When pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson got together to record Crop Circles in 2016, it was capture of two intensely adventurous artists in the act of figuring out how to play with each other, since they had performed a single concert together before this. The art of discovery came out bountifully on this record, even though each brought to the sessions songs they didn’t write for the occasion.
Searching for the Disappeared Hour is the second helping from this pair, but it’s a whole new ball game. In the intervening years Courvoisier and Halvorson have toured together and they composed specifically for the sophomore project. You can bet it’s going to sound different. It’s also going to be – again – fantastic art.
Once again, the two completely redefine the pairing of piano and guitar and by extension, any two chordal instruments. They fearlessly step into each other tonal spaces and break other rules for how to play as a duo, setting new ones in their wake. As before, invention is the name of the game but this one just feel like the invention is intentionally tailor made for the personalities and instruments involved. The fact that both wrote songs expressly for these sessions this time reinforces that notion.
“Golden Proportion” demonstrates how much Halvorson has tailored her composing style to fit the occasion. She stitched together contrasting ideas and let the two use their imaginations to make it all cohere. Courvoisier’s “Lulu’s Second Theorem” is a pattern relentlessly pursued until the songs blows up and the two regroup, gravitating back to that original figure.
Ingenuity in musicians often manifests when they turn a mistake into a moment of brilliance. “Moonbow” (video above) came about when Halvorson inadvertently played a step behind on a tune during the Crop Circles sessions, but the effect was so profound to them that they decided to do it on purpose this time. The delectably tangled intro in unison generates enough excitement on its own but then there’s a pivot to a beautiful strain with a current of opacity followed by some truly fearsome noises from Halvorson’s guitar, settling into the fragile beauty of before.
“Torrential” features tandem solos from Halvorson followed by Courvoisier, put in sharp relief between high individual character of each but also how they come together so congruously when they play Halvorson’s folk-like strain. For “Mind Out of Time” Courvoisier is able to meld classical voicings to the probing, outward-reaching freedom of jazz.
Mary Halvorson’s “Bent Yellow” is a bunch of harmonic head fakes; just when you think you’ve solved the song, it lurches into an unexpected new direction, often returning to a spot it was dwelling on before. The togetherness through it all is beyond astounding. “Gates & Passes” marries Halvorson’s usual harmonic twists with an astute use of spatial manipulation, letting the song seemingly briefly pause at strategic points.
The duo composed together spontaneously for three pieces that are interspersed among the preconceived songs, and the results are just as incredible. Halvorson’s alien effects on “Four-Point Play” is this time countered by Courvoisier’s excursion into the inside of her piano. “Party Dress” involves close listening to each other, as well as ample use of time and space – a rarity in a purely improvised performance.
Highly individual artists on their own when they got together the first time, Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson forge a highly individual piano/guitar duo for Searching for the Disappeared Hour.
Searching for the Disappeared Hour is now available, from Kris Davis’s Pyroclastic Records.
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