Wadada Leo Smith : trumpet
Walter Quintus : computer & processing
Katya Quintus : voice
Miroslav Tadic : classical & baritone guitar
Mark Nauseef : percussion & live electronics.
Tracks : Uncoiling; Cosmoil; Disembodyism; Over the Influence; Yopa; Black Bell Mother; Majounish; Kawami Wama; Speeds Per Coil; Neither Liquid Nor Gaseous, Torn; Green Gold Melt; Gangah Wallah; Rivers of Swan; Coiling.
It's been a good couple of years for trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, whose involvement with the Yo! Miles project, Spring Heel Jackand his own Golden Quartet has seen him return to the public ear after years of lower key projects.
Smith rates this particular project as one of his favourites, and it's easy to see why. While the Yo Miles! project paid an explicit homage to 70s Miles Davis, 'Snakish' imagines how that music may have sounded if Miles had been more influenced by Stockhausen than Sly Stone or Jimi Hendrix.
This isn't just Smith's baby though; it's a collective effort from percussionist/electronicist Mark Nauseef, guitarist Miroslav Tadic and most crucially, engineer Walter Quintus. His processing places the trio's realtime playing in impossible acoustic environments; one moment in deep space, the next at the bottom of a sulphurous alien sea. Tadic's spidery acoustic guitar sits halfway between John McLaughlin and Derek Bailey; his chords are pretty in a sour kind of way, and are the perfect ground for Smith's glowing, lyrical flights.
While both Tadic and Smith veer off into free improv fluttering and at times, Nauseef's spluttering, primitive electronics provide the most abstraction. Spirals of white, pink and brown noise fleck the soundscape. Bells, chimes, rustles, clicks and cavernous thumps replace grooves. Quintus' processing acts as a kind of aural zoom lens, shifting focus from one element to another. Occasional spoken interventions from Katya Quintus (sometimes in English, sometimes not) add to the hallucinatory atmosphere.
Leo records boss Leo Feigin reckons this album will take its place as one of the best in the label's catalogue. That's a pretty big statement given the brilliance and scope of much of Leo's output, but I reckon it'll hold true. 'Snakish' is a seductive, involving listen for devotees of everyone from Supersilent to Miles to Evan Parker's electro-acoustic work. Great stuff.
With Quintus’ ambient sounds crackling and rushing around them, Wadada Leo Smith and the Snakish band have tapped into the music of wonder.
Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje may be the best-known of the bunch, a serious new music composer who has contributed to ECM recordings by accordionist
Cellist Lene Grenager pushes through the opening electronics of "Mosegrodd," a piece that indirectly references Ligeti, but also an idiosyncratic kind of Nordic cool, as it evokes skewed images of jagged landscapes. She creates angular harmonics that act as a bed for trumpeter Kristin Andersen and French hornist Hild Sofie Tafjord's long tones. "Ankomst," on the other hand, pushes the limits of sound in a brief two minutes, combining sawed strings, deeply processed horns and a theremin that reaches up into the stratosphere; while "Ute," another miniature, builds on percussive sounds, with cello and recorder creating strangely appealing sonics in a curiously traditional-sounding piece.
"Tremble" is an appropriately named opener, with percussion and electronics creating an undulating sound that's at the foundation of a piece that gradually densifies, while "The Lake," with its long periods of near silence, is Spunk at its calmest and most spatially reverent. The 10-minute "Bipolarity" is, however, Kantarell's strongest piece, where seeming stasis shifts almost imperceptibly, until greater percussiveness takes over, with Ratkje looping a brief vocal fragment as the piece becomes even more jagged, while Spunk approaches greater extremes both sonically and dynamically.
Spunk is never for the faint-at-heart; but for those who can take its music as the evocative (and provocative) soundtrack to an imagined alien landscape, Kantarell yields plenty of dividends.
