Ben Monder: Planetarium
Sunnyside Records

With Planetarium, guitarist Ben Monder has accomplished something rather rare: not only does the three-disc set sound unlike anything else released this year, it pretty much sounds unlike anything issued before. It's perhaps easier to say what it's not than what it is. It's not jazz, at least in any conventional sense that involves traditional swing and head-solos-head structures, and neither is it ambient, though it is intensely atmospheric. Whereas music of that genre's kind generally opts for contemplative stillness, Planetarium is often animated by rhythmic thrust. It does include, however, a huge amount of unfettered improvisation by Monder, though, again, playing free of anything remotely blues-inflected and unconstrained by tradition. It's tempting to liken its pieces to guitar-based soundscaping, though that label ultimately feels inadequate; a few passages hint at prog and rock, but likening Planetarium to them likewise paints the wrong picture. A release that does feel like a precursor is Bill Frisell's In Line for its concentration on solo and duo performances and its assured disregard for genre. But while its ten concise pieces fit snugly onto a single album, Monder's extends across three, with a number of tracks in the ten-minute range and three pushing past twenty.

To be expected for an album so ambitious, Planetarium didn't happen overnight. The project was developed over the course of a decade and the recording process itself stretched across three years. Work on it accelerated when the pandemic's onset gave Monder ample time to dedicate himself to it; receiving a commission to compose what would become “Ataraxia” also proved pivotal in ushering the project along. A critical part of the puzzle involved the relationship he established with Joseph Branciforte, who's credited as co-producer and whose Greyfade Studio in Mount Vernon, New York became a home base for the recording process. Beginning in 2020, the two would regularly meet at the studio to develop material, and it was there that critical guest contributions by drummers Ted Poor and Satoshi Takeishi, bassist Chris Tordini, and vocalists Theo Bleckmann, Charlotte Mundy, and Emily Hurst were added to the tracks (Branciforte also drums on one piece).

For the most part, track titles are enigmatic and ethereal, though two familiar ones show up in covers of Rogers and Hart's “Where or When” and the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger.” Instantly establishing the far-reaching scope of the album, the lulling opener “Ouroboros II” is enhanced by the presence of Mundy (Ekmeles, TAKensemble), whose multi-layered wordless vocals waft celestially across Monder's reverberant picking and Takeishi's ever-restless drums and cymbals. Characteristic of Planetarium, “Ouroboros II” patiently advances for ten minutes before ceding its place to the even more epic "The Mentaculus,” which couples Monder with Tordini and Poor for twenty-three minutes. The piece unfolds like a full-fledged exploration as the leader weaves spiraling spools of guitar lines into an intricate tapestry, the bassist and drummer responsive to his every gesture and mutating alongside him every step of the way. With the trio never staying in any one place for long, the episodic trip's never dull, despite its length. Slowing the tempo, “1973” finds Bleckmann draping his haunting voice over a curdling pulse by Monder and Poor that's alternately lurching and ominous. The guitarist occasionally unleashes his noisier side, adding a fuzz-toned solo to “1973” and battering “Li Po” with smouldering waves of distortion, but also gives way to a gentler attack on the peacefully ruminating title track and ponderous “Globestructures: Option II,” both pieces solo guitar settings.

Midway through the collection, the delirium-inducing “Ataraxia” opens in light-speed country-picking mode before Tordini and Branciforte add muscularity and waves of ecstatic Bleckmanns wordlessly soar over the percolating fray. Not everything's so intense: the subsequent planetary evocation “Onsulian Spring” grants the vocalist an opportunity to relax and emote less frenetically, and “Where or When” caps the middle disc with a dreamily transporting solo guitar rendition of the standard. During the final third, “3PSC”similarly opts for meditative solo guitar musing, in this case a reverie lasting twenty-one minutes, and the pastoral “Noctivagant” serves up what's possibly the set's prettiest piece. Elsewhere, a chorus of Mundys in the short “Urobo” sets the stage for “Ouroboros I,” a different take on the first disc's track with Monder and Takeishi again stoking an incessant storm. One final surprise arrives when the guitarist threads into “Wayfaring Stranger” a crackly old recording of his mother singing the song's lyrics. Patience is obviously needed to experience and absorb the three hours of material, but it is rewarded. Throwing caution to the wind, Monder has created a bold and visionary statement that stands proudly apart from anything else 2024 brought us.

November 2024