Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Mat Maneri: A Violent Dose Of Anything

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Matthew Shipp (p)
Ivo Perelman (ts)
Mat Maneri (vla)

Label:

Leo CDLR

Dec/Jan/2013/2014

Catalogue Number:

681

RecordDate:

2013

A wild card in Pereleman's voluminous biography to say the least, and not simply because it marks the arrival of a new collaborator in viola player Mat Maneri. This is the soundtrack to Brazilian director Gustavo Galvao's film of the same name, and interestingly, Perelman recorded the music before seeing any images, even though the knowledge that it would serve that purpose led to a ‘cinematic feel’. The choice of Maneri and Shipp as collaborators was made because Perelman thought that they would be ‘flexible enough for a movie.’ Be that as it may, there is enough happening ideas-wise for the music to exist as a stand-alone venture, and although the instrumentation may suggest ‘chamber work’ on paper, the players equally summon the feeling of a country blues jam, albeit a stark, visceral one, with Maneri in the role of the fiddler with an offbeat footstomp. His alternation of hard, vigorous bowing and microscopic pizzicato widens the textural range of the music considerably and the blending of the higher pitches of all three players creates a siren's call that is deeply seductive and disturbing.

As the session unfolds the relationship between Maneri and Perelman, in particular, strengthens to the extent that some of the saxophonist's crescendos take on the pinched feel of a violin, thus creating the illusion of Shipp playing with a weird miniature string section. Some of the pieces would benefit from editing, and there could have been more of the lightning flash interludes like ‘Jesus, el Vasco’. For example the coda of ‘Lucas’, with all its ambient melancholia, would have worked brilliantly as a reprise towards the end of the set. Given the great volume of work Perelman is producing at the moment it is difficult to say how this compares to recent notable sessions such as Living Jelly or One but it nonetheless largely warrants repeat listening.

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