Oùat’s Elastic Bricks

ELASTIC BRICKS / Shall We. Mother and Son. Dala-Floda. Tibia of the Mole. Weihnachten. Borghini Balade (Joel Grip). Sommer. Height of Nothingness (Sieger-Grip). Topsy (Simon Sieger) / Qùat: Simon Sieger, pno; Joel Grip, bs; Michael Griener, dm / Umlaut Records, no number, available as an LP or as a digital download at Bandcamp

This highly unusual album, issued in 2022, came my way courtesy of the drummer Michael Griener. It immediately caught my ear because of the unusual structure of the compositions contained on it, all written in a bitonal or atonal musical style.

According to the brief notes:

Oùat is a trio that found its origins in instinctive moments cast over the front and rear windows of jazz history. On their home ground in Berlin (Au Topsi Pohl) they have performed the music of Ellington, Hasaan Ibn Ali, Elmo Hope, Per Henrik Wallin and Sun Ra. Their debut album of strictly original material, Elastic Bricks, might remind you of Hindemith’s dream holiday in Tangier. Sounds and tempi in a strange mix of recognizable disarray and unrecognizable order.

Oùat (Once upon a time) is collective storytelling, about what, where, and at, bringing forth questions about being when and where. Its members play revolving roles in the creative music scenes in Europe, from Marseille to Dala-Floda via Berlin. Their individual work encompass groups like Monks Casino, [ahmed], and Art Ensemble of Chicago. 

Well, now, you’ve just got to like a jazz group that plays the music of Hasaan Ibn Ali, whose astonishing recordings I reviewed a while back on this blog.

The music clearly bears a resemblance to “regular” jazz, yet even from the opening of Shall We, pianist Simon Sieger seems to be not so much atonal or bitonal as just all over the place harmonically, slipping in and out of tonality at will. As in the case of the late Charlie Haden always being able to follow what Ornette Coleman was doing, bassist Joel Grip never seems to lose his place in following what Sieger is doing. The theme for this piece, as for all the others, is actually interesting and not just a series of musical gestures. There are also several “false stops” in this piece where you think they are coming to an end but don’t. Yet somehow, Sieger and the trio manage to make what they do sound somewhat coherent. For all its strangeness, the music has a beginning, middle and end. It’s just not the kind of beginning, middle or end you’re normally used to. In Shall We it just ends in the middle of

nowhere

But if you think that piece was strange, wait until you hear Mother and Son. The theme for this piece in itself has several luftpausen to interrupt its flow, which is slow enough to begin with (but, thankfully, is NOT a “ballad” in the strict sense of the word). Sieger uses double-time figures in the first fully improvised chorus, yet the bass and drums stay in their original tempo for a while; eventually, it is drummer Michael Griener who prompts bassist Grip to step it up, after which they settle into a medium tempo that ever-so-slowly accelerates. Some Dave Brubeck-like chunky blues chords emerge, then back we go to the initial slow tempo.

Sommer begins in a sort of 3-against-2 beat but quickly stops and then disintegrates before Grip plays an a cappella bass solo, followed by the piano’s re-entrance, now unsure of the proper tempo. Grip, however, feeds the 3 feeling (perhaps in 6 is a better description) as the music lurches forward and Sieger really begins to swing. After listening to so many current American jazz drummers who seem to want to dominate the proceedings, it’s a real pleasure to listen to Griener, whose playing is always “just right” in terms of accent and momentum, is clearly complex, but does not go out into its own universe leaving the rest of the group behind. Indeed, there is not a single moment on this CD where any of the three musicians sound as if they are doing anything entirely on their own. Each of them feeds off the other and interact in an organic way that I found especially enthralling. Near the end of Sommer, Sieger plays some licks that once again reminded me of Herbie Nichols.

Due to the unusual construction of each of the pieces played on this album, I’m not sure that detailed descriptions of all of them are necessary for the reader to get an idea of what and how they play, except to point out that no two pieces sound alike despite having unsettled tonality and often unsettled or fluid tempos in common. Indeed, except for the themes themselves, I wonder how much of these works were pre-planned since so much of the music sounds completely improvised. “Elastic bricks,” indeed! The important thing, to me at least, is that somehow or other, despite all the stops and starts, tempo shifts, etc., they all have a real jazz pulse, which makes them at least partially accessible to the untrained ear; yet, of course, the more you know about advanced jazz the more you’ll get out of them. Height of Nothingness, with its similarly 6/4 or 6/8 beat used as an ostinato by the bass underneath Sieger’s bitonal and rhythmically shifting piano lines, is particularly attractive for the neophyte. Possibly the most “fractured” piece on the album is Tibia of the Mole, which sounds like something Harry Partch would have written in collaboration with Ibn Ali and perhaps Charles Mingus, particularly Grip’s wacky bowed bass solo which comprises a separate theme unto itself beneath Sieger’s repeated piano licks. And then, unexpectedly, the tempo increases and the band is resolutely in C major. What?? This, in turn, is followed by Topsy, which opens completely out of tempo and has strange underlying bass lines throughout.

Bottom line: Oùat’s music may seem nutty to the neophyte, but it is certainly creative and, oddly enough, rather cheerful to listen to.

—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Check out the books on my blog…they’re worth reading, trust me!