Clamor
Out Of Your Head, 2023
9/10
The violist and composer Jessica Pavone pens an album for string ensemble and the bassoonist Katherine Young, where the 4 tracks are powerful and unpredictable.
“Neolttwigi” opens the listen with the expressive violins from Aimée Niemann and Charlotte Munn-Wood that comes with much intimacy and warmth, and “Nu Shu (part 1)” follows with a distinct droning that showcases Young’s blurry bassoon.
On the back half, “Nu Shu (part 2)” is full of ambience that benefits from Pavone’s iconoclastic viola playing and Young’s artistic bassoon gestures in a sci-fi sort of way, and Mariel Roberts’s graceful cello adds much elegance to the very pretty exit, “Bloom”.
A listen that thematically surrounds a secret language created and used only by Chinese women forbidden to go to school like their brothers, Pavone’s vision is one of an experimental nature, where jazz, chamber, classical and art-influenced manipulation unfold in a strategic way that few could replicate.
Travels well with: Mali Obomsawin- Sweet Tooth; Curt Sydnor- Deep End Shallow