Thursday 24 August 2023, 7.30pm
FORM presents a two-day residency with Guatemalan cellist and composer, Mabe Fratti, following the release of her latest album, Se Ve Desde Aquí (It Is Seen From Here).
Se Ve Desde Aquí (‘It Is Seen From Here’) marks another step in a remarkable run of releases from Mabe Fratti. It is possibly her most revealing one to date; showcasing a sinuous and tensile sound coupled with a confident and clear-eyed worldview.
Mabe Fratti is always on the lookout for new ways to express herself and to reflect her surroundings; she sees this as a process of continual “sonic transformation”. Not that she sees her method as unique: “I believe this happens to a lot of musicians, that in the interim when you finish a record and you release it you learn [new] things and change your philosophy towards what you want to sound like.”
Se Ve Desde Aquí is a decisive shift away from Fratti’s most recent works, which were more enigmatic in tone. The rich, multi-layered arrangements heard on 2021’s acclaimed long player, Será que ahora podremos entendernos and egoless collaborations such as the fabulous Let's Talk About The Weather with Malaria legend and Monika supremo Gudrun Gut, created a mystery around Fratti which reveal only certain aspects of this affable musician’s character.
Fratti sees her new music as “drier” in texture and more on the front foot in terms of setting out emotion: she describes the results as “less protected”. According to her, the sound is “informed through the aesthetics of rawness, and a ‘dirtiness’”: sampling expressions within improvisation, or extreme hi-fi dry sound. This noisy instrumentation is set against “the tools of melodic lines and harmony”, leading to a trademark richness, but one now more judiciously applied to set up a moment: “I did layering but it's more in specific moments. Basically my whole idea was to be as raw as possible and try to avoid overdubbing the same instrument as much as I could, of course always leaving space to break my own rules in the process.”
Chris Corsano (b. 1975, USA) is a New York-based drummer who has been active at the intersections of collective improvisation, free jazz, avant-rock, and experimental music since the late 1990's. He's been the rim-batterer of choice for some of the greatest contemporary purveyors of "jazz" (Joe McPhee, Paul Flaherty, Mette Rasmussen, Zoh Amba) and "rock" (Sir Richard Bishop, Bill Orcutt, Jim O'Rourke), as well as artists beyond categorization (Björk for her Volta album and world tour, Michael Flower, Okkyung Lee).
Corsano began a long-standing, high-energy musical partnership with saxophonist Paul Flaherty in 1998. Their style, which they occasionally refer to with (semi-)tongue-in-cheek humor as "The Hated Music", combines modern free-jazz's ecstatic collectivism with the urgency and intensity of hardcore punk. A move from western Massachusetts to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop his solo music -- a dynamic, spontaneously-composed orchestra-of-one utilizing extended techniques for drum set, non-percussive instruments of his own creation (e.g. bowed violin strings stretched across drum heads), circular breathing on modified reed instruments, and stockpiles of resonant metals. He spent 2007-08 as the drummer on Björk's Volta world tour, all the while weaving in shows and recordings on his days off with the likes of Evan Parker, Michael Flower, and Jandek. He moved back to the U.S. in 2009 and continued touring in an ultrawide array of ever-evolving collaborations. In 2017 he won the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. A renowned solo performer in his own right, Corsano has a new solo record, The Key (Became The Important Thing [and Then Just Faded Away] out on the Drag City label.
His dedication to collective improvisation has led to Corsano to join forces with many kindred spirits and his appearance on over 180 records and thousands of live performances. He's worked with, among others: Paul Dunmall (released by the label: ESP-Disk), Joe McPhee (Roaratorio), Okkyung Lee (Open Mouth), Bill Orcutt (Palilalia), Mette Rasmussen (Hot Cars Warp Records & Clean Feed), John Edwards (OTOroku & Dancing Wayang), Sylvie Courvoisier (Relative Pitch), Nate Wooley (No Business & Astral Spirits), Jim O'Rourke & Akira Sakata (Drag City & Polystar), Merzbow (Family Vineyard), Jessica Rylan (Load Records), Rodrigo Amado (Trost), Nels Cline (Strange Attractors), Heather Leigh (Volcanic Tongue), Ghédalia Tazartès (Ultra Eczema), Ken Vandermark (Audiographic), and Sunburned Hand Of Man (Manhand).
https://chriscorsano.bandcamp.com/music
