By Stuart Broomer

The Ames Room is a trio of alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet, bassist
Clayton Thomas and drummer Will Guthrie. The primary of their recordings that
I heard was Hen Dies (on Clear Feed), a exceptional recording for
any yr however one which discovered its strategy to this website’s high ten of 2011. It’s
nasty, brutish, not significantly brief, and it appears like music that may
clear a drain, blow out a dam or crush a author’s block. There’s a interval
evaluation that features the next, a tribute to the music’s savage
financial system:

That is among the many most constantly intense performances I can recall
listening to, constant within the sense {that a} sauce may be, intense within the
sense of a beating. The only observe—sure, “Hen Dies”—is 46 minutes lengthy
and it begins with Guionnet chewing up and spitting out brief phrases,
various them incrementally, repeating the identical course of with one other phrase
and doing it with the effectivity and timbre (and typically the pitch vary)
of a round noticed or woodchipper, whereas Clayton pumps out an insistent
pulse and Guthrie creates an countless rebar knit-work of shifting and damaged
drum rhythms. The phrases and the rhythms change and typically the sound
thins out—Guthrie goes all the way down to a lightweight rattle or strikes round his package or
mounts a significantly violent barrage, Guionnet reduces the road to 1 or
two squawks and truly stops taking part in for about forty seconds across the
half-hour mark whether or not to regroup or spotlight Clayton taking part in a scale in
polyrythmic lockstep with Guthrie. Nonetheless, the sense of a single
extraordinary utterance stays, exhausting and likewise liberating, its time
skilled each insistently and microscopically. (https://cleanfeed-records.com/tag/the-ames-room/)

There’s a sure confusion on the present supply for this. I’m roughly
5,739 kilometers from residence, can’t dig by means of the archive and the one
different on-line supply echoes this one. Based on the supply, I wrote the
evaluation, and it was printed in The Wire, a periodical that I
respect however for which I’ve by no means written. If I didn’t write this, my
apologies to whomever did. It’s an correct sufficient description for me to
hope it was me.

‘In Paris’ is a dwell recording from “’Atelier Tampon Nomad‘, Chez
France Vitet, Paris, France” on 13 December 2014. working 64 minutes, in
4 segments, functionally titled “On the One”, “On the Two”, “On the
Three”, and “On the 4”. It begins with Guionnet blasting brief, taut,
dissonant phrases in opposition to Guthrie’s uncooked drum turmoil and Thomas’s
near-inaudible (it is likely to be my transportable gear) decrease register beats. My
first publicity to Guionnet’s extremely assorted music got here with the quintet
Hubbub, a fantastic cerebral ambient minimalism. The Ames Room equally
approaches ambient music, nevertheless it’s infernal, similar to the early free
jazz depth of alto saxophonists Charles Tyler (with Albert Ayler),
Marshall Allen and Danny Davis (with Solar Ra) and Roscoe Mitchell on the
first model of “Nonaah” (1976). Modern practitioners who is likely to be
in contrast are alto saxophonist Chris Pitsiokis and guitarist Brandon
Seabrook. Right here, Ames Room offers a cleaning, even a scourging, decreasing
the weather of their efficiency to a radical, important
minimalism, not simply as essence however essential too.

In Paris is obtainable right here.

A 3rd recording by The Ames Room, In St. Johan, is obtainable right here.