Sha: Monbijou

Aside from an existing appreciation of the saxophonist's creativity, it would be a mistake to approach Sha's Monbijou with any preconceptions. While this is a notion that has applied to his main group, Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the tack Sha takes on this album is well removed from even that.

Considering the integrated groupthink which characterizes nearly all of his work in (and outside of) Ronin, part of that remove is to be expected— after all, this is a solo performance recording—but it is still a bit awe-inspiring just how much Sha's efforts reconceptualize even an album of this type. That is because his concept seems different at the sub-atomic level. There is surely beautiful music here but it is not tethered to traditional forms of composition. Even more consequential is that Sha has chosen a path that not only explores the "solo" interaction between artist and instrument, but also the interaction of sound and the space that it inhabits.

Specifically, that space is the hollow interior of Monbijou bridge in Berne, Switzerland, after which the album is named. It is vast, reactive and even interjects its own contributions to the proceedings (in the form of the translated vibrations of occasional traffic passing overhead). Sha uses all of this in the recording, partnering with and parrying off the rumbles, echoes and buoyancy these environs offer up. The performance also organically showcases his inventive skill set throughout, which at times transcends the familiar sonority of his instruments via some wonderfully "off-label" techniques. There are very sparingly tasteful touches of loops as minimal pads or the odd drone; but aside from these, the usual trappings of full loop matrices or pre-recorded augmentation, so common in today's "solo" presentations, are absent.

Monbijou's three tracks—a brief intro, the 27-minute title track and the 6-minute closing "MM"—prove to be somewhat arbitrary divisions as they tend to melt away into an immersive continuum where the silence can be as integral as the sound. It all amounts to an engagingly dynamic performance which is part musical meditation and part sonic exploration. Most striking perhaps, it is also an album which projects the listener into the physical space of the performance in a way that has rarely, if ever, been done quite so palpably.

It would be an understatement to call Monbijou a unique work. More accurately, it is an experience. As such, it is nearly impossible to evaluate it by any other standard but, on its own terms, it is a certain success. Those who encounter it in that same spirit should undoubtedly agree.

Comments