The free improvising trio Ma/Ti/Om is an extension of the long-standing British, London-based duo Ti/Om – bass clarinet and flute player Tom Ward and double bass player Tim Fairhall, who first met in about 2007 while studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The two met with Swedish, Trondheim-based percussionist Matilda Rolfsson at the beginning of 2015 for a series of performances. «Ashes» is the trio debut recording, recorded on April, 2015 at the Music Room in London.
Rolfsson has already collaborated with an impressive list of unique improvisers as British vocal artist Maggie Nichols, Swedish pianist Lisa Ullén and Norwegian double bass player Michael Francis Duch. Ward describes his music as incorporating influences from West-African music and modern sax player as Tim Berne and Steve Coleman. Fairhall resume includes worldwide touring with Israeli Ladino singer Yasmin Levy.
Together they explore forms and dynamics within spontaneous and chaotic improvisations. After the brief, opening, playful piece, the trio focuses on extended improvisations, all highlight an attentive, patient interplay and subtle usage of inventive techniques. The «Motsols/Counter-clockwise» begins with disjointed series of searches of the sonic spectrum of all the instruments, before the trio establishes its collective rapport. On the following piece «Trädet Och Skyn/The Tree and the Sky» Rolfsson takes the role of the subversive one. Fairhall and Wars sketch quiet and patient texture with slow shifting rhythmic patterns while Rolfsson dissects immediately these pulses and charges the open-ended interplay with mysterious colors. The final piece «Till Havs/At Sea» balances between Ward straightforward and subtle playing, Fairhall exploration of extended bowing techniques and the body of the double bass and Rolfsson eccentric and unpredictable percussive touches. The tension between the three musicians, as the delicate balance, add a strange dramatic effect that deepens the dark, suggestive atmosphere of this piece.
Impressive debut.
Eyal Hareuveni
Matilda Rolfsson (bass dr, perc), Tim Fairhall (b), Tom Ward (bcl, fl)
