Polytheistic Ensemble - Signals from the Cool (2016) [Hi-Res]

“In Matthias Ockert’s case (editor's note: the Polytheistic Ensembles Leader), receiving Signals from the Cool is to be understood in a programmatic sense.

His music processes influences from the sound-worlds of other jazz musicians in surroundings that are metrically and rhythmically complex, and yet frequently dance-like; the one, after all, does not necessarily rule the other out. Timbre and melody in Ockert’s music are informed first and foremost by an affinity for stringed instruments. It is a music in which rock elements and aleatoric techniques are equally at home, a music which is carefully constructed and balanced, but which cannot make do with musicians who simply play what is written on the page in front of them. This music is conceived for realisation as a collective process for which each participant must take responsibility, none being left to his or her own devices – not even in the soli, for which the ensemble effort frequently makes way – and every one being required to exercise precision in listening. Matthias Ockert’s music doesn’t just sound like jazz, it is jazz, but it renders any and every demarcation between jazz and composition obsolete. We are still left, though, with the question of the signals from out of the cold at the edge of the solar system. The Herschel Space Observatory transmitted them from a distance of many light-minutes. Matthias Ockert converted them into sound and added them to the music. They have left traces in that music, although we can neither hear nor fathom exactly what these might be – and yet they are there. They do not disrupt the music. They are a part of it.” Hans-Jürgen Linke (Trans.: Tomas Westbrooke)

Matthias Ockert, guitar, electronics
Tomas Westbrooke, violin
Marie Schmit, cello
HP Ockert, trumpet, flügelhorn
Stefan Schönegg, bass
Dominik Mahnig, drums
Eve Cambreling, flute
Evgeni Orkin, bass clarinet
Olga Zheltikova, piano
Christoph Heeg, alto saxophone
Shin Minami, marimba, percussion

Tracklist:
1.01 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Bait+ (15:28)
1.02 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Gelb (5:41)
1.03 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Canope (6:11)
1.04 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Shift (8:31)
1.05 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Ring (6:10)
1.06 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Blink (4:53)
1.07 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Wet Sun (4:52)
1.08 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Heart (4:17)
1.09 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Liquid (4:24)
1.10 - Polytheistic Ensemble - Rhythm! (5:10)