Camila Nebbia: A Reflection Distorts Over Water

From her base in Berlin, Argentine tenor saxophonist Camila Nebbia continues to impress, extending her increasingly international reputation across the Atlantic on A Reflection Distorts Over Water. For a session recorded in the studio in Woodstock, NY, she enlists talent both established and lately emerged. Even after a storied career, most famously as part of Anthony Braxton's classic quartet, pianist Marilyn Crispell remains a persistently exploratory collaborator. Meanwhile drummer Lesley Mok's profile rises inexorably, thanks to their outstanding leadership debut The Living Collection (American Dream, 2022) and tenure in pianist Myra Melford's illustrious Fire And Water Quintet.

Nebbia sports a light tone, but one that she shades and inflects with expressive flourishes, refraining from upper register blow-outs in favor of a grainy assertiveness, or barely-there harmonics. Mok's sensitivity and less-is-more approach render them ideal for Nebbia's conception. Crispell possesses both muscular and lyrical sides to her armory and calls on each in a refined discourse which never seeks to dominate, but radiates gravitas regardless.

Testament to an egalitarian ethos, the sleeve notes credit everyone for all the music, though indicate that Nebbia's open scores inspired some unnamed pieces, while one composition is credited to Mok alone. Nonetheless in their freshness and disavowal of convention, they could all pass as spontaneous.

The opener reveals the contrasting modes that shape the album, and the group's facility at both. It begins with piano droplets, soothing tenor and brushed cymbals, developed with a gradually escalating but hushed urgency as Crispell places hammered notes and dampened thuds with exquisite precision. Halfway through, Mok's burgeoning rolls and simmering hi-hat presage an uptick in temperature. They ignite spikier, more flowing interplay, fuller chords, and spirited saxophone, which usher the piece to its final cadence.

The other seven tracks are shorter and take in varied terrain with exchanges, variously punchy and pulsing. The reiterated saxophone motifs of "There Is No Land" and Mok's "Spirals" hint at some organization, especially when the piano locks into repeated phrases on the former, though such episodes remain entirely consistent with the threesome's improvisational fluency. Elsewhere the juxtaposition of cascading piano against measured tenor and sparse percussion creates a nervy feel to "Suspended Time," before everyone agrees on a pacy dash to the finishing tape.

Nebbia is at her most animated in the constant dialogue of "A Room Is Being Erased," as Crispell comes her closest to Cecil Taylor, although Mok still maintains a spacious stance, relying on placement and attack for their impact. The final "Streamside" affirms a trio which addresses freedom with an unfettered economy few outfits equal: a painting in which most of the canvas stays blank, excepting tiny splashes of color that assume an outsize significance. While likely a one-off, on this evidence one hopes the principals find their way back into the same room sooner rather than later.