Kate Gentile hasn’t been a leader terribly long but already this drummer and composer has been the brainchild (or co-brainchild) of several big ideas. In this space we thought her debut Mannequins was ambitious in how it “takes the relationship between rhythm and harmony an order of magnitude closer” but she kept pushing further out, like the sprawling, 6-CD collaboration with pianist Matt Mitchell Snark Horse or the audacious foray into creatively modern chamber music b i o m e i.i.
Coming mere months after that latter album, Find Letter X (PI Recordings) is another massive set of works even at half of Snark Horse‘s six discs, but that’s because Gentile has so much to express. Carried out by a very capable quartet consisting of Gentile, Mitchell (piano, keyboards, electronics), Jeremy Viner (tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet) and Kim Cass (basses), Find Letter X is named for the band itself, which has had several years of performing together developing a certain chemistry before applying it on this record.
It starts, of course, with the fertile mind of the leader. Gentile toys with timekeeping, often using it to challenge ears accustomed to hearing set rhythms and tempos as a separate component alongside harmony. Her music also confronts notions of how melody and harmony interact and the idea that motifs and other patterns have to run its course at set lengths. Even the demarcation line between tonality and atonality is ignored here.
Another departure from convention is the sheer length of this release; it’s spread out over forty-one tracks, three discs and three hours and seventeen minutes. Each disc has a name: Iridian Alphabet represents the first fifteen tracks, Senselessness spans the next fourteen tracks and the last dozen tracks are collectively christened The Cosmic Brain.
A lot of jazz artists these days play ‘electro-acoustic,’ and the forward-thinking Gentile is no exception. That said, her perspective differs in that she’s willing to slide across the entire continuum between totally acoustic on one side and all-electro on the other. It’s simply dictated by what brings out a song’s potential more fully. “r.a.t.b.o.t.B” is solidly on the electronic end of things but retains all the freedom, explosiveness and unpredictability that only jazz can deliver. “Raze” picks up right where “r.a.t.b.o.t.B” left off but with a hard rock edge and Gentile is even more violent, yet fully in control. “Laugh Magic” is all-acoustic most of the way, but there’s nothing traditional about it; the rhythms, the chord patterns and Mitchell’s piano excursions might not be untethered but they also don’t follow established conventions, either.
“Subsurface” does evoke jazz of the past, more to the point, mid-sixties Blue Note, down to Viner’s bluesy, searching tenor sax. The sophisticated chart also evokes the best composers of that era like Andrew Hill, but wanders out further and adheres to a song structure code of its own. “Prismatoid” is all-acoustic as well, boasting standout features from Viner and Cass. “Contrarianism” on the other hand is a showcase for Mitchell’s linear pianisms. “Erinome” is more modern jazz, baselined by the tight bond between Gentile and Cass.
“Psychoradiant” and “Clarion Fluorescent” are both all-acoustic avant-modern outings that feature Viner on clarinet and Gentile tactfully inserting vibraphone. “Eternal Lapse” goes quieter, exposing the complexity that goes into every Gentile composition, drawing from the influence of Wayne Shorter on forward.
There are examples galore where novel contrasts are conceived and incredibly pulled off, songs that couldn’t have been realized by normal musicians. “Recursive Access” sees Gentile and Cass laying down a taut groove as Mitchell and Viner reel off a dense unison pattern that requires mind-boggling constant time signature changes to stay in sync but this unit is put together like a Swiss-made watch. “The New Basics” has a melody playing in a different beat than what the rhythm section carries out but somehow they make it all work together.
For the mathy space-punk “Garbage Juice,” Viner is going up against Mitchell’s arsenal of bent circuitry. “…Va Zisroas” delves into doom jazz but with a lot more intricacies, as is “Clovd 8.” On the other hand, “Zislupme Tnilyive Tsoam Ath…” is maelstrom of drums, electronics, electric bass and bass clarinet.
The deft manipulation of rhythm is often in a league of its own. The multi-sectioned “Jupiter vs. the Sun” puts the leader in the spotlight as she navigates the group through a series of ever-changing tempos until it all dissolves into a gurgling haze. For “In Casks,” the front line goes at half the tempo of the rhythm section, opening up the opportunity for Gentile to create clashes that make the sparks fly. “Dissolution” is another Cass spotlight and example of the rhythm section operating on one stream while Mitchell/Viner offers up a slower, counter-melody. For “Open Epoch” Gentile makes the tempo entirely liquid, continually slowing down and speeding up with Cass somehow staying with it as the melody itself is effectively built around this ambiguity.
There isn’t a rhythm measure Gentile can’t tackle with confidence and preciseness, but often she sets up a gauntlet of them within a tune and sails right through them, as with Tim Berne-ish “The 5th Clone.” These aren’t gimmicky devices but crucial in defining the harmony itself.
Kate Gentile held back no ambition in making the vast, unencumbered Find Letter X. With her band of the same name talented and perceptive enough to carry out her thoroughly conceived, nonconformist concepts, the bar was not only set high but also cleared.
Find Letter X is set for release October 13, 2023. Grab a copy from Bandcamp.
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