In his work for theatre, dance, and film, to say nothing of his collaborations with a welter of other musicians from disparate backgrounds, composer Eyvind Kang has enjoyed a close rapport with a rounded, fulsome sort of orchestral music. The Yelm Sessions tends eagerly to its disruption, though in a manner that can largely be considered healthy.
Kang combines and juxtaposes individual players as well as numerous orchestral ensembles from around the world while simultaneously contrasting the different energies of improvisation and composition. The albums trajectory is that of an oncoming fever. At first, Kang's calm leadership gives rise to a relaxed mix of freedom and discipline. "Enter The Garden" achieves this through a refreshing cascade of keyboard figures washing up against a shimmering bank of intertwining trumpet and cello lines. In the album's most reflective look at the complex surroundings, the title track hangs on a single-note pattern, as Kang exploits the harmonic space to spread out chordal shifts.
In something of an abrupt and jarring move, the proceedings then move on to pieces where tense structures are built from the sonic rippling Kang has provoked until the energy flows down to the pianist and the track peters out. Little is set up to stand in the way of this process growing only more hectic - better were compositions where the laconic comments on cornet or violin served as a mellow foil for the abrasiveness of the other instruments - as a bevy of instruments continue blaring registered color in a way that makes for an exhilarating, if sometimes overzealous, ride.
At the same time, mobile structures continually test the flexibility of the fragmented languages of the players on hand, confronting them with contrasts, tension, and forms of coherence that require other, less familiar kinds of responses. The players are thus painted into less fixed spaces, and are more prone to offering up unexpected perspectives. Overtop the basic DNA of each piece, ambiguous harmonies and unpredictable rhythm sections brim with toil and trouble. While some of the encounters prove somewhat contrived in their verve and vigor, the album often makes for an unusually articulate hybrid of disparate musics.
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