A beautifully balanced encounter between Baltimore pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn and Bay Area reedist Phillip Greenlief, performing on tenor saxophone & B-flat clarinet, improvising four "colors" as the two span the spectrum from rapid interaction of weaving and pointillistic playing into deeply introspective and ruminating discourse, each the perfect complement for the other.
Label: Very Good Catalog ID: 002 Squidco Product Code: 30241
Format: LP Condition: New Released: 2019 Country: USA Packaging: LP Recorded at Big Ego Studio in Long Beach, California, in May, 2017, by Chris Schlarb and Devin O'Brien.
"Prism Mirror Lens is an exquisite example of what happens when two consummate group collaborators are given the space to establish their own language. Veteran Bay Area composer and reeds improviser Philip Greenlief has a gift for intense intimacy and exploring the saxophone's sotto voce registers. The Baltimore-based Susan Alcorn has transformed her pedal-steel guitar into an orchestra capable of lyrical tapestries and pointillistic details. They both have ears sensitive enough to elevate any musical setting they're dropped in, from ecstatic bluster to quiet tenderness. Together, they've created a startlingly poignant album that showcases free improvisation's ability to arouse meditative deep listening.
That "deep listening" quality is no coincidence-Alcorn and Greenlief were both friends and admirers of the late composer/musical thinker Pauline Oliveros, and of her ethos. Impressed by Alcorn's playing on recordings, Greenlief had contacted her out of the blue several years ago to ask if he could visit Baltimore, hang out, and play. The musical relationship they forged led to a few East Coast dates, and a West Coast tour, which culminated in a recording session in Long Beach, Calif., in May 2017.
Prism Mirror Lens' four extended tracks deliver the emotional density of large abstract paintings. Alcorn answers Greenlief's clusters of billowing sax notes with a flirtation of sustained twang in "Bright Blue," a contrast that limns an expansive desert just before sunset. Greenlief's quavering tones paint an inky night at the beginning of "Forest Green" that Alcorn dots with chime-like plucked notes.
The whole album suggests a cosmic narrative. The pair sound like they're emerging from a primordial pool as lead-off track "Light Green" first ignites, Alcorn's anxious strings clashing against Greenlief's vibrating note runs before they establish a consoling calm.
Intelligently accessible and impishly serious, Prism Mirror Lens is one of those snapshots that documents two artists' enthusiastic sui generis conversation."-Very Good Records