Skeleton Drafts is the first recorded work by two highly active contemporary improvisors, accordionist Jonas Kocher who has regularly collaborated with the likes of Michel Doneda, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Axel Dörner and many others, and saxophonist Ilan Manouach who is one half of the noise/improv unit Balinese Beast and has also teamed up on many occasions with Agustí Fernández and Ivo Sans.
Throughout the length of three tracks the two musicians propose a solid vocabulary of sounds while heavily relying on their own distinctive personal glossary - which is however not necessarily used for the needs of a certain storytelling: Manouach's short and swiftly repeated phrases, rigorous blows and plucking sounds revolve around static tones, tonal variations and incisive but subtle periodic moves by Kocher. Mediated by irregular passages of silence and idiosyncratic acoustics of the recording studio, the sounds recurrently convene in corresponding gestures even though they spring from unique trajectories. These variations in style, originating from a plexus of phonemes, allow some exceptional qualities to emanate from the recording, which ultimately resembles an evaluation of elastic collision of different manners and approaches, carefully carried out in order to present a truly fine aesthetic.
"Lauthalses Gestikulieren wechselt mit träumerisch verhaltenen Momenten. Verblüffende Lautgebungen und spritzige Vielfalt spielen Flipper mit der Aufmerksamkeit, man kommt schon beim bloßen Zuhören ganz außer Atem."
(Rigo Dittmann, Bad Alchemy)
"Det är bara att lyssna andäktigt, för sällan är fri impro så här fri. Det är just en träff mitt i den fria improns nervsystem. Så här ska det låta, för att det aldrig har låtit så här. Rekommenderas efter alla överspända, pretentiösa och överflödiga skivor som hela tiden vill ha vår uppmärksamhet."
(Thomas Milroth, SoundOfMusic)
"Как только ты начинаешь думать, что музыканты позабыли обо всём, увлекшись инструментализмом, возникает пауза или длинная нота. Это музыка рывков, но течение музыки создаётся плавное, ненавязчивое. Приёмы все известны, но суть в их использовании. Поместив элементы музыки нулевых в традиционные свободно-импровизационные фактуры, Кохер и Мануаш начали исследовать эти взаимоотношения, оказавшиеся не столь банальными, как думали редукционисты в нулевых."
(Ilia Belorukov, Contemporary Music Magazine)
"Je v tom slyšet technické mistrovství, všeobecná inteligence, respekt, a tedy samozřejmě i humor mnoha stupňů, takže výsledkem nemůže být nic jiného než bezchybná a stále energická souhra. Obal skvělý, ale obsah opravdu ještě lepší."
(Jan Faix, His Voice)
credits
released February 9, 2015
Jonas Kocher, accordion
Ilan Manouach, soprano saxophone
Recorded in November 2014 in Athens, Greece
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Marvelous experimental music from this Tel Aviv musician that fuses outré noise with almost folk-like arrangements. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 13, 2022