Michael Davidson & Dan Fortin: Clock Radio
Elastic Recordings

In a recording featuring a solo musician, interaction is by definition absent; in trio, quartet, and larger ensembles, it's shared by multiple, ever-mutable groupings of individuals. As a vehicle for interactive expression, it's the duo setting, then, that affords the best possible arrangement, given that everything each partner expresses becomes part of a dialogue exclusive to the two alone. A prime example of the richness the format can generate is this duo outing by vibraphonist Michael Davidson and double bassist Dan Fortin, Toronto-based players who've worked together for over a decade in a number of different group contexts. That shared history has enabled them to develop an inordinately close rapport that makes Clock Radio resonate all the more powerfully.

Don't be thrown by Davidson's affinity for German track titles; they're so-named because he visited Berlin for two months during the summer of 2017 to study with mallet percussionist David Friedman. Aside from exploring a variety of compositional techniques, Davidson returned home with a new collection of pieces that he felt lent themselves to the flexibility of a duo treatment, hence the recording with Fortin. As compositionally scripted as the material is, it also allows room for improvisation; see, for example, the extended solos the two take in “Berlin V,” at eight minutes the longest piece. While Clock Radio is never exploited for the purposes of grandstanding, there's no denying the players' virtuosic command of their instruments (witness Davidson's rapid-flowing runs in “H Moll (Zeitweisse),” for instance).

Each musician possesses a distinctive, clearly enunciated voice and plays with authority. Davidson's instrument sparkles and shimmers, its inherently bright sonorities occasionally amplified by sustain; while Fortin's no minimalist, he refrains from overplaying, his tasteful approach more designed to complement and support his partner. Of the two, the vibraphone is more the lead instrument, though Davidson sometimes moves to the background to provide chordal textures behind Fortin's soloing. Thematic figures are sometimes voiced in unison by the two, though more often that not they're stated by the vibraphonist. While any of the tracks evidences the close listening in play, “Into a Fog” impresses as a particularly memorable case.

A few pieces separate themselves from the others. “Berlin IV” individuates itself by undergirding mallet runs with gently swinging, Latin-tinged rhythms. In addition, ambient sound treatments appear in “Berlin VII” (how they're generated not clarified by the production details provided though one guesses they're the result of vibraphone-supplemented effects), and synthesizer-like textures form part of the sound design of the pretty ballad “Out of Love” and syncopation-heavy “A Lift Above.” Such departures obviously bolster engagement on the listener's part.

March 2019