The Canadian, Quebec based musicians collective-ensemble Le GGRIL (Grand Groupe Régional d’Improvisation Libérée) invites every year three or four musicians to work with the ensemble, compose pieces for the ensemble and challenge its improvisation strategies and the sonic vision of this «post-structuralist village band». Le GGRIL has worked before with fellow-Canadian reeds player Jean Drome and British sax players Evan Parker and John Butcher and French clarinetist Xavier Charles. In October 2018 Le GGRIL invited, German, New York-based sax player Ingrid Laubrock to work with it in its home base, the small Eastern Quebec town, Rimouski.
«Plays Ingrid Laubrock» offers three (out of five) compositions that Laubrock wrote especially for Le GRILL, all employing wisely the unique instrumentation of this group, based on strings instruments – classic and electric guitars, electric bass, double bass, cello, and harp, plus accordion, two reeds player and two percussionists. The first piece, «Silent Lights» suggests a chamber texture that contrasts the urgent, chaotic gestures of the bass clarinet of Sébastien Corriveau, the accordion of Robin Servant and the baritone sax of Mathieu Gosselin with the abstract, quiet drone of the strings musicians.
The following «Stark Dark» goes in a completely different course. It begins with explosive, noisy sounds produced by the distorted electric guitars and bass, but morphs later to the quieter soundscape that makes full use of the extended techniques of the reeds players and the harp, cello, and the percussionists and even offers some playful, melodic ideas. The last «Palindromes» is a nuanced and almost silent soundscape that enjoys the inventive sonic pallettes of all the musicians of this ensemble.
Only 31-minutes long but a very adventurous journey.
Eyal Hareuveni
Sébastien Corriveau (bcl), Robin Servant (acc), Robert Bastien (g), Olivier D’Amours (g), Pascal Landry (g), Éric Normand (b), Jonathan Huard (perc), Luke Dawson (b), Alexis Ganier-Michel (c), Antoine Létourneau-Berger (perc), Mathieu Gosselin (bs), Isabelle Clermont (harp)