Jazz Nedeljom je zamišljen kao serija vinjeta koje će ići (možda ne?) svake Nedelje, nudeći preporuku u vidu jednog jazz albuma koji sam tog dana slušao. Ovo nema pretenziju da bude ni ultimativni prikaz neke klasične ploče niti otkrivanje nekog budućeg klasika, već zaista samo to, da se kažu reč-dve o albumu koji sam tog dana rado slušao. Ponekada će to biti stare, proverene klasične stvari, ponekada najnovije izdanje koje sam izvalio na Bandcampu, hoću reći, neće biti pravila. Kako i treba. Kako i mora.
ENGLISH SPEAKERS: KINDLY SCROLL DOWN TO THE COMMENTS FOR THE TRANSLATION
Ove nedelje na meniju imamo free jazz poslasticu pravo iz Italije a što je prava prilika da se upoznamo ne samo sa dvojicom izvrsnih muzičara već i sa etiketom koja u poslednje dve godine radi fantastičan posao na evropskoj avangardnoj sceni. Duo o kome pričamo zove se Kossiga a album Antropocene i molim da dobro našrafite uši pre nego što ovo pustite pošto postoji ozbiljan rizik da otpadnu već tokom prve pesme.
Antropocene je izdao rimski izdavač Superpang, firma kojom je nemoguće ne biti impresioniran. Christian Di Vito je ovu etiketu osnovao 2020. godine sa namerom da izda neke albume elektronskog projekta EVOL (Roc Jiménez de Cisneros i Stephen Sharp) a nešto više od dve godine kasnije ima preko stočetrdeset izdanja u katalogu. Svakako pomaže to da je u početku ovo zamišljeno kao download-only, Bandcamp operacija, ali veoma je važno primetiti da Superpang nije nekakava amaterska, kućna firma koja izdaje bilo šta što neko od drugara snimi – a kakvih je Bandcamp, naravno, prepun – i da su pored tri albuma EVOL koje danas etiketa ima u katalogu, neki vrlo ugledni likovi iz sveta eksperimentalne, ekstremne ili samo ekscentrične muzike našeg vremena objavili ponešto za Superpang. Tako u prvih sto izdanja možemo da naletimo na imena kao što su Kevin Drumm, Mats Gustafsson, Norbert Moslang, Francisco Lopez, Zbigniew Karkowski, Ken Ikeda, Keiji Haino, Christian Marclay pa i sam sveotac ekstremne muzike, Masami Akita. Naravno, ovo su samo klasična imena o kojima ste još devedesetih godina čitali u The Wireu i ložili se a Superpang je u ovih sto izdanja objavio i mnogo mlađih muzičara iz raznih delova sveta i dao jedan fantastičan presek aktuelne globalne avangarde. Tih sto izdanja su sva bila karakterisana i identičnim dizajnom „omota“ za koji Di Vito kaže da je funkcionalan i da za donwload izdanja slušalac ionako samo želi da prepozna koji album traži kada skroluje po telefonu pa da nekakav kompleksni, umetnički dizajn nije ni neophodan.
No, posle sto albuma, Superpang je promenio dizajn pa iako većina novih albuma i dalje ima ekstremno minimalističku naslovnu stranu, neka, uključujući najnoviji EVOL imaju i „prave“, nacrtane i dizajnirane omote. Ovo se uklapa i uz činjenicu da je Superpang neka od svojih izdanja objavio i na „fizičkim“ formatima, označavajući tako tranziciju u smeru „prave“ izdavačke kuće. Di Vito kaže da nema neki veliki sistem u tome koje će umetnike odabrati za objavljivanje, da je Superpang u početku bio način da tokom lokdaun perioda i nemogućnosti da se svira uživo, muzičari vide bar nekakav prihod od svoje muzike, a da je katalog izgradio na osnovu poznanstava, kontakata i preporuka, tako da je muzika u njemu mahom nešto što se njemu sviđa bez obzira na žanr ili zvuk.
I ovo je važno imati na umu kada slušate album o kome danas pričamo jer iako Superpang većinski objavljuje muziku koja je bazirana na elektronskim ili električnim instrumentima i najveći deo kataloga se ne uklapa u standarde klasične muzičke teorije koja se bavi ritmom, notacijom, harmonijom itd, album kao što je Antropocene, na kome imamo dva VRLO akustična instrumenta koja sviraju nešto što na početku liči na vrlo tradicionalni free jazz, se svejedno veoma uklapa u Superpangov zvuk ali i generalnu estetsku viziju. Ovo je vrlo prodorna, vrlo neposredna muzika koja ne sedi i razmišlja kako sebe da objasni već udara iz mesta i nastavlja da juri napred ozbiljnim tempom daleko nakon što se iznenađeni slušalac našao na podu pitajući se da li se oni to šale.
Kossiga je duo bubnjeva i bariton-saksofona a u kome sviraju dvojica muzičara vezana najpre za projekat Anatrofobia. Ovaj pan-italijanski bend/ orkestar/ kolektiv radi još od devedesetih godina i nije vezan za stalnu postavu muzičara niti, strogo govoreći, za jedan muzički stil. Video sam da po internetu Anatrofobiu označavaju kao muzički blisku Rock in Opposition estetici, a što je fer, ali ovo naravno ne opisuje samu muziku preterano detaljno. Svakako je u pitanju avangardni pristup formi sa nestandardnim korišćenjem standardnih – i nekih egzotičnijih – instrumenata i mnogo eksperimentisanja sa samim zvukom. Uostalom, možete da poslušate pregršt njihovih izdanja na njihovoj Bandcamp stranici.
Andrea Biondello je u ovom bendu svirao bubnjeve od 1992. do 2020. godine (kada je i objavljen poslednji album Anatrofobije) i za skoro tri decenije sa njima snimio sedam albuma i radio turneje po Italiji i Evropi. Sarađivao je i sa muzičarima kao što su Stefano Giust (Margine), Stefano Pastor, Alessio Pisani, Gianni Mimmo, Roberto Sassi, a sve vreme je u njemu, vrlo očigledno, vrebao free jazz bubnjar željan da iskoči na površinu i pokaže šta zna.
Drugi član u Kossiga je saksofonista Alessandro Cartolari (koji je bio i ljubazan da mi da malo biografskih podataka o njima dvojici s obzirom da Superpang nema kapaciteta ni vremena da pravi press materijal za sva svoja izdanja) jedan, to je na ovom mestu korektno reći, titan bariton saksofona, a koji je u Anatrofobiji svirao od 1992. do 2018. godine. Cartolari kaže da je posvećen kombinaciji improvizovane muzike, free jazza i roka u različitim formama, sa Anatrofobijom je snimio šest albuma, svirao iste te turneje po Italiji i Evropi a svirao i sa sličnim ljudima: Stefano Giust (Margine), Stefano Pastor, Alessio Pisani, Gianni Mimmo, Roberto Sassi, ali i sa turinskim haotičnim rok/ metal bendom Turin Horse. Pored Kossige, Cartolari svira i sa eksperimentalnim jazz/ noise sastavom Masche, i sa brutalnim turinskim improvizatorima Extrema Ratio i u oba slučaja njegov bariton-saksofon sparinguje sa ljudskim glasom.
Kossiga nema ni pevanje ni recitovanje pa čak ni vrištanje i jedini momenti u kojima ćete na albumu Antropocene čuti ljudski glas su oni u kojima bubnjar Biondello ispusti oduševljeni uzvik inspirisan nekim posebno uspelim momentom improvizacije dvojice muzičara. Mada, što se mene tiče, mogao je da viče sve vreme jer je Antropocene impresivno fokusirana, efektna ploča.
Ovo zaista počinje kao „čist“ free jazz i prva kompozicija, modulo 11 je onaj klasični sax/ drums duo u kome dva muzičara komuniciraju naizgled telepatski, savršeno uklapajući svoje brze, grčevite iskaze i gestove a onda takođe savršeno odmotavajući i duže teme. Ovaj komad traje svega dva i po minuta ali već se tu čuje da Cartolari nije usredsređen samo na dekonstrukciju saksofona i proširene tehnike već i da mu vrlo prirodno dolazi toplija, melodičnija svirka sa klasičnijim razvojem džez tema. Naravno, zvuk mu je bogat, snažan, jako distorziran a Biondello ispod njega sipa zastrašujuće rafale i baca jake bombe i ovo manje zvuči kao klasični Coltrane/ Ali duo a više kao nekakav italijanski odgovor na neku kombinaciju iz srednje generacije tipa Peter Brotzmann i Shoji Hano.
No, koliko god da je ova prva kompozicija uzbudljiva, a jeste, ostatak albuma smisleno gradi i ekstrapolira na njenoj osnovi, ostajući u free jazz modusu ali bez puritanskih ograničenja. Modulo 5 i sama kreće kao užurban, energičan free jazz ali se čistota forme brzo narušava Cartolarijevim korišćenjem elektronskih efekata – pre svega dileja koji mu omogućava da na neki način svira duete sa samim sobom. Ovo je još izraženije u maničnoj, crtanofilmovskoj modulo 1 koja će do kraja maltene preći u power electronics, pa je onda naredna, modulo 9 pravi treutak za promenu fokusa i malo odmora od ekstremne svirke. Ipak, i ovo je na svoj način ekstremna kompozicija sa više od 13 minuta trajanja i odlaskom u sasvim drugu stranu – na jelovniku je ovde apstraktna, gotovo ambijentalna svirka bez ritma i sa pažljivim odmeravanjem svakog tona i udarca koji se spušta u miks. Cartoleri i Biondello ovaj komad grade sporo, metodično i veoma uspelo, dajući mu čvrstu formu i mnogo odlične teksture do kraja.
Modulo 3 koja sledi je ponovo brza, energična improvizacija sa Cartolerijem koji ponovo svira lepe, zarazne teme, modulo 7 je distorzirana, možda i besna a modulo 15 koja album zatvara je ponovo duža, apstraktnija, meditativnija kompozicija.
Cartoleri i Biondello imaju osvežavajuće neposredan pristup improvizaciji i ne zamaraju se razmišljanjem da li nešto jeste ili nije džez, da li su dovoljno dugo svirali, ili su nam dali samo skicu, da li su neke kompozicije preduge ili pretihe i treba li ih nekako „označiti“ kao free jazz koji se samo malo zamislio. Svežina ovog albuma je upravo u njegovoj spontanosti i briljantnom načinu na koji dvojica muzičara što jedan sa drugim sviraju već trideset godina komuniciraju brzinom koja prevazilazi racionalnu misao i oslanja se na čistu intuiciju sagrađenu kroz tolike decenije zajedničkog iskustva. Utoliko, ovo je fantastičan materijal koji sam sa apetitom nakon kupovine prelsušao mnogo puta a kako bend trenutno traži način da zasvira i po našim teritorijama, nadam se da ćemo Kossigu u neko dogledno vreme moći da gledamo i uživo. Slušajte:
This week we have a free jazz delicacy on the menu straight from Italy, giving us a great opportunity to get acquainted not only with two excellent musicians, but also with a label that has been doing a fantastic job on the European avant-garde scene for the last two years. The duo we are talking about is called Kossiga and the album is Antropocene, and I am hereby asking you to screw on your ears tight before pressing play as there is a serious risk that they will fall off during the first song.
Antropocene is published by the Roman publisher Superpang, a company that is impossible not to be impressed with. Christian Di Vito founded this label in 2020 with the intention of releasing some albums of the electronic project EVOL (Roc Jiménez de Cisneros and Stephen Sharp), and a little over two years later, he has over one hundred and forty releases in the catalog. It certainly helps that this was initially conceived as a download-only, Bandcamp operation, but it’s very important to note that Superpang isn’t some kind of amateur, homegrown company that releases whatever any of their friends sends them – of which Bandcamp is, of course, full – and that in addition to the three EVOL albums that the label has in its catalog today, some very respectable names from the world of experimental, extreme or just eccentric music of our time have published something for Superpang. Thus, among the first one hundred releases, we come across names such as Kevin Drumm, Mats Gustafsson, Norbert Moslang, Francisco Lopez, Zbigniew Karkowski, Ken Ikeda, Keiji Haino, Christian Marclay and even the godfather of extreme music himself, Masami Akita. Of course, these are just the classic names that you read about in The Wire back in the nineties and raved about, and among the first one hundred Superpang also published many younger musicians from various parts of the world and gave us a fantastic overview of the current global avant-garde. Those hundred albums were all characterized by an identical “cover” design, which Di Vito says is functional and that for download editions the listener just wants to recognize which album he is looking for when scrolling on his phone anyway, so that some kind of complex, artistic design is not even necessary.
But after a hundred albums, Superpang changed the design, so although most of the new albums still have extremely minimalistic covers, some, including the latest EVOL, have “real”, drawn and designed covers. This also fits with the fact that Superpang has released some of its releases in “physical” formats, marking a transition in the direction of a “real” publishing company. Di Vito says that there’s no overarching system to choosing artists he wants to publish, that Superpang was initially a way for musicians to see at least some income from their music during the lockdown period and the inability of playing live, and that he built the catalog based on acquaintances, contacts and recommendations, so the music he releases is mostly music he likes, regardless of genre or sound.
And this is important to keep in mind when listening to the album we’re talking about today, because even though Superpang mostly publishes music based on electronic or electric instruments and most of the catalog does not fit into the standards of classical music theory that deals with rhythm, notation, harmony, etc. an album like Anthropocene, on which we have two VERY acoustic instruments playing something that initially sounds like very traditional free jazz, still fits very well with Superpang’s sound and general aesthetic vision. This is very striking, very direct music that doesn’t sit back and contemplate how to explain itself but kicks off and continues to charge forward at a serious pace long after the surprised listener has found themselves on the floor wondering if these guys are joking.
Kossiga is a duo of drums and baritone-saxophone, with two musicians primarily associated with project Anatrofobia. This pan-Italian band/orchestra/collective has been working since the nineties and is not limited to a permanent line-up of musicians or, strictly speaking, to one musical style. I’ve seen that on the internet Anatrofobia is described as musically close to the Rock in Opposition aesthetic, which is fair, but of course this doesn’t describe the music itself in too much detail. It is certainly an avant-garde approach to the form with a non-standard use of standard – and some more exotic – instruments and a lot of experimentation with the sound itself. Of course, you can listen for yourself to a handful of their releases on their Bandcamp page.
Andrea Biondello played drums in this band from 1992 to 2020 (when the last Anatrofobia album was released) and in almost three decades he recorded seven albums with them and toured Italy and Europe. He also collaborated with musicians such as Stefano Giust (Margine), Stefano Pastor, Alessio Pisani, Gianni Mimmo, Roberto Sassi, and all the time, very obviously, a free jazz drummer was lurking inside him, eager to jump to the surface and showhis licks and kicks.
Another member of Kossiga is the saxophonist Alessandro Cartolari (who was kind enough to give me some biographical information about the two of them considering that Superpang doesn’t have the capacity or time to create press material for all their releases), a musician who is, it’s fair to say at this point, a titan of baritone, who played in Anatrofobia from 1992 to 2018. Cartolari says that he is dedicated to the combination of improvised music, free jazz and rock in different forms, with Anatrofobia he recorded six albums, played the same tours in Italy and Europe and played with similar people: Stefano Giust (Margine), Stefano Pastor, Alessio Pisani , Gianni Mimmo, Roberto Sassi, but also with Turin’s chaotic rock/metal band Turin Horse. In addition to Kossiga, Cartolari also plays with the experimental jazz/noise ensemble Masche, and with the brutal Turin improvisers Extrema Ratio, and in both cases his baritone-saxophone spars with the human voice.
Kossiga has neither singing nor reciting, not even screaming, and the only moments in which you will hear a human voice on the Antropocene album are those in which drummer Biondello lets out an enthusiastic exclamation inspired by a particularly successful moment of improvisation between the two musicians. Although, as far as I’m concerned, he could have shouted the whole time because Antropocene is an impressively focused, effective record.
This really starts as „pure“ free jazz and the first composition, modulo 11 is that classic sax/drums duo in which the two musicians communicate seemingly telepathically, perfectly matching their fast, spastic statements and gestures and then also perfectly unwinding the longer themes. This piece lasts only two and a half minutes, but already here you can hear that Cartolari is not only focused on the deconstruction of the saxophone and extended technique, but also that a warmer, more melodic performance with a more classic development of jazz themes comes very naturally to him. Of course, his sound is rich, powerful, heavily distorted, and then there is Biondello underneath who sets off terrifying bursts and throws powerful bombs, and this sounds less like a classic Coltrane/Ali duo and more like some kind of Italian answer to some combination from the middle generation like Peter Brotzmann and Shoji Hano .
However, as exciting as this first composition is, and it is, the rest of the album meaningfully builds and extrapolates on its basis, remaining in free jazz mode but without puritanical restrictions. Modulo 5 starts off as busy, energetic free jazz, but the purity of the form is quickly disturbed by Cartolari’s use of electronic effects – primarily delay that allows him to play duets with himself. This is even more pronounced in the manic, cartoonish modulo 1, which will move into the power electronics territory by the end, so then the next one, modulo 9, is the perfect moment to change focus and take a break from the extreme sound. However, this is also an extreme composition in its own way with a duration of more than 13 minutes and a departure in a completely different direction – on the menu here we have an abstract, almost ambient take, without rhythm and with careful consideration of every tone and beat that descends into the mix. Cartoleri and Biondello build this piece slowly, methodically and very successfully, giving it solid form and lots of great texture all the way through.
Modulo 3 that follows is again a fast, energetic improvisation with Cartoleri again playing beautiful, infectious themes, modulo 7 is distorted, perhaps furious, and modulo 15, which closes the album, is again a longer, more abstract, more meditative composition.
Cartoleri and Biondello have a refreshingly direct approach to improvisation and don’t bother meditating about whether something is or isn’t jazz, whether they’ve been playing long enough, or whether they’ve only given us a sketch, whether some compositions are too long or too quiet and whether they should somehow be “marked” “ as free jazz that has only lost itself in its thoughts a bit. The freshness of this album is precisely in its spontaneity and the brilliant way in which two musicians who have been playing with each other for thirty years communicate at a speed that exceeds rational thought and relies on pure intuition built through so many decades of shared experience. To that extent, this is fantastic material that I listened to many times with appetite after buying it, and as the band is currently looking for a way to play in our territories, I hope that we will be able to see Kossiga live in the near future. Listen to it:
https://superpang.bandcamp.com/album/antropocene