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Independent music since 1986.
Independent music since 1986.

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406: LUCAS NIGGLI SOUND OF SERENDIPITY TENTET. Play!

Intakt Recording #406 / 2023

Joana Maria Aderi: Voice / Electronics
Dominik Blum: Hammond Organ
Silke Strahl: Tenor Saxophone
Marc Unternährer: Tuba
Marina Tantanozi: Flute / Electronics
Christian Weber: Double Bass
Helena Winkelman: Violin
Peter Conradin Zumthor: Drums, Celesta
Tizia Zimmermann: Accordion
Lucas Niggli: Drums, Melodica, Composition

Recorded 5 and 6, January 2023 at Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zurich.

Original price CHF 12.00 - Original price CHF 30.00
Original price
CHF 30.00
CHF 12.00 - CHF 30.00
Current price CHF 30.00
Format: Compact Disc
More Info

With the Sound Of Serendipity Tentet, Lucas Niggli, who has been at the forefront of Swiss-European jazz for many years, brings together some of the most exciting musicians from the local jazz and improvisation scene. Stirring music is created in a highly original playing instruction via 40 composed playing cards, implemented by this ten-member ensemble of strong personalities and the factor of chance. And so, Play! is a vehicle to negotiate a spectrum of composed and improvised behaviour in the form of a card game played over three rounds. “On the one hand, we hear a composition which sounds like an expansion of Lucas Niggli’s musical character: mercurial, highly detailed, uncannily responsive to others, unafraid of groove. And yet on the other, I suspect that the listener familiar with the individual performers on the recording will smile to themselves at how vibrantly those performers’ own individual characteristics are set into relief by Niggli’s game”, writes Alexander Hawkins in the liner notes.

Album Credits

Cover art: Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger
Graphic design: Fiona Ryan
Liner notes: Alexander Hawkins
Photos: @vnv__stage

All compositions by Lucas Niggli. Recorded January 5 and 6, 2023 at Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zurich, by Jonas Häni. Mixed and mastered in March 2023 at Hardstudios, Winterthur by Michael Brändli and Lucas Niggli.

Customer Reviews

Based on 57 reviews
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K
Ken Waxman
Jazz Word

More than a game piece that creates musical situations suggested by the shuffling of playing cards into three-fold suits, Swiss percussionist Lucas Niggli’s refined this eight track program so that tentet members negate any breach between composition and improvisation. Although different conductors, soloists and backing players are listed for each piece, foreground and background roles aren’t static.

Niggli, whose experience encompasses solo sets, a punk-jazz trio and African percussion experiments, only lightly sprinkles rhythmic strokes and slaps among the tunes from his kit and drummer Peter Conradin Zumthor’s. Instead the tracks’ contours are decided by soloist juxtaposition, as extended technique alters expected sounds. “Movement 2” for instance evolves from Marina Tantanozi’s electronically doubled flute puffs and shrills to near opaque vibrating textures from organist Dominik Blum and accordionist Tizia Zimmermann then reinstates flute peeps mated with squeeze box jerks. The most natural transition between dissonance and delicacy occurs with “Movement 4” and “Movement 5”. Joana Maria Aderi’s voltage-altered vocals paired with percussion clangs cushioned by Marc Unternährer’s tuba ostinato subsequently turns into a brief pastoral flute feature.

While space is also made for aggressive altissimo asides by tenor saxophonist Silke Strah and stentorian slaps from bassist Christian Webber as well as widely separated rock-like or marching-band-like interludes, the suite’s basic structure remains constant and linear.

Not only does the group Play exceptionally, but it also demonstrates how to play using varied sound elements while preserving a coherent musical perception.

https://www.jazzword.com/reviews/lucas-niggli-sound-of-serendipity-tentet/

K
Ken Waxman
Jazz Word

More than a game piece that creates musical situations suggested by the shuffling of playing cards into three-fold suits, Swiss percussionist Lucas Niggli’s refined this eight track program so that tentet members negate any breach between composition and improvisation. Although different conductors, soloists and backing players are listed for each piece, foreground and background roles aren’t static.

Niggli, whose experience encompasses solo sets, a punk-jazz trio and African percussion experiments, only lightly sprinkles rhythmic strokes and slaps among the tunes from his kit and drummer Peter Conradin Zumthor’s. Instead the tracks’ contours are decided by soloist juxtaposition, as extended technique alters expected sounds. “Movement 2” for instance evolves from Marina Tantanozi’s electronically doubled flute puffs and shrills to near opaque vibrating textures from organist Dominik Blum and accordionist Tizia Zimmermann then reinstates flute peeps mated with squeeze box jerks. The most natural transition between dissonance and delicacy occurs with “Movement 4” and “Movement 5”. Joana Maria Aderi’s voltage-altered vocals paired with percussion clangs cushioned by Marc Unternährer’s tuba ostinato subsequently turns into a brief pastoral flute feature.

While space is also made for aggressive altissimo asides by tenor saxophonist Silke Strah and stentorian slaps from bassist Christian Webber as well as widely separated rock-like or marching-band-like interludes, the suite’s basic structure remains constant and linear.

Not only does the group Play exceptionally, but it also demonstrates how to play using varied sound elements while preserving a coherent musical perception.

https://www.jazzword.com/reviews/lucas-niggli-sound-of-serendipity-tentet/

Reviews in Other Languages

N
Nazim Comunale
Blow Up Magazine

Lucas Niggli Sound Of Seren- dipity Tentet Play! • Cd Intakt • 8t-46:18 Un game piece del tutto peculiare. Le carte date ai musicisti sono di quattro tipi: ritmiche tematiche, soniche e di colore. All'interno di re- e gole prestabilite la libertà degli interpreti è massima, con il ruolo del conductor che ruota. Nel nutrito ensemble (sax tenore, flauto, elet- tronica, violino, fisarmonica, Ham- mond, tuba, contrabbasso, due bat-terie, celesta e melodica) ci piace segnalare la presenza di Joana Maria Aderi a voce ed electronics, già nei Phall Fatale con il compianto Fredy Studer. Il mood è febbrile, selvatico, elettrico, l'interplay ser-rato, l'ispirazione sempre a fuoco. StrikeR

N
Nazim Comunale
Blow Up Magazine

Lucas Niggli Sound Of Seren- dipity Tentet Play! • Cd Intakt • 8t-46:18 Un game piece del tutto peculiare. Le carte date ai musicisti sono di quattro tipi: ritmiche tematiche, soniche e di colore. All'interno di re- e gole prestabilite la libertà degli interpreti è massima, con il ruolo del conductor che ruota. Nel nutrito ensemble (sax tenore, flauto, elet- tronica, violino, fisarmonica, Ham- mond, tuba, contrabbasso, due bat-terie, celesta e melodica) ci piace segnalare la presenza di Joana Maria Aderi a voce ed electronics, già nei Phall Fatale con il compianto Fredy Studer. Il mood è febbrile, selvatico, elettrico, l'interplay ser-rato, l'ispirazione sempre a fuoco. StrikeR

N
Nazim Comunale
Blow Up Magazine

Lucas Niggli Sound Of Seren- dipity Tentet Play! • Cd Intakt • 8t-46:18 Un game piece del tutto peculiare. Le carte date ai musicisti sono di quattro tipi: ritmiche tematiche, soniche e di colore. All'interno di re- e gole prestabilite la libertà degli interpreti è massima, con il ruolo del conductor che ruota. Nel nutrito ensemble (sax tenore, flauto, elet- tronica, violino, fisarmonica, Ham- mond, tuba, contrabbasso, due bat-terie, celesta e melodica) ci piace segnalare la presenza di Joana Maria Aderi a voce ed electronics, già nei Phall Fatale con il compianto Fredy Studer. Il mood è febbrile, selvatico, elettrico, l'interplay ser-rato, l'ispirazione sempre a fuoco. StrikeR

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