textura

9 Horses: Omegah
Adhyâropa Records

Every recording's the sum of many parts, and Omegah is no different. For their follow-up to 2015's debut album Perfectest Herald (an EP, Blood From A Stone, appeared in 2019), 9 Horses members Joe Brent (mandolins), Sara Caswell (violins, hardanger d'amore), and Andrew Ryan (basses) included a coterie of guests, with their vocals, keyboards, guitar, harp, strings, horns, and percussion bringing the trio's sound to an orchestral pitch. Omegah is a double-album affair, which seems fitting for a project whose canvases are so panoramic, and the expansion in the group's sound is rendered all the more dramatic when it's heard against the backdrop of the all-acoustic Perfectest Herald.

The new release was six years in the making, and it shows in its ambitious scope. Acoustic, electric, and electronic textures merge organically in the eight compositions, with sensitivity to arrangement as key as the writing. Jazz is present in the spiritedness of the improvisations, but there's classical too and also elements of rock, prog, and electronica. Rather than get sidetracked by futile attempts at categorizing, one's best advised to go where the music leads and simply enjoy a seventy-seven-minute ride that's ever scenic and always stimulating. As diverse as the pieces are, recurring motives establish an underlying connectedness, however subtle it might be. The inaugurating theme, for example, in the opening title track re-emerges throughout in a way that has the listener perking up, cottoning to the element's recurrence when it happens.

“Omegah” opens the set arrestingly with a heavy intro, Caswell voicing the wailing theme and the music ominous in tone. Yet while electric guitarist Mike Robinson, organist Michael Bellar, and drummers Damien Bassman and Kevin Garcia intensify the post-rock vibe, a gentle strings-laden passage provides relief and a buoyant episode allows Caswell to lift the music with a solo that soars in a manner reminiscent of Jean-Luc Ponty. Bellar returns with his Hammond B3 for “S7rophe,” a soulful number animated by a laid-back, somewhat hip-hop-influenced groove from Ryan and drummer Jared Schonig and Caswell and trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis stating the sultry lead melody separately and in unison; Brent on electric mandolin and Glenn Zaleski on piano also make their presences felt in a piece that transforms halfway through into a breakneck jazz number. Following a plaintive strings intro, “the grain of the wood of the frame” likewise lets loose with a high-velocity jazz pulse for Noordhuis (on flugelhorn) to blow over before culminating in a sweeping climax.

Whereas some pieces are intense in the extreme, others are languorous. “a new machine” grows steadily more dream-like as it develops, with Caswell again transporting the listener with an extended solo. After Dallin Applebaum's breathy vocals introduce the setting, “Max Richter's Dreams” settles into the neo-classical realm for fifteen absorbing minutes, the deep dive amplified by Rebecca Pechefsky's harpsichord and an elegant string arrangement by cellist Emily Hope Price. On the poppier side, there's the radiant “all the beautiful Rockwood kids,” what with its singing lead melody, and the equally sparkling outro “let's just make it me and you.”

The compositions are credited to Brent, but the element most critical to the trio's identity is Caswell. If she hadn't already distinguished herself in so many ways before it (consider, for example, how much the recent Chuck Owen and The Jazz Surge release Within Us benefits from her participation), her playing on Omegah would qualify as a star-making turn. The genre-transcending character of the material is matched by her versatility and virtuosity—check out the glorious solos she delivers on “Max Richter's Dreams” and “let's just make it me and you.” Integral to the band are Brent's mandolins and Ryan's basses, but with the ensemble sound so huge—no less than twelve musicians apear on the title track, for example—they tend to blend into the overall tapestry; Caswell's violin, on the other hand, often soars above it as the lead voice and drives the performances. Remove her from the 9 Horses equation and its key component disappears.

December 2021


	9 Horses: Omegah Adhyâropa Records Every recording's the sum of many parts, and Omegah is no different. For their follow-up to 2015's debut album Perfectest Herald (an EP, Blood From A Stone, appeared in 2019), 9 Horses members Joe Brent (mandolins), Sara Caswell (violins, hardanger d'amore), and Andrew Ryan (basses) included a coterie of guests, with their vocals, keyboards, guitar, harp, strings, horns, and percussion bringing the trio's sound to an orchestral pitch. Omegah is a double-album affair, which seems fitting for a project whose canvases are so panoramic, and the expansion in the group's sound is rendered all the more dramatic when it's heard against the backdrop of the all-acoustic Perfectest Herald. The new release was six years in the making, and it shows in its ambitious scope. Acoustic, electric, and electronic textures merge organically in the eight compositions, with sensitivity to arrangement as key as the writing. Jazz is present in the spiritedness of the improvisations, but there's classical too and also elements of rock, prog, and electronica. Rather than get sidetracked by futile attempts at categorizing, one's best advised to go where the music leads and simply enjoy a seventy-seven-minute ride that's ever scenic and always stimulating. As diverse as the pieces are, recurring motives establish an underlying connectedness, however subtle it might be. The inaugurating theme, for example, in the opening title track re-emerges throughout in a way that has the listener perking up, cottoning to the element's recurrence when it happens. “Omegah” opens the set arrestingly with a heavy intro, Caswell voicing the wailing theme and the music ominous in tone. Yet while electric guitarist Mike Robinson, organist Michael Bellar, and drummers Damien Bassman and Kevin Garcia intensify the post-rock vibe, a gentle strings-laden passage provides relief and a buoyant episode allows Caswell to lift the music with a solo that soars in a manner reminiscent of Jean-Luc Ponty. Bellar returns with his Hammond B3 for “S7rophe,” a soulful number animated by a laid-back, somewhat hip-hop-influenced groove from Ryan and drummer Jared Schonig and Caswell and trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis stating the sultry lead melody separately and in unison; Brent on electric mandolin and Glenn Zaleski on piano also make their presences felt in a piece that transforms halfway through into a breakneck jazz number. Following a plaintive strings intro, “the grain of the wood of the frame” likewise lets loose with a high-velocity jazz pulse for Noordhuis (on flugelhorn) to blow over before culminating in a sweeping climax. Whereas some pieces are intense in the extreme, others are languorous. “a new machine” grows steadily more dream-like as it develops, with Caswell again transporting the listener with an extended solo. After Dallin Applebaum's breathy vocals introduce the setting, “Max Richter's Dreams” settles into the neo-classical realm for fifteen absorbing minutes, the deep dive amplified by Rebecca Pechefsky's harpsichord and an elegant string arrangement by cellist Emily Hope Price. On the poppier side, there's the radiant “all the beautiful Rockwood kids,” what with its singing lead melody, and the equally sparkling outro “let's just make it me and you.” The compositions are credited to Brent, but the element most critical to the trio's identity is Caswell. If she hadn't already distinguished herself in so many ways before it (consider, for example, how much the recent Chuck Owen and The Jazz Surge release Within Us benefits from her participation), her playing on Omegah would qualify as a star-making turn. The genre-transcending character of the material is matched by her versatility and virtuosity—check out the glorious solos she delivers on “Max Richter's Dreams” and “let's just make it me and you.” Integral to the band are Brent's mandolins and Ryan's basses, but with the ensemble sound so huge—no less than twelve musicians apear on the title track, for example—they tend to blend into the overall tapestry; Caswell's violin, on the other hand, often soars above it as the lead voice and drives the performances. Remove her from the 9 Horses equation and its key component disappears. December 2021