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Mark Wingfield: Wingfield Reuter Stavi Sirkis: The Stone House
By
Enrico Rava
trumpetb.1939
Wise words, indeed, but in the new millennium, technology and greater explorations into extended instrumental techniques and newly created instruments has made it possible to add another set of variables into the list of the allowable: color, texture, atmosphere...soundscape. These more modern improvisational facilities can, of course, vary as widely as the vast array of sound processing that has evolved over the past decades, with artists exploring the broadest regions of sound including Norwegian live sampler

Jan Bang
live samplingb.1968

Erik Honore
samples / effectsb.1966

Eivind Aarset
guitar
Stian Westerhus
guitar
Nils Petter Molvaer
trumpetb.1960

Arve Henriksen
trumpetb.1968

Eivind Lønning
trumpetb.1983

Espen Reinertsen
clarinet, bassBut that Norwegian axis of musicians represents but a small portion of the artists out there today, exploring the possibilities of marrying instrumental expansion with, for some, the expansive, cinematic potential of applying technology...not as an add-on but as an extension of their chosen instrument(s). Artists like guitarist

Robert Fripp
guitarb.1946

King Crimson
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1969
Guitarist

Mark Wingfield
guitar, electric
Markus Reuter
guitar, electricb.1972

Yaron Stavi
bass, acoustic
Asaf Sirkis
drumsb.1969
Not unlike Rava's statement about the state of free music today, The Stone House may have its moments of anarchy, but it also has its periods of calming tranquility. Reuter's Touch Guitara two-handed tapped instrument similar, in concept, to the Chapman Stick played by King Crimson bassist

Tony Levin
bassb.1946

Stick Men
band / ensemble / orchestra
Gilad Atzmon
saxophone
Tim Garland
clarinet, bassb.1966

Gwilym Simcock
pianob.1981

Robert Wyatt
drums
Pink Floyd
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1964
That the collective resume of this group of rising star musicians includes everything from more clearly definable jazz to something that can only be described as progressive music, even if it doesn't possess the signatures that most associate with the genre (though some string samples at the end of "Fjords de Catalyuna" provide a textural link), means that The Stone House is a truly unique record in its undercurrents from a multiplicity of musical perspectives, even if the overall vibe leans towards the similar but different kind of progressive improvisational music that Reuter makes in Stick Men.
Stavi may play electric fretless on this session, but he's equally impressive on double bass and the fretted electric variety. Sirkis' kit is often a mad scientist's hybrid that includes, along with conventional kit components, anything from gourds to the hang made famous by

Portico Quartet
band / ensemble / orchestra
Glauco Venier
pianoAs for Wingfield, while it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between the guitarist and Reuter, there's little doubt that the mind-bending, psychedelia-driven wah-laden, heavily overdriven and feedback-infused solo in the middle of the groove-heavy "Silver" contains some of the guitarist's finest moments of the set, while the solo that followsbolstered, as it is, by Wingfield's grabbed-from-the-ether pattern, Stavi's pedal tone and Sirkis' increasingly muscular playingis pure Reuter, as he creates infinitely sustaining lines and outrageous leaps into the stratosphere.
That this album was recorded in but a single day during a planned six-day/three-album series of recording sessions at La Case Murada in Catalunya, Spainwith this quartet not even part of those plansmakes the intrinsic chemistry on The Stone House all the more remarkable, even though there are preexisting musical connections in Stavi's work with Sirkisextended even further in their collaboration on Wingfield's Proof of Light.
Even better news? From those six days of back-to-back sessions there will be a new album of Wingfield-composed music from the same trio on Proof of Light; the originally planned trio album from Wingfield, Reuter and Sirkis, recorded before Staviarriving the day prior to Wingfield's two-day session that followed and originally planning just to hangasked if he could join in, resulting in The Stone House; a duo album from Wingfield and Reuter; and a fourth album by Sirkis, joined by label mates Dusan Jevtovi? and Vasil Had?imanov.
The Stone House session speaks to the remarkable ears possessed by everyone in this group. Clearly this is a group that listens as much as it plays, with the interaction between Wingfield and Reuter's similarly delay-driven, volume pedal-swelled lines on the rubato, evocative and imagination-inducing "Fjords de Catalunya" but one example of how these musicians effortlessly anticipate, respond to and use opportunity as a starting point for further collective exploration.
This may be freely improvised music but is more akin to the philosophy of spontaneous composition; how, even though nobody in the group knows where the music is going to go when they pick up their instruments, there is still an overriding sense of purpose here, with countless points where one, two, three or all four of the players coalesce into something that suggests predetermination where there truly is none.
Referring, again, back to Rava, The Stone House evokes a broad range of emotions through melodic, harmonic, rhythmic...and textural...means. Anything is allowed, and while individual predilections certainly color the resultReuter, for example, being a soundscapist of the highest orderthe end result is a set of seven compositions created in-the-moment, with everything from ethereal atmospherics and jagged landscapes to angular lines and singable melodies; hard-driving grooves and no-time crescendoes to flowing rubato streams; brief but telling glimpses of overt virtuosity in an "egos checked at the door" approach to music-making; and hints of influences ranging from interlocking guitar parts and irregular meters à la King Crimson, and Brian Eno-inspired ambient audioscapes, to the freer side of the late jazz trumpeter

Kenny Wheeler
flugelhorn1930 - 2014

David Torn
guitar, electricb.1953
The CD version sounds terrific, but the CD quality download offers that added bonus track as an incentive, as does the high res download at 24-bit/88.2KHz, which sounds even better: a broader soundstage, greater detail and lots more oomph.
It's an album that breaks many rules, but could only be made by four musicians who not only learned them first, but continue to apply them even as they find ways to push past them into new terrain. Completely unclassifiable, The Stone House is a record that will challenge many preconceptions while still being rooted in enough of the approachable to render its appeal to fans of progressive music, free improvisation with a purpose, and use of technology to create new sonic combinations that, when brought together with everyone's innate ability to find form in the most abstract empyrean reaches, has resulted in a career-defining record for everyone involved. ">
Track Listing
Rush; Four Moons; Silver; Fjords de Catalunya; Tarasque; Bona Nit Se?or Rovira; Nepheline (bonus track, download-only).
Personnel
Mark Wingfield
guitar, electricMark Wingfield: guitar; Markus Reuter: Touch Guitars? AU8; Yaron Stavi: fretless bass; Asaf Sirkis: drums.
Album information
Title: Wingfield Reuter Stavi Sirkis: The Stone House | Year Released: 2017 | Record Label: Moonjune Records
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