Summer Breather
Signe Emmeluth, Kenny Warren, Ståhls Trio, Naaljos Ljom
The Ascending Force of Signe Emmeluth
As I’ve alluded to in recent weeks, things really slow down in Berlin and most of the EU during the summer—it seems like everyone is on some kind of holiday. I’m headed out of town this week, too, heading to Lisbon for the Jazz em Agosto festival. So this week’s newsletter includes recommended shows for the next three weeks, as there’s much less than what’s usually on offer, and Nowhere Street will return on August 19. There’s only one preview for an upcoming performance in town this week, below, so most of the column is focused on a few superb recent albums, starting with an album released back in March by the remarkable Danish saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Signe Emmeluth, who gets better and better every year. I have to indict myself as well when I wonder aloud why her album Banshee (Motvind) hasn’t gotten more attention, as I haven’t written about it until now either, but I’m here to rectify the situation, because it’s one of the most gripping and original things I’ve heard all year.
Emmeluth, who lives in Oslo, was commissioned to create the music for the 2021 edition of Vossajazz in Norway, and she channeled the titular Irish myth, embracing the archetype to express questions about this life and what we want from it. It’s hard not to see how the idea of a screaming, wailing woman who’s voice heralds the death of a family member can be broadly applied; to the fucked world we inhabit or to the ongoing sexism that continues to be a hurdle for female musicians—the ensemble is all female, which might’ve been consciously political choice, but Emmeluth doesn’t draw any attention to that fact. My earliest encounters with the alto saxophonist were focused primarily on fire-breathing free jazz, but over the last few years her full range has become readily apparent. She can play inside the tradition and she can take it way out, sometimes in the same project. I’ve become a huge fan of her bruising quartet Amoeba, which makes a kind of prog-influenced post-bop that’s a blast to experience live, and she’s been a recurring guest in several bands of drummer Gard Nilssen. But Banshee is something really different, a more composition-oriented suite that gathers incredible force around a very precise kind of staccato propulsion, deftly mixing instruments and voices.
The music is fueled by the high energy drumming of Jennifer Torrence (who also adds some vibraphone), the thrumming electric bass and double bass playing of Guro Skumsnes Moe, and alternately stabbing and kaleidoscopic piano and synthesizer of Guoste Tamulynaite. The frontline—as much as you could call it such—features the leader alongside tubist Heiða Karine Jóhannesdóttir, who kind of toggles between frontline and rhythm section, trumpeter Anne “Efternøler” Andersson, and the singer and noise maven Maja S.K. Ratkje. From the start the arrangements are ultra-taut, throbbing with an almost pointillistic fury, and many of the thirteen untitled movements feature wordless voices in shifting, metronomic patterns pulsing beneath arrangements that veer between moody, blaring, and gorgeous. The rhythm section goes well beyond a core twitch pulse, perpetually adding little accents—such as the sudden shaker that vanishes as quickly as it emerges in the opening movement—or reshaping its attack without a hiccup. The second movement begins more ominously, without rhythm, as the abstract gurgling of electronics and subtle extended horn techniques set a tone before gliding into a brief chamber-like tone poem, which establishes a pattern of the work toggling between the persistent clipped rhythmic feel and more formless moments of repose, as if the ensemble was gathering itself before returning to the maelstrom, each of them articulated with different levels of intensity and density.
The fifth movement introduces a more aggressive, melodic vocal part that gets closer to the titular banshee than what we’ve already experienced, as Emmeluth keeps rejiggering the materials to build tension and force as the work unfolds. The musicians all get some space to improvise collectively and individually, often within tightly prescribed parts, but this is most definitely an ensemble project closer to contemporary music than jazz in that regard. The constant toggling between that driving pulse and free time sections are remarkable—especially when suddenly interrupted by the brutal noise of Ratkje in the seventh movement. It's hard to get the full picture of the piece based on any single section, but I’ve embedded the eight movement, titled “3.2,” which more precisely delineates that it’s the second part of the work’s third section, below. It’s buoyant, scary, and weird, as if the Swingle Singers decided to interpret the Ramayana Monkey Chant. The album is streaming on the label’s Bandcamp page and I’d highly recommend sitting down with the whole piece, which captivates me more each time I listen, and reinforces Emmeluth’s rapidly expanding creativity. I didn’t have time to participate in the recent mid-year jazz critic’s poll, but if I had this record would’ve been on my ballot.
The Sweetness of Kenny Warren
I’ve also just caught up with a new trio recording from New York trumpeter Kenny Warren, a player of great imagination and subtlety who always seems to focus on an ensemble-oriented sound even on his own recordings. I first heard him as a member of Matt Moran’s wonderful Slavic Soul Party when I was still living in Chicago, and last year he served as a sideman on pianist Angelica Sanchez’s excellent 2023 nonet album Nighttime Creatures (Pyroclastic). Back in May he dropped a fantastic album on the formidable Out of Your Head label, which is firmly establishing itself as one of the finest imprints devoted to jazz and improvised music anywhere. The wryly titled Sweet World is his second trio effort, and I hope it isn’t overlooked as its predecessor In the Heat (Whirlwind), from 2020. As Warren explains in his notes for the new record:
“I play music because I love to play music, and because no one tells me I can’t. No one is asking me to make another record. I will almost certainly lose money on it, like I have with every other record I’ve ever made. And it’s not going to change the world. It’s simply for the joy of making live art with and for the people I love.”
I admire the musician’s humility and honesty, but it also reflects on the sad state of the jazz record biz that such a superb talent has to assume creating his art will cost him money. Pay attention to this dude! While In the Heat was a more sprawling, open-ended endeavor focusing on more extended performances, the new album—made with drummer Nathan Ellman-Ball and cellist Christopher Hoffman (sort of replacing the previous album’s bassist Matthias Pichler, but also expanding the role’s possibilities by dint of the instrument)—is decidedly more concise and varied, intentionally celebrating the collision of musical inputs the trumpeter has absorbed by living and working in New York.
The record opens with a surprising introductory piece that plants tart, electronically-manipulated upper register trumpet smears with a weirdly dramatic swell of synthesizers. It made me wonder what happened to Warren’s music, but 1:17 later it’s over and we get a beautifully three-way conversation that the leader says is inspired by the work of recently deceased Ethiopian pianist and composer Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam. Warren details all kinds of references from around Africa, Eastern Europe, the Arabic world, and India, among other locales that have seeped into his subconscious, while also explaining that none of those elements appears explicitly. Indeed, Warren has assimilated all kinds of traditions—to say nothing of much of jazz history—in this music, but it ultimately sounds like Kenny Warren more than this, that, or the other.
A lot of credit execution-wise belongs to Hoffman, a fantastic musician best-known for his work with Henry Threadgill, but a strong voice on his own. In March he released Vision is the Identity, his own quirky rock-tinged trio album for the same label. As mentioned earlier, he straddles the role of bassist while laying down all kinds of crisp, often jaunty counterpoint to the leader’s melodic blowing. The trio is impressively nimble, navigating the varied time signatures, multi-partite constructions, and required interplay with breezy insouciance and quiet rigor. With this kind of line-up there’s not much to hide behind, and the group operates with phenomenal clarity, whether saluting the agile lyricism of the great Lee Konitz with jacked-up polyrhythm and counterpoint on a Warren homage titled “Respectfulee,” or tapping into a mix of the Balkan brass tradition explored by SSP and Mexican banda, a south of the border counterpart to that instrumental sound world, on the rollicking “Angels Migration,” which you can check out below. There’s a nice modesty in the album title that reflects upon the quote above, as Warren is well away of the precarious, often uncaring state of a world that seems anything but sweet, but I think most of can understand how music helps us get through it all.
The Limber Cool of Sweden’s Ståhls Trio
Like Warren, the Swedish vibraphonist Mattias Ståhl has always carried himself humbly and quietly, and his name should be much more familiar to jazz listeners. His excellent Ståhls Trio just released Brain Drain (Hxng Jazz), its fourth album over its 15-year existence, and it might be favorite of all of them. Deftly supported by bassist Joe Williamson and drummer Christopher Cantillo, the group has landed on the perfect merger of knockout tunes and taut yet springy execution without a wasted gesture. Ståhl has a deeply lyric sensibility that eschews complexity for its own sake, and once again the most obvious signpost for his playing is the great Walt Dickerson, who famously recorded his 1966 album Impressions of a Patch of Blue in a quartet with Sun Ra—not to discount their fantastic 1978 duo album Visions (Steeplechase)—another one of the figures who looms large as an influence here.
The music is decidedly no frills, putting trust in the durable charm of the tunes and a punchy group attack that swings like mad. There’s a gorgeous moodiness to a ballad like “Fröken Paula” while “Handy Clap” is a brisk modal swinger with a delightful breakdown distinguished by syncopated—you guessed it—hand claps. The leader wrote all of the pithy themes apart from the haunting “Revirado,” an early classic by nuevo tango pioneer Astor Piazzolla. I’ve admired Williamson’s sleek drive and woody tone in all kinds of projects for years, and his bond with Cantillo is a genuine pleasure to experience. The music grooves effortlessly, switching the rhythmic feel from track to track, whether the indelible tunefulness and soul jazz flair of “Sweet Joseph”—check it out below—the Mancini-tinged “Bad Total,” or the gauzy “Nåsan,” with its clear echoes of Thelonious Monk’s “Misterioso.” As with the group’s previous recordings, Ståhl also breaks out some credible soprano saxophone playing, opening the closing piece “Free From Guilt,” with a snaky, Steve Lacy-ish intro before moving over the vibes. The trio continues to excel with its wonderfully direct, unfussy approach, delivering the kind of modern jazz record that reminds us why we fell for the music in the first place. It’s a fucking shame more people aren’t celebrating his work.
The Final A L’arme Festival, with Naaljos Ljom
The 12th and final edition of the Berlin experimental music gathering A L’arme Festival takes place August 8-10 at Radialsystem. I’ll be in Lisbon during the fest, and I’m disappointed to miss the event’s swansong. The program isn’t always to my tastes, but there are always some promising or exciting concerts, and this year is no exception, including sets from cellist Leila Bordreuil, Antumbra—the ever-morphing duo of keyboardist Elias Stemesder and drummer Christian Lillinger—the Berlin debut of ØKSE, the rugged new jazz-hip-hop quartet with bassist Petter Eldh, alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, drummer Savannah Harris, and turntablist Val Jeanty, the caustically atmospheric Norwegian trio I Like to Sleep, and a first-time duo of guitarist Caspar Brötzmann and electric bassist Farida Amadou. The full lineup is here. But the one set I’m most bummed to miss is Friday’s midnight performance by Naaljos Ljom, an exhilaratingly strange JI-electronic-folk duo from Norway.
I first encountered Anders Hana and Morten Olsen Joh as the furious improv-noise duo MoHa! which made some relentless blistering albums for Rune Grammofon in the late aughts. The pair also worked with saxophonist Kjetil Møster and bassist Kjetil Bransdal in the equally explosive Ultralyd. A little more than a decade ago the pair went their own ways, with Joh eventually relocating to Berlin, joining Splitter Orchestra and beginning a long-time exploration of just intonation. He’s a founding member of the Pitch, an elegantly slow moving quartet that elevated its own music once they started writing in JI: Joh even got his vibraphone retuned to play in JI. He eventually returned to Stavanger, Norway in the early days of the pandemic. By then he’d started working again with Hana, and at the 2019 edition of the Only Connect Festival in Stavanger an early iteration of Naaljos Ljom—before they had adapted the name—premiered their composition Lur og dekor – i kvardag og dommedag with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov. The duo had begun to experiment with Norwegian folk traditions, some of which long ago employed unusual tuning systems.
The music the pair have made as a duo, however, veers toward more electronic territory, with drum machines and analog synthesizers colliding with jaw harp, guitar, and langeleik, a traditional zither-like instrument. Last fall the group released its second and most assured album Naaljos Ljom 2 (Motvind), with eight pieces based to some degree on Norwegian folk tunes. Their liner notes detail their source material, the unusual scales deployed in each piece, and what instruments they use in these wildly revised adaptations. They cite the folk scholar and musician Eivind Groven, who researched and wrote extensively about the tuning systems in traditional Norwegian folk—they even use part of a lecture he gave in 1966 in the opening piece “Tolvtalvisa,” in which he excoriates listeners who assumed that some musicians operating in these tuning systems were simply fucking up rather than adhering to a different tonality. Depending on the instrumentation the music on the album conveys wildly different complexions. On a piece like “Halling etter Jørn Hilme,” performed on guitar and synthesizers, it sounds like we’re hearing an old fiddle tune jacked-up heavy kick drums, until it concludes in dense skeins of noisy harmony that will tickle the ears of uninitiated in odd ways. “Skraddarlåtten” is an old Hardanger fiddle tune arranged for Hana’s mouth harp and Joh’s mix of stuttering drum beats and electronics, and between this duo and getting to recently see a couple of performances by jaw harp virtuoso Thov Wetterhus, I now officially take this instrument seriously. Both Hana and Joh take this tuning stuff ultra-seriously, noting that their version of a tune called “Rammeslått 2” is based on a 1961 recording by Andres K. Rysstad, but they alter the articulation of the bass note after the way fiddler Gunnar Austegard played it. You can check it out the tune, which features guest fiddler Rasmus Kjorstad, below. It’s a beguilingly strange project, simultaneously familiar and alien, comforting and disorienting. The most exciting part is that it seems like Naaljos Ljom is really just getting started.
Recommended Shows in Berlin This Week
July 30: Isabel Crespo Pardo; ágata, 7 PM, Schokoladen, Ackerstraße 169, 10115 Berlin
July 30: Ana Frango Elétrico; Lovnis, 7 PM, SO36, Oranienstraße 190, 10999 Berlin
July 30: Aufwecken der Intonarumori (new compositions for Intonarumori) as part of Holy Fluxus. From the Francesco Conz Collection, Anna Clementi, Luciano Chessa, and Werner Durand (Elliott Sharp, Luciano Chessa, Milan Knížák, Peter Ablinger:, Werner Durand, Blixa Bargeld, Anna Clementi), 7 PM, St. Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz 1, 10785 Berlin
July 30: ETUDE (Ensemble Treffen Um Die Ecke: Martin Heinze, double bass, voice, Hilary Jeffery, brass, alphorn, voice, Theresa Patzschke, flute, voice, Eleni Poulou, synthesizer, baglama, voice, Simon Rose, baritone saxophone, voice, Zsolt Sőrés, viola, voice) plays Philip Corner, 8 PM, Tanzhalle Wiesenburg, Wiesenstraße 55, 13357 Berlin
August 1: Etuk Ubong, 8:30 PM, Schlueterhof, Humboldt Forum, Museumsinsel, 10178 Berlin
August 2: Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force, 8: 30 PM, Schlueterhof, Humboldt Forum, Museumsinsel, 10178 Berlin
August 2: Aki Takase, piano, Els Vandeweyer, vibraphone, and DJ Illvibe, turntable & electronics, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
August 3: Bixiga 70, 8:30 PM, Schlueterhof, Humboldt Forum, Museumsinsel, 10178 Berlin
August 3: Chant-i-n-g (Liz Kosack, harmonium, voice, Andrew D'Angelo, bass clarinet, voice, Brandon Miller, guitar, voice, Michaela Bóková, voice, and Joe Smith, shrutti vox, voice, percussion, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
August 4: Zinc & Copper + Hayden Chisholm (Hayden Chisholm, alto sax, Elena Kakaliagou, French horn, Hilary Jeffery, trombone, Robin Hayward, tuba, tuning vine), 4 PM, Tanzhalle Wiesenburg, Wiesenstraße 55, 13357 Berlin
August 6: Open Cage as part of Holy Fluxus. From the Francesco Conz Collection, Agnese Toniutti, piano, toy piano (John Cage, Agnese Toniutti), 7 PM, St. Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz 1, 10785 Berlin
August 6: Alexander von Schlippenbach and Aki Takase, pianos; Gina Schwarz, double bass, and Dag Magnus Narvesen, drums, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
August 8: A L'ARME! Festival day 1 with Leila Bordreuil, cello, electronics; Steffi Narr, guitar, Oli Steidle, drums, Saou TV, live visuals; Antumbra (Elias Stemeseder, synthesizers, electronics, and Christian Lillinger, drums, electronics); Keiji Haino, guitar, vocals; Sofía Salvo, baritone saxophone, Paal Nilssen-Love, drums, 8 PM, Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstrasse 33, 10243 Berlin
August 9: A L'ARME! Festival day 2 with ØKSE (Savannah Harris, drums; Val Jeanty, electronics; Mette Rasumussen, alto saxophone, and Petter Eldh, double bass, electric bass electronics); Ephemeral Fragments (Korhan Erel, synthesizers, Florian Walter, tubax; Emily Wittbrodt, cello, Emilio Gordoa, vibraphone, Lena Czerniawska, drawing); I Like to Sleep (Amund Storløkken Åse, vibraphone, electronics, Nicolas Leirtrø, baritone guitar, Øyvind Leite, drums); Yexxen (Sofía Salvo, baritone saxophone, Claire Nico, lap steel guitar, Guido Kohn, electric bass, and Bobby Glew drums, electronics); Naaljos Ljom (Anders Hana, mouth harp, fiddle, Hardanger fiddle, langeleik, Morten Joh, analog synths, drum machine, Norwegian folk drum), 8 PM, Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstrasse 33, 10243 Berlin
August 9: Philipp Gropper, tenor saxophone, Liz Kosack, synthesizer, Felix Henkelhausen, double bass, and Grischa Lichtenberger, electronics, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
August 9: Vincent Moon & Rabih Beaini's LIVE CINEMA, 8:30 PM, Schlueterhof, Humboldt Forum, Museumsinsel, 10178 Berlin
August 9: Lenny Rehm Trio (Rudi Mahall, bass clarinet, Jan Roder, double bass, and Lenny Rehm, drums), 8:30 PM, Peppi Guggenheim, Weichselstrasse 7, 12043 Berlin
August 10: A L'ARME! Festival day 3 with hÄK/Danzeisen (Bernd Nobert Wuertz, electronics, Philipp Danzeisen, drums); Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem / Amadou (Caspar Brötzmann, long scale electric bass, vocals, Farida Amadou, electric bass); Gudrun Gut, electronics, voice; Sven-Åke Johansson, percussion and Jan Jelinek, modular synthesizer; Frank Bretschneider, modular synthesizer; Byetone, modular AV; Keiji Haino, Keiji Haino, electric guitar, vocals, Grischa Lichtenberger, electronics/AV; Robert Lippok, drum machines, computer, and Lucas Gutierrez, visuals; DJ sets ( Electric Indigo; Mieko Suzuki; Ara), 8 PM, Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstrasse 33, 10243 Berlin
August 13: Miroslav Beinhauer: Fluxus Piano as part of Holy Fluxus. From the Francesco Conz Collection, Miroslav Beinhauer, piano, with Petr Bakla (Eric Andersen, Milan Knížák, Ken Friedman), 7 PM, St. Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz 1, 10785 Berlin
August 14: Trespassing Rooms (Isabel Rößler, double bass, and Samuel Hall, drums), 8:30 PM, Morphine Raum, Köpenicker Straße 147, 10997 Berlin (Hinterhof 1. Etage)
August 15: Peter Evans’ Being and Becoming (Peter Evans, trumpet, Joel Ross, vibraphone, Nick Jozwiak, double bass, Michael Ode, drums), 9 PM, Zig-Zag Jazz Club, Hauptstraße 89, 12159 Berlin
August 16: Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano), Rudi Mahall (bass clarinet) & Dag Magnus Narvesen (drums), 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
August 17: Charlotte Moorman im Kunstgewerbemuseum as part of Holy Fluxus. From the Francesco Conz Collection, Katharina Haider, Tabea Schrenk, Weronika Trojanska, Deborah Walker, and Eckehart Günther (John Cage, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik), 7 PM, St. Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz 1, 10785 Berlin
August 19: Mdou Moctar, 8 PM, Festaal Kreuzberg, Am Flutgraben 2, 12435 Berlin
I caught Emmeluth’s Amoeba at Something Else in Hamilton, ON a few weeks ago. Such a great band.