Over in the United Kingdom, the band Splice consists of two British players — trumpeter Alex Bonney and drummer Dave Smith — plus French reedist Robin Fincker who has lived in London for a dozen years, and Montréal-born Pierre Alexandre Tremblay. Tremblay, who plays bass guitar and electronics, has taught at England’s University of Huddersfield since 2005 and oversees its electronic music studio. Perhaps that’s why this disc is entitled Lab (Loop Records 1013). It certainly has a more extensive electronic palate than the others. Although slippery and shuddering bass guitar runs are heard infrequently throughout, Tremblay’s electronics maintain the sometimes opaque methodical pulsations which pervade the disc. A track such as The Wanderer is smooth and bouncy, built on Fincker’s chromatic clarinet runs, Bonney’s trumpet obbligatos, a shuffle drum beat and electroacoustic colouring that could be Arabic music played on an accordion. The blurry wave forms which elsewhere quiver alongside, process or complement instrumental textures such as alphorn-like vibration from Fincker’s tenor saxophone, Bonney’s brassy or muted asides and drum pops and backbeat, are more upfront on Luna Verde. Stacked horn lines, sliding bass guitar licks and percussion rebounds are accompanied by processed textures that come in-and-out of aural focus. This crackling interface concretely outlines the theme statement from the harmonized horns.

1. Eindruck im Auto: fader blutleerer Improv-Kompositionsauftragsjazz von studierten Strukturyoungstern, 2. Eindruck über die Anlage: Geil. Der 3. Eindruck müsste nun das Live-Erlebnis sein, aber bleiben wir mal hier: das Debut des Vierers verbindet Kontemporärjazz & Free Improv, laut & leise, Punk & Ambient. Irgendetwas ist da, und ich glaube, wenn sie sich nicht vom Stipendiumsschwachsinn einfangen lassen, kann das was werden. Ansätze sind da: einer schreibt zu seiner Bio nur “blabla”. We like that.

Kvartetten Splice består av Alex Bonney (trumpet och elektronik), Robin Fincker (tenorsax och klarinett), Dave Smith (trummor) och den till Huddersfield inflyttade kanadensaren Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (elbas och elektronik). Debuten Lab är ännu en musik-i-gränslandet-skiva, enligt egen utsago en amalgamering av nutida jazz, fri improvisation, ambient, samt ett påstått inslag av ”loud and soft noise”. Det som är svårt med just denna form av kringströvande är att orientera sig utan att egentligen stanna inom någon av genrerna. Splice lyckas delvis med detta, det vill säga att fruktbart utnyttja de musikaliska språken och göra det till något allmänt. Men kanske blir det då också just något allmänt. De två första spåren Caffeinated Drinks och Cortège är riktigt bra. Senare blir samarbetet mellan elbasen och trummorna tyngre, rockigare. Det går mer mot ett slags friformsrock som känns rutinmässig snarare än levande och överraskande. De två sista spåren hjälper dock upp intrycket. Här får blåset en förbehållen plats, en skön sordintrumpet i Ballade Fortuite och en bubblande sax i skivan bästa spår: Luna Verde.

[…] Splice are a four-piece of improvising players featuring the London trumpeter Alex Bonney, the French-born sax player Robin Fincker, the electroacoustic composer Pierre Alexandre Tremblay from Canada, plus the drummer Dave Smith. The common ground they share is Huddersfield University, where this was recorded, and the collective Loop of which they are a part. On Lab (Loop Records, LOOP 1013), they concoct some fascinating episodes of rich and full music that tends to refuse easy categorisation; despite the mix of traditional instruments with live electronics, I’m pleased to see they can’t be labelled as “EAI” very easily. The opener Caffeinated Drinks is slow, droney, almost trance-like in the way it pulls you towards the calm centre of its strange resonating mixed chord, but then its follow-up Cortège allows the bass guitar (Tremblay) and drummer to cook up a slow rhythm that’s not too far apart from stoner rock, something that sounds distinctly odd when mixed with the melancholic romantic toplines of the brass section. Some of the following pieces are just about identifiable as “jazz,” albeit a very skeletal and elliptical and highly stylised form of post-everything bebop, and on other occasions the very full sound of the wind instruments makes for a slightly cloying effect; but these are captious remarks. There is some very original noise-making going down here, and the combo work exceptionally well together, almost like a looser version of, say, Chris Burn’s Ensemble from the 1990s. Good work, one to investigate.

As much as I would like to make some pretentious pronouncements — like how jazz that includes electro-acoustic elements only highlights the deficiencies of both areas, or how the last thing in the world we need to have right now is another horrible electro/jazz band — I can’t in good conscious do so (or at least without looking like a total prick). It certainly wouldn’t be fair to the fine musicians of Splice, whose own experiments in the fusion of electro acoustic and jazz on their album Lab are too interesting to shrug off into the bin of failed experiments. Maybe it would be more accurate and safe to say that it’s just goddamn hard to do this fusion thing right.

Thankfully, one of the things Splice does do right on Lab is that they don’t try to shoehorn the electronic textures into their pieces. This can be heard to best effect on Caffeinated Drinks, where puffs of an electronically-treated trumpet from Alex Bonney float over David Smith‘s skittering drums, and Robin Finker’s saxophone tremors to eventually coalesce over electronic hum from Pierre Alexandre Tremblay on bass guitar and electronics. There’s an attention to how these pieces fit and the allowance for sounds to breathe. On Débris, low tones, treated drum sounds, and sax/trumpet drones rise and sink like feathers in a light breeze as Smith‘s drums emerge subtly, sparingly keeping time in a mass of swirling electric eddies. Beautiful.

Of course, it can’t all be slow motion electronic drift. On Cortège, Finker, sounding like a less antiseptic Evan Parker, pulls out atonal serpentine lines on his tenor before switching gears to a haunting melody that floats over bass-heavy, nourish dirge. Or the rock and sci-fi funk of Matter, that rings of some of Ken Vandermark’s compositional forays, while still keeping a distinct textural palette and attention to space that’s all their own. However, if anything Lab reminds me of another Chicago group, Grey Ghost, who also melded flowing themes with often electronic back bones.

Of course, it doesn’t always hold together, as on Sillon fermé, where Tremblay’s electronically-filtered bass seems aimless as the rest of the band tries periodically to burst into flame, but achieving nothing more than a sputter. Not to mention Interlude which is just that — an interlude; or the The Mess, that, despite fine playing from Smith, doesn’t seem to go anywhere at all. Thankfully, these missteps are again countered with good compositions — The Wanderer rides an Arabic tinge into the darkness — a nighttime slither across an endless sea of sand. And Luna Verde hangs on a beautiful drifting melody that emerges from white noise buzz until slowly turning up the heat for a satisfying boil, thanks in large part to the powerful drumming of Smith and the bass riffing of Tremblay.

While the inclusion of electro acoustic textures in jazz is not new, from Otomo Yoshihide’s experiments with electro acoustic big band jazz to Sei Miguel’s more aery electro-jazz fusions, it’s doesn’t appear that Lab partakes in some obvious EAI jazz lineage. And if Lab doesn’t entirely succeed for me, there’s enough on the album that bodes very well for Splice in the future, and makes any grand pronouncements of what should and should not be done look, if not prickish, then wrong-headed.

Vier Musiker des Londoner Loop Collectives hören wir auf diesem Album, das im Studio der Uni Huddersfield aufgenommen wurde, dessen elektronische Abteilung einer der vier leitet, nämlich der Kanadier Pierre Alexandre Tremblay. Dessen völlig unerschrockene Art, musikalische Welten zu überbrücken, ob in seinen akusmatischen Kompositionen, als Hiphop-Produzent oder wie hier als E-Bassist (und Elektroniker), ist denn auch Highlight dieser Zusammenarbeit. Alex Bonney an Trompete und Elektronik, Robin Fincker am Saxophon agieren völlig kompetent, entkommen aber selbst in den freien, geräuschhaften Passagen nicht recht der Jazz-Konvention; ein Rahmen, den Tremblays Bandbreite von sublimer Tonsezierung bis brachialem Sub-Bass mühelos sprengt. Dave Smiths frisches Schlagzeugspiel schließlich hält dann doch alles zusammen. Beeindruckend auf jeden Fall die klangliche Palette, die die vier hier offenbar ohne Overdubs ausrollen und die auch in den suchenderen Improvisationsphasen den Hörer bei der Stange hält.

Splice is an electro-improvising quartet led by Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, the head of the Composition and Improvisation course at the University of Huddersfield. Tremblay also works regularly with members of the North London based Loop Collective and Splice finds him playing bass guitar and electronics alongside Alex Bonney (trumpet & electronics), Robin Fincker (tenor sax & clarinet) and Loop mainstay Dave Smith (drums).

As both the group name and album title suggest this is a band that positively encourages experimentation as the sounds of conventional instruments are juxtaposed with electronics and other elements of sound manipulation. All four members of the band contribute to the writing process with half of the album’s ten tracks being credited to the whole group, a result, I suspect, of them having developed from spontaneous improvisations. Indeed it’s a group piece that opens the album.

Caffeinated Drinks begins in free improv territory, all shuffling drums, vocalised trumpet sounds and the flutter of saxophone pads plus a smattering of electronica. The latter gives the piece an almost ambient feel from which a drum groove eventually emerges allied to a deep dubby drone and topped off by alternatively long and short horn phrases. It maps out the territory that the band wish to explore but makes little concession to the uncommitted and as such isn’t perhaps the ideal opening track.

Tremblay’s Cortege is more arresting, a skewed funeral march that with its blend of horns, electronica and dramatic drumming sounds similar to something that Polar Bear might have attempted. Indeed the numerous fans of Seb Rochford’s group should plenty to intrigue and delight in Splice’s music.

Alex Bonney’s The Wanderer is more lyrical with a mellifluous mix of muted trumpet and clarinet contrasting well with the vaguely unsettling bass and drum grooves conjured by Tremblay and Smith.

Fincker’s composition The Mess originally appeared on the eponymous début album by the trio Blink (Fincker with pianist Alcyona Mick and drummer Paul Clarvis), also released on the Loop label and reviewed elsewhere on this site. Here it’s a showcase for the fiery dialogue between Fincker’s tenor and Smith’s drums with Tremblay’s bass providing the necessary comment and punctuation.

After a succession of compositions the group accredited Debris marks a return to freely improvised territory and also ups the electronica quotient. Tremblay and Bonney’s electronics evoke the sound of deep space and Smith’s sparse but effective percussion adds a drugged, dubby feel.

Smith’s own Matter seems to blur the lines between composition and improvisation. The piece blends long sax and trumpet lines above the rolling thunder of Smith’s drums and the rumble of Tremblay’s electronics, slowly building in intensity and climaxing with a Bonney trumpet solo before subsiding.

Interlude is a brief but tempestuous improvised snippet led by Smith’s drums that acts as the curtain raiser for the seriously trippy Sillon Ferme, the most obviously ambient piece on the record. Paced by Tremblay’s treated electric bass the piece is full of glitches and other electronica. It’s actually highly effective; simultaneously chilled out and spooky.

Ballade Fortuite is a feature for Bonney’s superlative trumpet playing, an improvisation that draws on the Nordic masters Nil Petters Molvaer and Arve Henriksen plus the ghost of Miles Davis.

Tremblay and Smith provide suitably sympathetic accompaniment and Fincker eventually joins forces with Bonney. The whole thing sounds remarkably cogent and through composed and is highly effective.

The album close with Fincker’s Luna Verde, another piece that has seen the light of day before, in this instance the latest Outhouse album Straw, Sticks and Bricks (see review elsewhere on this site). This version is very different with Tremblay and Bonney’s electronics supplanting Hilmar Jensson’s “space station guitar” on the original but the other worldly feel of the piece remains largely intact. Ironically this track sounds more “improvised” than its immediate predecessor with a dynamic peak being reached around three quarters of the way through with Bonney’s impassioned trumpet solo backed by Smith’s volcanic drumming.

Splice define themselves thus; “Splice’s raison d’être is to mesh together influences of contemporary jazz, free improv, loud and soft noise, punk grit, ambient music, and more… with seamless blends or blunt juxtapositions.”

On the whole I’d say that this album achieves these aims very well. It’s a record that sits outside the mainstream but despite the occasional, almost inevitable, longueurs there is still much here to please the adventurous listener. Splice are due to play the Harmonic Festival in Birmingham this Friday (30th September 2011) and it will be interesting to witness them performing this or similar material in a live situation.

Splice is Robin Fincker (tenor sax, clarinet), Alex Bonney (trumpet, electronics), Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (bass, electronics) and Dave Smith (drums). Loop is their debut and it was launched at the 2011 Loop Festival in London. This festival is an initiative of the Loop Collective, a collective of artists that decided to create a platform for their activities. Splice is one of the projects that emerged from this collective enterprise. Their work is influenced by a wide range of musical styles. Clearly improvised music and jazz, but also electronic and ambient music and — in contrast — noisy and punk approaches as well. A piece as Cortège sounded as an updated version of Henry Cow. Other pieces are very open structures that often miss a clear face. A piece as Sillon fermé is more close to ambient-like soundsculptures, whereas Ballade fortuite taps from improvised music and jazz vocabulary. But in both cases the music is often very introspective and developing in a slow pace. In the closing piece Luna Verde however the music reaches an intensity that gradually pulls you in the music.

Sich in der weiten, weiten Subkultur des Jazz wirklich noch experimentell zu sein, ist schon fast unmöglich, so sehr bestimmt das Außergewöhnliche die Norm. Splice muten ihrer Hörerschaft auf der Debüt-LP Lab einiges zu und vergreifen sich manchmal in der Dosis, meint Kristoffer Cornils.

Kopfmusik, das kann man wohl unterschreiben. So will es bei Jazz nicht nur das Klischee, so führt es der internationale Vierer (Wohnorte sind England, Frankreich und Kanada) in die Praxis. Lab ist entweder aleatorischer Hintergrundsoundtrack oder aber kognitives Erlebnis. Die wilden Improvisationsparts erleben ein ums andere Mal eine Auflösung in klare Strukturiertheit wie im Opener Caffeinated Drinks oder tanzen mit all ihrer Atonalität und den häufig gegeneinander versetzten Rhythmen im eigenen Radius solange herum, bis sich von Fuß bis Vorderlappen alles unentwirrbar verwickelt hat.

In den besten Momenten — erfreulich viele gute gibt es, das ist nicht zu leugnen — überraschen Splice mit unvorhersehbaren Stil — und Strukturbrüchen, die eine Spannung erzeugen, die sich selbst wieder auffängt, wenn von der absoluten Entgleisung in swingähnliche Momente übergeleitet wird. In den schlechteren allerdings mag sich das Quartett vielleicht mehr gedacht haben, als die wilde Kakophonie noch herüberbringen kann. Die Verbissenheit, mit der die zweifelsohne technisch vorzüglichen wie talentierten Noise-Jazzer, stellenweise agieren, hätte etwas mehr Drosselung und mehr Drang zur Direktheit erfahren sollen. So bleibt Lab wirklich noch Experimentierfeld im Experimentellen. Ein bisschen lockerer Spirit wäre da wünschenswert, so wie es Saxofonist/Klarinettist Robin Fincker in seiner Kurzvita vormacht. Die beschränkt sich schließlich auf ein herrlich unverkopftes»blabla«. Genau!

Very rock, rather sludge, partly improvised, Splice’s music tastefully peels the paint and rumbles in style. This Québécois/British quartet consists of Alex Bonney (trumpet/electronics), Robin Fincker (tenor sax/clarinet), Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (electric bass/electronics), and Dave Smith (drums). The same PA Tremblay who releases acousmatic music on empreintes DIGITALes? Yes, I’m pretty sure. The parallel with Montréal-based trio La part maudite is strong, but Splice’s music is less in-your-face, more nuanced and, in the end, more substantial.

Translated from French.

It seems that jazz and more open ended forms of music are alive and well in the UK, or at least that’s the impression I get form a recent glut of albums I’ve been listening to. Here’s another excellent release from the Loop Collective label featuring this fine group known as Splice. If you follow the UK jazz scene the names of Fincker, Bonney and Smith need no introduction, however Pierre Alexandre Tremblay was a new name to me, and a nice discovery. It’s probably his inclusion in the group which adds an interesting slant to the music as Pierre Alexandre Tremblay works at the Huddersfield University teaching and composing in the field of Electro-Acoustics along with the likes of EA guru Monty Adkins. Many such groups have musicians that tweak electronics whereas in this band the electro-acoustic element is really fine tuned, skilfully used and subtle.

The music ranges from what I imagine are improvised workouts to fully composed pieces. The mournful melodies combined with the subtle use of electro-acoustic manipulations result in a very dark ambience, in fact the BBC commented on a live concert saying ‘if you like your music dark and dense’ — exactly! Here small details are taken from the trumpet or the sax are re-used in pieces to produce ambient sounds which are maybe interrupted by a single drum beat or a clarinet that bursts through from somewhere beyond. Tunes such as Tk 2 (Cortège) are slow and heavy with a sax that cries out before gradually playing a delicate melody over blistering drums and distorted bass. Tk 3 (The Wanderer) makes great use of clarinet and trumpet playing a melody which seems to repeat itself (but not exactly) and could be something from Miles Davis Big Fun. The group seems to have almost done away with direct soloing, successfully combining improvisation, composition and electro-acoustics into well balanced musical style, giving no aspect of the music more or less room. Tk 8 (Sillon Fermé) is a typical example with manipulated bass sounds turning non stop in a loop. Is anybody really playing, or is the whole thing electro acoustic manipulation?

It’s not a perfect record but it has many strong points and one wonders where they will move next with this idea, in fact it’s a little like a card player who never really shows their hand. Splice is not so much a genre buster, but more of a genre consolidator and will probably appeal to those who like the work of Food, Jim Black’s AlasNoAxis or Chris Speed’s Yeh No Ensemble. However, this being a British band (and production) the music is in fact much rawer in feeling and whilst also being sophisticated it’s capable of giving your speakers a run for their money — play loud!

I have been intrigued by the use of electronics on two albums that I have been listening to a lot recently: Peter Evans Quintet’s Ghosts (on the More is More label) and Splice (on the Loop Collective label) with Alex Bonney, Robin Fincker, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Dave Smith.

What really interests me is the difference in use between the use made of the electronics by the two bands. Peter Evans’ group has Sam Pluta on live processing and he is very much part of the band, interacting brilliantly with drummer Jim Black to give a very distinctive rhythmic drive. But Sam also manipulates the acoustic sound and this, particularly when it is done with the trumpet sound, produces some fascinating sounds without interfering with the flow of the music. To be honest, I found I had to listen to the first track, … One to Ninety Two, which has at times quite extensive manipulation of the trumpet sound, quite a few times before I really understood what was going on, but grew to like the track more and more.

The role of Sam Pluta, the Live Processor, as a fully integrated member of the ensemble with the ability to interact with the rest of the group, means that the music has the range and variety of moods that we expect from a jazz performance. I particularly liked Track 5 Chorales which has three quite distinct sections; it starts off with a bebop feel led by Peter on trumpet, then moves into a section which features a kind of minimalist interplay between trumpet and piano before finishing with a section of improvisation between the bass, the drums and the electronics.

Splice seems to be a new and very interesting direction for these leading figures in the London based Loop Collective. Their website states that they aim to blend influences of contemporary jazz, free improv, loud and soft noise, punk grit, ambient music, and more… with seamless blends or blunt juxtapositions. The electronics are a key part of most of the tracks, but play a different role from that of the live processing in Ghosts. They seem to provide a backing and therefore set the mood for the piece. This produces some extremely original and often beautiful passages, but my only complaint is that the dominance of the electronics means that there is less variety of mood on Splice than on Ghosts.

Nonetheless I am sure that this use of electronics is another new direction for contemporary jazz that will be one (but not exclusive) part of the scene.

Jazz & Electronics, so scheint es, sind derzeit eher an den Rändern Europas beheimatet, in Norwegen, mit Jan Bang und Erik Honore, und in England. Wobei Spin Marvel quasi eine Brückenfunktion zukommt.

Nämliches lässt sich auch über dieses Quartett sagen: drei Viertel stammen aus dem Londoner Loop Collective (Fincker und Smith gehören zum besonders kooperationsfreudigen Ensemble Outhouse), wohingegegen Pierre Alexander Tremblay, 1975 geboren in Montréal, in der elektro-akustischen Musik Kanadas wurzelt. Der Mann ist von unerschrockener Offenheit; er hat Rap produziert, ein ultra-schweres Stück für Schlagzeug und Elektronik komponiert, das Jahr 2010 hat er für Auftragskompositionen an vier „akademischen“ Elektronik-Studios in Europa verbracht, obendrein spielt er Baßgitarre.

Walking bass Figuren darf man von ihm nicht erwarten, auch keinen funky slap oder Grundton-Grundierungen, PAT steht außerhalb der Jazz-Tradition, er legt ein sehr tiefes Fundament, mitunter bohrende, dunkle, „dreckige“ Linien, die auch aus der Kopplung mit einem laptop Computer erwachsen („Matter“), oder auch in einer Kombination aus slide-Effekten und elektronischen glitches. Seit er 2004 im Birmingham promoviert hat, unterrichtet Tremblay an der University of Huddersfield in Nordengland laptop-Komposition.

So einer verschwendet keinen Gedanken an schöne Klangfarben im Breitwandformat, sondern berauscht sich an der Elektronik als dem ganz Anderen, dem Kontrast zum instrumentellen Handwerk, dem Irritierenden, was Ordnungen durcheinander bringt.

Der Eröffnungstrack bietet einen wunderbaren Einstieg in diese Welt der formalen Überraschungen, einer nervösen, mehr gedachten als tatsächlich ausgeführten Musik, in der nichts kommt, wie man es erwartet.

Wo Klangtupfer zu -flächen sich dehnen, Rhythmus mitunter völlig aussetzt — um dann doch plötzlich gegen schwere Liegeklänge sich zu behaupten.

Dieser Part liegt in den Händen eines der gegenwärtig besten Schlagzeuger Englands, bei Dave Smith, der dieses Prinzip des nie vollständig Ausgeführten glänzend personifiziert. Man hören sich nur sein Intro zu The Mess an, diese gebrochenen patters über bassdrum, toms, rimshots auf der snare und cymbals; nach und nach steigen die anderen ein, PAT wieder mit einer ungemein treibenden Figur, die beiden Bläser setzen ein kurzes staccato Thema obenauf — keine Elektronik!

Und doch ist der Titel des Albums zutreffend gewählt, wir blicken, nein wir werden hineingestoßen in ein „Lab“, ein Laboratorium der Klänge und Spielhaltungen.

Wir finden Elemente des TripHop (Cortège) oder auch Dub (Debris), im Schlußstück schrauben sich die Bläser melodisch aus tonlosen Geräuschflächen ihrer selbst und verschwinden wieder darin — und nichts davon, außer Schnitten am Anfang und Ende der Stücke, ist Postproduktion! Man ist absolut verblüfft, dies zu erfahren, es muß in diesem Lab eine ungeheure Konzentration geherrscht haben.

Manchmal hängen die Bläser, wie nicht selten in dieser Musik, wo ein akkordischer Rahmen fehlt, in der Luft; expressive, lange Soli sind ihnen nicht gestattet — es kommt dieser Musik zugute, die auf selten frische Weise mit den Erwartungen der Zuhörer spielt.