Saccata Quartet is an American super-group comprised of guitarist Nels Cline (of Wilco fame and many other individual and free-improv projects), drummer Glenn Kotche (also of Wilco fame but many other individual projects, including contemporary compositions for percussion instruments), drummer Chris Corsano (who recorded before with Cline and collaborated and recorded with Joe McPhee and Mette Rasmussen and countless other free improvisers) and bassist Darin Gray (who recorded before with before with Corsano, and with Huntsville’s album with Cline and Kotsche, Bow Shoulder, Hubro, 2020). There is no information about the instrumentation in the debut album of this quartet or when it was recorded (except mentioning that it was at The Loft in Chicago) so we have to assume that the four musicians play their usual instruments, in the most expansive arsenals and sonic palettes of these instruments.
The title of Saccata Quartet’s debut album, Septendecim, refers to the event of Magicicada Septendecim in which trillions of cicadas predicted to appear across the United States en masse around the time of Septendecim release as two broods of the species emerge for the first time since 1803. The quartet says that it started to take shape around the time of the last big cicada migration, close to two decades ago.
The music of the quartet surely relates to such an intense and overpowering sonic phenomenon of trillions of cicadas. It is a volatile and dense brew of free jazz, drone, dark ambient, post-noise, or kosmische-noir but avoids subscribing to any distinct genre. The issue of instrumentation sounds indeed like a secondary concern with such resourceful and idiosyncratic improvisers. Saccata Quartet is a democratic entity that pushes itself to the most extreme and cathartic sonic terrains with no need to prove anything, just four musicians coming together on their own terms, not limited by a band formation or deadlines for an album timeline. Its music is uncompromising yet always intriguing, developed like rough slabs of fog-like colors thrown on a huge wall, but with a thoughtful and even poetic sensibility of nuanced and layered textures.
Eyal Hareuveni
Nels Cline (guitars), Chris Corsano (drums), Darin Gray (bass), Glenn Kotche (drums)
