Emmeluths Amoeba: Chimaera
Øra Fonogram

Had I been presented with “AB,” the second track on Chimaera, in a blindfold test, I might have mistaken it for it a freewheeling improv by John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, and others associated with New York's so-called downtown scene from days of yore. The players on “AB” aren't, of course, denizens of that locale but musicians from the incredibly fertile Norwegian jazz scene, namely alto saxophonist Signe Emmeluth, pianist Christian Balvig, drummer Ole Mofjell, and guitarist Karl Bjorå. Recorded at Trondheim's Øra Studio in early 2019, Chimaera's the second album from Emmeluths Amoeba, the first, Polyp, having arrived a year earlier.

Too much shouldn't be read into that hypothetical mismatch as aside from that musical instance there's not a whole lot stylistically on Chimaera that would prompt that misidentification. What does pertain, however, is the intrepid sensibility Emmeluth shares with someone like Zorn, a willingness, that is, to throw caution to the wind and embrace artistic adventurousness over concerns of commerce and broad appeal. That said, her quartet's as comfortable hewing to the familiar idioms of jazz as venturing outside it where issues of conventional tonality and form fall by the wayside. Extended techniques also come into play, most noticeably during the crepuscular title track where the leader can be heard murmuring through her horn as the others respond in kind.

Emmeluth's front and centre in the opening and closing pieces, which feature solo excursions the saxophonist executes with aplomb. Yet while she's heard alone at the start of the opening “Squid Circles,” her bandmates enter midway through to instantly establish the quartet persona with atonal guitar skronk, heavy piano chords, and brisk, free-wheeling drumming, the leader opting for a cyclical riff to ground the proceedings. While the compositions are Emmeluth's, the arrangements are credited to the band, the detail indicating the degree to which all four musicians are responsible for the Emmeluths Amoeba identity. The absence of a bass player is significant, the instrument's omission helping to destabilize the group's performances.

The longest cut at eleven minutes, “AB” opens with skittering drums and explorative piano flourishes before high-pitched squeals from the leader temporarily arrest the flow. Structural episodes follow, though the musicians treat them elastically, all four stoking fire as they chart daring pathways through the piece's many stages. Emmeluth peppers her attack with staccato phrases, warbling runs, and guttural honks, Bjorå mirroring her with textural displays and atonal treatments of his own. In contrast to the wild freneticism of “Lyons” with its piano splashes, furious drumming, guitar shards, and seething sax wail, “Velvet” opts for ruminative languor, each of the four musing aloud as the collective creation advances. Arriving in a context favouring freeform playing, “No. 1” is also something of a surprise, Balvig and Bjorå showing during their opening duet episode that they're capable of playing prettily when the material calls for it.

January 2020