Sonic Centering in a Chaotic World
Mike Majkowski, Håkon Thelin, Ulrich Gumpert
The Twinned Minimalist Impulses of Mike Majkowski
On Thursday, January 30 Mike Majkowski will celebrate the recent release of two different solo recordings, both on the Gusstaff label, at KM28: August features him on double bass, while November is an all-electronic recording. He’ll play two different sets revisiting music from each of them, and the sublime clarinetist Michael Thieke will play a solo set in between them, offering a palate cleanser if not a sonic disruption. On first glimpse Majkowski’s material on the recordings is quite disparate, but it doesn’t ultimately take too much to notice how connected these two practices are. The Australian native works in various contexts here in Berlin—serving as a long-time member of Splitter Orchestra, the low-end in Das B (with Magda Mayas, Tony Buck, and Mazen Kerbaj), which has a new album coming later this year from Corbett vs. Dempsey—but he’s still closely connected with the echtzeitmusik community so it’s hardly surprising that his work favors a stripped-down aesthetic.
I’ve really been spellbound by August, which includes four pieces that blend largely uninterrupted long tones and staccato gestures, each element helping to produce and feed the other. Here the bass is deployed as a multi-pronged sound generator, dispatching the usual roles of harmonic anchor or rhythmic driver. Using a quietly virtuosic hybrid of arco and pizzicato techniques, Majkowski produces several different simultaneous lines, as you can hear below on the piece called “Air.” There’s a steady overtone that rings for the entire duration, over which he places a measured low-end pluck that’s voiced at a fixed interval, from start to finish. I suppose the focal point is a kind of unstable thrumming gesture that changes pretty regularly, although it’s easy enough to hear it as another static presence if you’re not paying close attention. But if you do zoom in that erratic motion is the source of the excitement, as the knotty, erratically pulsing gesture is what modulates the larger framework. I assume the steady drone element is a byproduct of the other two motions, but I can’t be certain. All four pieces follow this same model, with different variations on the ingredients operating on a microscopic level that sounds much larger when the listener is totally immersed in the sounds.
The two tracks on November follow a similar path: “Mood,” which you can check out below, unfolds with a sustained droning quality tattooed by little gestures of varying sizes and weight; a synthetic hi-hat clap, a reverberant bell-like tone cycling in three-pitch patterns, and a muted kind of industrial cough, all which force the ripples and distortions in the foundational long tone. “Echo” juggles those same elements, albeit with new patterns and altered timbres, in a different configuration, but casts the same sort of spell. It’s ambient music in the most general sense, but it’s not designed for chilling out. What ties both recordings together is that Majkowski shapes a pair of haunting environments—one acoustic, one electric—that explore the same phenomenon using what’s basically the same blueprint.
Håkon Thelin’s Big Fiddle
Norway’s Håkon Thelin explores another unusual route for solo bass on his recent album Slåtter på kontrabass (Motvind), on which he explores adaptations of Norwegian folk themes for his bulky instrument, which is called a “storfela” in certain folk music communities, Norwegian for “big fiddle,” which is akin to the American “bull fiddle.” Indeed, it’s striking how Thelin manages to express the nimble marriage of dance rhythms and traditional melodic shapes with his bass. Of course, Thelin is a well-established virtuoso on his instrument. Since 1999 he’s been a member of the wildly versatile Poing with accordionist Frode Haltli and saxophonist Rolf-Erik Nystrøm, a trio that’s rooted in contemporary music, but has freely worked in free improvisation, John Lennon covers, and Weimar cabaret, always with a mix rigor and cheekiness. He’s also a regular collaborator with the expansive folk singer Unni Løvlid, where a similarly exploratory embrace of folk themes has overlapped with his own interests as a composer.
Previously he’s abstracted ideas from folk music in some of his own writing, but Slåtter på contrabass is the first time he’s tackled the material head-on. Still, this isn’t really some sort of artistic pivot; the reason Thelin’s engagement with folk music is so convincing is that he hears this world as a continuum, and his blending of extended technique and regional practices are simply two sides of the same coin, one of the many reasons there’s a particularly vital interplay between folk and contemporary music happening these days. On some pieces Thelin is largely faithful to the original pieces, playing a pretty straight transcriptions, but elsewhere he takes plenty of liberties. On “Maltsteinen” he opens the piece with a thorny, circling line of harmonic pizzicato, transmitting an almost low-pitched kalimba-like quality, before moving on to the keening fiddle melody largely using a mix of the same plucked attack and conventionally intoned notes, giving the piece a radically different complexion and feel. Below you can hear both the original recording (ca. 1912-1914) by Hardanger fiddle master Eilev Smedal—the recording Thelin’s arrangement is derived from, although the connection can sound tenuous to an outsider like me—followed by the bassist’s dazzling interpretation, moving between attacks to generate a kind of cubist rendering.
On the opening track the connection is more deliberate. His take on Knut Kjøk’s rousing “Musikus” retains the buoyant melody but slows it all down into a narcotic trance at the outset, toggling between melodic allusions and terse ad libs. After a minute or so he zooms in on the melody, picking up the pace a bit, but remaining far slower than the original. As the piece unfolds it slowly morphs from its dance function into something more lyric, fragile, and vulnerable, as Thelin changes tonal qualities every few notes, embroidering the melody with harmonic barbs and a few throaty low-end bow swipes. It’s astonishing. The bassist deftly melts any divides between folk tradition and contemporary practice, not by making a glib collision, but by making them flow into one another with ease. There’s great skill in bringing those things together so seamlessly, but Thelin never draws attention to his cleverness. Rather, his playing lets us focus on pure musicality, where technique is merely means to an end.
Ulrich Gumpert Quartett: A Short One
Pianist Ulrich Gumpert turned 80 on Sunday, January 26 and he’s celebrating the occasion with a rare gig at Industriesalon Schöneweide this coming Sunday at 3:30 PM. He’s definitely an overlooked figure in the US, as he’s been an important force in German free jazz going back to the 70s when he was a key member of the excellent East German group Synopsis—later known as Zentralquartett—alongside trombonist Connie Bauer, alto saxophonist Ernst Ludwig-Petrowsky, and drummer Günter “Baby” Sommer. I first encountered his name and his playing on a heady 1987 duo album with Steve Lacy called Deadline (Sound Aspects). His most recent album is now a decade old. A New One, released by Intakt in 2015, includes most of the quartet performing with him on Sunday—drummer Michael Griener and bassist Jan Roder, with tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert filling the chair usually occupied by Swiss reedist Jürg Wickihalder, a spot originally helmed by Ben Abarbanel-Wolff. The music on that last record is wonderful, elegantly capturing the pianist’s ravishing, catchy themes, his deep jazz roots (there’s no missing his ardor for Thelonious Monk on “The Bop & the Hard Be”) and ongoing urge to experiment and explore within a post-bop context. Below you can hear the title piece from A New One.
Recommended Shows in Berlin This Week
January 28: Michael Thieke, clarinet, and Sabine Ercklentz, electronics; Margareth Kammerer & Rebecca Lane, songs for voice, electric guitar, bass flute, and field recordings, 8:30 PM, Ausland, Lychener Str. 60, 10437 Berlin
January 28: Au Revoir Ears (Tobias Delius, tenor saxophone, Olaf Rupp, electric guitar, Isabel Rößler, double bass, and Jan Leipnitz, drums), 9 PM, Kunstfabrik Schlot, Invalidenstraße 117, 10115 Berlin
January 29: Liz Kozack, synthesizer; Elliot Galvin, piano, synthesizers, Simon Jermyn, bass, Julius Gawlik, tenor saxophone, clarinet, and Moritz Baumgartner, drums, 8:30 PM, Donau115, Donaustraße 115, 12043 Berlin
January 30: Mike Majkowski, double bass, electronics; Michael Thieke, clarinet, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin
January 30: Björn Lücker Berlin Ensemble (Björn Lücker, drums, Rudi Mahall, clarinets, Henrik Walsdorff, tenor saxophone, John Schröder, piano, Lars Gühlcke, bass), 9 PM, B-Flat, Dircksenstr. 40, 10178 Berlin
January 31: Shannon Barnett Quartet (Shannon Barnett, trombone, Stefan Karl Schmid, tenor saxophone, David Helm, bass, Fabian Arends, drums), 8:30 PM, Donau115, Donaustraße 115, 12043 Berlin
February 1: Sun Yizhou, devices, and Seiji Morimoto, electronics; Zhao Cong, objects,
and Mizuki Ishikawa, feedback; Zhu Wenbo, clarinet, tapes, and Eric Wong, electronics, 8 PM, Richten25, Gerichtstraße 25, 13347 Berlin
February 1: Ellen Arkbro with Microtub (Robin Hayward, Martin Taxt, and Peder Simonsen, microtonal tubas); Claire Rousay with Martyna Basta, 9 PM, CTM Festival, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstraße 227, 10178 Berlin
Febuary 2: Ulrich Gumpert Quartet (Ulrich Gumpert, piano, Matthias Schubert, tenor saxophone, Jan Roder, double bass, and Michael Griener, drums), 3:30 PM, Industriesalon Schöneweide, Reinbeckstraße 10, 12459 Berlin
February 2: Finom, 8 PM, Kantine am Berghain, Am Wriezener Bahnhof, 10243 Berlin
February 2: Jason Isbell, 8 PM, Columbia Theater, Columbiadamm 9-11,
10965 Berlin
February 3: Brad Henkel Quartet (Brad Henkel, trumpet, Rieko Okuda, piano, Isabel Rößler, double bass, and Samuel Hall, drums),