Keeping things small this time, with only three new releases by A New Wave Of Jazz from Belgium and on the first one, there is electric guitar player Arvind Ganga, of whom I heard before and Riccardo Marogna, on tenor saxophone, bass clarinet and electronics. He is one half of Sho Shin Duo (Vital Weekly 1019), but I didn’t review that one. I do vaguely remember being present at an event where Ganga and Marogna were also playing, but did I see that? I honestly don’t remember. They are from the city of The Hague and have been active in the city’s improvised music scene with some occasional release.
They have seven tracks here, recorded in The Hague in 2018, use T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ as a “touchstone”, whatever that may constitute, and the interaction between both players is great. While the music is all improvised, and there is no escaping that fact, there is an interaction between them that results, at times, in some mysterious music. In ‘Oed’ und leer das Meer’ (“a phrase borrowed by Eliot from Wagner’s ‘Tristan Und Isolde'”) there are a few of these moments, and that’s just opening tracks.
The electronics used doesn’t take the sound of the instruments into something entirely different, but add another layer of sound to the existing sound. Both players aren’t afraid to employ a more traditional tune, chord or melody in their work together and, right next to uses metallic brushes upon snares and pieces of tin foil rattling against the wind instruments. It is that mixture of what we know and the venture into the unknown that makes this a very fine release.” Vital Weekly – The Netherlands
1. Oed' und lees das Meer 08:51
2. Chozodia 03:41
3. The Limp Leaves Waited For Rain, While The Black Clouds Gathered far distant, over Himavant 08:43
4. Phantoon 05:54
5. Zeelas 04:57
6. Kzans 06:14
7. These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruins 02:59
Arvind Ganga : Electric guitar, objects
Riccardo Marogna : Tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, electronics
Recorded at Helicopter, The Hague (NL) on November 9th - 10th 2018. Mastered at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio, Anderlecht (Belgium)
