Label: Pi Recordings, 2023

Personnel - Jeremy Viner: tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet; Matt Mitchell: piano, Prophet-6, modular synths, electronics; Kim Cass: electric and acoustic bass; Kate Gentile: drums, vibraphone, composition.

The multifaceted drummer and composer, Kate Gentile, demonstrates how her compositions can encompass magnetic rhythms, mechanic entanglement, and fluid gravitation in a seismic triple album that offers over three hours of modern creative music. Leading an explorative quartet of Brooklyn-based creatives, including keyboardist Matt Mitchell (her co-conspirator in the Snark Horse duo project), bassist Kim Cass, and saxophonist/clarinetist Jeremy Viner, Gentile mounted Find Letter X in three volumes with a total of 41 tracks. In this review, I will primarily focus on Volume I, titled Iridian Alphabet, an evocation of the magic hour of the night and the mystery drawn from the inexplicable.

The album begins with the short-lived but exquisite “Pulse Capsule”, featuring a syncopated beat and strong electronic components. It proceeds to “Laugh Magic”, an overheated psychedelic journey that lifts us from the ground into the atmosphere. The tranquility of the saxophone is set against the frantic pulsations created by piano, bass and drums. The tempo gradually accelerates alongside mutations in texture, leading to exciting solos from Mitchell and Viner over a churning musical tapestry.

The acutely nuanced “Subsurface” highlights saxophone multiphonics on top of a deep substratum. It immerses the listener in a hazy cloud of tranquility punctuated with a few dark spots, all accompanied by Gentile’s effective brushwork. Even transcending influences, Viner’s solo here awakens memories of Sam Rivers’s playing. “Recursive Access” boasts a mesmerizing punk-rock drive with enough groove nuance to make you hooked. It also features a cacophonous dialogue between Viner and Mitchell, bringing up gradual changes over time. In a whimsical approach, Gentile ends up stepping up and down in tempo.

“In Casks” opens with a wonderful bass soliloquy and unfolds with polyrhythmic expertise. This fashionable expressiveness persists on burning avant-garde swaggers lie “Ore Whorls” and “Erinome”. The group makes “Prismatoid” as much accentuated and fractured as malleable, forging a shape that represents the swing of the new era. And Cass delivers a zippy statement that deserves one’s full attention. The first volume concludes with “Invisible Wolves”, a porous sound bubble reverberating with vibraphone, droning aesthetics, and a looming sense of danger.

Volume II (Senselessness) takes on a more aggressive tone, infused with high-octane noise, grainy textures, and distortion for a prog-rock, post-punk, trashy metal feast that feels like a futuristic fusion. Volume III (The Cosmic Brain) is a personal favorite, exploring a variety of energies and tones with baffling intricacy and metrical fascination.

Kate Gentile showcases her excellent skills, nodding to different styles in order to create deliberate abstraction and unwavering certitude. The epic Find Letter X stands as one of the most high-energy opuses of the year.

Favorite Tracks:
04 - Subsurface ► 05 - Recursive Access ► 08 - Ore Whorls

Label: Pi Recordings, 2021

Personnel - Matt Mitchell: piano; Kate Gentile: drums, percussion; Jon Irabagon: alto and soprano saxophones, Matt Nelson: tenor saxophone; Ben Gerstein: trombone; Davy Lazar: trumpet; Brandon Seabrook: guitar, banjo; Ava Mendoza: guitar; Kim Cass: bass, Mat Maneri: viola.

Snark Horse, the duo of pianist/keyboardist Matt Mitchell and drummer Kate Gentile, releases an epic 6 CD-box set that brims with astoundingly intricate rhythms and textures as well as plenty of freely improvised passages within a rigorous structural organization.

For this monumental opus composed of one-bar compositions and short electronic pieces, the twosome enlisted a collective of eight musicians who appear in various combinations across the album, ranging from duo to tentet (Snark Horsekestra). All these contributors, known for being constantly on the look for new experiences, have been playing with the duo since 2013.

It’s extremely hard to pick favorites from the extensive tracklist, but “Compartments/ ‘S Partial” threw me into its delightfully elliptical trajectories via saxophone/trombone interjections and explosive guitar maneuvers, all in a permanent musical connection and deep focus. Featuring a similar instrumentation and blooming with polyrhythmic wonder, “Igh/Dogmacile” dives deep into industriously mechanical motions. The great vibe of Mitchell’s “A Pouting Grimace” is reinforced here through the deft interplay between the pianist and the guitarist Brandon Seabrook. This piece is linked to “Greasy Puzzle”, a sort of mournful stirrer.

If “Trapezoids/Matching Tickles” opens with exciting drumming and features Jon Irabagon in absolute command of the altissimo register and extended techniques, then “Nudgelet”, with bassist Kim Cass aboard, probes prog-rock aesthetics with hints of electronica and lots of jazzy piano atop. Mitchell also jazzes up the fast paced “Glubz/Spelling Bad on Purpose”, where entrancing rhythms and glorious timbres are held down tight.

The fervent “Thing-Fact/Theoretical Muscle” has Irabagon and Gerstein producing lavishly with shaggy authority, whereas “Regular Falutin’” exudes a more exotic touch in the combination of Seabrook’s banjo with Mat Maneri’s viola over an entrancing 13/8 rhythm. The same pair operates in a different context alongside trumpeter Davy Lazar on “Mad Homonyms/Phex”.

You'll find unremitting odd meter everywhere. Hence, Gentile’s “F Tesselations/Chimeric Numbers” shows off the full Horsekestra grooving in five and seven, whereas “Mind Goggle/End of Something” develops in a slower nine, having Matt Nelson’s dark tenor timbres working as a perfect foil for Ava Mendoza’s atmospheric guitar.

Diversity is offered with the short electronic numbers, which include ritualistic paraphernalia (“Flock Adulation”), granular and glitchy vibes (“Pheromone Quiz”), spectral dissonance (“All Tall Ghosts”), and flickering, bloopy sounds (“Underblobb Sys”).

For all its ingenious conception and technical quality, this is essential listening for all modern music surfers whose waves range from microscopic precision to cosmic turbulence.

Favorite Tracks:
04 (CD1) - A Pouting Grimace/Greasy Puzzle ► 01 (CD2) - Trapezoids/Matching Tickles ► 08 (CD3) - Glubz/Spelling Bad on Purpose ► 02 (CD4) - F Tesselations/Chimeric Numbers ► 05 (CD5) - Mad Homonyms/Phex