Other Light Ensemble - blue fifty-one (2024)

This is a staggering team-up.

Other Light Ensemble is a new operating name for past collaborators Jonathan Hill, Chris Jones, Matthew Redfern and Ryan James Mawbey, and on blue fifty-one they are joined by Tony Buck, Patrick Shiroishi and Alessandro Cau.

While the collective are somewhat coy about exactly who is doing what on this 28-minute composition, Body of Ritual Tapestry, it is worth noting that in Ryan, Alessandro and legendary Necks’ sticksman Tony Buck alone they have three of the most gifted and lyrical percussionists operating in improvised music today.

Patrick Shiroishi, meanwhile, may be the most acclaimed saxophonist of the post- Brötzmann era.

Body of Ritual Tapestry was written and recorded in stages over the course of two years, with emerging sections stitched together in a form of ‘sonic tapestry’. That is interesting, but it doesn’t feel like a collage, it feels like poetry.

The piece glides instinctively through different moods and movements. A tense, cinematic build gives way to a bareboned duet for harmonium swells and a saxophone that sounds for all the world like it’s talking, reasoning, explaining - muttering important things. It’s a sound written in hand gestures, hunched shoulders and swirls of smoke from an impressing cigarette.

I can’t explain why, but I understand every syllable.

When the horn steps back from the narrative, shadows swarm all over. That’s what the synths in the third act feel like – swirling, breathing, darkness things. Somewhere just above your head and sucking up all the oxygen. When the sound winds down and finally flames out it’s like a match being struck in reverse.

Essential noise for fans of Staraya Derevnya, Minaru, Tashi Dorji and jazz as a psychic force.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Other Light Ensemble, Tony Buck, Alessandro Cau, Patrick Shiroishi - Body of Ritual Tapestry (28:06)