop - Peeping Tom in 2009, Antonin Gerbal has developed his own approach of the drums - reinterpreting history of jazz drumming through the prism of european musical improvisation. Improviser, composer, teacher and performer, Antonin Gerbal is associated with the vitality of the Parisian music scene, notably through Umlaut Records. He has performed in Europe, U.S., Russia and Japan, with many original projects such as Nakasanye, Zoor, ISM or Peeping Tom. Involved in large ensembles such as ONCEIM (playing pieces Eliane Radigue or Stephen O'Malley) and Umlaut Big Band (swing dancing band), Antonin Gerbal works regularly with English, German, Swiss and Japanese artists. At the begining of 2016, he releases his solo works called Sound of Drums."

-Antonin Gerbal Website (http://antoningerbal.com/about)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Cockscomb 34:03

2. Marguerite 31:14

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Trio Recordings
Piano Trio (Piano Bass Drums)

Search for other titles on the label:
Umlaut Records.


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