Recording in Berlin in 2021, the quartet of English saxophonist Simon Rose, here on baritone sax and German double bassist and Evil Rabbit label leader Meinrad Kneer join with Creative Sources father/son string improvisers Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and Guilherme Rodrigues on cello for seven delicately commanding, chamber-oriented free improvisations.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2021 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded in Berlin, Germany, on May 13th, 2021, by Guilherme Rodrigues.
"Another portion of free chamber music is a quartet meeting from May last year, from Berlin. Here are the musicians: Simon Rose - baritone saxophone, Ernesto Rodrigues - viola, Guilherme Rodrigues - cello and Meinrad Kneer - double bass. The improvisation is formed here in seven episodes, which last over 65 minutes.
The English-Portuguese-German story is built on a certain dramatic dissonance. On the one hand, there are two intimate stringers - a cello and a viola, and on the other hand, a saxophone and a double bass dripping with post-jazz, which seems to stand in a slight stride. The latter quite quickly catches the common front with the baritone, but also often reaches for the bow and then becomes a very intimate weapon. The musicians take many steps towards the defiant, saturated with prepared sounds narration, on the other hand, a large part of their activity finds its outlet in pure, almost neoclassical phrasing. The initial phase of the recording raises a lot of question marks, but above all it dazzles with a very effective sound. It provides a lot of intimate emotions, sways in the wind and is saturated with a lot of bright interactions, a series of agile questions and even more cunning answers. In the second part, an impatient dynamic is born on the string bars, while the saxophone builds calm and balanced drones, but it needs one deep breath to bring improvisations to an almost free-jazz level. The next improvisation focuses on small, interrupted phrases, also feels full of nervous dynamics, and reaches full compatibility in the final phase, which emanates with pure phrases.
The fourth and fifth stories seem to be the crème de la crème of the entire album! First, a galaxy of winds, gasps, and string jerks. The story flows along a slight hill, upon reaching which a bitter viola serenade begins. The narrative becomes more delicate, cooler, at times charmingly fermented with the post-Baroque double bass string and again finds relief in pure phrases. In the fifth part, the musicians offer us some friction mechanics and jerking physics. On the one hand, a baritone as a troublemaker, on the other, small stringers that are successfully looking for a melody. Inside the narrative there is an intriguing, nervous pace that creates additional quality. The sixth improvisation begins sensational, built thanks to prepared short-cuts, then it goes into a rather bland development, to hide behind a dark ambient curtain in the final stage and weave one of the most beautiful moments of the recording. The final improvisation seems to be a sharp extra-time for its predecessor. Lots of dark drones, cool reactions, but also the lively singing of birds that may have settled on the window frames during the recording, becoming one of the components of the album's title."-Andrzej Nowak, Tribune of Spontaneous Music, translated by Google