Sounds Like
Infrasonic Press, 2021
8/10
This debut album from the Buffalo experimental outfit The Evolution Of The Arm sees the quartet blending noise, jazz and chamber moments into an unclassifiable mix of intimacy, firmness and unpredictability that’s artistic and sometimes quite wild.
“Starting Positions” opens the listen with firm cello as frantic violin and colorful oboe highlight the avant-garde exploration, and “Jackrabbit’s Palace, Series 1A” follows with striking keys and much ambience entering the cinematic swells of precise interplay.
“Jackrabbit’s Palace, Series 1B” occupies the middle spot and moves with a darker spirit that embraces tense strings, low keys and a very cautious delivery, while “Jackrabbit’s Palace, Series 1C” seems like it could soundtrack a sci-fi flick with its meticulous manipulation of sound and timbre.
“Jackrabbit’s Palace, Series 1D” arrives near the end and recruits a rare beauty as the strings and keys intersect with a classical, chamber and orchestral meshing, and “Double Memory” exits the listen with a stripped back, restrained beginning that makes its way into slightly fuller moments of grace and wonder.
Megan Kyle (oboe, english horn), Michael McNeill (piano), Evan Courtin (violin, vocals) and Katie Weissman (cello), i.e. The Evolution Of Arm, nearly forge an entirely new subgenre of sounds here, where chambercore intensity and a baroque tranquility make for reference points as vast as Frank Zappa and Deerhoof, and its an eccentric package you can’t help but admire.
Travels well with: Jeff Stadelman- Signaling; Ensemble Dal Niente- confined.speak.