Sivan Arbel: Oneness

Sivan Arbel's compositional practice is alternately "nerdy," as the singer-composer describes it, and "stream of consciousness." In her studio, she labors meticulously over the nuts and bolts: rhythmic patterns, harmonic changes, melodic turns. Once the fundamental elements are in place, though, she sits at her piano and "squeezes the sponge," improvising words and music freely, reaching into deeper levels of consciousness. She records everything and then listens back, editing and refining what she has created. Her scores for Oneness are a mixture of minimal open slash notation, rhythmic hits, rapidly changing meters and grooves, specific dynamic progressions, intricate accompaniment figures and imaginative instructions like "clouds, open, washy."

Her lyrics tell personal stories, rarely following rhyme schemes. "Second Floor Beloved" came out of a "writing adventure" with a friend in Israel. They give each other "assignments," and on this occasion hers was to put herself inside the mind and emotions of a man without a home, asleep on the street. Her lyric is in Hebrew, with a chorus that translates as "He doesn't ask for a thing, only lays and waits, dreams about his second floor beloved." A heartbreakingly tender ethos permeates the piece, transcending linguistic barriers.

Arbel was reared on unity and solidarity. She went to primary school in Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace, aka Wahat al-Salam), a small intentional village located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem founded by Israeli Jews and Muslim and Christian Arabs, together. She and her young classmates shared songs, food, games, stories. Perhaps the little barefoot girl she longs to reconnect with in "Black Feet" is from this time. "Time passes by, but every year erases her a little," she sings.

With Nick Hetko on keys, Sam Weber on bass and Evan Hyde at the drums, Arbel's sensitive core group, which has been with her since 2016, has developed ways of communicating that feel organic and intuitive. Together, they inhabit the musical worlds her songs suggest, creating marbled timbres and improvisatory textures, offering solos that move the music forward and get into the narrative crevices. She met bansuri flutist Jay Gandhi, who plays so beautifully on "Dreamland," through the Brooklyn Raga Massive collective, also ca. 2016. They have become neighbors and frequent collaborators, as are Aubrey Johnson and Daniel Fresco, who contribute supporting vocals on the title cut.

"Oneness," the kernel of the album, comes last in the order. Hard syncopated hits at the outset dissolve into a softly dense swarm of questions: "What is human, what is justice, what is visible, who is hiding? Where is the border, where is one's land, who are we following and for what? What is beautiful, what is ugly, what is right, what is wrong?" Timbres shift as the episodic form unfolds ("the frequency of love gets stronger, the inner fire gets stronger"). Everyone breathes into the final mantra, "Oneness within, oneness around." Arbel's vision and voice are radiant and clear. She releases Oneness into a discordant historical moment where these qualities are in short supply.