The MILESDAVISQUINTETORCHESTRA! band and the title of its album Stretchin’ With (that follows MILESDAVISQUINTET!’s Shapin’ With, Be Coq, 2015) may draw some innocent listeners to the conclusion that they have missed out on some lost and forgotten gems from the era of the First Great Miles Davis Quintet. But MILESDAVISQUINTETORCHESTRA! has nothing to do with the legendary trumpeter, and it is not a quintet or orchestra. Its provocative name recalls the influence of marketing on our brains by distracting us from more important issues.
The MILESDAVISQUINTET! was formed as a trio of French drummer Sylvain Darrifourcq, pianist Xavier Camarasa and cellist Valentin Ceccaldi as a sonic research lab that questions our listening habits. The trio focused on the mechanical, repetitive and immersive sound universe that searches for rhythmic desynchronization. Stretchin’ With expands the trio into a sextet with the addition of French alto sax player Christine Abdelnour and accordionist Emilie Škrijel and German clarinetist Michael Thieke. It was recorded at Abbaye de Noirlac in Bruère-Allichamps, France, and is released as a limited edition of 100 vinyl plus a download option.
The timbral spectrum of the extended QUINTETORCHESTRA is more varied and layered but adapts to the core musical mechanics of the MILESDAVISQUINTET! The two pieces change constantly but subtly – the dense «shape in time» and «here we og» with its hypnotic pulse – but both sound like they can go on forever. Both pieces also carefully investigate the sextet’s improvisational practices, mainly the strategies used to desynchronize the playing while adjusting the musical gestures towards a common objective, a coherent overall sound, and imagine this practice to our social behaviors. We all are trained and tend to synchronize our movements and attitudes and Stretchin’ With challenges the musicians – and us the listeners – to stretch and find our independent voice within these irresistible habits and practices. The (attached) video documents this audio-philosophical experiment done in collaboration with the D SYNCH project, led by Clément Canonne, a researcher in cognitive psychology, and Thomas Wolff, analyze collective musical practices.
Serbian pianist-educator Marina Džukljev and Thieke met in 2019 at the Konfrontationen Festival in Nickelsdorf, Austria (where Džukljev also recorded a duo with Viennese extremist cellist Noid, aka Arnold Haberl, Continents, Inexhaustible Editions, 2023), and there the idea of playing as a duo came up. The Covid-19 pandemic delayed the realization of a joint tour until December 2021, when Motionless Pool was recorded at Kulturni centar Vojvodine Miloš Crnjanski in Novi Sad, and again in the Spring of 2022 when the duo played live for the first time as part of Džukljev’s one-week residency at Berlin’s Au Topsi Pohl venue.
Džukljev and Thieke are focused on textures that employ the full sonic spectrum of the piano and the clarinet, obviously, with various preparations and assorted extended percussive and breathing techniques, sometimes up to creating one, mysterious and resonant sonic entity (check «Set and Settings»). The seven free improvised pieces move between the poles of density and sparseness and use a wide range of repetitive structures and tonal and noise-oriented materials. All the pieces play with an elusive and elastic sense of time, as if time is slowed down, quite stubbornly, into an almost total statis or pushed forward into a chaotic storm. The title of the piece «When Gravity Doesn’t Work» capture faithfully the spirit of this captivating meeting.
Eyal Hareuveni
Sylvain Darrifourcq (drums, percussions), Xavier Camarasa (piano), Valentin Ceccaldi (cello), Christine Abdelnour (saxophone), Emilie Škrijel (accordion), Michael Thieke (clarinet), Marina Džukljev (piano)
