Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Ingrid Laubrock: Monochromes

5

Ingrid Laubrock: Monochromes

By

View read count
Ingrid Laubrock: Monochromes
Saxophonist & composer Ingrid Laubrock and her partner, drummer Tom Rainey self-released an ongoing series of spontaneous duets, the Stir Crazy Episodes, recorded during the pandemic lockdown. They were most likely a kind of pressure release mechanism for both artists. With Monochromes, Laubrock heads in the opposite direction by commissioning four musicians to pre-record tape pieces based on her notations, both conventional and graphical; these form the foundations for Laubrock and three different collaborations to improvise over. The single 40-minute construction can best be described as both sonic architecture and a musical graphic novella.

The first of these tape pieces comes from trumpeter Nate Wooley. He follows Laubrock's score for 29 trumpets based on a György Ligeti orchestral work. Laubrock and engineer Chris Krasnow manipulate the music to such an extent that one may not recognize the Wooley in the Wooley performance. Laubrock's aim is to then join the tape with her studio ensemble of Jon Irabagon, Zeena Parkins, and Rainey. The Wooley odyssey evolves into a series of cycles accented by Rainey's drum, and saxophone entanglements. The music bleeds into Adam Matlock's accordion tape submission with its shower of notes. Irabagon bleats out duck calls and circular breath saxophone before ringing high-pitched tightrope-walking sounds with Laubrock answering his call. This, plus Parkins' accordion, creates a wall of sound. Next up is Rainey's submission of percussion, performed over sparking electronics and off-kilter horns. The outward chaos of much of Monochromes is balanced in its final section where Laubrock, JD Allen and David Breskin manipulate Harry Bertoia's sonambient sculptures, before Laubrock takes up her saxophone to improvise with the metal sound-art pieces.

Track Listing

Monochromes.

Personnel

Ingrid Laubrock
saxophone
Jon Irabagon
saxophone, tenor
Nate Wooley
trumpet
Adam Matlock
accordion
Additional Instrumentation

Ingrid Laubrock: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone; Harry Bertoia’s sonambient sculptures; JD Allen: Harry Bertoia’s sonambient sculptures; David Breskin: Harry Bertoia’s sonambient sculptures. Zeena Parkins: Electric Harp Tom Rainey: Drums Tape pieces in order of appearance: Trumpets: Nate Wooley Accordions: Adam Matlock Percussion: Tom Rainey Harry Bertoia Sculptures: JD Allen, David Breskin & Ingrid Laubrock

Album information

Title: Monochromes | Year Released: 2023 | Record Label: Intakt Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Ingrid Laubrock Concerts

Oct 7 Tue
Tom Skinner
Solar Myth
Philadelphia, PA

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.