John Dikeman: Old Adam On Turtle Island

Committed improviser John Dikeman assembles a crack Amsterdam domiciled quartet to navigate Old Adam On Turtle Island, a song cycle that probes the intersections of colonization, religion, and their potential to inspire transcendence or tyranny. The framework is deliberately loose: a schematic more than a score, allowing the musicians to chart the course collectively. Themes emerge as insistent phrases rather than fixed melodies, serving as touchstones in a performance defined by ebb and flow.

The first half moves through shifting terrains: from timbral interplay to ballad-like reverie, to open-throated blowout and churchy supplication. Pianist Marta Warelis asserts a wild card energy, capable of crystalline lyricism one moment and barbed dissonance the next. At one point she reaches inside the piano, abrading and scraping the strings to destabilize what might otherwise have become breathy rapture. Her exchanges with Dikeman register as both provocation and counterpoint—echoing his cries or undercutting his trajectory with sly feints.

The second part opens with a striking trio passage for Warelis, bassist Aaron Lumley, and drummer Sun Mi Hong: slashing arco bass, tolling cymbals, and splashing piano figures gradually settle into a loping groove. Warelis inserts prepared-piano effects into the texture, her fractured punctuation simultaneously playful and subversive. Lumley, whose sound ranges from tensile muscle to harmonious delicacy, provides a resonant foundation, while Sun deftly toggles between clattery momentum and finely shaded commentary.

Dikeman's tenor saxophone, once a clear descendent of Albert Ayler, now reflects a broader vocabulary, though his willingness to issue shrieking declamations remains undiminished. His most affecting statement arrives in the second half: an unaccompanied soliloquy that unfurls from wide-vibrato wails into ecstatic yearning, bolstered by Lumley's shadowy arco. From there, the ensemble coalesces into a hymnlike refrain for tenor and piano, blossoming with solemn majesty before dissolving into rattling percussion and fading piano chords.

Not every passage carries the same urgency; there are stretches that seem to idle, awaiting ignition. But the occasional lull is outweighed by the vitality of the collective interchange, and by the conviction of a band willing to risk fragility in pursuit of revelation.