The Free Jazz Collective

Meet the Experimental Vocalist #4

By: Eyal Hareuveni

2019

Language: english

Dutch experimental vocal artist-sound poet-electronics player Jaap Blonk’s own label, Kontrans, has a line of releases – improvisors – that documents his free-improvised meeting with like-minded musicians. Kontrans has released Blonk’s meetings with Mats Gustafsson and Michael Zerang, Maja Ratkje, Jeb Bishop and Frank Rosaly.
This release documents Blonk’s meeting with Berlin-based, fellow experimental vocal artist Ute Wassermann, who also plays on assorted whistles, “kutu wapa, frog buzzer and mirliton” and percussionist and visual artist Michael Vorfeld, who adds to his arsenal string instrument and light bulbs. It was recorded at AudioCue Tonlabor, Berlin, on March 2018. Like Rooms, this trio also offers 13 distinct pieces, but contrary to the introspective, reserved atmosphere of Rooms, this trio experiments with the wild, weird and noisy. These three hyperactive and reckless adults – alien bards, as one of the pieces is titled – play an endless, dadaist tag while soaring higher and higher into their sonic universes, Luckily, Wasserman, Blonk and Vorfeld share the same kind of humor and like risk-taking, hectic games. These three improvisers even succeed to create a surprising intimacy, but sometimes you may want to ask them to slow down a bit.