The italian XYQuartet –  bandleaders alto sax player Nicola Fazzini and bassist Alessandro Fedrigo with vibes player Saverio Tasca and drummer Luca Colussi – attempts to suggest a new environment for improvisation and new forms of musical composition, using intervallic sequences, pitch-class sets, non-retrogradable rhythms, and polymetric structures. Its influences range from 20th-century musical explorations—serialism and minimalism, to inspirations from non-musical but «sonifiable»: disciplines such as science fiction, architecture, literature, and linguistics.

Lexycon is the sixth album of XYQuartet in its fourteen years of work. Its title evokes a collection of words and lexemes that shape meaning within a linguistic system, and with this title, the quartet opts for new spaces for improvisation. The titles of the eleven short pieces hint at an imaginative journey in a possible future, echoing the imagery of Italo Calvino, intertwined with Orwellian dystopia and the fantastic, surreal worlds of Tommaso Landolfi.

But there is nothing really futurist or adventurous in XYQuartet’s Lexycon. The music is rooted in modern jazz and fusion, and flirts with song formats. It is expressive and engaging, highly rhythmic yet disciplined, but reflects faithfully the tight dynamics of the quartet and the organic flow of the music. Fazzini and Tasca articulate the complex melodic themes with their unpredictable shifts, and are driven by the propulsive rhythm section of Fedrigo and Colussi. The intricate architectures of the pieces alternate and suggest a distinct layering of themes and rhythmic patterns, but the short pieces do not offer enough room for dystopian or fantastic maneuvers.

Eyal Hareuveni

Fazzini (alto saxophone), Alessandro Fedrigo (electric bass), Saverio Tasca (vibraphone), Luca Colussi (drums)