Label: Intakt Records, 2022
Personnel - Brandon Lopez: double bass; Ingrid Laubrock: tenor and soprano saxophone; Tom Rainey: drums.
Bassist Brandon Lopez joins the long-time duo of saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey, forming a constructive trio of free improvisers who create new worlds of expression with rhythmic consolidation and appropriate levels of abstraction. After a mesmerizing first gig at Brooklyn’s Barbès in 2017, the trio vowed to work together and transported all their musical chemistry to this first outing, No Es La Playa, whose story has a flow, and each of the six tracks has a role in its imaginative telling.
The expedition begins with the title track, which, running past the 13-minute mark, is the longest piece of the set. After a cautious start - with accurately limned tenor melodies, precise bass note configurations and entrancing drumming - the rhythm section exquisitely swings while sustaining conversational lines atop. The sounds and cadences here often recall Parker, Braxton and Ornette. An unheralded ritualistic pulse follows, impeccably driven by Rainey’s exuberance, and with Lopez’s propulsive ostinatos sneaking through the mix. Shortly after this implementation, Laubrock switches to soprano, and the ride ends up in moderate cacophony.
“Saturnian Staring” is launched with unequivocal, persistent drum work, swooning sax melodies, and bubbling bass underpinning. Lopez then embarks on unusual intervals and occasional pedal points that, in trance, support staccato horn lines. This livelier mood is challenged by the somber atmospherics of “When the Island is a Shipwreck”, a tribute to American poet Fred Moten. Its moody tension goes from a mutual entwinement between arco bass and saxophone to the abrupt silence of a break that transforms the former panorama into a wildly ebullient scenario. During the first section, Rainey’s unparalleled drum style comes to the fore with opportune snare drum rattles and bright cymbal shatters.
Making for a brilliant album closer, “The Black Bag of Want” also paints with bowed bass and tenor sax brushstrokes at the outset, but is darker in tone. Laubrock’s shouts and multiphonic roars lead to a furious rhythm, and the energy bursts intensely. Her perpendicular phrases and abundant motivic ideas are also in evidence in “Camposanto Chachacha”. As Einstein once said, “creativity is intelligence having fun”; that’s the sentiment we have while listening to this recording.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - No Es La Playa ► 03 - Saturnian Staring ► 06 - The Black Bag of Want