J. Pavone String Ensemble: Lost and Found
Astral Spirits

However much the instrumentation involved—two violas and two violins—suggests a neo-classical designation, the music Jessica Pavone writes for her String Ensemble aligns itself more to traditions associated with figures such as LaMonte Young, Morton Feldman, and Pauline Oliveros. The four pieces on Lost and Found are less conventional compositions than studies methodically conceived by Pavone and worked through by the four players, she and Abby Swidler on violas, and Erica Dicker and Angela Morris on violins. Rather than focus on melody and narrative form, Pavone explores the connections between sonic vibrations and human physiology and cognitive states.

Throughout this compact, thirty-seven-minute recording, sustained pitches, sound clusters, drones, layered textures, and pitch-shifting are deployed to create an absorbing sound world conducive to meditation and time-suspension. Distancing Pavone's quartet further from the standard string quartet repertoire is that improvisation is woven into the four pieces, with the group, not the individual player, improvising. The impression generated is of a finely attuned collective whose playing is grounded by definition in the practice of deep listening.

There is much to admire about the recording. The material unfolds with patient deliberation, and there's a modesty to it as well as a commendable absence of theatrics. A keening, almost rustic folk quality emerges in places that enhances the music's appeal, and its restrained pitch creates the impression of a group playing in a relaxed, intimate setting as opposed to a formal concert hall. The music beguiles in its measured execution, with the generally slow tempo allowing the listener to monitor the music's development in real time.

As relaxed as its performances are, Lost and Found is hardly lacking for activity. After lulling the listener into a state of near-somnolence, “Nice and Easy,” for example, turns queasy with the advent of delicately administered swoops. In “Pros and Cons,” on the other hand, a pattern by a single instrument boomerangs as the others intone alongside it. Stabbing figures also add intensity at one stage before the music settles back into its general mode of presentation. This second release by Pavone's 2017-founded quartet is a natural companion to last year's well-received Brick and Mortar (Birdwatcher Records) and is virtually guaranteed to satisfy admirers of its predecessor. Any listener won over by it will surely have much the same reaction to its successor.

October 2020