Kate Gentile & Worldwide Up to date Ensemble – b i o m e i.i
(Obliquity Information, 2023)

Andrew Smiley & Kate Gentile – Flagrances (Obliquity Information, 2023)

Kate Gentile – Discover Letter X (Pi Recordings, 2023)

By Lee Rice Epstein

Earlier in 2023, drummer/composer Kate Gentile kicked off her and pianist
Matt Mitchell’s new unbiased label Obliquity Information with two exceptional
releases, one a chamber symphony for the Worldwide Up to date
Ensemble—flutist Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, clarinetist Joshua Rubin,
bassoonist Rebekah Heller, violinist Jennifer Curtis, pianist Cory Smythe,
percussionist and vibraphonist Ross Karre, and Gentile on drums and
percussion—the opposite an improvised duet with Gentile and guitarist Andrew
Smiley. Later, Pi Information then dropped what’s, thus far, her magnum opus, a
three-volume ebook of compositions for the quartet Discover Letter X, with
Mitchell, bassist Kim Cass, and reeds participant Jeremy Viner.

The chance to have of b i o m e i,i, Flagrances,and

Discover Letter X

all of sudden are an ideal platform for digging into what units Gentile
aside. In brief, there are extraordinarily few composers who’re pushing
themselves to such engagingly wealthy, summary areas. The touchstones are all
there within the music—in addition to different protection—prog, metallic, swing, blues, bop,
free improvisation, by composed materials; there’s an exhilarating density
to Gentile’s music, delivering on all of the above with humor, wit, and,
usually, craving. If b i o m e i.i is the chamber symphony,

Discover Letter X

is the symphony, in three discs within the place of three actions.

Worldwide Up to date Ensemble dazzles proper from the opening of  “drobe,” with its slowly constructing waves of trills and bell-like percussion.
Classifying b i o m e i.i as a chamber symphony could also be barely,
however unintentionally, deceiving. Not like canonical chamber symphonies,

b i o m e i.i

clocks in at almost an hour, with 13 distinct actions. The piece,
nonetheless, is scored for chamber ensemble of seven gamers, and Gentile
crafts placing, resonant traces. All through, Rubin and Heller harmonize
expertly, with Karre and Gentile play winding percussion traces throughout the
total composition.

Flagrances presents a suite-like set of improvisations from Gentile
and Smiley. A mix of songs assembled in post-production and duets
composed in realtime, the music is wealthy and evocative, as Smiley’s guitar
often skitters, weeps, and snarls. Longer tracks, like “Shrinking
Video games,” “Ingrained Deviance,” and “Grousing In Flip” present Gentile’s knack
for creating billowing clouds of sound.

After which there’s Discover Letter X, a monumental achievement in a yr
of them. As talked about above, the quartet of Viner, Mitchell, Cass, and
Gentile sort out three discs of music composed particularly for this group.
Followers of Gentile’s will be aware the group is just like her Mannequins quartet,
with Cass changing Adam Hopkins. The music feels markedly completely different, as
evidenced by the tense clusters on “chuckle magic,” which opens the primary
disc, after the transient throat-clearing “pulse capsule.” Very like
“trapezoidal nirvana” from Mannequins or “stretch aim” from
Mitchell’s personal Phalanx Ambassadors, the prolonged soloing and
addictive melody of “chuckle magic” invitations listeners in for a improbable
experience. Later, on the lyrical ballad “subsurface,” Cass slips into one thing
like a Ray Brown temper, whereas Viner channels John Carter and Mitchell performs
a collection of delicate, angular chord constructions. Gentile’s compositional
fearlessness pushes the gamers proper to the sting, and it’s wonderful listening to
how far they stretch out. The place disc one highlights the band’s acoustic
chops, discs two flips to a extra overtly electrical mode, and disc three
presents the band discovering a sort of settled steadiness between the 2. Followers
of Tony Williams Lifetime and Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society
will particularly love discs two and three. The band completely rips; give a
take heed to the epic “raze” or “open epoch,” each of which function
brilliantly turbulent rhythms and from Cass and Gentile. All through all
three volumes, motifs appear to recur, like resonant, novelistic symbols.
Sure tonal clusters and refracted melodic traces name you again—for
instance, I’ve listened to the total set 5 – 6 instances by, some
particular person tracks upwards or 10 or 12 instances. A surefire basic.