Represencing

Joshua Abrams’ second album with group from 2012, superb avant-jazz
“Represencing” is the second installment of the joshua abrams sound world introduced on his 2010 Eremite album “Natural Information”. Recorded at home in Chicago summer of 2011, Abrams again organizes small group statements around the resonant grooves of the north african ceremonial instrument the guimbri with a unique & broadly assimilative compositional voice. Sources from traditional musics to minimalism, jazz to krautrock, animate represencing, but Abrams is always grounded in the solidity of true working musicianship & he proves himself an artist fluent not just in styles but traditions. Abrams’ guest musicians embrace his polyglot approach. Goaded (the guimbri is partly constructed from animal-hide) by Abrams to focus on a particular facet of their vocabularies, Jeff Parker & Emmett Kelly appear as finely contrasting rhythm guitarists, Michael Zerang gets virtuosic on a tambourine & David Boykin devotes himself to altissimo long-tones & circular breathing
Others perform more structural roles, such as jason stein’s bass clarinet, or, as with Nicole Mitchell’s diaphanous choir of flute parts, function as landscape. the moondog-influenced “Sungazer” is an aria for Tomeka Reid’s spirited cello. throughout the album gong rhythms, synthesizer “sub” bass, harmonium & organ return as unifying coloristic elements. Abrams likens the overall experience to “entering a forest from different directions,” & cites as inspirations the AACM, Don Cherry, Arnold Dreyblatt, Hamza El Din, Popul Vuh, Pharaoh Sanders, & Sandy Bull’s duets with Billy Higgins