In the past we’ve heard trumpet savant Natsuki Tamura play freely within a melodic framework. Not this time; he’s playing completely unencumbered. In a way, Tamura is stepping out of character, which is strange to say about a free jazz record starring an avant-garde luminary. But Tamura is a magnificent composer (Gato Libre being exhibit A). To enter into a situation where composition — his or anyone else’s — is completely absent removes one of his greatest strengths.
But not all of his strengths, and he’s not doing this alone. In fact, Tamura’s reason for making a free jazz record comes from wanting to perform and record with his neighbor, fellow Berliner and classically trained bassist Alexander Frangenheim. Frangenheim, a risk-loving subversive among the risk-loving subversives of Europe’s improvised music crowd, has performed with Paul Lovens, Phil Minton, John Butcher and Johannes Bauer, among others. Tamura was apparently attracted to his unorthodox method and a shared fondness for teasing unusual sounds out of his instrument.
That’s why we have Nax (November 3, 2012, Creative Sources Recordings), a trumpet/double bass collaboration of 100% improvised music.
This is music in the broadest sense; “noise art” might be the more appropriate moniker. The purpose here isn’t to make melodies and isn’t necessarily to make a big display of chops, though there’s some of that. Rather, Tamura and Frangenheim explore rarely heard or never-heard timbres, textures and complexions, with only these two electronically unassisted instruments played over the course of ten performances with no forethought.
It’s about as alien as anyone can sound from a trumpet and an stand-up bass, to the point where it’s not always clear they are playing a trumpet and a bass. Take “Acun 05”: Tamura’s trumpet whimpers and pouts, two adjectives not usually ascribed to that piece of brass. Frangenheim alternately plucks and scrapes his bass so close together it seems as if he’s competing with himself.
There’s more to it than just making weird noises; listening to how they react to each other is part of the fun. When Tamura’s horn takes on the sound of a wounded creature, Frangenheim responds in kind with ghostly strokes of his bow. During “Acun 06,” Frangenheim plays extended, bowed notes until Namura coaxes him to a rapid chase for notes, and traces the trumpeter’s percussive patterns during “Acun 08”.
Many times, Tamura doesn’t even get any notes out, using his trumpet strictly as a percussive instrument or growling like a cougar or buzzing like an agitated hornet. At one point, during “Acun 09”, he emits a startling sheik that could break glass. Each time, Frangenheim reacts differently, sometimes with a low rumble, other times with frantic scraping and creaking and still other moments where he plucks the strings with a nimble bounce or sheer ferocity.
It’s an organic assemblage of sounds that are likely something not heard before, and that’s the point. Natsuki Tamura and Alexander Frangenheim conceived Nax to push beyond the frontiers of known music and went out as far out of what is possible with just a trumpet and a bass. That makes this perhaps not the most listenable record by either but this glimpse inside the minds of two of the more forward thinking minds in improvised music might alone be more than enough for the price of admission.
*** Purchase Natsuki Tamura and Alexander Frangenheim – Nax ***
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