Ils ne savent pas ce qu'ils font (We Know Not What We Do) mais reconnaissons qu'ils le font bien. Et d'ailleurs ils savent très bien ce qu'ils jouent tant leurs rythmiques ultra-binaires et zébrées demandent haute technicité et endurance. Leurs découpages dévoilent quelques-unes de leurs influences: l'harmolodie d'un certain Ornette C, la trompette guerrière de Mister Don C.

Autre batteur, l’Allemand Christian Lillinger est un musicien très apprécié, puisqu’il a enregistré nombre de disques en compagnie de Günter Sommer, Rudi Mahall (cf. Culturejazz « Une année avec Leo (1) » 16/12/2016), Simon Nabatov, Urs Leimgruber, Achim Kaufmann, Tobias Delius, Axel Dörner, John Tchicai, Rolf Kühn et autres personnages d’envergure. Le quartette réuni ici comprend deux partenaires familiers, Wanja Slavin (saxophone) et Petter Eldh (contrebasse), plus Peter Evans (trompette). Une batterie lourde, des collectives bruyantes, une esthétique dure... produisent une musique, certes originale, mais un peu fatigante. À noter que l’un des thèmes s’appelle Alan Shorter (qui ne faisait pas non plus dans le “confortable”) et un autre The New Portal (nous n’en saurons pas plus).

The quartet Amok Amor was founded upon the existing trio of Christian Lillinger (drums), Petter Eldh (bass) and Wanja Slavin (alto sax), who wanted to augment their band with another reedist in order to expand their sound spectrum. At a festival in Austria they teamed up with Peter Evans (trumpet) - it was a match made in heaven.

Of course such a line-up evokes memories of the legendary Ornette Coleman Quartet with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell however, this music is completely different. Amok Amor, rather, is interested in sound colors, apart from jazz their influences also include classical avant-garde, hiphop and beat music propelled by a punkish attitude. For most parts the music is a tour de force of call-and-response patterns, rhythmic diversions, complicated metric figures and deconstructed harmonic fragments.

"Pulsar", the opening track, continues the concept of their debut album (Boomslang Records, 2015). It’s an eight-and-a-half-minutes monster of permanent alert. Evans’ sharp trumpet lines are foiled by Slavin’s precise alto stabs, a row of signal-like short phrases is embedded in damaged beats. The track spills over with velocity and density literally assailing the listener, it’s on the verge of demanding too much (but it doesn’t cross this line). Evans and Slavin trade blows on a vast number of tonal and phrasal elements topped by Eldh and Lillinger delivering a crazy rhythmic hotbed. Especially Eldh’s bass constantly pumps new blood into the veins of the track. At the end there’s a single trumpet tone, carved in stone, accompanied by hi-hat barrage. That’s how it feels when you’re punched directly on the kisser.

The album contains similar tracks like “Trio Amok“ or “The New Portal“ but it is more than just a second brew of the debut. For example, there are two points of rest on We Know Not What We Do: the Peter Evans composition “Alan Shorter“, a homage to Wayne’s older brother, and Wanja Slavin’s “Jazzfriendship“. In the first Slavin’s alto sax sounds like a flute, seducing Evans’ trumpet to come up with phrases cool as a Miles Davis riff from Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud. The latter presents a head which is close to easy listening, mirroring certain motives by playing them backwards.

Additionally, the album provides another novelty compared to the first one: the use of electro-acoustic elements (strangely, it’s not mentioned in the liner notes who’s responsible for them). The finale of the album, “A Run Through the Neoliberalism“ starts like the opener. But then the electronics pick up the head of the reeds, slow it down and alienate it. Christian Lillinger said that the piece was meant to be a political statement, that there was more to it than just music, it was about the attitude behind it.

All in all, We Know Not What We Do combines effortlessness and complexity, a lust for improv and an absolute awareness of form and structure. It’s a great example of precise musicianship and inventiveness, a postmodern smorgasbord of exactitude and zigzagging playfulness.

Unfortunately, it seems that the project’s been put on ice in the meantime, there are no further plans for albums or tours in the near future. At least, there are two wonderful CDs that document the music of this superb group.

https://www.freejazzblog.org/2018/01/amok-amor-we-know-not-what-we-do-intakt.html?spref=fb

„The music is aggressive yet gentle. Bla bla bla bla bla. The world is changing, but this music will survive.“ Diese Sätze, die Drummer Christian Lillinger auf seiner Homepage veröffentlicht, mögen ein wenig arrogant erscheinen, implizieren aber auch Humor und Selbstironie. Die Sounds des Quartetts wurzeln tief im Freejazz der 60er, erinnern an Ornette Coleman und den jungen zornigen Archie Shepp, Alan Shorter wurde sogar ein Stück gewidmet, das schrieb der virtuose Trompeter Peter Evans. Virtuosität kennzeichnet überhaupt den gesamten Tonträger. Neben Lillinger und Evans werkeln noch Saxofonist Wanja Slavin und Bassist Petter Eldh. Ein wenig kokett wirkt der Plattentitel. Natürlich wissen die vier ganz genau, was sie tun, zu ausgetüftelt klingen die kompakten Stücke, zu kurz gestalten sie die Tracks, als dass improvisatorische Irrwege beschritten werden könnten. Im Gesamten sicher ein recht gelungener Silberling, zwischen rhetorischem Aufruhr und konstruierter Komplexität changierend.

Of course it’s not just pianists who will determine the future of 21st century improvised music. Horn players and drummers will make their own noises. Take for example two of the players in the Amok Amor (AA) quartet, American trumpeter Peter Evans, 36 and German drummer Christian Lillinger, 33. Their work with alto saxophonist Wanjan Slavin and bassist Peter Eldh on We Know Not What We Do (Intakt CD 279 Intaktrec.ch), shows their interactive skills in one of the many bands in which they participate. It’s the same story with Chicago-based tenor saxophonist Dave Rempis, 42 and drummer Tim Daisy 41, featured on The Halfway There Suite (Relay Recordings 016 timdaisy.com) by the drummer`s Celebration Sextet. Different discs could find Rempis in the leadership role or both as sidefolk.

Composers as well as players – Evans wrote two tunes on We Know Not What We Do and Lillinger three –the key to their talents is how carefully they work in an organized setting, as on “Pulsar”, the Evans-penned first track. It’s lavish and lovely, notched with contrapuntal slurs and staccato tremors from the horns as the drummer’s percussive bumps and focused rim shots keep the tune bouncy and relaxed. These ambulatory dynamics are also present on “Trio Amok”, a Lillinger composition, pushed along with percussion bumps and rumbles and resonating pumps from bassist Eldh. While Evans’ spectacular brassiness adds to the tune’s tautness, a respite after he intertwines open-horn brays with staccato tongue flutters from Slavin dissipates the tension. A more striking instance of the drummer’s dexterity is on “A Run through the Neoliberalism”, another of his compositions, during which altissimo reed squalls and trumpet tattoos set up as a staccatissimo, near-bebop romp. The drummer’s accompaniment may crackle and churn, but as the horns work explodes the theme into atoms, his cymbal cascades and rim shots glue it back into a swinging whole. With some of the other tracks utilizing palindromes, balladic melancholy, fiery stomps and rhythmic stop-time sequences, AA keeps the session engaging and moving. The saxophonist and bassist get solo space as well, with the combination of power and bluster from the rhythm section and inventive flutters and echoes from the horns ensuring that while predicting what sounds will appear next is nearly impossible, the knowledge that they will be first-class is confirmed.

https://www.jazzword.com/reviews/christian-lillinger-petter-eldh-peter-evans-wanja-slavin/

One you get past the smarmy title We Know Not What We Do by the quartet Amok Amor (more irony here too), there’s much visceral energy to be mesmerised by. One of the reasons is, perhaps, the rhythm-heavy music despite the fact that instrumentation is split down the middle by rhythm and melodic/harmonic characters. Despite this the seemingly elongated melancholia of the melodic lines played by Wanja Slavin interwoven with equally manic trumpet of Peter Evans, both often played with militaristic tattooing might account for the momentous forward motion of this music.

The title of the group begs a little more consideration as it seems to define – at least on this album – the kind of biting sardonicism of the music. It seems that the music – always contemporaneous and a mocking reflection of modern times (re: “A Run Through the Neoliberalism”) – is an indictment of both socio-political and artistic aspects of our time. This is borne out by the pointillist melodic invention with which all of the instruments seemingly come together on songs such as “Enbert Amok”. However this is hardly a one off: consider “The New Portal” and its tragi-comic melody right down to the pseudo-whistling of Mr Slavin’s and (particularly) Mr Evan’s instruments in their particularly Chaplinesque exchanges. Even Petter Eldh and Christian Lillinger seem to thrive as they join their colleagues in the fray.

Lest it seem that one is describing music with an obscure preponderance of an obscure method of visual depiction of music, it bears mention that these four musicians also seem acutely aware of their own sense of time and space. And even their oblique homage to the all-but-forgotten brother of Wayne Shorter in “Alan Shorter” is a reminder that they are also in touch with their ancestral musical lineage. Not long after, on “Jazzfriendship” is a sign that the musicians are also in touch with their quieter inner selves (the ‘amor’ of the title is appositely revealed) as the dyad-like melodic lines of the piece will indicate.

Throughout this short but exciting recording Amok Amor nonchalantly handle every musical challenge, not least the breathtaking improvisations, a canny suggestion of a particularly European new avant-garde style. In pieces teeming with ideas, hyper-modern squeaks and squawks jostle with reminiscences of a kind of born-again lyricism of a very jazzy nature.

https://jazzdagama.com/music/amok-amor-know-not/

Of course it’s not just pianists who will determine the future of 21st-century improvised music. Horn players and drummers will make their own noises. Take for example two of the players in the Amok Amor (AA) quartet, American trumpeter Peter Evans, 36, and German drummer Christian Lillinger, 33. Their work with alto saxophonist Wanja Slavin and bassist Petter Eldh on We Know Not What We Do (Intakt CD 279intaktrec.ch), shows their interactive skills in one of the many bands in which they participate. It’s the same story with Chicago-based tenor saxophonist Dave Rempis, 42, and drummer Tim Daisy, 41, featured on The Halfway There Suite (Relay Recordings 016 timdaisy.com) by the drummer`s Celebration Sextet. Different discs could find Rempis in the leadership role or both as sidefolk.

Composers as well as players – Evans wrote two tunes on We Know Not What We Do and Lillinger three – the key to their talents is how carefully they work in an organized setting, as on Pulsar, the Evans-penned first track. It’s lavish and lovely, notched with contrapuntal slurs and staccato tremors from the horns as the drummer’s percussive bumps and focused rim shots keep the tune bouncy and relaxed. These ambulatory dynamics are also present on Trio Amok, a Lillinger composition, pushed along with percussion bumps and rumbles and resonating pumps from bassist Petter Eldh. While Evans’ spectacular brassiness adds to the tune’s tautness, a respite after he intertwines open-horn brays with staccato tongue flutters from Slavin dissipates the tension. A more striking instance of the drummer’s dexterity is on A Run through the Neoliberalism, another of his compositions, during which altissimo reed squalls and trumpet tattoos set up as a staccatissimo, near-bebop romp. The drummer’s accompaniment may crackle and churn, but as the horns’ work explodes the theme into atoms, his cymbal cascades and rim shots glue it back into a swinging whole. With some of the other tracks utilizing palindromes, balladic melancholy, fiery stomps and rhythmic stop-time sequences, AA keeps the session engaging and moving. The saxophonist and bassist get solo space as well, with the combination of power and bluster from the rhythm section and inventive flutters and echoes from the horns ensuring that while predicting what sounds will appear next is nearly impossible, the knowledge that they will be first-class is confirmed.

https://www.thewholenote.com/index.php/booksrecords2/jazzaimprovised/27488-something-in-the-air-december-2017-january-2018

On its second album, this virtuosic quartet plays with time and rhythm as if coding a computer program. The core of Amok Amor resides in Berlin, and together, drummer Christian Lillinger, Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and reed player Wanja Slavin have clearly developed an astonishing connection, playing with a locked- in fury that's almost frightening. They're joined here by the New York polymath trumpeter Peter Evans, who makes stop-on-a-dime post- bop seem like child's play.

The album opens with the trumpeter's "Pulsar," a lurching, stomping dynamo in which the drummer heaves to and fro with a fractured groove. Evans and Slavin blow mind-boggling unison lines over and around the rhythmic armature, never losing the thread, even as Lillinger plays sizzling extended cymbal drones near the song's end.

Other tunes cleave closer to post-bop in their melodic shapes, but the way the quartet dices them up couldn't sound more contemporary and electric. The off-kilter time signature of Lillinger's "Enbert Amok" makes the horn patterns sound like they were being transmitted through a windy valley, with a shuddering quality seeming to break them up. But then the same rhythm plays out on the drummer's hi-hat, and the quartet settles into a jittery groove for some inspired improvising.

Subtle electronic enhancements add swirled timbres to Slavin's "Jazzfriendship" and "A Run Through The Neoliberalism," but the members of Amok Amor are so disciplined and precise that they could most certainly simulate those effects acoustically, and with uncanny results.

Man nehme eine gute Hand voll kreativen Eigensinn, instrumentaltechnisch hochgradiges Know-how, Ausdruckskraft, Experimentierfreude und schlussendlich die Lust und den Willen, dies kompromisslos und überaus selbstbewusst zur kollektiven Umsetzung zu bringen. Was dabei heraus kommt, ist eine der zurzeit interessantesten Formationen, die es zu hören gibt. Denn diese Musik steckt als Synthese gestandener Persönlichkeiten und Querdenker voller Charakter. Dass es dabei nicht im gemächlichen Wiegeschritt zugeht, legt der Bandname bereits nahe; dem Albumtitel muss übrigens ein gehöriges Maß Ironie beigemessen werden. Dieses Ensemble geht nach vorne und das in mehrfacher Hinsicht. So heizt die Band bereits beim Opener kräftig ein, da bläst einem der menschgewordene Wirbelwind Christian Lillinger am Schlagzeug mit seinen rasanten, sich bisweilen den Grenzen der auditiven Differenzierbarkeit nähernden Impulsen kräftig um die Ohren. Alles ist in Bewegung, in Aufruhr, die Ereignisdichte und der Energielevel nicht selten hoch, der Gesamteindruck des Zusammenspiels bei aller Ruppigkeit dennoch auf eigene Weise überwiegend kohärent. Dass ein großes Maß an Intensität und Spannung aber nicht zwingend mit einer in einen Geschwindigkeitsrausch mündenden Verdichtung des Geschehens einhergehen muss, stellt die Band ebenfalls unter Beweis beispielsweise beim Titel „Alan Shorter", einer Hommage auf den Trompeter und Bruder der immer noch prägenden Jazzlegend Wayne Shorter. Hier erzeugen die Töne von Peter Evans an der Trompete und Wanja Slavin am Saxophon spannende Reibungsflächen, die von wuchtigen Bassklängen Petter Eldhs und durchdringenden Schlagwerkimpulsen Lillingers begleitet werden. Ohnehin nehmen die beiden Bläser eine besondere Rolle ein: sind es doch öfters die von Trompete und Saxophon in Stimmdoppelung vorgetragenen Melodien, die leuchtturmhaft als Wegemarkierung dienen - unweigerlich werden hier Assoziationen an das Zweigespann Ornette Coleman und Don Cherry geweckt. Nicht zuletzt offenbart sich dabei eindrucksvoll die artikulatorische und klangbildnerische Finesse Evans' (welche Meister- schaft er im Ausloten von Spielweisen und Soundmöglichkeiten seines Instruments errungen hat, kann nicht zuletzt bei seinen Solokonzerten bestaunt werden). Doch so zwangsläufig hier die Talente der einzelnen Beteiligten ihren Einzug finden und hervorstechen, so konsequent entfaltet sich die umfassende Qualität der Band auf einer übergeordneten Ebene im Gemeinschaftsakt und der dazugehörigen Attitüde. Oder wie es Kevin Whitehead in den Liner Notes zur CD mit seinen Worten auf den Punkt bringt: "Yeah, they're all great, but this music is about how they come together, showing creative tradition some crazy love: amour run amok."
Da gibt es nur noch eines hinzuzufügen: Bitte mehr!

Amok Amor (Berserk love? The love of uncontrolled violence? Either or both may work as description) is a German-Swedish-American quartet. Saxophonist Wanja Slavin first appeared on a project by drummer Christian Lillinger in 2009 and they recorded as the Starlight Trio with Swedish bassist Petter Eldh in 2011. This recording adds a significant presence to that Berlin-based group in trumpeter Peter Evans. There's no sense though of Evans as guest: it's a thoroughly integrated quartet with every member writing and playing to a coherent group shape.

As one can expect from Evans' presence, there's a certain tightrope virtuosity built into the project, a collective appetite for rapid tempos, complex meters, tight unisons and improvised fireworks. Sometimes moments of free improvisation are wild bursts, exotic intrusions in alien designs. The group can suggest the more boppish forays of Anthony Braxton's mid '70s quartets and there's also a corresponding level of musical interest, frequently developed in the interplay between Evans and the inventive Slavin around Eldh and Lillinger's densely woven patterns.

It's a tribute to the group's mastery of its complex language that Lillinger often seems to be drumming freely against the others' structured parts. Evans' opening "Pulsar" has a distinct rhythmic friction and its machine-like precision propels it through collective improvisations, subtracting and expanding lines and roles. Lillinger's "Enbert Amok" is another scrambled puzzle with Evans' pointillist lines leaping amid the compound pulses of Eldh and Lillinger. That spirit of invention doesn't always require high speed: Evans' "Alan Shorter", named for Wayne Shorter's brother, a brilliant, lyrically distinctive, little-known trumpeter active in free jazz circles in the '60s, is a space-filled piece that initially works with Evans and Slavin moving in and out of unison with subtle pitch gradations to end with the sparest of percussion solos, Lillinger emphasizing isolated cymbal tones in a minimalist outline of melody.

While the group generally works within acoustic parameters and fixed instrumentation, they're not confined to them. Slavin's brief "Jazzfriendship" expands its cool jazz opening with washes of what sounds like echoplexed trumpet while Lillinger's "A Run through the Neoliberalism" concludes with the horns matched against a detuned piano. They also have a sense of concision, exploring nine distinct compositions in a scant 47 minutes. Amok Amor is a fresh, distinctive
band finding and mining its own terrain.