Among our favs guilty pleasures during those harsh times!!!
From Bruges, with love!!!
Pentadox – Fragments of Expansion
released January 27, 2020
W.E.R.F. Records
Sylvain Debaisieux: tenor, soprano saxophones
Weston Olencki: trombone, electronics
Lester St. Louis: cello
Bram De Looze: piano
Nick Dunston: double bass
Samuel Ber: drums
…..The interest of each of these musicians for composition, improvisation, interaction, experimentation and long-term projects is the starting point for this new project. The basic musical idea is: when we want to mix composition and improvisation, we (as musicians) often first compose some written material and then try to find an improvisational “space” into it. But what about the opposite approach? Which would mean: starting from improvisation, trying to structure it into the sound of “composition”. How to reach this point, where the interaction is deep enough to generate form, texture, melody, rhythm and harmony in a kind of synchronicity? How to switch the connections and roles between Content and Container ?…
After a first project called “Between”, featuring saxophone players Bo Van Der Werf and Guillaume Orti, Pentadox now becomes an electro-acoustic sextet entitled “Fragments of Expansion”; by adding Lester St Louis on cello, Nick Dunston on double bass and Weston Olencki on trombone and electronics, the band uses this highly specific instrumentation to embark in an original direction with three new adventurous minds, who are all composers, improvisers and performers.
The possibilities for expanding a band’s sound are multiple, and Pentadox has opted for an inner approach by inviting musicians with whom they have already worked in the past (as it is the case for Dunston and Ber, or St-Louis and De Looze) but they have also chosen to include electronics as a tool which encourages deep interaction and opens up their sonic identity to a larger field of possibilities (by inviting Olencki). With “Fragments of Expansion”, the ensemble transforms into an intercontinental project with a long-lasting impact, from its start as a residency, to a recording and a first concert at Gent Jazz Festival 2019 to a subsequent release tour.
“This Erudite Freewheeling Will Undoubtedly Be Recorded In The Annals Of Ghent Jazz History.”
George Tonla Briquet – Knack