Label: Aut Records, 2020
Personnel - Federico Calcagno: clarinets; José Soares: alto saxophone; Adrian Moncada: piano; Pau Sola Masafrets: cello; Nick Thessalonikefs: drums.
Amsterdam-based Italian clarinetist Federico Calcagno leads a super dynamic quintet named Liquid Identities. Their eponymous debut album, an agreeable surprise, offers thrills from start to finish. Calcagno has in the Portuguese altoist José Soares an excellent ally in the frontline as they often indulge in smart contrapuntal moves and open interplay instilled with complex Dolphy-esque intervals. The rhythm section - comprised of piano, cello and drums - was entrusted to Adrian Moncada, Pau Sola Masafrets and Nick Thessalonikefs, respectively, and their strong chemistry played a great part in the deal.
The record consists entirely of original material, kicking off with “Modernity”, an impressionistic composition designed with bold tempos (additive 8+7 meter), exciting counterpoint and unisons with tenacious salient figures, and even some chamber-esque reverie at times. The breathable middle section precedes a logical conversation between the two reedists, who alternate bars with extra motivation. The abrupt finale coincides with the peak of a brief crescendo.
Terrifically patterned by Masafrets’ plucked cello, the meditative “Road to Koog” attaches South Indian music influences while carrying a wistful tenderness in its polyphonies. The texture is moderately strengthen, providing solid ground for unbounded, explorative statements from clarinet, piano and alto. Parallel staccatos enrich the segment that precedes the concluding chamber passage.
“Blame”, an electronica-influenced neo-bop churner, adopts a modern, danceable posture. This trip comes filled with sudden rhythmic shifts, brisk and zigzagging phrasing, steeped accentuations, and a tonally immersive solo by Soares, who commands his horn to scream, bend and glare right into your ears.
An attractive syncopated beat is not the unique element of “Disruptive Innovations” associated with agility. There’s also Moncada’s pointillism and wide-ranging harmonic colors, which become increasingly darker as Calcagno and Soares step into more neurotic and palpably tense territories with a somewhat confrontational posture.
Assembled with a fashioning compelling aesthetic, “Miles Drives” provides counter-movements in unison (clarinet/cello vs. piano/sax), Latinized piano activity and a startling juxtaposition of improvised lines by sax and bass clarinet. There’s a lightness in the rhythmic flow that feels very breezy here. In an opposite manner, the kinetic avant-jazz of “There Was a Rhythm” forges heavier chains with which to be bound.
Calcagno and his Liquid Identities spill energy from every pore, assuring that the eight tracks on the album are abundantly provocative and never boring.
Grade A-
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Modernity ► 03 - Blame ► 05 - Disruptive Innovations