Photo credit: David Szymanski
Tontine Ensemble
It has become a regular thing how Milwaukee string quartet Tontine Ensemble and similarly improvisational trio Trench play in tandem in the back room of Woodland Pattern Book Center in December. Thursday night was the fourth year running that the two combos have joined forces to sally into the outer reaches of musical sound.
The Tontine Ensemble’s black, informal attire was enhanced on their first number by subtle changes in lighting provided by a unit placed on the floor, thrusting subtle illumination of various shades at predetermined times onto the performers. Each change in hue or intensity looked to correspond with a change in bowing technique. And bowing—with gradations of vigor, angle and the players matching the length of each other’s strokes—is most of what went on in the currently unnamed, semi-improvisational work, premiered here with violinist Molly Lieberman fingering the neck of her instrument nigh imperceptibly.
Double bassist Barry Paul Clark explained that the work was influenced by composer-accordionist Pauline Oliveros’ method of deep listening and her period of association with minimalist innovator Steve Reich. Audience members familiar with Clark’s work as a one-man electronic act adoptahighway may have been able to hear the connections between the often forlorn, anguished music he makes with his laptop computer and that of which he was an integral component in this new piece for Tontine Ensemble.
Lights went back on for the five vignettes comprising “Cool Stories” written by Tontine violinist Allen Russell. Based on his first piece written for string quartet and issued on CD last year by the ensemble, this reprise of sorts is a more playful take on its predecessor’s headier textures. Concluding the foursome’s set were a series of what Clark called “short shorts” that followed the style of Allen’s work—allowing the members, including cellist Patrick Reinholz, to use their instruments’ bodies percussively and scrape at strings for dissonant effect, among other ways to broaden their traditional use.
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Trench guitarist Jay Mollerskov acted as the evening’s emcee with a smiley cheer that belied the often tense emotional cascade on which he, soprano saxophonist Steve Nelson-Raney and drummer Paul Westfahl took those in attendance. Mollerskov was arguably the least ostentatious of the triad—using his effects pedals sparingly but nonetheless creating a sonic panoply that tested the limits of his hollow-bodied means of sonic assault in an unprepossessing manner.
Westfahl’s and Nelson-Raney’s comparative theatricality provided visual contrast and aural complement to the guitar explorations. The former’s implementation of soft and hard mallets, brushes and sticks invoked tones evocative of Indonesian gamelan, while the facial distortions Nelson-Raney plied to transmit the breath through which he summoned fury and occasional serenity were as much a sight to behold as his sound was compelling.
Mollerskov concluded the show with a reminder of the venue’s monthly schedule of similarly challenging performances. Hopefully the tradition continues, and his band and Tontine Ensemble will return around this time in 2018.
