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Food: Mercurial Balm
ByBut much has changed since that first recorded encounter. It's been nine years since Food released its final quartet album, 2004's Last Supper (Rune Grammofon), before paring down to the remaining team of Ballamy and percussionist Thomas Strønen. Since then, Food has not only succeeded as a duo; the group has also become a revolving-door collective of sorts, with invited guests like pianist Maria Kannegaard and keyboardist Ashley Slater on Molecular Gastronomy (Rune Grammofon, 2008), and trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer and Austrian guitarist/soundscapist Christian Fennesz on Quiet Inlet, Food's 2010 ECM debut.
If moving to ECM has given Food greater international presence, Mercurial Balm deserves to garner the group even greater acclaim. With not just two guests, including the returning Fennesz and Molvær, but four collaborators also featuring guitarist Eivind Aarset and Indian slide guitarist/vocalist Prakash Sontakke, Mercurial Balm's biggest changeone reflected by the group's 2012 Trondheim Jazz Festival performanceis that Ballamy and Strønen are no longer inviting single guests to flesh Food out to a trio; instead, they're recruiting two guests to make it a quartet, at least on four of Mercurial Balm's ten spontaneous compositions, recorded both live, at both Britain's Cheltenham Jazz Festival and Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene in Oslo, but also at the latter city's renowned Rainbow Studio.
As ever, virtually every member of the group's various lineups has the word "electronics" tagged on to the end of their instrument listingeveryone but Molvær, whose sole appearance, barring a touch of reverb, is both curiously un-effected and, given his normal predilection for processing, a most compelling argument against those who assert that those who employ electronics do so because they need to. Instead, electronics have become integral, organic and seamless extensions when desired, andsupported by Fennesz' lush soundscapes and Strønen's textural percussion (electric, acoustic and electro-acoustic)the interaction between the trumpeter and equally unprocessed Ballamy on "Moonpie" is irrefutable assurance that their instrumental acumen remains as strong as ever.
But the three tracks that represent Food's biggest move forward are those with Aarset and Sontakke. Beyond Aarset's ownand, contrasted with Fennesz, completely differentapproach to sonics, Sontakke's Indo-centric steel guitar and plaintive singing move the group into new territory. Mercurial Balm is not without precedence in Food's previous work, but Sontakke further augments its broodingly beautiful tendencies to the tranquil and the propulsive, and the oblique and the lyrical by enriching the group's cultural touchstones. It's the group's most impressive recording yet, and with Strønen and Ballamy's intrinsic electro-acoustic sophistication now enhanced with a greater cast of characters, all ears should be focused on where this eminently accessible yet unfettered improvising unit will go next.
Track Listing
Nebular; Celestial Food; Ascendant; Phase; Astral; Moonpie; Chanterelle; Mercurial Balm; Magnetosphere; Galactic Roll.
Personnel
Food
band / ensemble / orchestraThomas Strønen: drums, electronics; Iain Ballamy: saxophones, electronics; Christian Fennesz: guitar and electronics (1-6, 12); Eivind Aarset: guitar and electronics (7-9); Prakash Sontakke: slide guitar and vocal (7-9); Nils Petter Molvær: trumpet (6).
Album information
Title: Mercurial Balm | Year Released: 2012 | Record Label: ECM Records
Comments
About Food
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
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