Wadada Leo Smith -
trumpet
Miroslav Tadic - acoustic and baritone guitars
Mark Nauseef - percussion and live electronics
Walter Quintus - computer, processing
Katya Quintus - vocals
Reviews
One Final Note | BBC | Splendid New Music Daily
Wadada Leo Smith’s spare, economic playing, full of pure, sustained, vibrato-less notes, effortlessly conjures up the spirit of Miles Davis. He could doubtless earn a fortune (think of Wallace Roney) faithfully recreating Miles’ glorious past. Instead, he has chosen to be true to himself and to produce original music rather than retreads. (Yes, even in the so-called tribute band with Henry Kaiser, Yo Miles!) Nonetheless, it can be difficult to hear Smith without that spirit being summoned forth. The effect is often like falling through into some parallel universe where Miles lives on and is producing the kind of music he never approached in his lifetime in this universe.
This album is a case in point. It sets Smith’s trumpet in a very 21st century improv soundscape, created by Walter Quintus’ computer & processing, Katya Quintus’ voice, Miroslav Tadic’s acoustic guitars, and Mark Nauseef’s percussion plus electronics. The setting is beautiful—constantly full of surprises but never any shocks; it evolves slowly and no one makes any sudden moves. All of the elements work together to contribute to a climate of tension and expectation that is never really resolved.
Katya’s is not a singing voice; rather it occasionally interjects with spoken—even whispered—phrases (in German or English) that subtly convey a sense of menace, adding to that tense atmosphere. Throughout, the contribution of each player is overwhelmingly geared towards creating that atmosphere; there is no room here for shows of individual virtuosity. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts (and more important than any one of them alone).
With the music consisting of 14 relatively short pieces (longest five and a half minutes; shortest just over one minute) each with its own distinctive mood, there is the risk of fragmentation, of a series of loosely connected vignettes. This risk is effortlessly avoided; the pieces have a satisfyingly overarching sense of unity and completeness. Even the initially jarring track “Speeds Per Coil”, opening with an attention-grabbing burst of electronic noise, soon settles into a pattern familiar from the other tracks.
Back to where we came in: Wadada Leo Smith’s distinctive sound is used sparingly. In no way is he a “featured soloist”; he is as much part of the mood setting as the rest. But his every entrance is a joy, his purity sure to send shivers down the spine. Pure pleasure.
by John Eyles
12 September 2005
OneFinalNote.com
It's been a good couple of years for trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, whose involvement with the Yo! Miles project, Spring Heel Jack and his own Golden Quartet has seen him return to the public ear after years of lower key projects.
Smith rates this particular project as one of his favourites, and it's easy to see why. While the Yo Miles! project paid an explicit homage to 70's Miles Davis, Snakish imagines how that music may have sounded if Miles had been more influenced by Stockhausen than Sly Stone or Jimi Hendrix.
This isn't just Smith's baby though; it's a collective effort from percussionist/electronicist Mark Nauseef, guitarist Miroslav Tadic and most crucially, engineer Walter Quintus. His processing places the trio's realtime playing in impossible acoustic environments; one moment in deep space, the next at the bottom of a sulphurous alien sea. Tadic's spidery acoustic guitar sits halfway between John Mclaughlin and Derek Bailey; his chords are pretty in a sour kind of way, and are the perfect ground for Smith's glowing, lyrical flights.
While both Tadic and Smith veer off into free improv fluttering and at times, Nauseef's spluttering, primitive electronics provide the most abstraction. Spirals of white, pink and brown noise fleck the soundscape. Bells, chimes, rustles, clicks and cavernous thumps replace grooves. Quintus' processing acts as a kind of aural zoom lens, shifting focus from one element to another. Occasional spoken interventions from Katya Quintus (sometimes in English, sometimes not) add to the hallucinatory atmosphere.
Leo records boss Leo Feigin reckons this album will take its place as one of the best in the label's catalogue. That's a pretty big statement given the brilliance and scope of much of Leo's output, but I reckon it'll hold true. Snakish is a seductive, involving listen for devotees of everyone from Supersilent to Miles to Evan Parker's electro-acoustic work. Great stuff.
Reviewer: Peter Marsh
BBC Jazz Review
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, vocalist Katya Quintus, computer performer Walter Quintus, classical guitarist Miroslav Tadic and electronic musician/percussionist Mark Nauseef, all of whom hold faculty positions at Cal Arts, team up for a heady dose of exploratory avant chamber music on Snakish. Snippets of spoken word, chimes and gongs, jazz solos and washes of electronics create an interesting mixture of textures, but amid this seemingly freeform maelstrom of sound worlds, you'll discover some very attentive collaboration and engaging music-making.
As with many of Smith's projects, there is a sense of spaciousness to Snakish's proceedings; his trumpet punctuates passages of processed electronics with reverberant, haunting melodies. On opener "Uncoiling", Smith and Tadic begin with a gentle, lyrical duet, over which Quintus recites poetry in a husky whisper. Soon, electronics and percussion begin to fill the background; Smith's trumpet soars, creating keening echoed phrases. Just as quickly the trumpet is cut off, replaced by more whispers and incantational percussion.
On "Cosmoil", the alternation of instruments taking the foreground moves at a more rapid pace. Nauseef begins with meditative chimes similar to those found in "Uncoiling", but adds skittering drummed gestures to the mix. Tadic's harmonics and Smith's staccato eruptions provide both foils and fodder for Quintus's loops and processing. "Yopo" begins in the noise end of the spectrum, but coalesces into a beguiling passage that's all about pitch, filled with glissandi, sustained trumpet lines and bent microtones. This in turn recedes into a subtle percussive coda. "Kawami Wama" features some of Smith's most devastatingly beautiful playing, his trumpet serving as a haunting Doppelganger of fusion-era Miles.
Closer "Coiling" brings melody to the fore with a modal trumpet tune offset by Nauseef's now familiar gongs and bells, ambling lines from Tadic and walls of synthesized sound from Quintus. This combination of traditional musical gestures with more noise-based textures yields some of the group's most fertile playing. Snakish's approach may be unusual, but its execution proves to be thoroughly beguiling.
