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Michael Dessen Trio: Resonating Abstractions
By"Grid After Grid," opens with Dessen's soft blustery blowing over Tordini's raw, deceptively elemental lineseverywhere there are ghost-like traces of the bluesabsent any obvious references. Dynamics are handled with masterful flow, squall-to-hush, roar-to-murmur. Tordini emerges with a huge, woody resonance, striking some tones that cut through tissue and bone.
The electronics surface on the aptly titled "Organic and Unnatural Objects," a wild trombone-triggered nightmare and "Ignite," a feature for sputtering, stuttering blips and the cyclic fusillade of Weiss.
Dessen's plaintive, yearning melodies seem to trigger primal memories from a distant past, as on "The Infinite and the Invitation," where the force of his imagination connects with the unknowable. "While in the Subterrain," is Tordini's solo momentfeaturing speaker-splitting guttural fragments and deep indigo moans.
"Where Does the Time Go," festers with violent, turgid rhythm stabs and live-sampled bone-doubling that skirts very close to a boiling sonic alchemy before dissolving into a superb vignette between bass and drumsveering finally into a hypnotic, pedal-toned meditation, flowing seamlessly into "To Make Real," an acoustic trio bristling with agitated energy, manic bass repetitions and waves of percussive assaults that turn into a prolonged exchange of hushed asides.
The computer-embellishments on Resonating Abstractions build on the trio's core-strengths as interpreters and improvisers, expanding the music and introducing wild-card elements of tension, but even the raw, unadorned acoustic trio weaves a full sonic curtain that sings, roars and rattles across the frequency spectrum.
Anyone curious about the state of the art in trombone improvising needs to investigate Michael Dessen, and Resonating Abstractions is a great place to start.
Track Listing
Grid After Grid; Organic and Unnatural Objects; Ignite; The Infinite and the Invitation; While in the Subterrain; Where Does Time Go; To Make Real.
Personnel
Michael Dessen
tromboneMichael Dessen: trombone, computer; Christopher Tordini: bass; Dan Weiss: drums.
Album information
Title: Resonating Abstractions | Year Released: 2014 | Record Label: Clean Feed Records
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About Michael Dessen
Instrument: Trombone
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