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Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

By Dan McClenaghan
March 14, 2025
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Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are the boldest of musical artists. Bold and uncompromising, each with distinctive voices coming from different places. For Courvoisier, it is the classical music world and European chamber music that she mixes with the sounds of avant-garde jazz. Halvorson started out early with the violin, until the sound of the guitar of Jimi Hendrix pulled her into the freer and more hard rock realm. This move picked up momentum when she sat in on one of saxophonist Anthony Braxton's music classes while she was studying biology at Wesleyan University.

The combining of these disparate backgrounds may suggest that the music they make together leans to the cerebral side. On the one hand it does. The harmonic complexities of a pair of free-roaming chording instruments in these particular hands—that do not turn away dissonance nor fractiousness, or pensive reveries—presents unique listening challenges. On the other hand, Courvoisier and Halvorson embrace playfulness, lovely interludes and the joy of creation at times, as if they are making a soundtrack to a surreal cartoon.

Courvoisier's classical chops are notable; Halvorson's wild post-Hendix-ian chops are, too. The feeling of the experience of Bone Bells, the pair's third duo album, sounds like 'anything goes,' and we are not talking about the Cole Porter song of that name.

The album contains eight tracks, half penned by Halvorson, and half by Courvoisier. Good luck, on a blind listen, telling who wrote what. The music might be described as 'virtuosic craziness,' or 'seasoned musicians gone wild.' Bone Bells is a marvelous and compelling mixture of kick-ass freedom, beauty and weirdness.

Track Listing

Bone Bells; Esmeralda; Folded Secret; Nags Head Valse; Beclouded; Silly Walk; Float Queens; Cristellina e Lontano.

Personnel

Sylvie Courvoisier

piano

Mary Halvorson

guitar

Album information

Title: Bone Bells | Year Released: 2025 | Record Label: Pyroclastic Records

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