The experimental duo of French trumpeter Nicolas Souchal and double bass player Fred Marty describe their album as the demise of the acoustic duets of the trumpet and double bass. But out of this symbolic demise new options are being born. Souchal employs on the seven free-improvised duets an array of extended breathing techniques and uses the trumpet and the bugle as wind generators for raw, sound while Marty employs extended bowing techniques on his prepared double bass, attaching and injecting ropes, chopsticks, wood and metal objects to its strings..

Marty and Souchal’s «Saillances» does not offer any additional information about the album, or when and where it was recorded. The distinct duets suggest urgent, determined and cerebral attempts to expand the expressive, timbral palette of the trumpet and double bass as well as their respective vocabularies. Often the sheer sounds, overtones and even the vibrations of the trumpet and the double bass in the recording room are blended into a new, arresting sonic entity.

Souchal’s tone is rich and imaginative, ranging from the most fragile and vulnerable and sometime even lyrical to the most abstract and brutal while Marty’s low-end, quiet-buzzing drones always lurk below the surface but at the same fortify the tension and often erupt with an uncompromising, threatening power as on the longest «affins». There is a rare attempt to structure a playful yet minimalist interplay on the short «répercussion» and even to sketch a loose but highly nuanced narrative on «asinités». Marty and Souchal build a surprisingly delicate drone on «regain» and on the last piece «sédimentation», express their compassionate emotions, in a meditative and hypnotic manner.

Eyal Hareuveni

Nicolas Souchal (tp, bugle, FredMarty (b)