KUZU - Rempis, Dorji, Damon: Purple Dark Opal

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2020-11-18
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: Gatefoldowe etui
opis:
freejazzblog.org * * * * *:
Kuzu hit the road in the fall of 2018 following the release of their debut album, Hiljaisuus (Astral Spirits, 2018). The refreshing and exhilarating sounds pressed into that initial recording were like a fanfare for one of the more exciting new groups of today. But, if we know anything about these three musicians, rather than resting on their laurels, they instead rolled up their sleeves and got to work. On Purple Dark Opal, we find them on day 15 of a 20-date tour - taken from a performance at Milwaukee’s The Sugar Maple in October 2018 (recorded just four days after Lift to Drag ).

For those of you who don’t know, Kuzu is Dave Rempis (saxophones), Tashi Dorji (guitar) and Tyler Damon (drums). They are the kind of group that refuses definition and shrugs off categories (understandable if you consider the breadth of their individual backgrounds). I can picture an iTunes algorithm crashing while trying to sort them into a genre (good thing Aerophonic doesn’t distribute through iTunes, or Amazon for that matter). They are a chameleonic creature: loud and messy, nimble and thorny, melancholic or ecstatic. Despite their disparate backgrounds, individual personalities, or unruly tendencies, they evidently filter it all through a singular concept to achieve that “Kuzu sound”. Purple is the result after putting that concept on the bandstand for 15 nights.

Purple consists of a single track, “To The Quick,” that sprawls for nearly an hour. It all begins in earnest with Damon’s solo percussion before Rempis and Dorji join the fray. As might be expected from an extended performance, the trio navigates a series of valleys and peaks and explores different configurations as if to turn over every stone along the journey. It doesn’t take much to get this group fired up. Rempis has a knack for motivic development as he manipulates creative rhythmic/melodic structures overtop Damon’s inventive stickwork and Dorji’s jagged attacks. He often trades fleet and blistering lines for gut-punched cries, or vibrato-laden hymns that carry severe emotional weight. As they dial up the heat, Rempis’s playing becomes an impassioned frenzy. During these heated moments, Dorji, the trickster that he is, uses mimicry as a tool and picks up on one of Rempis’s scalding rhythmic phrases to add to the chaos. Throughout all of this, Damon is the tenacious force that keeps the band boiling with his everywhere-at-once presence and impressive stamina. He also has a way of injecting a tight swing or quick-witted groove in the middle of a firestorm that leaves listeners tapping their toes or shaking their heads like, “how did he do that?” Surely the outpouring of his rhythmic ideas inspires his fellow bandmates into action.

Energetic peaks are followed by cooler, probing sections or a chance to experiment in a duo configuration. One such example forms 16-minutes in when Rempis drops out. Damon and Dorji exhibit an intricate level of interplay as they tap and clatter around each other in kinetic harmony. Dorji has an eclectic bag of tricks that he uses to manipulate a variety of clicks, scrapes, twangs, and booms from his guitar. He frequently employs pulsating drones that emulate summer-night cicadas or a mechanical cadence that become denser with the use of a looping pedal. While intensity is a mainstay for this band, they seem quite at home navigating through the more introspective sections - whether it’s a slow-burning dirge, a meditative calm of bells and breathy whispers, or a nervous rhythmic breakdown. They achieve an overall sense of momentum by the way they pass around rhythmic ideas: collectively running with some, using others to contrast the narrative. Do this almost intuitively at breakneck speeds and you can begin to understand how they achieve such an exceptionally tight sound.

So what is Purple Dark Opal? It is the sound of an extraordinary working band really hitting their stride. As a listener, we get the sense that these three have become intimately familiar with each other since Hiljaisuus. Like three old friends playing a high-stakes game of poker, they are embroiled in musical gamble that could derail in an instance of hesitation or failed bluff. But for all the runs, flushes and an all-in mentality, there is not a wasted minute where we catch them floundering. For existing fans or newcomers to Kuzu’s music, Purple Dark Opal is an essential recording that showcases this group’s prowess when left to their own devices. We should also tip our hats to recording wizard Dave Zuchowski for his brilliant work on both Purple and Hiljaisuus, among countless other albums. A live performance this good deserves to be heard in the highest of fidelity, and Dave delivers.
By Taylor McDowell

allaboutjazz.com Recommend:
Thank your lucky stars that Kuzu's previous disc Hiljaisuus (Aerophonic/Astral Spirits, 2019) was not a one-off meeting. That recording, their first concert together in 2017, inspired the trio to tour and explore their brand of free jazz. Purple Dark Opal, recorded live in Milwaukee in October 2018, found the trio in the midst of an extended concert tour. Documented here is proof they were indeed firing on all cylinders.

"To The Quick" is a single, nearly hour-long track, but it could easily have been sequenced as several tracks. Saxophonist Dave Rempis recruited the duo of guitarist Tashi Dorji and drummer Tyler Damon to fashion this music, which merges more passion and emotions than a David Mamet play. Opening with some quiet drumming, the music picks up momentum with guitar hum and Rempis' patient plaintiff calls. His alto warms to the impetus laid down by Damon. and Dorji picks through taut guitar notes. There is a sense of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965) that permeates this concert. As Coltrane drew from jazz, gospel, and Eastern music, Kuzu do too, updating their approach with rock, metal and the tools of free jazz. We hear Rempis' patented rip, tear, crunch sound, but also there is a tranquility about this music not found in most free jazz.

A quarter of the way through, the fury calms into breathy popped notes, bells, and echoey strummed guitar. This restfulness is followed-up with bulging baritone notes, a sort of blues played against the minimalist accompaniment of Dorji and Damon. As the momentum picks up, the trio ignites energy music, and a scorching targeted sound. The trio, though, always circles back to a three-way interaction, where each individual pulls or, maybe better, pushes the music in different directions. Winding down, the sound culminates not unlike "Psalm" from A Love Supreme, with Damon as Elvin Jones, signaling the resolution as if all prayers were said.
By Mark Corroto
Editor's info:
Purple Dark Opal is the second release by the working trio Kuzu, a band whose deep roots in disparate musical traditions delivers a sound that’s not only new, but totally organic. Saxophonist Dave Rempis is best known for his work in the improvised music scene in Chicago, often exploring areas at the farthest edge of the jazz tradition. Guitarist Tashi Dorji, a native of Bhutan, came up through the active noise scene in his home base of Asheville, NC. The last decade has found him deep in that world nationally and internationally, putting out ear-splittingly in-your-face solo records, regularly opening for Godspeed You Black Emperor on their concert tours in the US and Europe, and touring frequently with duo partners Thom Nguyen, Mette Rasmussen, and Kuzu drummer Tyler Damon. That last pairing was the band that caught Rempis’ ear a few years back, and Damon is clearly the musical link here – someone who works comfortably in the avant-garde jazz scene in Chicago, as well as in the rock and noise world holding the drum chair for Circuit Des Yeux, Thee Open Sex, and in his duo with bassist Darin Gray.

After their first concert outing in the fall of September 2017, the three left the stage exhilarated, and knew immediately that this was a BAND. Immediately planning more work together, they released that concert as an Astral Spirits LP titled Hiljaisuus in August 2018, later released on cd by Aerophonic Records. That fall they did twenty dates on the road in the US, rolling up their sleeves to develop a promising union into a real working unit. The results of that effort are documented here on Purple Dark Opal – recorded live in Milwaukee, WI as concert number fifteen of that extended run.

And what do we find after all that work? Rempis’ penchant for pentatonic melodies and rough and tumble timbres combines seamlessly with Dorji’s thick, raw sound and singular approach to intonation, buttressed by Damon’s rapid-fire yet powerful stickwork, to produce a music that’s exquisitely detailed at any one point in time, yet carries the narrative arc of the lengthy piece presented here without ever losing its coordinates. In this music you can hear the many hours together in a van roaming the hills of Tennessee and Pennsylvania, the plains of Texas and Illinois, and the forests of North Carolina and New England, trading playlists ranging from jazz icons like Pharaoh Sanders and Yusef Lateef to Scandinavian black metal bands like Craft and Darkthrone. While this isn’t a new thing in creative music – broad ears are a trademark of musicians in this world - what makes the pairing so unique is the truly organic way in which they string these influences together into a coherent sound. This isn’t a Frankenstein pastiche of bits and pieces held together with duct tape and glue, and a paper-thin conception. This is an emotionally deep and sincere effort to join genuinely disparate influences arrived at only through patient toil. When we ask if Rempis is channeling Coltrane, or a Turkish clarinet player; does Dorji sound like a Delta bluesman, or a southeast Asian rocker from the 70’s; is that Art Blakey or John Bonham rolling out through Damon’s toms; the answer is undoubtedly all of the above. And yet, despite the breadth of the trio’s inspirations, their music never collapses under the weight of its aspirations, fearlessly carving out a new corner in the broader sonic landscape.

muzycy:
Dave Rempis: alto/tenor/baritone saxophone
Tashi Dorji - guitar
Tyler Damon: drums

utwory:
1. To The Quick – 55:45

wydano: February 18, 2020
nagrano: Recorded October 14th, 2018 at The Sugar Maple in Milwaukee, WI

more info: www.aerophonicrecords.com