Dusted Magazine review by Jason Bivins
Tuesday, July 17th in CD's, reviews by cleanfeed | No comments
CLEAN FEED
The first thing that might come to mind upon seeing the instrumentation – pianist Russ Lossing, violinist/violist Mat Maneri, and bassist Mark Dresser – on Metal Rat (Clean Feed 064) is Matthew Shipp’s String Trio, a combo in which Maneri’s unique improvisational voice played a central role. Yet pianist Lossing is as different from Shipp as Dresser is from William Parker. He’s far more influenced by impressionistic players like Blake or Bley than by firebrands and cluster-pounders. The disc’s format is somewhat standard format, broken into trios, duos, and solos over the course of about 50 minutes. Generally the level of invention and interaction is very high, and the pieces range from somber ballads like “Turn” (which brings out the greatest creativity amongst these players, with Dresser’s rubbery lines seeming to coax micro-grains from Maneri and Feldman-like obliqueness from Lossing), concise chamber interplay on the title track (graced by some judicious percussive thwacks and spooky echoes), or fractious free noise on “Coming to Meet” (all jangling icicles). In general I prefer the trios, though some of the duos are quite rich (for example, the incisive strings duet “Damp(ness)” and “Dry(ist),” for cascading piano and viola). Fine stuff.
Russ Lossing
Jazz Pianist - Composer