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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

OirTrio - Kanata (Not Two Records, 2010) ****½


There is possibly nothing as difficult for the creative artist to improvise on the spot and make something that barely has any relationship with anything done before, while at the same time making a piece of music that is sufficiently solid, meaningful and compelling to make the listener to go back to it time and time again.

In December 2008, at the Loft in Cologne, Germany, Frank Gratkowski on alto sax and clarinet, Sebastian Gramss on bass, and Tatsuya Nakatani on percussion met for this fully improvised live performance.

So, the question is: why do you want to hear this again and again, especially because the music would be classified as "noise" by 99% of listeners (and probably more), while in all truth it is a very attractive tissue of interwoven sounds, fragile, subtle and full of nuance. Elegant. Sophisticated. Fresh. Organic. Pristine. Its real power lies in its emotional depth. You want to listen again because it touches that part of your nervous system that is linked to pure, authentic and profound feelings, somewhere between joy and fear, mostly unnamed, yet coming to life when listening.

There is no logic to this. No explanation either. That's the great thing about it. It is what it is. Great. Substantial. True in a deep human sense.  Don't touch it with your words.

Just listen. And be touched.

© stef

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