Kaja Draksler / Susana Santos Silva - Grow

Label: Intakt Records, 2022

Personnel - Kaja Draksler: piano; Susana Santos Silva: trumpet.

Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler and Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva are two excellent improvisers who coax the listener into unfamiliarly atmospheric worlds that are fun to explore. Displaying an incredible facility with their instruments, these two innovators create an intriguing album with rippling sonic waves echoing through the air in the company of tumbling percussive elements that underscore the porous textures.

“Moonrise” kicks off with a patterned, chiming jangle that comes from the prepared piano. A certain rhythm is set in motion, over which vibrato brass lines and abstract constellations of notes navigate atop, creating a strange combination of restlessness and peace. Presented like a suite, the next improvisation, “Close”, dwells in an abstract textural continuum. Silva’s horn oozes sounds extracted from a bunch of extended techniques: staccato feints, breath attacks, multiphonics, and trills. Her repetitive actions are counteracted by raspy and rattling percussive effects. 

Delivered on the hype, “Liquid Rock” attempts even bolder sounds at the outset, eventually infusing palpable harmonies and melody. It feels like a nightmarish reverie, though, in which the piano sounds like an electronic machine that depends on a precise clock to function. Incisive trumpet lines dive into low and high registers with pinpoint navigation, and everything falls into a quiet if compulsory succession of sounds that throws us into an indefinite limbo.

The album concludes with “Grow”, a brainy industrial-like exercise made wildly unstable by electronic-suggested noises, prepared piano, air notes, and terse remarks. The mood is then adapted to ambient on the basis of long trumpet notes and a high-pitched piano drone that later converts into low bass moves.

With unrepentant honesty, Draksler and Silva contribute considerable creativity to this duo recording. They reckon with exploration of sound without being too explanatory of what’s going on. This makes the listener search with avid curiosity, resulting in a satisfactory outcome.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Close ► 03 - Liquid Rock

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Punkt.Vrt.Plastik - Somit

Label: Intakt Records, 2021

Personnel - Kaja Draksler: piano; Petter Eldh: bass; Christian Lillinger: drums.

At once programmatic and free, the innovative trio Punkt.Vrt.Plastik is also known for having equal parts muscularity and flexibility woven into textures that prove to be tightropes to walk. Pianist Kaja Draksler (here playing two different upright pianos), bassist Petter Eldh and drummer Christian Lillinger draw their sounds from many sources, creating a melting pot of originality, groove and rhythmic fluidity that takes them to distinguished places in the European avant-garde scene.

Somit, the follow-up to their accomplished 2018 debut, starts off with “Helix GA”, a swift demonstration of the trio’s tenacity, rhythmic unpredictability and style. Here, quick-tempered propulsions alternate with calculated fragmentation topped by well-placed piano accents. 

“If Asked” sluggishly crawls with a rhythmic cadence that finds encouragement in a piano figure that gradually merges with improvised ideas, eventually dissolving. As a matter of routine, there are pointillistic stresses and fractured surfaces.

Draksler’s bracing piano work on “Membran” is outstanding and comes with swirling figures as well as perfectly executed runs and parallels, all placed over a loose-limbed dance that swings when perhaps least expected. Another piece that swings hard after completion is “Natt Raum”, a motivic and playful electronic-inspired exercise, while “Ribosom” also experiences some of it before falling into other types of groove.

More rhythmic than melodic, the group ventures outside typical patterns without jeopardizing the organic synthesis and tonal balance that make their music so ear-catching. This extraordinary capability is revealed throughout. The short-lived title track, for instance, seems to gleam from the electro-jazz universe to remain in its state of trance. Conversely, Lillinger’s “Amnion” brings more jazz-inspired chordal work to the fore in addition to cross-rhythmic stimuli and occasional polyphonic lines that flirt with dissonance. 

“Enbert Amok” and “Trboje” are both throbbing and riddling. The former conserves something primitive in the rhythm, being buckled down with compulsive, chromatic movements and a percussive statement mainly focused on the snare and bass drums. In return, the latter piece assembles a cerebral matrix filled with Monk’s lyrical acuteness and some of Stockhausen’s visionary possibilities. 

This is clever, hard-to-resist modern creative music with high levels of detail and accuracy, confirming Punkt.Vrt.Plastik as one of the top jazz trios on the scene. 

Grade A

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Helix GA ► 02 - If Asked ► 05 - Amnion

Kaja Draksler Octet - Out For Stars

Label: Clean Feed, 2020

Personnel - Kaja Draksler: piano, kalimba, cowbells; Laura Polence: voice; Björk Níelsdóttir: voice; Ada Rave: tenor saxophone, clarinet, mouth organ; Ab Baars:   clarinet, tenor saxophone, mouth organ, voice; George Dumitriu: violin, viola, mouth organ; Lennart Heyndels: double bass, voice; Onno Govaert: drums and percussion.

Boasting an admirable, inventive way of expressing herself, Amsterdam-based Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler continues the poetry-inspired musical work she has been developing for her singular octet. Out for Stars is the much anticipated follow up to Gledalec (Clean Feed, 2017) and comes sealed with her unique signature sound. The inspiration arose from poems by Robert Frost, whose excerpts are passionately intoned by singers Laura Polence and Björk Níelsdóttir.

On “Danas, Jucer Sutra”, ethereal voices are set against the solemn chamber wall of cello and violin, creating a sort of ritualistic musing. The conversational exchanges between saxophonist Ada Rave and violinist George Dumitriu is preceded by the former’s occasional popping sounds and trills. At that point, we also have sparse piano raindrops and understated percussive work conferring it textural beauty.

“Acquainted With the Night” advances patiently in its poetic narrative, weaving a refined aesthetic that incorporates trio moments composed of earthy round bass, angular piano, and prismatic drumming. From there, the trio falls into cadences formed from insistent notes and bold chords, bass rambles, and a kinetic percussive flow that reinforces the propagation of energy. The ambience that follows draws some tension and jagged momentum from amidst the complex combinations of things. Down the line, the group hangs in suspension with vocals and clarinets side by side until the solo piano placidity of the final moments.

Providing one of the best moments on the record, “The Last Mowing” is the most propulsive piece and its vigorous energy gets underway as soon as the percussive chops by Onno Govaert are generated. This being said, the climax arrives with the narrow and wide magnitudes of two tenor saxophones in ecstasy. The isotropic consolidation of sounds along with the finely calibrated vocals are a total fun to listen to, and points of comparison with The Fire Orchestra! can be established.

“The Silken Tent” blends spoken word (narrators here are clarinetist/saxophonist Ab Baars and bassist Lennart Heyndels), pure classical singing with the transcription of Händel’s Dominus A Dextris Tuis, and free improvised music, whereas “Away!”, featuring a recorded declamation by Frost, adopts an art-pop lyricism and reaches its emotional pinnacle with plaintive, dissonant saxophone wails.

With a gripping pastoral atmosphere at the core, Out for Stars is given depth and breadth by the ensemble’s adroit execution. It’s not for everyday, but when the spirit asks for these moods, it’s an artistic treat. 

Grade B+

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Acquainted With the Night ► 03 - The Last Mowing ► 06 - Away!

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Kaja Draksler / Petter Eldh / Christian Lillinger - Punkt.Vrt.Plastik

Label: Intakt Records, 2019

Personnel - Kaja Draksler: piano; Petter Eldh: bass; Christian Lillinger: drums.

The European trio composed of Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, Swedish bassist Petter Eldh, and German drummer Christian Lillinger definitely deserves several listenings and wider recognition due to an urgent, empathetically modern sound that transpires focus, freedom, and craft. Their album Punkt.Vrt.Plastik is vividly recommended for the ones who love elaborate textures, rhythmic disjunctions, patterned lyricism, and maturely conspired ambiances with intelligent crosscurrents in the instrumentation.

Lillinger’s “Nuremberg Amok” opens the album as a beautiful deconstruction with a strong polyrhythmic feel and swift fragmented phases that often repeat. A nuanced sense of tempo and engrossing fluidity are constant presences.

“Evicted” is the only composition penned by Draksler, evolving in a spectacular way and conveying the uncertainty and distress that an eviction may suggest. Ambiguity and some sadness are mixed in Draksler's lines, which causes an impressive effect whenever the hair-raising low notes are blended with shrilling pointillism to form strange musical mosaics. She has this very special way to deal with space. Is the following intervallic melodicism a synonym of resignation? Ponderation, for sure! Apart from her choices, Eldh concludes with a resonant bass foray replete of pizzicato technique.

Happy and carefree, “Punkt Torso” is marked by a classical lyricism that takes a bit more reflective intonation on “Life is Transient” and an exquisite modernization on “Momentan”, achieved through additional patterned elements that seem taken from electronica.

Both “Azan” and “Plastic” appear with fidgeting, broken beats expressed with dry and wet tones. However, while the former circulates angular melody, the latter advocates lullaby-ish lines and crawling dark drones, after a nearly two-minute drum solo.

Eldh and Lillinger are members of Amok Amor, a quartet with saxophonist Wanja Slavin and trumpeter Peter Evans, and their well-established rapport is valued by the independent Draksler, who knows how to merge into their rhythmic entanglement with finesse. The shape shifting “Body Decline” is another wonderful example of brilliance, put together with assertive noir brushstrokes and that beautiful tension/resolution dichotomy. Eldh penned it.

Reinventing themselves to escape any sort of pre-determined norms, the trio crafts an aesthetically bold work that will make you dive into their music, and remain indefinitely.

Grade A

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Nuremberg Amok ► 02 - Evicted ► 06 - Body Decline

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