#large ensemble

“Passing Tres” for instance weaves slow-moving textures of bass, percussion, saxophone and trumpet together, letting the drums float to foreground with their punches and cymbal shivers (that’s Diego Lucero on kit). It’s a luminous, somewhat indistinct sound with flares of fusion-y futurism, a musing, narcotic drift to it. A skirling saxophone, played by Gabriella Zelek, breaks through like a swimmer to the surface, the bass roiling deep underneath. “What About Being Alone” shifts the focus to Cooper Dickerson, his plaintive surges of pedal steel lifting out of the soundscape, while Zelek’s sax swirls and blows around him. “Reward of Consequence” provides space for Aesop Adams, the guitarist and Dooley’s partner in Osmium House, to let things rip.

The disc’s first three cuts are relatively concise. The last three stretch to wider horizons. “Westbound Alameda” does this in a lyrical, laid-back way, an elastic foundation of bass and struck percussion supporting flares of trumpet (Gavin Susalski), slithery runs of sax and, again, that gorgeous pedal steel. “Funeral of Fireflies” abstracts country pedal steel into abstract shapes, letting the thump and pound of percussion push it away from conventional twang. Adams, here, executes whistle-high harmonics that cut through the haze and Zuri Barnes sings warmly, evocatively in the background. It sounds like a slightly countrified version of Laraaji’s transcendental bliss. Dooley’s band is rooted in jazz, but not confined by it. The final track with its stand-up bass and swaggering horn line sounds the most like big band swing. It also allows the wildest bouts of brass improvisation, with Susalski arcing off into the stratosphere from a swaying, grounding foundation.  

It's not easy to get even a couple of people on one page, let alone seven. These tracks show a still relatively new configuration of people finding their way together, making a shared path and diverging from it.

The whole piece presumably works best in person. Denyer gives considerable space in his liner notes to explaining the arrangement of the musicians on stage, and the design suggests a recording run through quadrophonic sound might actually pay off. As it is, the recording still reveals depth and distance. The cornets of the album's closing might or might not truly sound “outside” (in opposition to the basses in the room with us), but they remain eerily apart. After 45 minutes of sandpaper blocks, ocarinas, and wine glasses, the cornets could triumphantly overpower the other musicians; instead they function as the ghosts outside the machine.  

Inside, Denyer continues his work of turning unlikely instruments and non-instruments into the source of his novel sounds. Essayist Michael Turnbull refers to “Denyer's detritus” instruments,” and the phrase sticks. The piece's title suggests some sort of ancient myth, but the music itself sounds like trash reinvented. Denyer provides moments of musical stability — the violin and the contrabassoon make sense because they're from our world. Other instruments feel like a vision of something else; it's not dark enough to be post-apocalyptic, but it's post-something, the only possible explanation for the detritus made into art.  

If we're left with “post- something,” then Denyer has succeeded in making us question the sounds. The Fish avoids linearity but it moves forward all the same, collecting and building as it goes. At the same time, it remains a persistent puzzle, full of questions. By the time children's voices address a “beetle in the corner,” we're prepared. We don't know what the beetle's story is, but its orphaned presence makes sense just the same, and its very existence makes it worthy of song. That Denyer moves from that section's playground to a dungeon only makes sense in his uneasy world as it eventually settles into thoughtful silence.