#ryan packard

Marja Ahti: electronics, field recordings, idiophones, amplified objects, piano, bass harmonica

Isak Hedtjärn: clarinets My Hellgren: cello Ryan Packard: percussion

Composed, mixed and recorded by Marja Ahti Mastered and cut by Andreas [LUPO] Lubich

On this, his latest release on his own label, he’s joined by bassist Brandon Lopez and drummer Ryan Packard, younger phenoms from NYC and Chicago, respectively. The two frequently go into a hard swinging pocket and Rempis dives right in with them. At times a casual listener might have no idea that the players they’re hearing are more likely to be caught howling alongside members of skronk-jazz supergroup The Thing (Rempis), treating a bass like a percussion instrument to be thwacked and sawed (Lopez), and performing in the outer realms of New Music (Packard).  

Out of the gate, we get “Crypto Vo Lans,” which Lopez grounds with most basic of bass patterns, an insistent E-G-A-G (and repeat), while Packard swings demonically along. Both players upset the rhythm regularly, but don’t spiral out from each other’s variations. Packard’s bombs and counter-rhythms are parried by Lopez’s harmonic stubbornness; when Lopez drags or rushes the beat it seems to make Packard tighten up. This rhythmic dialectic makes for an even sizzle over which Rempis blows dizzying swirls and digs hard into short phrases.  

Four minutes into “Raho Navis,” we get the trio sounding even more like hard boppers with crisp bass walking and a brisk beat, albeit one with which Packard and Lopez are are always subtly toying. A representative moment of this is Packard’s chattering on the rims between 4:18 and 4:30. He goes just slightly out of time, creating a phrase like a woozy version of chattering teeth. That would have gotten a drummer marked down in Jazz School, and it’s precisely why this record vibrates with so much more energy than a collection of straight-A playing.  

Unsurprisingly, these three don’t leave their more experimental modes at the door.  Before and after the hard swinging takes root, we got tons of abstract and visceral jazz in the lineage of trios led by Albert Ayler, Peter Brötzmann, and their many descendants. Particularly of note are the moments when Lopez takes the foreground with playing reminiscent of his recent gnarled solo bass album, quoniam facta sum vilis.  “Yan Ornis” starts like a track on that album, as bowed overtones summon rhythmic and harmonic phantoms. After a minute, Rempis complements the soundscape with a piercing but controlled altissimo line. A duo recording from these two would be an intriguing concept.  

Rempis and Lopez conjure similar harmonic ghosts to start “Archae Opteryx,” soon joined by Packard on laptop. The acoustic instruments squeal and keen like lost whales swimming through Packard’s hoary deep of Oval-like pixelated sound swaths. The track changes decisively at three minutes, demonstrating the trio’s willingness to alter moods confidently. The strength with which they make these decisions is proven by the exception here: Packard screws up, returning to the exact same digital sound palette half a minute after he’d turned away from the electronics. He quickly catches on, closes the laptop lid and follows the piece’s thrust into becoming a lurching but sultry ballad bringing to mind Henry Threadgill, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins in Air. This sort of blooper nicely demonstrates that these three really are inventing these entire structures live, highlighting the success of the rest of their real-time composition.  

It’s a treat to hear freely improvised playing of the highest caliber that’s not afraid to swing, as though the knowledge that someone listening might be snapping along tritely would be a fate worse than death. It’s also lovely to hear this band when they’re halfway between straight swinging and avant blistering, as in the last couple minutes of “Yan Ornis.” Lopez anchors with a slithering bowed bass ostinato, Packard goes manic on the kit like Zach Hill in a stoned fantasy that he’s Elvin Jones, and all of this drives Rempis forward with the studied fireworks of a certain saxophonist you might associate with Elvin.