It's tempting to make too much out of this disc's title, but the venerable OM - the Swiss quartet that's been around since the 1970s - went through a number of years on relative hiatus. A decade ago, Intakt released a recording of a fabulous Willisau concert. And with It's About Time, Christy Doran (guitar, devices), Urs Leimgruber (soprano and tenor sax), Bobby Burri (contrabass, devices), and Fredy Studer (drums, percussion, bowed metal) take all of their varied history, together and apart, and deliver an extremely compelling album.
Each member of the group is a vivid soloist, as you can tell by investigating any of their old ECM or Japo albums (not to mention the aforementioned live date). But as they've all worked on their instrumental language over the decades, and keeping in mind their occasionally pastoral leanings of yore, OM has developed a really rich textural vocabulary that's at the center of this recording. It's there in the hushed opening to "Like a Lake (dedicated to Marianne B.)," whose scrapes, buzzes, and soft breath set the tone. Only a band with such a clear voice could open an album with an exploration this patient, which is especially compelling as the piece slowly evolves into a kind of abstract groove. Leimgruber's altissimo lines twist between Doran's electronic shapes and jittery phrasing in satisfying fashion.
The dynamic range within these tunes is also realized across the sequencing of the album as a whole. For example, "Perpetual-Motion Food" opens with a gnarly techno-groove/loop from Doran, and Studer plays wild free time cymbals over top. Things get wilder still when Burri digs in and Leimgruber cranks out some fabulous circular breathing. Leimgruber's "Nowhere" is another slow burn textual piece. A looped chiming chord and highest soprano note frame the Doran-penned title track at the outset, before its sneaky groove opens up and the tension rises until OM just let it rip. Another Doran piece, "Fragments," is a highlight, careening from a punishing riff to limpid melancholy and back, complete with floor-melting distortion and tasty groove.
There's something about those understated pieces, though, that really got me. Leimgruber's "On a Bare Branch" could very much be from one of his solo projects, built around the dynamic extremes of his saxophone language. The rumbling, brooding "Covid-19 Blues" is a dark textural affair. That tune, along with the floating tone-world of "String Holder," almost gives you the impression that on this superb record (recorded in February of this year) OM perhaps sensed the darkness just at hand. Certainly its billowing dark clouds (and Burri's use of electronics is so vital to this record) gives that impression to these ears. Whether that's your association or not, this is a real statement of this band's range and commitment to group expression. Powerful stuff.
