Marie Takahashi, Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues & Hui-Chun Lin – double x double (Creative Sources, 2019) *** 1/2


Especially for an irrepressible musician, arranger, and label owner like Rodrigues, I imagine one must expend a lot of energy just keeping things interesting. Much of that energy seems dedicated to the single-minded quest to push the boundaries of the music, creating pieces that oscillate in that sweet spot just a hair too abrasive for Wandelweiser and much too Wandelweiser for a large swath of the rest of the listening public. Some must also go into imagining and staging new configurations of musicians seasoned in this type of lowercase music. It seems a small world, but, somehow, Rodrigues and his collaborators still find new contours to explore.

A string quartet of two violas and two cellos, double x double is just one of these working ensembles. From the first deep bows of the first track, “Dawn Burglary,” the listener knows he is in for a very different experience than the much larger ensemble on Paradoxurus Hermaphroditus produced. The music here is dark and clear, rather than almost inaudible restive. The tension is unmistakable. The melodies are sinister, blending a romantic sense of harmonic development and sway with a postmodern feel for interlaced droning tones and a postmodern fascination with all things non-conventional. (By now, of course, much that had been unconventional has been incorporated into and refined by the Rodrigues/Creative Sources repertoire.) Think: contrasting dynamics of prolonged shimmering and scratchy whispers and sharp, percussive strings, barely audible clicks, wooden creaks, and slide-whistle glissandos. A fine showcase of the potentialities of a modern, unorthodox string quartet.

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This is the incredible Berlin Improvisers Orchestra!  April 29 in 2023 at Kuehlspot!

Niko Meinhold - piano, 
Tommaso Vespo  toypiano
Hannes Buder - g
Gerhard Uebele - violin
Nick Parry - cello
Hui-Chun-Lin - cello
Robert Würz -  sax
Anna Kaluza. - sax
Henrik Waldorf - sax
Manuel Miethe - sax
Norbert Stammberger - bs
Abigail Sanders - fh
Klaus Kuervers - db
Ulf Mengersen - db
Horst Nonnenmacher - db,
Willi Kellers - dr, perc
Martial Frenzel - de, perc
Recorded by Christian Betz
collective Improv

2023-10-23 Kühlspot Open Session #10

Line-up:
Tom Dreier - piano
Roman Stoyer - piano
Eli Simić-Prošić - piano
Vito Cassano - pino
Hawe Müller - flügelhorn, effects
Christoph Riggert - bass
Johannes von Wrochem - guitar
Jeffrey Grunthaner - guitar
Ulf Lundberg - bass clarinet, flute
Sascha Bauss - trumpet
Michele Tantussi - a. sax.
Michele Pedrazzi - synthesizer
Heinrich Rolf - poem
Dirk Flandrich - drums
Gerold Hildebrand - drums

​Recording/Edition: Hui-Chun Lin

September 27, 2023
Offshore Adventures
Creative Sources CS 757 CD

An adventure all right, but in a Berlin studio rather than offshore, the Discoveries quintet aims to replicate through improvised minimalism the pressure, ocean floor textures and darkness of an aquatic environment. The unusually constituted crew includes cellists Hui-Chun Lin from Taiwan and Uygur Vural from Turkey and three Germans: trombonist Matthias Müller and dual bassists Klaus Kurvers and Ulf Mengersen. All are experienced in the musical gestalt of the German capital.

Throughout the quintet subtly replicates sea bottom currents with undulating double bass drones: flora and fauna distinguished by strained spiccato cello rubs and jiggles; and squeaking slides and propelled watery blasts from the trombonist. Tonal ambiguity leads to gradual transference as musical currents wash in and out. “Sea Pen” for instance begins with Müller’s portamento smears abutting lyrical thrusts from the cellos. But before the tune climaxes with a replication of calm waters, contrapuntal bass string thumps muddy the flow. The five are also able maintain fluidity at a funereal pace on “Giant Squid” where fragmented marine life currents from string stops and vibrations are finally concentrated with a brass burr. Still other tracks glide through the moist program with a continuous melodious line from the group leading to expositions which bubble and burble with broken chords and tonal ambiguity contrasting half-valve pumps and whistling air from the trombonist with built up thrusts and sul poticello squeaks from the strings..

The most extended instance of this meld of consonant harmony and creative disruption is the concluding “Rem Cycles”. Over a continuum of mallet-slapped strings the Discoveries members cycle through a theme that salvages chunks of double bass pressure, mellow cello swipes and gutbucket brass scoops while keeping the narrative afloat. The band may not exactly have reached its musical safe harbor of sonically reflecting the deep sea, but its expanded improvisations are certainly shipshape.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Nautilus 2. Frilled Shark 3. Sea Pen 4. Giant Squid 5. Black Smoker 6. Bobbit Worm 7. Engine-Room 8. Rem Cycles

Personnel: Matthias Müller (trombone); Hui-Chun Lin and Uygur Vural (cello) and Klaus Kurvers and Ulf Mengersen (bass)


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