Wingfeld Reuter Stavi Sirkis: The Stone House

Rating: ★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Asaf Sirkis (d)
Markus Reuter (touch g)
Yaron Stavi (b)
Mark Wingfeld (g)

Label:

MoonJune Records

April/2017

Catalogue Number:

MJR083

RecordDate:

19 February 2016

Wingfield and Reuter share an avid interest in the guitar's technological potential. Wingfield has explored synth-like sounds and micro-tweaked tones via laptop and other enhancements, while Reuter has patented a version of the fretboard-tapping touch guitar. This wholly improvised album therefore finds guitars resembling swooping bird-flocks before reaching a strangled impasse on ‘Rush’, and creating fierce electronic swirls and serrated wails on ‘Silver’. Mostly, though, these long pieces leave you desert-thirsty for notable incidents. A disturbingly high guitar frequency breaks the ambient penumbra of ‘Fjords De Catalunya’, but the title's nod to meditative Nordic jazz isn't justified. The attention drifts, but not to higher things. Drummer Asaf Sirkis and especially bassist Yaron Stavi find pockets of funk, and Sirkis seizes greedily on any hint of guitar excitement. Only the final, 14-minute ‘Bona Nit Senor Rovira’ improvises into gripping terrain, to scale bubbling, pacey peaks. Otherwise, this is a foggy, joyless listen.

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