Pierre Borel, saxophonist and improviser, one of the founders of Umlaut,
has decided to endure the difficulty of being a one man orchestra. Here, on
Katapult, he takes the physical fatigue of playing live music to reach its
limits, by adding percussion to his playing of the saxophone. In addition to
all this, his attitude towards the sax, in all of the four tracks that make
the bulk of Katapult, is like it is a percussion instrument.
Reading the above lines someone could easily think that this is an album
that totally relates and is based on rhythmic analogies. The answer is
definitely negative. The whole catalogue of Umlaut records (really worth
exploring) is full of recordings that take serious risks in undermining what
should, or could, be, on a first level, heard by the listener.
All percussion sounds are made by Borel. Using his mouth and one of his
hands as the mediums that create sounds from the wind instrument, all the
rest of his limbs struggle to be heard while playing in rhythmic, or even
arrhythmic, modes. He moves freely from more complicated textures to easily
grasped, by the listener, rhythms, while the saxophone remains the core of
his sound palette. It’s like he is reversing the role of the respected
instruments: the sax keeps the main “rhythm” (or, maybe, the core idea) of
the tracks, while percussion sounds are improvised freely as each track
progresses. All this sounds and feels tiring. During listening I felt
Borel’s struggle to be heard, an analogy that connects all improvisers in
their battle to be visible in the music world and not being marginalized as
weird, different or whatever else.
The connections with the minimalism of the avant garde are sonically
evident throughout Katapult. At the same time the complexities of drumming
(and utilizing also the saxophone as a percussion instrument) are made even
more complex. Katapult, which will be out on vinyl, resonates as a modern
Janus, engulfing a duality in creating sounds that comes from the limbs of
only one musician…
Listen here:
@koultouranafigo
