"The Wire"
March 2000Frances-Marie Uitti and Mark Dresser
Sonomondo
cryptogrammophone CG104cd"A compendium of the art of the duo" is how Elliott Sharp's sleevenote describes this album recorded in 1996 and 1997 by celllist Uitti and bassist Dresser. But it defies any expectations you might hold for their instrumental combination-this pair achieves an almost orchestral range of sonorities without any electronic treatment. As Sharp also notes, the music confuses us partly because of the players' virtuosity in extended techniques. Although the album forms a kind of suite of seven pieces, each track undergoes a metamorphosis. Their improvisation is fluid, evanescent and elusive.
At best, describing each track can only give a flavour of the mujsic found there. But some landmarks can be discerned amid the constant, absorbing transformations. The opening title track begins as a soundscape, but Ambient tendencies are soon swallowed up in a tone of increasing urgency. "Grati" initially has a pizzicato bass undergirding the most conventionally melodic approach of any track, while Uitti's cello is melismatic and vibrato laden. But the mood subsides as the music fragments into dark, dissonant areas.
"La Finestra" has some of the most remarkable effects , with high-pitched pluckings turning into guitar-like strummings. It's hard to tell which instrument is doing what, given their often extreme registers. But then it's often hard to tell the instruments apart, as sounds converge and diverge seamlessly. "Montebell" opens with a seesawing, wheeling motion, with a suggestion of tango. Untypically propulsive, it rises to a pitch of intensity equalled only by the turbulence at the close of "La Finestra". There's warmth and beauty in these remarkable performances, but you have to listen a few times to notice.
Andy Hamilton
"52nd Street"
March 2000Mark Dresser & Francis-Marie Uitti: Sonomondo.
The ubiquitous Dresser, easily one of the most in-demand bassists working right now, joins renowned cellist Frances-Marie Uitti (who pioneered a two-bow approach to her instrument, allowing her to sustain all four strings at once) for a brooding avant-chamber duet. Thankfully, Sonomondo avoids the Achilles' heel of so much 'free' music, which can only rely on its' participants sonic individuality and constantly changing instrumentation to distinguish itself from the mess of other, like-minded projects. It takes the hands of virtuosi--be they Taylor or Shipp, Ayler or Gayle--to elevate it, to make it new, and Dresser and Uitti fit the bill. Sonomondo can be taken as one monumental suite: it scurries, moans, and the whole sounds like some quiet harbinger, a whisper of apocalypse. Listen to Dresser swipe at "Sotto," while Uitti scrapes out a foundation. It's almost entirely formless, but there's a symbiosis, a building that gives the music movement and surprising lyricism.