#bijou

But Stoffner seems to be aiming for something very reduced and specific on bijou, his latest solitary outing and first release on an American label. Its name, the French word for gem, conveys the recording’s concentrated nature. The CD, which lasts just 33 minutes, does not overstay its welcome. And a gem’s ability to simultaneously bounce light in multiple directions corresponds to the way this music sounds. Each bent note, tugged string, or rocketing harmonic is the vertex of a sound that comes in fast and then shoots off in another direction. Each attack is carefully to placed so that it does not crowd either the sound that preceded it or the one that comes next, thereby ensuring that its details are available for close consideration and the musi’s winding progress stands in bold relief.  

A listener acquainted with the history of free improvisation may hear this record, with its prominent harmonics and exposed decays, owes a whopping debt to Derek Bailey. But Stoffner is no newcomer. He made his first album in 2001, so if he uses sounds laden with associations, you can be sure he is quite aware of them. Listen closely and you might say that he is using some of Bailey’s phonemes, but using them to form different words and phrases. Stoffner’s intervals are closer, and his branching phrases often turn back upon themselves, so that each of the album’s six tracks (all numbered and named “bijou”) seem to be part of an enterprise of self-examination. The album was not recorded at one sitting, but over time, which suggests that Stoffner wanted to see just how much he could get out of a limited and specific catalog of sounds. The answer is, quite a bit.