BlankFor.ms - Jason Moran - Marcus Gilmore: Refract

Electroacoustic music gains a new modern perspective with the sonic marvel that is Refract, a collaborative effort between degraded tapes artist Tyler Gilmore, aka BlankFor.ms, pianist Jason Moran and Marcus Gilmore on drums. An experimental series of sketched shapes featuring hovering loops turned sound- blankets, drum-set turned beat-machine and piano turned keyboard-impressionism, Refract's largely improvised fabric makes for one of the year's most adventurous and intriguing listens.

Recorded with producer Sun Chung, the sonic properties are a focal point of this session, rendering each experiment with transparency and clarity. Some of the material here was pre-composed by BlankFor.ms, a former student of Jason Moran's at New England Conservatory. The tonal structures, as heard on "Inward, Curve," are but roomy frames which leave each of the three musicians space to improvise and unfold in. Other cuts, often simply named "Tape Loop" then lettered and numbered, are borne from a large pool of tape-loops which BlankFor.ms prepared for the session, inviting Moran and Gilmore, sometimes jointly, other times only in duo with the manipulated tape tapestries, in for atmospheric explorations.

Once in a while an improvisation will turn from atmospherically emerging into frantically degenerating within a matter of minutes, as on "Tape Loop B I." Other times interludial forms prevail, as the snare-shuffling "Tape Loop A" demonstrates. The tape picks up Gilmore's muscular beat, loops it, speeds it up and slows it down again, in real-time, while Gilmore's original foundation continues. A similar effect is used on "Eight Pose," with Jason Moran joining in as the lines between the taped and reiterated and the original live feed blur to an especially accomplished brew.

Ambient soundscapes ("Stir"), rushes of modernist chromaticism ("Release") and post-"two-step"-like contemporary electronic excursions ("Little Known") mingle, comfortable in each other's presence, as disparate as they may seem on the surface. "Tape Loop C" I through III, towards the close of the album, is a different suite altogether. A duo performance between tapes and piano, subtle flashes of static noise, shivering frequencies and crescendoing reverb loops are in exchange with tender piano playing of a most minimalist kind. Keys change from one part to the next, the mood shifts from comforting and reconciliatory to dark and ominous and then again to something more inquisitive and questioning. Part III concludes in the piano's Great Octave, with the deep keyboard frequencies building tension against the tape's stubborn echo.

A meditative spirit dominates throughout the roughly sixty-minute album, one which builds on live-interaction, communication between three instruments and the art of sensitive listening and responding. To have a tape-sound-designer as the main contributing soloist is rare, maybe even a premiere. In 2022 the red hook label released the award winning "Two Centuries"-collaboration between modular synth artist Qasim Naqvi, and master improvisers Andrew Cyrille and Wadada Leo Smith. Funnily enough, this record sounds nothing like that one. But they share a deeply adventurous approach and the factor of an electronic artist mending his sonic tapestries with acoustic instruments, live. Refract is another delightful entry in what appears to be a new canon of electroacoustic improvised music, emerging at red hook records.