INTAKT RECORDS – CD-REVIEWS

Maybe Monday. Unsquare. Intakt CD 132

 

 

 

 

Christoph Wagner, Schwäbischer Bote, 11.1.2008

 

Christoph Wagner, Jazzpodium, März 2008

 

Entgrenzung
Die improvisierte Musik hat in den letzten Jahren nicht nur eine, sondern zwei Revolutionen erfahren: die digital-elektronische und die weltmusikalische Entgrenzung. Neben dem üblichen Freejazz-Instrumentarium kommt inzwischen immer häufiger der kleine Laptop-Computer zum Einsatz. Daneben entdecken Musiker überall auf dem Globus die Instrumente ihrer traditionellen Folkmusiken für die freie Improvisation.
Das amerikanische Ensemble Maybe Monday unterstreicht den Trend. Angeführt vom Gitarristen Fred Frith, einem der interessantesten Grenzgänger zwischen Jazz, Rock und der E-Musik-Avantgarde, breitet das Septett eine Tapestrie farbenreicher Sounds aus, die sich zwischen poetischer Sinnlichkeit und aufbrausender Intensität bewegen.
Ikue Mori taucht mit ihrem Laptop die Musik in ein elektronischen Klangbad, läßt es surren, klirren und rascheln. Miya Masaoka steht dem nicht nach. Sie entlockt der japanischen Bodenharfe Koto ähnlich abenteuerliche Klänge, die sie dazu noch elektronisch verfremdet und verformt. In dieser neuen kühnen Klangwelt bewegen sich die erfahrenen Improvisatoren Larry Ochs (Saxofon) und Gerry Hemingway (Schlagwerk) überraschend souverän, als hätte Freejazz immer schon derart futuristisch geklungen.
cw, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Februar 2008


Maybe Monday is Fred Frith (electric guitar), Miya Masaoka (25-string koto and electronics) and Larry Ochs (sopranino and tenor saxes). Their third album features guests Gerry Hemingway (drums, percussion, voice), Carla Kihlstedt (electric and acoustic violins), Ikue Mori (electronics) and Zeena Parkins (electric harp and electronics). Though its members had played with each other in different combinations, Maybe Monday first performed as a trio in 1997. Recorded in a New York studio in 2006, the present project grew out of shows that Masaoka was curating for John Zorn at The Stone, the results of which will be appearing on Intakt next year.
The album opens with "G"'s explosive torrent of sound, setting the pattern for much of what follows in its kaleidscopic succession of acoustic instrumental and electronic events. A playful, bucolic interlude featuring koto, violin and electronics is shattered by Frith's shuddering guitar chords and more turbulence; the piece ends in a mechanical-clock anthem. The gentle musings of "Saptharishi Mandalam" centre on an ethnic cocktail of Hawaiian-style guitar and koto. "Septentrion" is the most rhythmic track, and sustains a barrage of sound featuring a free jazz dirge by Ochs on tenor-sax. That mood continues on the final track, "Unturned", until a more lyrical episode where Ochs's sopranino curlicues round Frith's plangent, halting guitar line. With just enough structure to hold things together, seven master musicians exploit the dramatic possibilities of a freely improvised mix of acoustic and electronic sounds.
ANDY HAMILTON, The Wire, London, April 2008

 

 

Unsquare is the third disc from the Bay Area electro-acoustic improvisation ensemble Maybe Monday, and the first since 2002’s Digital Wildlife (Winter & Winter). Maybe Monday are a trio consisting of saxophonist Larry Ochs, guitarist Fred Frith and koto/electronic artist Miya Masaoka. Here, four guests augment the sax and string core: drummer Gerry Hemingway, violinist Carla Kihlstedt, Zeena Parkins on harp, and Ikue Mori on electronics. This septet evolved from a curatorial gig at New York’s sound gallery the Stone. Unsquare is the studio meeting of these musicians, and a two-disc live set is slated for release this year.
It is quite clear that Maybe Monday treads similar lines as collective improvisation groups such as AMM, the Howard Riley trio with Barry Guy and Tony Oxley, and the New Music Ensemble. The origins of a given sound or combination of sounds are not important, and whether what one is hearing comes from percussion, electronics, reeds, strings or something else entirely matters little. It is a subsuming of the parts to the whole, as well as a redefinition of the possibilities inherent in those very parts.
That isn’t to say there aren’t certain elements that rise to the top – Hemingway’s percussion, in trio with sopranino and violin, create an angular and somewhat lumbering center of accents on “G,” surrounded by a whirlwind of baited indeterminacy. Skittering guitar runs and alien harp plucks make themselves known in tense spaces, and tones do become associated with their origins once one becomes attenuated to the environment. Ochs’ saxophones, especially his tenor, are a commanding presence of near-lineage in a context wholly its own as sounds gel and compel, propel forward, lapse and fail in these five improvisations. He’s somewhat like Lou Gare in AMM, a Coltrane-like keen duetting with Frith’s guitar in a sea of samples and found sounds, almost pregnant with meaning in a struggle for sonic definition. There is grace in this tapestry, too – Ochs’ pensive sopranino chirps and trills open “Nitrogen” alongside subtle percussive accents and long tones, and Kihlstedt is a frequent purveyor of ornate classicism and East European folksiness throughout. But to parse Unsquare would be a disservice to the breadth of its canvas – this is a very rich recording of electro-acoustic improvisation.
Clifford Allen, Bagatellen, March 2008

 

 

Monté il y un peu plus de dix ans par Fred Frith, Miya Masaoka et Larry Ochs, le projet Maybe Monday enregistrait l’année dernière son troisième album, et invitait pour l’occasion quelques musiciens efficients, parmi lesquels le batteur Gerry Hemingway, la harpiste Zeena Parkins et l’électronicienne Ikue Mori.
Improvisé, forcément déconstruit, Unsquare installe des pratiques expérimentales complémentaires, révélant quelques fois un lyrisme inattendu (violon de Clarla Kilhestadt, notamment) mais le plus souvent attirées par ce genre d’intensité que l’on découvre sur le vif. Alors, voici assemblées le japonisme soigné de Parkins, les expériences toujours ludiques de Frith, les couacs et à peu-près sonores d’Ochs aux sopranino et ténor.
Hemingway, pour faire tenir l’ensemble : indispensable lorsque Mori, Frith et Ochs commandent une pièce magistrale d’abstraction bruitiste, bientôt consolidée par l’archet frénétique de Kilhestadt : Unturned, qui referme ce recueil de musique électroacoustique extravagante.
Le son du grisli, France, vendredi 28 mars 2008

 

 

Eine Art Klang-Guerilla ist ist die Gruppe Maybe Monday mit Fred Frith, Miya Masaoka, Larry Ochs, Gerry Hemingway, Caria Kihlstedt, lkue Mori und Zeena Parkins. Dieses Gipfeltreffen der einstigen amerikanischen Jazz-Avantgarde legt offen, was vom damaligen Pioniergeist noch übrig ist. Und das ist auf "Unsquare" (Intakt/Records) eine Menge. Eine aufrüttelnde, bitterböse und düsterbunte Mischung wie in den besten Tagen des Fake-Jazz. Vielleicht führt die Obama-Offensive wieder ans Tageslicht, was seit September 2001 verschüttet wurde.
Wolf Kampmann, Jazzthing, März 2008

 

Eigentlich sollten es ja Livemitschnitte werden von MAYBE MONDAY im New Yorker The Stone, vom Trio allein und dann seinen Begegnungen mit ausgewählten Vierten - dem Drummer Gerry Hemingway, der Geigerin Carla Kihlstedt, Ikue Mori mit ihren Electronics und Zeena Parkins mit ihrer elektrifizierten Harfe. Da aber Aufnahmen im The Stone eine heikle Sache sind, wurde vorsorglich auch das East-Side-Sound-Studio gebucht und da die Gäste alle Zeit hatten, versammelte sich um Fred Frith, Miya Masaoka & Larry Ochs ein ganzes Septett, um Musik zu improvisieren, die jetzt als Unsquare (Intakt CD 132) aus den Boxen schallt. Unspießige Musik? Ungerade Musik? Beides und als solche in der elektroakustischen Mixtur nach Intakt-Maßstab - die bisherigen Maybe-Monday-Scheiben Saturn‘s Finger (1999) und Digital Wildlife (2002) sind bei Buzz bzw. Winter & Winter erschienen - näher bei George Lewis Projekt Sequel als bei Fly Fly Fly oder The Compass, Log & Lead, Trios mit Ochs & Masaoka bzw. Frith & Kihlstedt. Mit Hemingway ist eine feine perkussive Komponente im Spiel, auch wenn für ‚Septentrion‘ Frith den Groove klopft. Das Saitenspiel ist zur Vierfältigkeit verdoppelt, Mori setzt den deutlichsten unter den elektronischen Akzenten in dieser Ancient-Future-Klangwelt und dennoch bleibt eine große Transparenz und etwas Fragiles in diesem kollektiven Stream of Consciousness erhalten. Der sich in der feinen Kunst übt, nirgenwo hin zu gelangen, wie kürzlich das Ziel von Friths Projekt Clearing Customs beschrieben wurde. Das Coveraquarell von Emilie Clark hätte zwar noch besser zum Vorgänger Digital Wildlife gepasst, aber es illustriert auch nicht schlecht die ineinander fließenden Klangfarben und wuchernde Unbändigkeit der Klanggespinste. Mit einem Freak-out stürzt Frith die Truppe auch in das abschließende ‚Unturned‘. Der Mann ist so abenteuerlustig wie eh und je.
Rigobert Dittman, Bad Alchemy, 58, 2008

 

Daniel Spicer, Jazzwise, London, Mai 2008

 

El Intruso, Spain, Edicion 39. 2008

 

Bill Shoemaker, Downbeat, USA, June 2008

 

In November of 2006 Larry Ochs' Maybe Monday improv group had a 3-night residency at Zorn's club The Stone in NYC and one of those three afternoons they all gathered in my recording studio to create "Unsquare". Larry Ochs on sopranino and tenor saxophones, Fred Frith on electric guitar and Miya Masaoka on 25 string koto and electronics joined for the occasion by special guests Gerry Hemingway on drums and percussions, Carla Kihlstedt on electric and acoustic violins, Ikue Mori on electronics and Zeena Parkins on electric harp and electronics. They all recorded live, together, over one hour of music, pretty much straight through, all first takes, no overdubs and more than a year later Swiss label Intakt released it for everyone's enjoyment. If you are familiar with the sounds of NYC's downtown music scene and the musical world revolving around Zorn, you should have an idea of what this might sound like. The interesting aspect of this record is the interaction between the three core members. Miya's oriental strings plucked lightly while Fred's guitar is making all kind of sounds, way beyond just plucked strings, and Larry's saxophones whaling in the background (or foreground). I think that the fact the three of them have been playing together for a while does indeed transpire in this recording, but the addition of the personalities and the sonic palettes of the special guests has taken this experience to a new level made of subtle complexities and new sounds, usually not part of Maybe Monday's sonic offering, which makes it all the more unique and worthy of a listen.
Marc Urselli-Schaerer, Chain D.L.K., USA, 13. May 2008

 

Antefatto. The Stone, novembre 2006.
Accade spesso che John Zorn decida di affidare la programmazione del suo locale, “The Stone”, a un direttore artistico a tempo perso. Prassi consolidata e degna di lode quella di Mr. Tzadik, che nel novembre del 2006 cede la chiavi della propria dimora newyorchese a Miya Masaoka. L’artista di origine giapponese, virtuosa del koto, prenota subito un week-end per i Maybe Monday, il trio che da anni condivide con Larry Ochs e Fred Frith.
L’idea è quella di invitare alcuni ospiti d’eccezione ad unirsi al gruppo in una tre giorni di concerti. Il progetto coinvolge Carla Kihlstedt, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins e Gerry Hemingway. La proposta di ricavarne un disco piace molto alla Intakt di Patrik Landolt, anche se i dubbi sull’opportunità di registrare dal vivo, in un locale notoriamente poco affidabile dal punto di vista acustico, fanno propendere per una seduta in studio extra.
E così, nel pomeriggio di sabato 18, i sette si ritrovano all’East Side Sound e se ne escono 4 ore più tardi con 90 minuti di materiale. Musica registrata, vale la pena sottolinearlo, in un particolare setting dello studio, che prevedeva l’impossibilità per gli artisti di vedersi reciprocamente e la possibilità per ciascun partecipante di auto-regolarsi i volumi in cuffia.

Il disco
Composito, fluttuante, magmatico. Le otto tracce di Unsquare sono altrettanti, splendidi, saggi di improvvisazione elettroacustica. I complicati ricami orditi dal settetto si presentano sotto forma di palpitanti creature, pulsanti divagazioni prive di connotazione ritmica, in cui il gioco dei richiami, degli interscambi e dei sussulti è al centro di un continuo lavoro di tessitura emozionante e coinvolgente. Il violino della Kihlstedt aggiunge squarci di pathos all’impasto, le ance di Ochs donano consistenza e carnalità, le percussioni di Hemingway puntualizzano e punteggiano, mentre le corde di Frith, come al solito, contribuiscono a rendere imprevedibili gli sviluppi del discorso e del flusso creativo (ascoltatevi l’inizio di “Unturned”).
Al di sotto della linea di galleggiamento, frigge e sfrigola il tappeto elettronico disteso dalla Masaoka, che aggiunge pennellate orientali di koto, da Zeena Parkins e da Ikue Mori: una marea montante che si fa minacciosa, si increspa improvvisamente, per poi diradarsi e dilatarsi un attimo dopo. Dovessi scegliere una delle cinque tracce, direi “Septentrion”, scattante e nervoso crescendo marchiato dal tenore sghembo di Ochs.
Epilogo, futuro prossimo
Le tre serate live at “The Stone” sono state provvidamente registrate. L’intenzione è quella di farne un doppio Intakt da pubblicare a breve. Speriamo di non dover aspettare troppo...

Luca Canini, All About Jazz Italia, 26. May 2008

 

 

Maybe Monday has now been around for quite a while, and their strange and tremulous group language (the quaver in Ochs’ reeds, the eldritch resonance of Masaoka’s 25-string koto, the gutturalisms from Frith’s guitar) is a compelling one. The addition
of guests from the Bay Area and from New York is welcome, unsettling the group in just the right ways and thickening the sound provocatively. What’s truly impressive to these jaded ears is that the musicians accomplish this without weighing the music down or sacrificing space, as Kihlstedt’s lines cut across the textures without overwhelming them, Hemingway’s percussion works emphatically without squeezing the music into a frame, and the electronics add meaningful detail without simply becoming a blanket presence. Water, wood, and metal combine into some strange sonic being on “Saptharishi Mandalam.” And there’s plenty of detail and counterpoint throughout, things coming frequently to a boil (as on “Nitrogen” or the fine electric squall of “Unturned”). A very fine record.
Jason Bivins, Cadence Magazine, NY, July, August 2008

 

Ed Hazell, Signal to Noise, USA / Canada, Summer 2008

 

Andreas Fellinger, Freistil, Österreich, Juni 2008

 

Hans-Jürgen von Osterhausen, Jazzpodium, Deutschland, Juli/August 2008

 

Bandet Maybe Monday består av glitrende frijazzutøvere vi hører alt for lite av og om her hjemme.
Maybe Monday - Unsquare.
Intakt Records/MusikkLosen

For vel 10 år siden kom den meget spesielle og originale engelske gitaristen – og mye, mye mer – Fred Frith, sammen med amerikanerne Miya Masaoka – med åpenbare japanske røtter – og som dermed har større forutsetninger for å beherske det 25-strengers tradisjonsinstrumentet koto enn de fleste og sopranino- og tenorsaksofonisten Larry Ochs sammen og dannet bandet Maybe Monday.
Før unnfangelsen av «Unsqaure» har trioen to utgivelser på samvittigheten. Noe forteller meg likevel at alle gode ting er tre – Maybe Monday har nemlig invitert med seg noen av sine beste og mest uforutsigbare venner til et møte som er helt spesielt.
Bakgrunnen for dette treffet var et initiativ en annen original, John Zorn, tok i forbindelse med ei konsertrekke han hadde ansvaret for på klubben The Stone i New York i november 2006. Miya Masaoka blei gitt mer eller mindre frie hender og ett år før det hele ble en realitet satt hun i gang «innsamlinga» av de musikantene hun ønsket seg.
Som gjester til Maybe Monday sto trommeslageren, perkusjonisten og stemmemanipulatoren Gerry Hemingway, fiolinisten Carla Kihlstedt, elektronikeren Ikue Mori og den elektriske harpisten og elektronikeren Zeena Parkins øverst på ønskelista. Å få de sju samla samtidig var sjølsagt ingen lett affære, men Masaoka lykkes og neste punkt på ønskelista var å gjøre ei liveinnspilling med drømmebandet.
John Zorn advarte mot det på grunn av trafikkbråket rundt klubben og dermed blei studio raskt et alternativ. Med åpne sinn og ingen grenser møttes det elektriske og akustiske, det etniske og det urbane og det tradisjonelle og det eksperimentelle.
Dette er frijazz/impro av en helt annen karakter enn det vi kjenner best her hjemme gjennom «kollektivene» rundt Peter Brötzmann, Mats Gutafsson, Paal Nilssen-Love og Ken Vandermark. Det er ikke bedre eller dårligere – det er bare ganske så annerledes og dermed friskt.
Tor Hammerø, Side 2, Norway, July, 22, 2008

 

Marek Romanski, Jazzforum, Poland, June 2008

 

 

Expanding the long-running Maybe Monday (MM) trio to seven musicians – most of whom manipulate electronics as well as acoustic instruments – adds an additional layer of polyphony to the proceedings, creating distinct and unique dimensions. Still, the five instant compositions here are only memorably realized because the septet members are canny enough to place waveform pulsation into an already established context.
Anchor for these tracks is the initial trio, which has been together since 1997. Voltage expression was organically introduced to MM before this CD, due to the electric guitar adaptations from Fred Frith plus the electronics linked to Miya Masaoka’s 25-string koto. Although sopranino and tenor saxophonist Larry Ochs is the only acoustic hold-out, he has demonstrated his familiarity with electronic interface in his past orchestral works and often as a veteran member of the ROVA saxophone quartet.
Recorded in New York, since MM member Masaoka now lives there – Frith and Ochs are still in the Bay area – Unsquare’s guests impart a mixed East-West sensibility to their improvisations. Transplanted westerner fiddler Carla Kihlstedt, at points replicates the role cellist Joan Jeanrenaud filled in an earlier MM session – adding traditional string harmonies when her instrument is paired with the guitar and koto. Elsewhere however wave-form add-ons create the sort of spiccato runs and multiphonics that associate her instrument’s subsequent output with the pitch mutation and careening tones that are emanating from New Yorker Zeena Parkins’ electric harp and electronics.
Concentrating on her laptop and samples, fellow Manhattanite Ikue Mori – who fulfills equivalent roles in bands led by saxophonist John Zorn and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier – is firmly wedded to the transformative impulses created by her machines. It’s a compliment to the others’ instrumental versatility however that her electronic triggered flutters and drones often can’t be distinguished from the mutated electro-acoustic timbres of the other players.
Completing the bi-coastal interaction, is another easterner, percussionist Gerry Hemingway, whose comfort level with patches and signals has been expressed in other sessions involving synthesizer players such as Earl Howard and Thomas Lehn. Irregular thumps and splattering ruffs peeping through the humming and clicking drones on this session sporadically announce the percussionist’s presence. Eschewing time keeping and flashy solos, Hemingway busies himself with moving the proceedings forward using contrasting pulses or moderated rhythmic suggestions.
Layered and focused intonation appears most intricately and extensively on “Unturned”, which initially seems to cluster every electronic whoosh and flanged oscillation into one extended piercing chord. Luckily, soon afterwards, the miasma dispels enough to expose diaphragm-vibrating reed timbres and chromatic slack-key guitar runs, plus abraded tones that sound as if they’re produced by scuffling a collection of scrub brushes against the massed strings.
As the triggered pulsations retreat, Ochs introduces high-pitched split tones, Frith trebly, single-string snaps and Masaoka gentling runs. Cat-gut heft is added to the guitar-koto duet when Kihlstedt appends flowing fiddle harmonies. Meantime, Masaoka’s attempts to replicate the violinist’s single-string action is detoured by strident canine-like splutters from the electronics, with tuning static and just-out-of-earshot radio voices further interjecting unexpected timbres. Shoring up the koto’s output, Hemingway adds ruffs, bounces and pops from his kit, that are then checked-mated by triggered circuitry that eventually strips out their human-created textures and transforming them into further percussive impulses. Plugged in as well, one of the string players – perhaps Masaoka – bonds these signals with watery echoes that mirror similar timbres on “G”, the introductory track. A concluding postlude reintroduces fluttering electronic wave forms. But these oscillator-like hums soon take on the properties of low-frequency electric piano-like pulsations, music-box-like tinkling and machine-driven splutters.
Other tracks emphasize reed multiphonics, pressured guitar frails, plus fungible contrapuntal textures among the strings. For the duration of the CD, particular resonances lock into appropriate places in the performances. Overall however, the shifting spatial arrangement necessitated by the introduction of more instrumental sound patches suggests an uncompleted gelling process, and that MM’s definite sound is still in flux.
Still an expanded MM is an interesting departure for the group. Metaphorically as well, this CD demonstrates how varied note clusters and pulses from three established and four newly introduced players can merged in such a way that the result is more than un-square – more like a hip circle. Or as the saxophonist phrases it: “way cool music”.
Ken Waxman, Jazzword com, USA; September 2008

 

Kurt Gottschalk, All About Jazz New York, USA, October 2008

 

Any aficionado of free improv knows Fred Frith. Maybe Monday is a coop unit he shares with saxman Larry Ochs and koto player Miya Masaoka.In their newest recording (“Unsquare” Intakt Records CD132 ****), they are joined by percussionist Gerry Hemingway, violinist Karla Kihlstedt, harpist Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori on computer. The five tracks are essentially electro-acoustic soundscapes that range from dream-like mood pieces (tracks 2 and 3) to highly distorted skronk fests (track 4 and the first part of the final and title track). As is often the case with such free form music, the effects are arresting when it works, but when it doesn’t, you hope it won’t meander for too long.
Marc Chenard, La Scena Musicale, France, October 2008

 

Marc Medwin portraits Larry Ochs, All About Jazz New York, USA, February 2009

 

Luc Bouquet, Improjazz, France, Avril 2009

 

Ken Waxman, The New York City Jazz Record, July 2015

 


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