Michael Torke: Bloom
Ecstatic Records

With interlocking rhythm patterns running through so much of Michael Torke's music, no composer would seem to be better suited to a long-form percussion piece than him. Many works by the composer include strong pulsation, but Bloom takes that to a further level by having all of the work's melodic and rhythmic aspects handled by the percussion section. The collaboration with the Brooklyn-based Sandbox Percussion was a natural next step after sessions for earlier albums by the composer involved group member Ian Rosenbaum. On the fifty-four-minute recording, he plays marimba and four tom-toms alongside his partners Victor Caccese (vibraphone and two bongos), Jonny Allen (vibraphone and two congas), and Terry Sweeney (marimba and five wooden slats).

Composed specifically for Sandbox Percussion and recorded at Brooklyn's Bunker Studio, Bloom blends non-pitched (drums) and pitched (vibraphone and marimbas) instruments in such a way that the latter rise out of the former, just as plant shoots push through soil. The score doesn't wholly separate the instrument types, however; as Rosenbaum notes, there are moments where Torke includes composite melodies that are split between the drums and mallet instruments, a challenge the quartet had never dealt with before. Structurally, the work presents three sets, Bloom 1, Bloom 2, and Bloom 3, that are separated by two slower movements, “Stem 1” and “Stem 2,” with each set advancing from “Morning" to "Noon" and "Night." For the record, Bloom was preceded by Torke's 2001 percussion concerto Rapture, but it's the first piece he's written for percussion quartet.

Capturing the feel of an awakening day, the first “Morning” quickly blossoms from its single-instrument beginning into a tapestry whose radiance and rhythmic character's emblematic of Torke's style. Consistent with his overall design for the piece, vibraphone and marimbas account for the melodic sparkle, drums for the low-end propulsion. Whereas a relaxed, even serene tone permeates the opening movement, the second is intensely animated from the outset. The high energy level carries over into “Night,” but an eventual easing up occurs to signal the closing of day. The brief “Stem 1” beguiles with enrapturing chimes and lulling flow before Bloom 2 presents the next set's tripartite cycle. The second “Morning” is more active than the first, with wave upon wave of short melodic phrases and drum patterns ebbing and flowing. At the work's centre, "Noon" sings its rhapsody joyfully and effervescently, after which “Night" announces its presence with tribal force. The swaying pulse of shimmering vibraphones lends “Stem 2” an hypnotic quality, which leads in turn to the combative to-and-fro of the third cycle's “Morning” and its engulfing stream of interlocking figures. The energy never flags for the last “Noon” and, if anything, seems to escalate as if in anticipation of the closing cycle's euphoric “Night.”

November 2024