It's been quite a while since I followed Drip Audio's progress, and if this new disc of compositions by Josh Zubot is any indication, I'm missing out. My goodness is this fun! First of all, the playing, all acoustic string instruments, is just superb, the recording matches it step for step, and the fact that all that boundary-blurring freedom happens in the service of some dynamite composing is icing on the cake!
It's always amazing, just when it seemed impossible to move one more yard in this direction, that improvisation and composition can merge with such finesse and facility! Sample the closing miniature, the provocatively titled "Leaf and Water." As might be anticipated, a flowing underpinning, a watery luminescence at the music's core, supporting a series of points that sometimes bark out their existence and sometimes simply coalesce into fragmented lines, blurring their pitch components as they glide slowly forward. Frequencies merge, freeze and melt with the constantly changing interval construct that sounds pre-determinedly undetermined, if my drift may be acquired. Listening on speakers to this little gem is particularly satisfying as the spatial elements are caught with precision to match the players' skill. Contrast that with the ripplingly frenetic Terry Riley-esque "Beach and Car," and by this, I mean the Riley of Salome Dances for Peace, not of the early minimalist phase. As the lines converge and the dense harmonies chase each other, the swing sets in and conjures shades of Monk or Dolphy's whimsical angularity before the punctuated improvised section sets in.
Those two pieces tell the tale, but to suggest that they represent the project's scope is certainly not to diminish the rest of it. I was particularly impressed by "Nighttime"'s economy. Like Berg's invention on one note from Wozzeck crossed with some of that post-minimalist rigor, it inches its way forward in fits and starts until an absolutely beautiful solo, in microtones no less, sets itself up astride the implied harmonies. It's as unexpected as it is inventive, yet another expansion of a formula that seems, on paper, so familiar, especially when it all simply stops, a cadence without resolution!
The disc is full of these, and points of reference actually become equally vague the deeper the auditor dives. I'll simply note here that I've not mentioned individual players as I don't know how to identify them but also because every performance is first-rate. This was a wonderful surprise, and if there's more material extant from this group of string players, bring it on!
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