Wright, Jack / Ben Wright - As If Anything Could Be The Same?
SKU
RPR 1017
“Far too often, the skill and detail informing music such as this is neglected by writers attempting description, no matter how sympathetic, in favor of emotive exposition, essentially stripping the discourse of any freedom the music might offer. There’s no denying that Jack and Ben Wright plumb those psychosocial depths, but they accomplish it in a way that foregrounds something akin to linguistic expression, shoving historical precedent to a hot but distant back burner.
Take, for example, the point near the beginning of ‘Anything’ (the track names are fragments of the album title) where Ben sustains an arco D, Jack an F a couple of octaves above it. Abstracted, and given the unified timbre the players achieve, this moment might have been lifted from a piece of ‘classical’ chamber music, but the intertwined melodies that precede this instant of repose eschew the Western scale enough to make such a context meaningless. As that D decays and its overtones emerge, and as the F above it takes on the shimmer and shift a few changing microtones can provide, that elusive notion of freedom jumps front and center.
Ben and Jack have developed a pallet of timbres that appears limitless. These sonic explorations can serve ‘absolute’ musical purposes, illuminating moments where Jack’s multiphonics are enhanced, almost completed, by Ben’s contributions way up in the highest register. At other times, metaphor becomes necessary for the befuddled writer to bring any semblance of clarity to a description.
Jack’s wildly varied articulations, pops, sibilants and half-aborted snaps are often complemented by Ben’s waterfall pizzicato, arco rasps and some of the purest harmonics the bass can manufacture. Jack can coax heart-wrenching sighs from the saxophone in a way I’ve never heard from any other player, not to mention some astonishing growls and elephantine shrieks, but the music’s freedom resides in those interstices where sigh becomes tone. At 4:21 in ‘Could,’ Jack concludes a long series of phrases with just such a note, and Ben seals the deal with a brief but final gesture, like the ‘yes’ that ends Joyce’s Ulysses. As the title suggests, nothing can be quite the same after interaction so vibrant, dialogue capturing all of the fluency, spontaneity and even simplicity of a naturally evolving conversation.“-Marc Medwin / Dusted
- LabelRelative Pitch
- UPC616892183747