Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Nick Dunston: Colla Voce

7

Nick Dunston: Colla Voce

By

View read count
Nick Dunston: Colla Voce
One thing you can expect from a Nick Dunston leadership date is the unexpected. After Atlantic Extraction (OOYH, 2019), Spider Season (OOYH, 2022) and Skultura (Fun In Church, 2023), Colla Voce is something else again. Although an in-demand bassist in adventurous contemporary circles, as evidenced by stints with trumpeter Dave Douglas, guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, as a composer Dunston ranges even more widely.

Assembled from sessions in Berlin and NYC, Dunston calls on a 13-strong crew that includes the JACK string quartet, an array of other strings, the voice of the phenomenal Sofia Jernberg together with two others, a drummer and his own bass and electronics. In the liners, Dunston terms this an anti-opera. Certainly there is little operatic about it, but it could be pretty much the antithesis of anything else you care to name as well. His is a singular conception.

As if introducing a cast of characters, Dunston programs the various flavors that make up the mix over the first few tracks. The opening "Ova'churr" passes in an electronic vortex, with ethereal voices a subliminal presence. The following cut "Designated Antagonist" comprises abrupt string swipes, thwacks and drones as the JACK quartet leaps into action. Then on "Pseudocorridor" more strings underpinned by a repeating bass figure, before the entrance of an echoey doom metal bass/drum/guitar trio.

Although densely populated, many pieces feature only subsets of the assembled throng, which increasingly recur in bewildering combinations towards the end of the 13 tracks. Post-production processing contributes to the brain scrambling effect. Distorted or muffled voices and instruments wax and wane alongside untreated sound sources in a kaleidoscope of different textures, like the soundtrack to a dystopian film fragmented through a prism. Dunston's vision takes on orchestral dimensions in the grand finale of the title number, where the vocalists variously croak, whisper and soar in a culmination of sorts.

Not only do each of Dunston's releases confound expectations, they do so while sounding like no-one else. Where next? Impossible to say but, as here, you can guarantee a wild ride.

Track Listing

Ova’churr; Designated Antagonist; Pseudocorridor; Blinding, Joyous, Fearful; Fully Turbulent; Lo and Behold; Hydrogen; Argon; Oxygen; Anglo-Adjacent Phonetic Approximations; Nearly Turbulent; A Rolling Wave of Everything; Colla Voce.

Personnel

Additional Instrumentation

Nick Dunston: compositions, post-processing; Cansu Tanrıkulu; live processing; Maria Reich: viola; Moritz Baumgärtner: percussion, megaphone; Weston Olencki: producer.

Album information

Title: Colla Voce | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: Out Of Your Head Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Nick Dunston Concerts

Sep 20 Sat

Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.