Zaum is a CD of improvisations (“instant compositions,” it says here) performed by a British ensemble, but – here’s the catch! – it’s definitely not what you’d call “British free improvisation.” What it is is harder to say, especially since the liner notes, besides containing a holiday snap of a day at the beach, convey no useful information about the music or about these five players, all of whom were new to me. About half the tracks find the group settling quickly into a straightforward groove, such as the mildly catchy riff of “Lorry in the Pond,” the world-music-tinged rhythm of “Zaum.” Other tracks, such as “Let It Come Down” and “Arc Light,” are closer to moody atmospherics than anything else. Stevens and Dzierzanowski’s backgrounds are perhaps in rock music, given their tendency to pile on the effects pedals and distortion like they’re in a 1970s rock band. On “Zaum,” for instance, the viola ends up sounding more like a lawnmower engine revving up and stalling than anything else. What that track – and the album in general – have to do with the zaum poetry of the Russian Futurists is entirely unclear to me.

You’d think that a trio whose members have worked in bands with names as delightful as Exploding Customer, Gush, Chamberpot, Sound of Mucus and Cloudchamber could have come up with something catchier than Unsolicited Music Ensemble. (The only resonance that name has for me is of weeding through emailed spam and bad poetry submissions.) But the disc’s title, Bulbs, is wonderfully apt in its suggestion of subterranean forms, pungent flavours – cf. the track title “Onion Shallot Garlic Chives” – and organic beauty, whether in the form of flowers (“Fjarilsamaryllis”) or the mathematical models that lie behind natural forms (“Mandelbrot and Julia”). The seven improvisations here derive from what must have been a hectically compressed but productive tour of Sweden – the recordings come from concerts in three different locations over two consecutive days. The February 25th gig from Stockholm accounts for most of the album and the band sound in particularly sharp form on this occasion (even on the one-minute “Fjarilsamaryllis” which, if I’m not mistaken, was surely the soundcheck). One’s often reminded of animal and plant life in listening to these improvisations – the barnyard, a marsh, pigs rooting in the soil, insects mating – although the technological and the human are audible too (after all, the title also glances towards Edison’s invention): the dining-hall clink of cutlery or computer-room typing. Yet the music is so consistently low in dynamic level it’s as if these sounds, which might as full volume become genuinely alarming, have been abraded or rendered indistinct, leaving a surface that is oddly hypnotizing in its tiny fluctuations. “Small Edison Screw” is particularly striking: a mute clamour that sustains a mood of unease while suggesting every so often (when Wren briefly interjects the sound of sawing, for instance) some tiny atrocity just outside the range of perception.

The last three tracks – one more from the 25 February Stockholm gig, and one apiece from Uppsala (25 February) and Stockholm again (26 February) – generally work in a vein closer to conventional free-improv chittering, with a lot of detail, a brighter feel and greater forward momentum. It’s still very quiet and oblique, though, as if one were listening to a spectral x-ray of You Forget to Answer (a fine 1990s disc by the Gustafsson/Guy/Strid trio). All in all, Bulbs is a first-rate disc, and highly recommended to improv fans.

The Plaza Jazz Trio’s Soaring is a Latin jazz date by three British players. The CD has its moments without managing to justify the oddball sketchiness of the instrumentation – just trumpet, baritone and congas. There’s precedents for this kind of minimalism: indeed, Mulligan’s pianoless quartet of the 1950s seems to be one referencepoint here. But there’s little of Mulligan’s arranging skills in evidence on the disc, and in the end it’s about as satisfying as listening to a Music Minus One disc. The main pleasure is hearing Waterman in a small-group format; he’s a sparkling trumpeter who’s usually found in top UK big bands and has also worked with Carla Bley. His dazzlingly intricate lines make a rather improbable counterweight to Haslam’s unvirtuosic baritone. Perhaps with a sharper, cannier production the disc might have worked out better, but as it stands there’s too many indulgences: consistently over-long tracks, a few irritating tune choices (Exhibit A: the obnoxious eight-minute rendition of “The Peanut Vendor”), and the misguided use of the “electronic valve instrument” on “Begin the Beguine.”

Nate Dorward

Cadence, May 2003