MUSIC

St George’s, Bristol (Mon Oct 24)

He’s all in black at the piano and there’s a general greyness to the rest of Christian Wallumrod’s six-piece ensemble except for a livid flash of orange, the drummer’s T-shirt, hidden inside a grey jacket. It’s a hint to the general mood of things to come: music of apparently ascetic minimalism underlying humour glimpsed in flashes, tunelessness that rewards with moments of melodic sumptuousness.

It begins, however, uncompromisingly, as if tuning up, the piano stroking a simple sequence, the others diffidently echoing (or missing) the notes on muted trumpet, string harmonics for cello and viola, barely touched drums and pad-flapping sax. It’s a silent piece, almost, that reinforces the myriad squeaks and creaks of the room and the audience as well as the mechanics of the instruments. It’s a superb use of their acoustic purity in this responsive room but after five minutes it proves too much for someone behind me and they add the sound of their departing feet to the mix.

If that’s how they feel they’ve probably made the right choice, though the next piece begins with lively Hungarian folk trills and the hint of an ancient melody on strings. It surges and falls, with even the ensemble sound kept thin as a wind-up gramophone heard on a distant wireless. So it goes for the rest of the set - an exquisite study in sonic manipulation and group discipline evoking anything from mordant whale song to immaculate Scarlatti and fjord-deep folk complete with beautiful Hardanger fiddle.

One piece (nothing is introduced) is clearly a numerical rhythm game, another explores the tinkling resonance between toy piano and muted vibraphones. The encore reverts to the opening piece, barely breathed brass, violin and cello ‘un-played’ with bows inverted, and by the last moments they are actually playing the sound of silence. The young Christian Wallumrod apparently learned his jazz exclusively from ECM records while playing as church organist in Norway and with this awesomely beautiful ‘Fabula Suite’ he’s become the apotheosis of Manfred Eicher’s European revision, jazz’s freedom of thought crystallised in a post-classical aesthetic that has nothing to do with New Orleans yet belongs at the peak of contemporary chamber music. (Tony Benjamin)

Copyright Tony Benjamin 2011