A L'ARME! X+I, Berlin, August 10 - 12, 2023

The Free Jazz Collective 0

By Paul Acquaro

Thinking back on past editions of A L'ARME!, it has typically been quite hot, and in a summer where extreme heat has reigned over southern Europe and the US, simple reasoning would suggest that the patterns of past years would hold true for mid-August in Berlin; however, how far from it. Seasonably cool and under blue skies with white fluffy clouds, the opening evening of A L'ARME! X+I was starting out under some ideal conditions.

Even though A L'ARME!'s curator Louis Rastig is himself a fine free improvising pianist himself, do not expect his festival to be some sort of a classic Free Jazz festival. I've made the mistake before of trying to squint real hard and see only what I wanted to see. True, in the beginning, there was more free jazz, even with some of the legends themselves like trombonist Conny Bauer, percussionist Sven Aki Johanssen and the late saxophonist Peter Brötzmann (to name a few) on the program, but as the years have gone on (we're now at the 11th edition, if you do the math), there is less free jazz to find on the program, however, there is still plenty of improvisation, and more so, the drive to create uncompromising, and often very loud, music.

According to Rastig, the main thing is that the performances and music are improvised. He hopes that it brings people around who are ready for something different, and hopefully bring in those who may not have been interested in improvisation before. In fact, a chance conversation with an older listener in the audience, revealed that Rastig was maybe onto something else as well... "I'm tired of free jazz," he said, "it's been done."

Personally, I still have a lot room for some fiery sax, plink-plonking guitar and time-addling percussion, but at this year's festival, I decided to stop squinting, put in my ear plugs (generously provided by the festival) and experience the music without trying to fit it into an older form. Here is what happened...


Thursday, August 10

Of course the opening show was lasers and fog machines, how could it not? The Dutch sound and light artist Edwin van der Heide's work "Intersecting Planes" sculpts the air in the room into geometric shapes that goes tongue-and-groove with a soundtrack of deep, body rattling bass oscillations, electronic beats and unnerving drones. The lasers, changing with the music, create patterns of lines on the wall and prisms in the air, one moves through the performance space seeing forms that are not really there and hearing sounds with a palpable form.
 

The set was followed by the Dutch duo No Plexus, comprised of Allison Wright and Brechtje van Dijk presenting their multimedia deconstruction of the somewhat maligned term 'Gen-Y' or 'Millennial.' The duo reprocesses the imagery and sounds that have been culturally tagged as Millennial and as the generation discussion, starting with the Boomers to the forgotten Generation X, Gen-Y and recent focal point Gen-Z, has become mainstream fodder, it seems quite the appropriate target for scrutiny by the arts. Wright and Brechtje can Dijk use fast cut video, pastiches of song genres from bossa-nova and lounge to electronics and torchy ballads, to deliver their critique. It was a neutron bomb of information, intriguing and intense.
 

The first set of the night ended with the noise-rock of the Norwegian duo Moe with the addition of Veslemøy Narvesen on drums and Mette Rasmussen on saxophone. As the set began, my gut reaction was flight -  it was really loud. The earplugs were making it bearable, but group leader Guro Moe's electric bass and intense vocals and Håvard Skaset's guitar work nearly bested them. Then, Rasmussen came in and her wailing lines took the primordial crunch of the duo and elevated it to something else entirely. Narvesen, as loud now as she was restrained in the earlier set, added fascinating polyrhythm to the aggressive punk/metal pulse. They played as a quartet - not as a duo plus guests - each elevating the others work to create something intriguing and eviscerating. 

The Free Jazz Collective 0

By Paul Acquaro

Read part 1 here.

Friday, August 11

As far as I could tell, this years edition of A'LARME did not have an explicitly stated theme, however, there seemed to be several that tacitly snaked through the varied programming. One of which was expressed by bassoonist Joy Guidry, who addresses themes of discrimination and self acceptance in the face of prejudice and hatred. Guidry's 2022 album, Radical Acceptance, opens with the track 'Just Because I Have a Dick Doesn't Mean I'm a Man,' which lays out with acerbic wit and directness their feelings, and the show that kicked off Friday's concerts set this sentiment to a soundtrack that was both confrontational as well as uplifting. The performance was heartfelt as Guidry challenged the audience to consider injustices by asking the question: "How do you live in a world where...". The music included free jazz interludes, a lovely spiritual folk melody 'Down in the Valley' which stretched into an extended musical exploration, and some bassoon playing from Guidry, which at times leaned experimental and other times sentimental. I would have loved hearing even more of the instrument, a rarity outside of classical music.

Claire Rousay was on last year's program, slated to play drums in woodwindist Ken Vandermark's group with Macie Stewart, before a car accident changed these plans. This year, Rousay made it to Berlin but no longer playing drums, and rather focusing on electronics and vocals. Like say William Eggelston's photography of mid-century America, Rousay's sample sources too are of the everyday - for Eggelston it was shapes and colors of societal artifacts, for Rousay it is the sounds. She mixes samples of audio, like "stopwatches, lawnmowers, field recordings, voice messages" to make sonic pictures. It was interesting, but I was not convinced interesting enough to stand in the very crowded Saal until I noticed that behind her laptop, she was holding an electric guitar. Soon enough, she struck a chord and began singing a wistful melody. It was not a memorable melody or unusual chord progression, but along with the auto-tuned vocals and brittle, crinkly electronics it was quite affective.

The last set of the night by 1 Above Minus Underground was unlike anything ... or maybe, it was a bit everything ... I've ever hear before. The sheer amount of gadgetry on the stage was mindboggling. In fact, it seemed to be more a set-up spectacle than music, but either way, it certainly screamed improvisation. The first portion of the performance featured Victoria Shen making sound using the contents from one of the tables and her body - from a light-up portable record player to a bow that she used to play her hair (she was well mic'd). She was eventually joined by second electronics player, a singer, and drummer Lukas Koenig, who drumming and conception was at the heart of the project. Finally, vocalist Elvin Brandhi joined, providing even more exotic sounds to the textured, rhythmic event. The vast amount of tools and people on the stage certainly made a never before heard collage of sound, fury and permanently altered epiglottises.

Here's the whole group:
Lukas Koenig (AT) — Drums, Synthesizer; Dälek (US) — Vocals; Victoria Shen (US) — Needle Nails, Electronics;  Rojin Sharafi (IR/AT) — Vocals, Electronics;  Elvin Brandhi (UK) — Vocals; Nik Hummer (AT) — Modular Synthesizer

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Saturday, August 12th

I begin with a confession: I missed Jasper Stadhouders' Polyband set. Previous obligations got in the way and I missed what was later described to me by an audience member as "just wow." The guitarist and bassist's free jazz big band concept, in existence since 2015 and comprised of mostly Dutch musicians, operates via the following formula: "lots of volume, lots of rhythm, lots of tonality, lots of repetition – and then, a single, minimal change for a massive impact." Obviously, from the people I spoke with and my spies in the audience, it had it's intended effects: there was some messiness, some obviousness, and some magic to the performance. As I entered Radialsystem, I did hear the group's final three notes - and they did sound good!

The Serge Modular analog synthesizer, now celebrating its 50th anniversary, was developed by Serge Tcherepnin, then a professor at CalArts in the early 1970s. He idea was to develop a synthesizer that was an affordable alternative to the more expensive Buchla synthesizers. He was successful and ended up leaving CalArts to pursue building his instruments exclusively. Thomas Ankersmit, about six years younger than the instrument, has today become one of its leading player. His set, however, may have contained the most confrontational sound that I've ever encountered in a concert setting. The set began interestingly with a series of explosions that seemed to come from different distances and locations and which felt frighteningly realistic. However, a prolonged, high frequency pitch drove me - and several others - from the hall. After the piercing tone subsided, I returned to hear some other and more listenable tonal elements.

Kassa Overall leads a powerful band with a slick delivery style that was both somewhat at odds with the grittier feel of many of the performances at the festival, but also provided probably the most accessible route to jazz of the performances. It was also a fun show. The music incorporates hip-hop and rap with jazz rather flawlessly. Overall, the drummer and MC, along with percussionist Bendji Allonce, leads the charge in creating dense, layered, driving percussive grooves. Pianist Ian Finkelstein provides McCoy Tyner like suspension and bassist Giulio Xavier Cetto offers a solid but agile grounding. Tomoki Sanders, son of Pharoah Sanders, adds colorful sax solos, ranging from saccharine smooth- to eviscerating free-jazz, and exudes an irrepressible energy on stage (as well as running through the audience!). What seemed on paper to be a somewhat off-brand headliner, was quite an invigorating and inspired set.

The final set, RÊVE PARTI, by Eve Risser on prepared piano and kick-drum, with live-electronics player Adrian Bourget, provided the after-concert dance party music, but I had wandered off into the Berlin night by then. Reflecting on the festival a few days later, I can say that my initial impulse to let the festival simply be itself worked out quite well. Sure, there were some acts that I do not feel the need to see again but many more discoveries that opened up my ears to something unexpected and new. What more can you ask for? Without challenge, it would be boring and there is nothing boring about this festival. So, looking forward to A L'ARME! X+II!