The Squid's Ear Magazine


Malfon, Don: Mutable (Relative Pitch)

Using multiphonics, extended techniques and an intuitive sense of drama and narrative, Barcelona alto and baritone saxophonist Don Malfon takes his listeners on an 8-part journey of "Mutable" solo performances, using every inch of his horn (including inserting resonant objects), his body, tongue and breath to investigate the outer limits of his instruments.
 

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Don Malfon-alto saxophone, baritone saxophone


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UPC: 5904224871222

Label: Relative Pitch
Catalog ID: RPRSS015
Squidco Product Code: 32826

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2022
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Bellvitge, in Barcelona, Spain, on May 23rd, 2022, by Noflam Nod.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The music on Mutable is a totally acoustic sonic exploration. It is an investigation that has led to the development of certain extended techniques in order to discover the ultimate limits of the sound of the saxophone and to try to create new sounds on the instrument."-Relative Pitch



"Art is perhaps the only sphere of our existence in which the awareness of one's own limits becomes a decisive exhortation to transcend them. There is in fact no real risk, apart from a possible failure - but such in whose judgement? -, nothing is lost and everything has to be conquered. In this sense, the case of the Catalan saxophonist Don Malfon (Alfonso Muñoz) is exemplary, albeit uncommon. He seems to conceive his entire performative contribution as a challenge to the materiality of the instrument, a questioning that demands as many answers as possible and, as in a scientific laboratory, tends to trigger a process of ever new hypotheses and verifications.

For years now, Malfon has been pursuing a discourse, or rather a linguistic endeavor, similar to that of trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj: but where the Lebanese experimenter uses any means, including electronic ones, to distort and reinvent the sound of his brass from scratch, Malfon sticks strictly to the acoustic dimension, while at the same time expanding the timbral spectrum of the saxophone by means of the most diverse objects and extended techniques. And if On Resonance (Sirulita, 2020) already collected a large number of curious and surprising etudes, the sessions brought together on MUTABLE even border on the improbable.

The intuition of the extraneous element shifts here from a brut-esque and almost provocative approach to absolute technical control, to an expressive confidence that could even inaugurate a new canon. The rumbling metallic clangours and screeches in the foreground, originating from the vibration of appendages inserted in the body of the instrument, are inextricably intertwined with rough sustained notes, multiple hypertones and residual hisses, concomitant and equal facets of a breath that becomes polymorphous, schizoid - indeed, constantly mutable.

The Catalan saxophonist's act of strength evokes a steampunk avant-garde yet to come, a glimpse of how someday, with the likely decline of digital civilisation and the consequent return to analogue order, the outermost stylistic remnants of the original jazz verb will present themselves. MUTABLE actualises exciting, at times even disturbing, visions in forty minutes of pure sonic otherness, but above all makes Don Malfon's a simply unavoidable name in the current free-impro panorama. Due mention must also be made of the prolific New York label Relative Pitch, which should be kept on the radar as much for the forays of veterans as for the first moves of talented up-and-comers."-Esoteros


Get additional information at Esteros

Artist Biographies

"Don Malfon (Alfonso Muñoz), Improvising saxophonist born in Barcelona 1978.

He began playing the electric bass when he was sixteen years old, changing to the saxophone at eighteen while studying at a local school in Barcelona.

In 2000 he moved to Havana, Cuba, where he studied particularly for five years under the tutelage of the following teachers: Orlando Sanchez (Cuba Jazz), Javier Zalva and Elvira Fuentes. Specializing in baritone and alto sax.

From 2006 he settled again in Barcelona and joined groups such as planeta imaginario (Progressive Jazz Rock), Filthy Habits Ensemble (set dedicated to the instrumental music of Frank Zappa and Stravinski), Reptilian Mambo (mambo avant-garde), B.I.B (Orchestra of improvisers of Barcelona), IED8 (Free Jazz and free improvisation), October Equus (Rock, Contemporary) Outerzone (jazz progressive core) among others.

In 2013 he moved to Mexico City where he collaborated and joined groups such as Zero Point , SIC, Remi Álzarez 4, Chocolate Smoke Gang , Mexican American Jungle Orchestra Of Marco Eneidi, Spontaneous Generation, Carlos Marks, Teoqualo and other free jazz, improvisation and other outfits.

His current experience comes from interpreting in diverse groups, alongside Agustí Fernández, Liba Villavecchia, Barry Guy, Tom Chant, John Edwards, Agustí Martinez, Pablo Rega, Nuno Rebelo , Remi Älvarez , Marco Eneidi among others.

He has been published in more than thirty albums, released on Cuneiform Records, Altrock Records, Discordian Records and Audition Records and other labels.

With some of these groups he has appeared in different festivals of jazz, rock, and free improvisation in Europe, South America and Latin America."

-Don Malfon Website (https://www.donmalfon.com/copia-de-bio)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Mutable 1 4:59

2. Mutable 2 8:09

3. Mutable 3 4:09

4. Mutable 4 3:43

5. Mutable 5 2:50

6. Mutable 6 4:38

7. Mutable 7 4:51

8. Mutable 8 7:27

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Solo Artist Recordings
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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