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  Magda Mayas / Jim Denley 
  One Another
  (Relative Pitch) 


  
   review by Brian Olewnick
  2025-11-20
Magda Mayas / Jim Denley: One Another (Relative Pitch)

There are certain invaluable musicians within the free improvisational sphere who retain a greater or lesser quality of innate melodicism. No matter how arcane, spiky or bleak the music may seem, they weave a thread of lyricism, perhaps difficult to detect, through the proceedings. For this listener, both Mayas (here on piano and objects) and Denley (flutes) have possessed this quality, an aspect that surfaces regularly in this fine recording.

One Another contains three longish improvised tracks. "One" begins at a relaxed, thoughtful pace, Mayas largely working inside the piano, Denley's flute ambulating in lower registers, matters proceeding serenely like a gentle stream before obstacles are encountered and the music grows agitated, not quite frenetic, the flute higher-pitched, the piano somewhat harsher, the overall sounds becoming more fragmented. The piece maintains a natural flux, subsiding into a nervous calm, coalescing back into a more surging form, the textures, tones and not-quite-melodies expertly and even movingly deployed, eventually ending in a tumbled state. "Another" begins in spacier territory with an edge of eeriness; strings are scraped, the flute consists more of breaths and gasps than tones. A slow, tentative pace is kept throughout, buzzes and bumps dropped often into pools created by the fluttering flute, all creating the sense of a somewhat scary exploration of, perhaps, a watery, underground cavern. Very effective.

The final track, "The Obverse and the Reverse", starts where the prior cut left off, but soon morphs into a gorgeous flow with echoes of gamelan (Mayas presumably using a prepared piano). There's a delightful sense of suspension here, an almost dreamlike bed of gong-sounds and pipes, utterly enthralling, a fine conclusion to an entirely enjoyable and deeply creative recording.







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