Italian-born New York-based percussionist Carlo Costa meets Norwegian guitarist Havard Volden (Moon Relay, Muddersten) for an album of water-themed free improvisations, beautifully developing with thoughtful playing using rich chord patterns and unusual sonic inventiveness in percussive objects to create a set of rich and languorous surges and pools of sound.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2017 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Firehouse Space in Brooklyn, New York, on May 20th, 2016, by Nathaniel Morgan.
"Norwegian guitarist Havard Volden and New York-city based percussionist Carlo Costa present their first collaboration on record with an album of acoustic improvisations. The music on In the Wake makes use of repetitive patterns, slow development, space, drones and varyingly layered textures through which the two forge surprisingly rich sonic realms and generate a palpable sense of expectation. With a paired-down set up and a minimalist approach Volden and Costa present a subtle yet dramatic album."-Neither/Nor Records
"How would it sound if the American primitive guitar of John Fahey met the avant-garde of abstract jazz improvisation in the wilderness? Guitarist Havard Volden and drummer Carlo Costa give the answer on their album In the Wake.
The cover by Brooke Herr is an image of an abstract seascape that resides somewhere between the referential image and a manipulation that goes beyond the image. The same thing goes for the music that uses the recognizable sounds of a strummed guitar and the unrecognizable sounds of scratching cymbals and percussion transformed into something new. The drum set is no longer there, it has disappeared in the air. Percussion plays and becomes something else.
Volden strums the guitar like a painter with broad brushstrokes on a canvas. Large, percussive strokes and delicate steel strings, almost unheard. The sound of a temple bell rings. It is a call for spirituality. Rhythm is broken up into pieces like the titles of the tracks: "Awash," "Pool," "Ripple" and "Ebb." Different movements of water, different movements of music. The sound of water and steel. Rippling, etching, marking silence. A drip, a drop. A chord is a sound is a chord and then it disappears in the waves. In the wake."-Jakob Baekgaard