On the Road Again

Jessica Ackerley, Marmalsana

I’ve been traveling an awful lot since the beginning of August, which has made it tough to devote the kind of attention I’d prefer giving this newsletter. But as much as stretching, dissecting, and altering time is a subject that frequently comes up in the space from week to week, in cases like this it’s stubbornly finite. Time is a requirement for careful listening and writing, and it’s been in short supply during this period. I apologize and I’m also sorry for myself, as the list of recommended shows happening in Berlin this week, below, is nuts. I’ll be back home to catch some of these exciting performances this coming weekend, but I’m truly sad to miss a lot of these shows. The good news is that this stretch of concentrated travel is about to end, so Nowhere Street will return to its former glory very soon. In the meantime, I was able to produce this truncated edition. Thanks for your patience—greetings from Oslo, where I’m catching part of the Ultima Festival. More on that next week!

A Fuller Picture of Jessica Acklerley

I've been keeping tabs on guitarist Jessica Ackerley for half a decade now, dipping into recordings that alternately explore free jazz, noise rock, ambient, and weird post-bop, sometimes all at once. I’ve been impressed by their technical ease, curiosity, and ambition, but Ackerley takes a bold leap forward with her recent album All of the Colours Are Singing (AKP), consolidating numerous strengths across a seven-part suite that delivers a sure-footed narrative punch. The record was created as the guitarist established a new life in Hawaii to pursue a PhD, which makes the cohesion they exhibit with bassist Walter Stinson and drummer Aaron Edgcomb—who happens to be in town this week, playing Richten25 in a duo with guitarist Kristen Carey on September 14—all the more stunning. Ackerley also returned to their painting practice as the music germinated, inspired in particular by a Georgia O’Keefe exhibition at MoMA; the artist’s use of color clearly seeped into the process here, reflected both in the album title and the flush in the sound captured within. Four of the seven pieces feature beautiful string arrangements from Concetta Abbate, who laid down two violins and one viola part on each of those tracks.

Jessica Ackerley (photo: Anabelle Ellwein)

The vibe is set immediately on the blandly titled “Introduction,” a floating tone poem of sustained guitar chords, sparse cymbal accents, thick arco bass lines, and strings that shoot little tendrils and trills around that action. The lean trio follows suit with a leisurely, deeply felt blues called “Forward Motion is Never a Straight Line,” and, indeed, the tune is decidedly circuitous, accelerating and decelerating, breaking open its form with deliciously splintered arrangements that build in loads of space. The guitarist cycles through a plucked melody, shifting its articulation but not so much its form, as Stinson takes a wonderfully rangy, warm-toned solo eventually prodded by some elegant tom-tom action from Edgcomb. Ackerley erupts and the performance picks up heft and gravity, shooting into free jazz terrain and some distorted shredding. The transition, as you can hear below, is abrupt, jagged, and unexpected, but it flows with grace and composure before a little sing-songy denouement.

“To See Takes Time” coyly flirts with melodic shards from “Cherokee” before settling into a lush, patiently articulated ballad which also takes the message of the previous title to heart, cleaving the groove with a flurry of needling, upper register guitar notes of crystalline beauty and soaring violin counterpoint. The rhythm section genty steps up and Ackerley transitions to ambient-flavored voicings, her guitar arriving in swelling daubs and sighs. “The Dots are the Connections” is a leapfrogging trio piece that easily reconciles the unison pointillism of the opening with an almost proggy expanse that arises toward the end of the piece, but ultimately the trio maintains restraint. The closing piece seems to borrow some phrases from Tuareg guitar, before heading into an overdriven Sharrock-esque jam. The greatest thing about the album, though, is its broad sweep and organic flow. The trio goes to a lot of different places, with each shift occurring with inexorable elegance. The playing is wonderful, but Ackerley’s real accomplishment is how she plotted it all out.  

Marmalsana’s Seamless yet Dynamic Collisions

Percussionist Burkhard Beins remains an early and crucial pillar of Berlin’s Echtzeitmusik scene, transforming his instrumental array into a fount of sustained texture and color, largely dispensing with any conventional notion of rhythm. Over time he’s remained committed to that sonic ethos even as many subsequent practitioners have turned the approach into a creative cul-de-sac that’s turned quietude and space into cliches. The music Beins makes, of course, conveys a much richer world of possibilities, displaying a ready elasticity and engagement with other aesthetic tendencies. One of the most fascinating partnerships he’s forged in recent years is with the two expat Arab musicians he collaborates with in the trio Marmalsana, which belatedly celebrates the release of its excellent eponymous debut album with a performance on Wednesday, September 18 at the Panda Theater.

Marmalsana—Maurice Louca, Tony Elieh, Burkhard Beins (photo: Tony Elieh)

This all-acoustic trio also includes the Lebanese bassist Tony Elieh and Egyptian guitarist Maurice Louca, both of whom line up with and push against the percussionist’s reduced sound world. The album begins with a kind of static churn that one might expect from Beins, who generates a shimmery rumble in partnership with Elieh’s roiling, single note thrum, subtly spiked by a distant pulse: something moving suggests stillness. Suddenly, three minutes in, Louca begins playing his quarter-tone guitar, unleashing a forceful series of lean arpeggios littered with rhythmic asides that opens everything up, expanding both the palette but also prodding his partners to increase the tension and heft of their roiling foundation. The section concludes with a sudden bell tone from the percussionist, halting the thrum and opening up a delicate dialogue between Louca and himself, the latter deliveing a sparse tangle of soft metallic pings and rustles. The two sections are at once masterfully connected and deliciously disparate, setting up a session of constantly morphing contrasts that I’ve found hard to resist.

Beins is very much recognizable throughout, particularly through his penchant for friction-driven sound, which often positions Elieh as a kind of free agent, navigating the divide between texture and melody. On the section titled “Forvelu,” Louca’s plucked patterns evoke the sound of an oud—brittle, twangy, and crisply microtonal; gestures answered by piercing bowed cymbals from Beins. Elieh toggles between muted, picked tones and bowed strings, that is until about halfway through when the energy suddenly swells, with flamenco-like accents on guitar and bass and wonderfully explosive, teetering beats from Beins, before it dissolves into silence. Check it out below. The following section “Esplorado” is an exercise in pointillism, as a constellation of terse sonic dabs engage in a nimble three-way dance, with little squeaks, brief overtones, and shudders peppering the sonic expanse, before it unfolds into a purely percussive downpour of splattery sound. It’s a wonderful album that suggests how those reduced materials can be shepherded into something truly dynamic and exciting, all of it fueled by an obvious rapport and shared vision. Louca and Elieh work together in multiple projects, including the great Arabic rock band Karkana, while Beings and the bassist also have a duo called Zone Null, so the overlapping interests are nothing new. Still, intersecting ideas don’t ever guarantee something this cohesive and absorbing.

Recommended Shows in Berlin This Week

September 18: Marmalsana (Maurice Louca, acoustic quarter-tone guitar, Tony Elieh, acoustic bass guitar, and Burkhard Beins, percussion), 8 PM, Panda Theater, Knaackstraße 97 (i.d. Kulturbrauerei, Gebäude 8) 10435 

September 18: Aaron Edgcomb, drums, and Kristen Carey, guitar; Balconies (Steve Heather, drums, Antonio Borghini, double bass, and Jasper Stadhouders, guitar); Simon Rose, baritone saxophone, and Michael Doneda, soprano saxophone, 8 PM, Richten25, Gerichtstraße 25, 13347 Berlin

September 18: Luke Nickel & Weston Olencki; Louis d'Heudieres, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin  

September 19: La Tène; Propan, 8 PM, 90mil, Holzmarktstraße 19-23, 10243 Berlin

September 19: Kern (Edith Steyer, alto saxophone, clarinet, Matthias Müller, trombone, and Yorgos Dimitridis, drums, microphones) with guest Carla Boregas, electronics, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin

September 20: Extended Spaces – Resonant Bodies: Alvin Lucier, with Ron Kuivila, performer, Hanna Hartman, performer, Nina Guo voice, Birgit Uhler, trumpet, ((Alvin Lucier, Hanna Hartman, Nicholas Collins), 7:30 PM, Emmauskirche Kreuzberg, Lausitzer Platz 8a, 10997 Berlin

September 20: Extended Spaces – Resonant Bodies: Alvin Lucier, with Robyn Schulkowksky, percussion, Michael Moser, cello, and Hauke Harder, realition, (Alvin Lucier, Michael Moser), 9 PM, Emmauskirche Kreuzberg, Lausitzer Platz 8a, 10997 Berlin

September 20: Céline Voccia, piano, and Alexander Frangenheim, contrabass, 7:30 PM, Salon L´écritoire, Schönwalder Str. 20, 13347 Berlin

September 20: Jérôme Noetinger, reel-to-reel tape, and Dieb13, turntables, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin  

September 20: Die Hochstapler (Louis Laurain, trumpet, Pierre Borel, alto saxophone, Antonio Borghini, double bass, Hannes Lingens, drums), 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin

September 21: Extended Spaces – Resonant Bodies: Alvin Lucier, with Ensemble KNM with David Behrman, electronics, (David Behrman, Alvin Lucier), 7:30 PM, Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstrasse 33, 10243 Berlin

September 21: **Y** (Liz Kosack, synthesizers, Dan Peter Sundland, electric basses, and Steve Heather, drums & electronics), 7:30 PM, Ausland, Lychener Str. 60, 10437 Berlin

September 21: Dylan Kerr, voice & electronics; Anna Clementi, voice, Intonarumori loops & electronics, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin  

September 21: Càlór (Camilla Battaglia, vocals, Julius Windisch, piano, synths, Nick Dunston, double bass, and Lukas Akintaya, drums), 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin

September 21: Extended Spaces – Resonant Bodies: Alvin Lucier, with Ensemble KNM (Alvin Lucier, Juliana Hodkinson), 9 PM, Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstrasse 33, 10243 Berlin

September 22: KÜHLSPOT SOMMERFESTIVAL #ALLES MUSS RAUS, Marie Takahashi, violin & Antti Virtaranta, double bass; Marina Cyrino, flute & Kris Limbach, electronics; Liz Allbee, trumpet & Chris Heenan, contrabass clarinet, sopranino saxophone; Carolina Tallone, hurdy-gurdy & Alexis Baskind, bass; Tresspassing Rooms (Isi Rößler, double bass & Sam Hall, drums); Olaf Rupp, acoustic guitar & Jan Roder, double bass; Niko Meinhold, piano & Henrik Walsdorff, saxophone; Manuel Miethe, saxophone & Marcello Busato, drums; Kühlspot Band (Rieko Okuda, piano, viola, Isabel Anders, piano, violin, Edith Steyer, clarinet, Anna Kaluza, saxophone, Ignaz Schick, saxophone, electronics, Hui-Chun Lin, cello, Kriton Beyer, daxophone, and Horst Nonnenmacher, double bass), 3 PM, Kühlspot Social Club, Lehderstrasse 74-79, 13086 Berlin

September 22: Extended Spaces – Resonant Bodies: Alvin Lucier, with Ensemble KNM, Winfried Rager, clarinet, Ana Maria Rodriguez, electronics, Ron Kuivila, realization (Alvin Lucier, Ana Maria Rodriguez), 7:30 PM, Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstrasse 33, 10243 Berlin
 
September 22: Kit Downes, organ, and Camila Nebbia, alto saxophone, 8 PM, Luisenkirche, Gierkeplatz 4, 10585 Berlin

September 22: Marcin Wasilewski Trio (Marcin Wasilewski, piano, Slawomir Kurkiewicz, double bass, and Michal Miskiewicz, drums), 8:30 PM, Jazz Club A-Trane, Bleibtreustraße 1, 10625 Berlin

September 22: Extended Spaces – Resonant Bodies: Alvin Lucier, with Ensemble KNM, Michael Moser, cello, Robyn Schulkowsky, percussion, Ron Kuivila, electronics, (Alvin Lucier, Ron Kuivila), 9 PM, Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstrasse 33, 10243 Berlin

September 23: Lankum, 8 PM, Theater des Westens, Kantstraße 12, 10623 Berlin