J. Pavone String Ensemble - Brick And Mortar

ATTN:Magazine

BANDCAMP.

We open on the ocean. The entire sensory field is richly smacked by rippling blue. Just as the mood of the water can be reinterpreted if the observer simply adjusts the point of focus – locking upon the menace of a rolling wave, then shifting to the placidity of tiny undulations – Jessica Pavone’s ensemble (two violins, two violas) is immediately set rippling with a multitude of contradictory time-speeds and rhythmic collisions, dancing between ballroom waltzes and spritely 4/4s, stretching single chords into majestic crescents of drones, always harbouring cross-rhythms as one violin/viola pair engage in their own private dialogue, passing notes under the desk, twirling in treacherous mis-step with the primary agenda.

Whether giddy with the somersaults of opening “Hurtle And Hurdle” or woven into the thick quilt of the title track, these players are constantly exploring unity and its deliberate undoing. They converge upon a single note to form a thin vertical line. They mimic eachother like birds in dialogue, with flurrying motifs summoning their own uncanny echo. They wander away from one another until the picture starts to smear, the definition gradually undermined, as they slide into a dazzling scramble of polyrhythmic interplay, still radiant in kinetic telepathy, each player never once breaking crystalline awareness of the exact placement and posture of the other three.

All the while, I’m imagining this performance to take place in a gigantic concert hall, cradled in the aroma of unsettled dust and sweet wood varnish. The echo splays and mingles above their head, pressing the strings even closer together, dissolving the boundary between individual instruments and performers, like the hovering nimbus depiction of the quartet’s immaculately assimilated hive mind. I don’t picture an audience – just rows of folded velvet seats wafting the sound back at them – but would the players break their spell of insular concentration and even notice? Doubtful. A luxurious, endlessly intricate piece of work.

Wed Sep 18 15:12:22 GMT 2019

The Free Jazz Collective 80


By David Menestres

Musicians: Joanna Mattrey, Erica Dicker, Angela Morris, Jessica Pavone

Jessica Pavone has been an integral part of the improvised music scene for the better part of this century. From her long running duo with Mary Halvorson (still can’t believe I missed them when they were in town 15 years ago, why didn’t I cancel my own gig to see their’s?), to appearances with legends like Anthony Braxton and William Parker, to her current role in the band Jobs and a recent string of excellent solo viola albums, Pavone has developed a unique voice both as a composer and violist.

The new album Brick and Mortar, credited to the J. Pavone String Ensemble, sees Pavone helming a string quartet of two violins and two violas. The music shimmers and twists around bends, recalling the rhythms of a subway train hurtling across the city, hinting at the quiet force of a shallow river slowly eroding the earth beneath it. The music builds on similar techniques that Pavone has been exploring on solo albums like Knuckle Under (2014) and In The Action (2019).

Much of the album is constructed from small thoughts expanded through repetition and subtle variation. The first track “Hurt and Hurdle” hits with the shifting rhythm of sunlight filtered by the trees on an Appalachian mountainside. The second cut “Lullaby and Goodnight” percolates up through the layers of your memory like a forgotten piece of your childhood. The illuminating drones of the title track dance like the charge of a 9v battery gingerly placed against your tongue slowed to glacial speeds. The album ends with the achingly beautiful “By and Large,” which mostly feels like you’re eavesdropping on an intimate ritual.

Special mention to Bob Bellerue for his excellent recording, done at ISSUE Project Room, and to Weasel Water for the mastering. The album sounds excellent, a wonderful thing given how the music is so deeply focused on the actual physicality of the sounds and the tones of these acoustic instruments and their performers. The recording sounds like you're eavesdropping on a most intimate ritual.




Brick and Mortar by J. Pavone String Ensemble

Mon Sep 30 04:00:00 GMT 2019