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Nick Dunston: Colla Voce

By Mark Corroto
July 11, 2024
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Composer and bassist

Nick Dunston

bass

" data-original-title="" title="">Nick Dunston's Colla Voce -"with the voice" -is a chamber construction which he describes as an Afro-surrealist anti-opera that operates in the concept of an individual experience, as opposed to a collective one. By that he asks, "what if the blue that I see is not that same blue that you see?" His caveat is that each listener's experience may differ.

Historical examples of this phenomenon are Igor Stravinsky's 1913 premiere of "The Rite of Spring" and

Ornette Coleman

saxophone, alto
1930 - 2015

" data-original-title="" title="">Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come (Atlantic, 1959), both of which elicited harsh and even violent responses. Fortunately (or maybe, unfortunately) we live in an era when, according to Perry Farrell of the band Jane's Addiction, "nothing's shocking."

Dunston, best known for his work in the US with heavyweights such as

Vijay Iyer

piano
b.1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Vijay Iyer,

Mary Halvorson

guitar

" data-original-title="" title="">Mary Halvorson, and

Tyshawn Sorey

drums
b.1980

" data-original-title="" title="">Tyshawn Sorey, relocated to Berlin after releasing two discs on Out Of Your Head Records, Atlantic Extraction (2021) and Spider Season (2022).

Colla Voce is a collaboration between two ensembles, the American JACK Quartet, and a second Berlin-based ensemble, and four voices—

Cansu Tanrikulu

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Cansu Tanrikulu,

Sofia Jernberg

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Sofia Jernberg,

isabel crespo pardo

author

" data-original-title="" title="">isabel crespo pardo, and

Friederike Merz

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Friederike Merz—all reworked in post-production by Dunston and producer Weston Olencki. The sounds are harsh or beautiful, depending on your perspective. The brief opener, "Ova'Churn" trades on the backward rotating sounds of The Beatles' "Paul is dead" with voices layered upon electronic manipulations of string instruments and bits of mayhem -think

John Zorn

saxophone, alto
b.1953

" data-original-title="" title="">John Zorn's Naked City meets Teo Macero's cut-and-splice. The mechanics of the recording and processing are quite mysterious. "Nearly Turbulent" opens with the cavernous sounds of instrument scrapings shadowed by accompanied vocals then a spacey slow-motion conclusion. The brief triptych "Hydrogen," "Argon" and "Oxygen" resembles futurist sound production with mechanical vocal and instrument experiments. Did Dunston and Olencki envision the final sound before recording the strings and vocals? Or is Colla Voce a product of some surrealist automatism? Yes and no, Dunston allows the listener to decide.

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Track Listing

Ova��churr; Designated Antagonist; Pseudocorridor; Blinding, Joyous, Fearful; Fully Turbulent; Lo and Behold; Hydrogen; Argon; Oxygen; Anglo-Adjacent Phonetic Approximations; Nearly Turbulent; A Rolling Wave of Everything; Colla Voce.

Personnel

Nick Dunston

bass

Cansu Tanrikulu

vocals

Sofia Jernberg

vocals

isabel crespo pardo

author

Friederike Merz

vocals

Maria Reich

violin

Anil Eraslan

cello

Tal Yahalom

guitar

Moritz Baumg?rtner

drums

Additional Instrumentation

Nick Dunston: compositions, post-processing; Cansu Tanr?kulu; live processing; Maria Reich: viola; Moritz Baumg?rtner: percussion, megaphone; Weston Olencki: producer.

Album information

Title: Colla Voce | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: Out Of Your Head Records

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