Though experienced collaborators who have worked with a spectrum of artists Jake Meginsky (yielding the amazing Selected Occasions of Handsome Deceit), Kevin Drumm, L๊ Quan Ninh, Axel D๖rner, Howard Stelzer, the Ann Arbor American Tapes collective (Wolf Eyes) Boston saxophonist Bhob Rainey and trumpeter Greg Kelly aka nmperign arguably create their most intriguing work as a duo (Ommatidia is nmperign's first "solo" disc in ten years). Their music is the product of a twelve-year tenure of performance, threats to quit the band, arguments, deep discussion, symbiosis; in other words an intimate extreme that brothers (in art) forge while growing up together.
But what does "intriguing work" entail?
Operating sans electronics, Rainey and Kelly rely on hands and mouths not electronics in their organic world of extended techniques. They wrangle this palette long series of tube-emptying breaths ("Glass"), marginally more active gurgles, mouthpiece sputters and hovering single-pitch rockets ("Variation II"), relatively rigorous metallic rumbles, wobbling harmonics and literal instrument bending ("Prey") as would Giancinto Scelsi; fudging rhythm, harmony and meter into an unfocused, non-linear large form, the results not obviously concerned with progression or direction, but prolonged stasis (Rainey cites Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's concerns with breaking time from its one-dimensionality, tricking sensory-motor circuits, when mentioning his approach to improvisation).
Much like two trees linked by the same root system, Rainey and Kelly's reactions to one another are subtle and unlike atypical cat-and-mouse-chase improvisation (i.e. no conversation, interlock, counterpoint, build to a point, burst then begin again). And when they do sonically cross parallel hemispheres and unite in duet (i.e. shaky drones that flinch, phase and pulse at the five-minute mark of "Variations V"), the moments are all that more haunting.
Despite the eye-rolling business-speak associations, Ommatidia is a perfect example of synergy: the audience does not hear two players, or distracting techniques, but a realm insulated with pleasant confusion and inviting, warming claustrophobia.
(Thank you to Joe Panzner at Stylus for his invaluable 2004 interview with nmperign.)
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