Abdou - Gouband - Warelis: Hammer, Roll and Leaf

The multinational threesome of French saxophonist Sakina Abdou, French percussionist Toma Gouband and Polish pianist Marta Warelis establishes a striking group identity on Hammer Roll Leaf. From the opening track, "Roll," the trio's compositional instincts and collective discipline distinguish them from the crowded field of free improvisers. Warelis begins with cascading piano figures—robust, resonant and allowed to decay into silence. Abdou eventually enters, their alto saxophone lines darting and entwining with Warelis' lyric remnants, until they develop a dashing forward motion, like two babbling brooks finding their convergence. Only then does Gouband appear—not with the expected thunder, but with a tinkling, continuous patter that remains peripheral yet essential, finally closing the cut alone with a delicate shimmer that lingers unexpectedly.

This resistance to climax, and refusal to adhere to improv tropes, becomes one of the outfit's defining strategies. Rather than building toward clear peaks, they prefer incremental intensification. In a favoured gambit, Abdou often settles into a rippling tremolo, shadowed by Warelis' barrelling reverberations. Gouband, ever oblique, inserts texture rather than propulsion, employing stones, leaves and organic matter to construct an environment that feels both ancient and avant-garde.

Further affirmation of a definite group ethos comes not only in the finely-calibrated interplay but in how solo passages feel rooted in shared logic rather than personal showcase. Warelis, an in-demand collaborator across Europe's vanguard scenes, vouchsafed by her co-option by talent spotter supreme Dave Douglas, brings a vocabulary that fuses clangor and finesse. Expanding her palette yet further, interior forays—clanks, rattles, scrapes—enhance the trio's tactile quality, matching Gouband's elemental percussive language. Yet when melody arises, neither she nor Abdou retreats. Instead, both lean in with intent, shaping it without sentimentality.

Abdou, likely best known as a member of Eve Risser's Red Desert Orchestra, commands both alto and tenor with a full-bodied tone. Their phrasing pivots easily between strident clarion calls, elliptical percolation and exploratory murmurs. Even in the occasional leaps into more extreme gesture—slap-tonguing, circular breathing—they maintain structural coherence. Gouband, also a partner of Risser, and who has recorded with luminaries like Evan Parker and Benoit Delbecq, functions here not as rhythmic engine but as sonic provocateur.

Everything comes together on the final piece, "Hammer The Roll." Here, overlapping stop-start fragments—Morse-coded piano, punctuated saxophone and methodical tapping—accumulate into an urgent interlocking weave. The trio resists resolution, instead carving out an extraordinary liminal zone between momentum and abstraction. With its remarkable sensitivity and aversion to the obvious, Hammer Roll Leaf offers a persuasive argument for the enduring vitality of ensemble improvisation.

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