The Berlin Gray Beckons

Mulatu Astatke, Copenhagen Clarinet Choir, Prague Quiet Music Collective, Eric Wubbels

Mulatu Astatke Takes a Bow

It’s often worthwhile to take stock in one’s accomplishments, and when you’re someone as on the go as the Ethiopian composer and musician Mulatu Astatke that’s doubly true. He recently released Mulatu Plays Mulatu (Strut), which is not only his first new album with his own band in more than a decade, but a vibrant recasting of some of his most enduring tunes. The most cosmopolitan and studied figure involved in the potent explosion of modern Ethiopian music in the 1960s, he famously played with Duke Ellington and studied at Berklee in Boston. From the beginning his music was expansive, blending ideas from jazz and Afro-Caribbean traditions with a deep traditional grounding.

Mulatu Astatke (photo: Karston Tannis)

The new album was produced by Dexter Story, a latecomer to the joys of Ethiopian music but now a devoted scholar. The recording features Mulatu’s excellent long-running London-based ensemble, enhanced by a slew of overdubs featuring more traditional instruments recorded later in Addis Ababa—such as the twangy krar that winds through the album opener “Zelesenga Dewel.” Some of these tunes have become iconic, first through Francis Falceto’s essential Ethiopiques reissue series, and later through pop culture licensing. Three of Astatke’s tunes were prominently featured in the soundtrack of the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers including “Yekermo Sew,” which is included on the new album. There’s something about the project that reminds me of some of the solo records made by musicians from the Buena Vista Social Club; relaxed, beautifully recorded sessions of elders revisiting a past few knew they had. My favorite of them is probably the first album by pianist Ruben Gonzalez, which rather than an act of nostalgia allows us to experience a relatively unadorned experience—a rapidly vanishing sound without much mediation.

The band was supposed to play Berlin in October, but that date was postponed over some kind of visa issue, so they’ll play the rescheduled date—which is sold out—on Thursday, November 13 at Huxley’s Neue Welt. Unfortunately the date shuffling means the group’s usual pianist Alexander Hawkins—one of the greatest figures in jazz and improvised music—isn’t able to make it, and his chair will be filled by Nick Ramm. The band still features some heavies from the UK jazz scene including bassist John Edwards and trumpeter Byron Wallen. What I find cool about the new record is how it finally captures a top-notch ensemble who’ve worked with Mulatu for ages kind of traveling back in time to formulate a sound he might’ve possessed back in the old days. Below you can hear “Nètsanèt,” which takes on a seductive soul jazz vibe in this arrangement, with a stunning stop-time effect as the chorus winds down, with horn voicings that reflect on Astatke’s deep jazz roots. The first featured soloist is the guest masenqo player Samson Alemayew, offering a highly effective blend of traditionalism and modernism.

Catching Up With Copenhagen Clarinet Choir

I feel kind of stupid for missing the boat on the Copenhagen Clarinet Choir when they released their debut album Organism (År & Dag) back in 2022. I was actually in touch with member Carolyn Goodwin about the record at the time. She sent the music and I forgot to check it out. It happens. Why wouldn’t I be interested in a clarinet sextet with familiar names, including the terrific Francesco Bigoni. The group has just returned with a second album, a collaboration with the electronic musician Anders Lauge Meldgaard, who composed the music for Jeux d’eau (Conatala Records/År & Dag), which officially sees release on Wednesday, a day before they’ll perform it in Berlin at Aktionhaus on November 13. I’ve since gone back and listened to Organism, a lovely feast of surprisingly silken harmonies, attractive and patiently unfolding melodies with plenty of space for masterfully integrated improvisation. There’s something about hearing musicians of serious range coming together and really putting the emphasis on an ensemble sound. In addition to Goodwin and Bigoni, the group includes Anders Banke, Maria Dybbroe, Jonas Engel, and Henriette Groth.

Copenhagen Clarinet Choir (photo: Malthe Ivarsson)

The new record feels different, of course, particularly with the integration of Meldgaard’s sounds—a mix of Eurorack electronics and a New Ondomo, a modern Japanese instrument designed to mimic the rare French Ondes Martenot—but the clarinet ensemble still sounds fantastic, deftly weaving together with the some of the rhythmically cycling electronic tones. There’s a similar mix of minimalist tropes, pointillistic sound splatter, cool hocketing, phasing, extended techniques, and tender melody, but here it’s large in service to Melgaard’s woozy electronics, which exist in a very similar timbral area, even when the clarinets dig into tongue slapping effects on “Unabashed Waveforms,” which sounds like a deconstruction of Gershon Kingsley’s “Popcorn.” It’s all very well integrated, but I can’t help but admit I kind of prefer the group left to its own devices. Still, the clarinetists are so central to the music I ultimately don’t mind so much. Below you can check out one of the most seamless pieces, “Entering the Fray.”

Prague Quiet Music Collective Rolls into Berling, Gently

The Prague Quiet Music Collective is an ensemble led by composer and guitarist Ian Mikyska, a musician I first encountered through a series of commissions from Czech pianist Miroslav Beinhauer, the lone virtuoso of the rare sixth-tone harmonium, —building on its former one-piece repertoire (by Alois Haba). Mikyska wrote music featured on two different releases for the instrument, one with music from Berlin-based guitarist Fredrik Rasten and another with composers like Klaus Lang, Judith Berkson, and Phill Niblock. It was through these efforts I eventually learned about his own ensemble. As its name suggests, the group definitely favors gentle sounds, usually ones that unfold very slowly. Earlier this year the group released the terrific Longing Landscape, a collection of ensemble works by the Swiss composer Jürg Frey, released by the British imprint Another Timbre, which seems to be the ensemble’s spiritual home in a lot of ways. I’m actually unsure how long the group has existed since its website is kaput, but its earliest recording on its Bandcamp page dates back to 2021.

Prague Quiet Music Collective (photo: Jana Plavec)

More recently the group has released a stream of lovely digital releases featuring music from members of the ensemble and kindred spirits from both sides of the Atlantic including Kory Reeder, Jack Langdon, Ferdinand Schwarz, and Jordan Dykstra. Last month they released Hudba na znamení, a fascinating site-specific project in which seven composers wrote music designed for trips taken on public transport. The recording contains those pieces as well as versions superimposed with field recordings from various buses and trains, recreating the sensation of listening to music on headphones while commuting, mimicking the way the environmental sounds seep in. The effect is particularly striking on Mikyska’s own piece, “Four Stations,” which, at the same time, feels like a stylistic outlier amid most of the ensemble’s repertoire. Check it out below. The PQMC perform two totally different programs of all new music in Berlin this week. On Wednesday, November 12 they’ll perform at KM28 in conjunction with a local iteration of the Australian Phonetic Orchestra with bassist Jon Heilbron, flutist Rebecca Lane, keyboardist Joseph Houston, and guitarist Joseph Kudirka. They’ll play music by Heilbron, Houston, ensemble violist/violinist Milan Kárník Jakeš, and Mikyska, along with a work by Anthony Donofrio. PQMC (which also includes clarinetist Anna Paulová and double bassist Luan Gonçalves) along with a guest role on electronics by visiting Australian musician Josten Myburgh, will play music by Mikyska, Myburgh, and Marcus Lundberg at (nyt) Art Space on Thursday, November 13.

Short Takes

Pianist and composer Eric Wubbels makes a rare Berlin performance at KM28 on Tuesday, September 11, with a stripped down version of Wet Ink Ensemble, the excellent New York collective he co-founded. Joining him are long-time ensemble members Erin Lesser on flute and Ian Antonio on percussion. They’ll be playing two works, including a brand-new piece for the trio titled ne owiht. While I haven’t heard that, I have heard the other piece on the program “contraposition,” a 2016 prepared piano-trombone duo he’ll perform with Weston Olencki. A ferocious reading of the piece appeared on his 2022 album Field of Action / contraposition (Out of Your Head). Below you can check out the opening movement, “Image.”

Recommended Shows in Berlin This Week

November 11: Eric Wubbels, piano, keyboards, with Wet Ink Ensemble (Erin Lesser, flute, and Ian Antonio, percussion) and Weston Olencki, trombone, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin

November 12: Linda May Han Oh, bass, with Sara Serpa, vocals, Will Vinson, saxophone, Fabian Almazan, piano, and Mark Whitfield, Jr, drums, 6:30 PM, Zig-Zag Jazz Club, Hauptstraße 89, 12159 Berlin

November 12: A screening of Sound Dreams of Istanbul, a documentary about improvised music in the titular city by cellist Anil Eraslan, followed by a performance by Velvelle, his duo Merve Salgar, 7:30 PM, Galiläakirche, Rigaer Str. 9, 10247 Berlin

November 12: Cate Le Bon; H. Hawkline, 8 PM, Säälchen, Holzmarktstraße 25, 10243 Berlin

November 12: Prague Quiet Music Collective (Ian Mikyska, viola da gamba, electric guitar, Anna Paulová, clarinet, bass clarinet, Milan Kárník Jakeš, violin, viola, Luan Gonçalves, double bass) and Phonetic Orchestra (Jonathan Heilbron, double bass, Rebecca Lane, flutes, Joseph Houston,keyboards, and Fredrik Rasten, guitars) play Heilbron, Houston, Mikyska, and Donofrio, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin

November 12: Cansu Tanrıkulu, voice, electronics, and Tobias Delius, tenor saxophone, clarinet; Lisa Ullén, solo piano, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin

November 13: Prague Quiet Music Collective (Ian Mikyska, viola da gamba, electric guitar, Anna Paulová, clarinet, bass clarinet, Milan Kárník Jakeš, violin, viola, Luan Gonçalves, double bass, and Josten Myburgh, guest, electronics) play music by Josten Myburgh, Ian Mikyska, and Marcus Lundberg, 7:30 PM, [NYT] art space, Philippistraße 7, 14059 Berlin

November 13: Gletsjer^4 (Elena Kakaliagou, Morris Kliphuis, Abigail Sanders and Samuel Stoll, horns) play Petr Bakla, Max Murray, Pauline Oliveros, and Jennifer Walshe, 8 PM, Klangwerkstatt, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Studio 1, Mariannenplatz 2 10997 Berlin

November 13: Copenhagen Clarinet Choir & Anders Lauge Meldgaard, Ruhiges Gewerbe, 9 PM, Aktionhaus, Gottlieb-Dunkelstraße 43/44, 12099 Berlin

November 13: Mulatu Astatke, 8:30 PM, Huxley’s Neue Welt, Hasenheide 107 – 113, 10967 Berlin

November 13: Brad Henkel, trumpet, Anna Webber, tenor saxophone, Achim Kaufmann, piano, Mike Majkowski, double bass, and Tony Buck, drums, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin

November 13: Anil Eraslan, cello, Ege Şahin, electronics, and Mehmet Ali Şimayli, drums; Tobias Delius, saxophone, clarinet, Sofia Borges, drums, and Lisa Ullén, piano, 8:30 PM, Kühlspot Social Club, Lehderstrasse 74-79, 13086 Berlin

November 14: Handcrafted Tributes Festival – 2nd Edition with Stefan Schultze Large Ensemble, Rabih Beaini, Michael Vorfeld, and Werner Hasler, 7:30 PM, studioboerne45, Börnestraße 43/45, 13086 Berlin

November 14: Marc Schmolling, piano, 8 PM, Salon L´écritoire, Schönwalder Str. 20, 13347 Berlin

November 14: Ab Baars, tenor sax, clarinet, shakuhachi, and Tobias Delius, tenor saxophone, clarinet, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin

November 15: Handcrafted Tributes Festival – 2nd Edition with Stefan Schultze Large Ensemble, Rabih Beaini, Michael Vorfeld, Werner Hasler, Liz Kosack, and Tom Rainey, 7:30 PM, studioboerne45, Börnestraße 43/45, 13086 Berlin

November 15: Ohrenschmaus (Lina Allemano, trumpet, Dan Peter Sundland, electric bass, and Michael Griener, drums) with Anna Webber, tenor saxophone, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin

November 16: Stefan Schultze, piano, Peter Ehwald, saxophone, and Tom Rainey, drums, 3:30 PM, Industriesalon Schöneweide, Reinbeckstraße 10, 12459 Berlin

November 16: Richard Putz, percussion; Guitar duo Nuno Pinto & Gil Fesch, play Helmut Lachenmann, 5 PM, Klangwerkstatt, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Studio 1, Mariannenplatz 2 10997 Berlin

November 17: Dara Strings meets Chuchchepati Orchestra (gabby fluke-mogul, Biliana Voutchkova violins, Grégoire Simon, viola, Elisabeth Coudoux, Isidora Edwards, Paula Sanchez, cellos, Patrick Kessler, double bass, installation, Merche Blasco, electronics, spatialization), 8 PM, Theater im Delphi, Gustav-Adolf-Strasse2 2, 13086, Berlin

November 17: Julia Hulsman Quartet (Julia Hulsmann, piano, Uli Kempendorff, Marc Muellbauer, double bass, and Heinrich Köbberling, drums) with Hildegunn Øiseth, trumpet, flugelhorn, 8:30 PM