Drummer, composer, bandleader and side woman Kate Gentile is relatively new on the scene but it’s already clear that whatever style of music she takes on, it’s always in the vanguard of that style. More than that, she invents styles of her own. So to say that her latest release b i o m e i.i (from Gentile’s and Matt Mitchell’s Obliquity Records) is ambitious only describes the norm for her. What makes b i o m e i.i particularly special is how it reveals how far Gentile’s artistic reach goes. It’s really, really far.
Largely stepping away from a diverse world of cutting-edge jazz and into the esoteric world of creative chamber music, Gentile brings over to this idiom her craft of integrating improvisation into meticulous scores and blurring the distinction between either.
As they follow Gentile in the billing, it might be easy to assume that International Contemporary Ensemble is Gentile’s backing band but no, it’s a true partnership. The International Contemporary Ensemble has spent some twenty years working with composers emerging and established to provide a conduit for their challenging and provocative works. They commissioned Gentile to provide a set of pieces, with Gentile also becoming part of the band as its drummer and a second percussionist.
Gentile joins International Contemporary Ensemble members Cory Smythe (piano), Isabel Lepanto Gleicher (flute, piccolo), Joshua Rubin (clarinet, bass clarinet), Rebekah Heller (bassoon) and Ross Karre (vibraphone & percussion).
There’s a fairly hefty 13 tracks in all, but even if you don’t read the liner notes you soon realize that b i o m e i.i is actually a symphony with thirteen, interconnected movements.
It’s a seven-piece band but plays like a full symphonic orchestra. The music moves as a large mass, going in many directions at once at the micro level but overall moving in the same direction on a macro level. The intense detail in these compositions guarantees you will still uncover things you hadn’t caught before on the hundredth listen. Smythe may have described all this more succinctly when he remarked that Gentile had “managed to turn the Ensemble into a menagerie of oozing, flapping sonic symbionts.”
While some movements – such as the first two – make full use of this pocket orchestra at once, there are plenty of moments where the ensemble is temporarily reduced to one-on-one or two-on-one situations, such as the novel drums-flute-clarinet showdown of “chorp.”
“vlimb” dispenses with tonal instruments altogether, as it’s a fascinating drums/percussion display. Some sections, such as “moons” and most of “shorm,” conversely do away with drums and percussion, underscoring Gentile’s intent to make a wide-scope composer’s record that showcases her talents well beyond the trap kit, not some drummer-centric project.
“nionine” is chock full of surprises. A bassoon cast against exotic percussion with chimes-like timbres that practically makes a melody on its own. Other members join in and execute a dense Tim Berne-like pattern, settling into free-chamber dramatics. “drode” moves in an unpredictable, dramatic fashion. Things come to a head when Gentile solos ferociously but as a combatant arrayed against the ICE, it’s much more purposeful.
In building such a sophisticated New Music oeuvre, Kate Gentile has thrust herself to the forefront of creative improvised music, alongside forbears of a prior generation like Berne or the generation before that one, like Roscoe Mitchell or Carla Bley. If she’s capable of a major statement like b i o m e i.i, there’s nothing she’s incapable of.
Pre-order/order b i o m e i.i from Bandcamp.
- Emily Remler – ‘Cookin’ At The Queens, Live In Las Vegas 1984 & 1988′ (2024) - December 9, 2024
- Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin – ‘SPIN’ (2024) - December 8, 2024
- Dan Blacksberg – ‘The Psychic/Body Sound System’ (2024) - December 1, 2024
