In the age of recorded-music-glut, a vanity label can be a sort of calling card for the diversified musician, corralling a variety of projects into one pen. Such is the case for Chris Welcome and Empty Room Music. Welcome is a guitarist active in various realms of improvising experimentation, working in jazz leaning groups (projects with James Ilgenfritz, Kirk Knuffke, Jonathan Moritz and Mike Pride) but also has irons in the flames of abstract noise and contemporary composition. Apocalypso, the first release on the label, is a great chunk of dark ambiance created with Walter Wright on analog synthesizer and Shayna Dulberger on double bass. Dulberger and Welcome both employ electronics to their instruments and at moments any one of the three can seem a little effects happy, digging their heels into a slope or wave. But such instances pass and for the most part they create an enjoyably dense thicket of forboding sounds.
Welcome's Wasteland, Untitled, Colors collects three compositions (named in the album title) for four to ten musicians that by and large (like Apocalypso) resist overindulgence. Although a section of score is reprinted inside the digipack, the pieces seem for the most part to be structured improvisations. "Wasteland" is a quintet of electronics, piano, cornet and trombone (with Knuffke on the cornet), nicely sparse and slowly paced. The untitled work is slower still, although both do keep a meter. With Morita on saxophone and Pride on drums alongside piano and analog synth, there's more "music" in it while at the same time so little momentum that it seems at times to inadvertently stop and then start to roll again. At 25 minutes, "Colors" is as long as the other two combined, and the has largest ensemble as well, with two reeds, three horns, guitar, bass, vibes, percussion and, again, analog synth. The music still retains individual voices for the most part, with only occasional groupings and harmonic structures, and like the others moves at the pace of a pleasant snail. Taken together, the three can be heard as a suite, never losing balance or stasis.
Dulberger's bass is heard on "Colors," and Welcome is a part of her quartet (along with saxophonist Yoni Kretzmer and drummer Carlo Costa) on Ache & Flutter. It's a far jazzier affair than the above titles, and nice in that it's a chance to hear the musicians playing (daresay "jamming") rather than sound-sculpting. It opens, in fact, with a prolonged solo from Dulberger, then proceeds into a duo with Welcome before the others fold in. The musical forms are open - Dulberger gets sole composition credits but the themes are understated and the playing easy going. Welcome's guitar is clean as a whistle - what bits of distortion that are heard may be comping from the amp - and the recording is warm and clear. And with eleven tracks, its 42 minutes fly by.
What might be the nicest surprise here is a duo by Dulberger and Welcome under the name "Hot Date," released in an edition of 100 cassettes by Talking Skull and available on Bandcamp. It in any event includes the most epic moments. The opening "Feed the Species" is a slow metallic burn with Dulberger's double bass run through heavy distortion. The second track finds her still in heavy overdrive but with Welcome's guitar drifting into an ambient wash. They proceed to explore rhythmic, spatial dynamics over the following five tracks, growing increasingly abstract, like a prolonged deceleration.
There's a lot to be heard here. Certainly some tracks fare better than others but happily nothing ever falls flat, which is a bit of a feat considering the swath of ground Dulberger and Welcome want to cover. Having an empty room of one's own, as it were, allows one to fill it as pleased.
 Walter Wright/ Chris Welcome / Shayna Dulberger: Apocalypso
 Chris Welcome: Wasteland, Untitled, Colors
 Shayna Dulberger: Ache & Flutter
 Hot Date
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