#tim berne

Enter David Torn and ECM Records. One of the ways that the record label made itself more than a niche player is by adopting a particular vision of hi-fi audio quality and sticking to it. While Berne has issued his share of raw recordings, he has walked more than once through ECM’s hall of compressing and reverberant mirrors. And when he’s done so, Torn has been a handy guide. Torn is both an improvising musician and a confirmed studio rat with a bankable list of credits (David Bowie, Madonna, David Sylvian, Laurie Anderson) to his name. Sometimes he’s Berne’s producer or mixer, but on Sun of Goldfinger they, along with drummer Ches Smith, are creative collaborators. 

The album consists of three pieces, each over 20 minutes long. A pair of trio improvisations frame a composition of Torn’s that features a string quartet, two guest guitarists, and keyboardist Craig Taborn, they flow together so easily that one could be forgiven for not catching the shifts in personnel. Credit for that goes to Torn, whose live looping and studio post-production add infinite layers of sound and obscure just who is making the decisions. Is Berne playing like a loop on “Eye Meddle,” or did Torn just loop him? Given that it’s an isolated moment rather than a prevailing method, it’s harder to tell for sure, and the uncertainty works to the music’s benefit; if it’s keeping you guessing, it’s probably not boring you, right? Most of the time Berne and Smith are clearly on task, marching long marches similar to those that they have trekked together in other bands. 

Part of what makes Berne compatible with Torn is his interest in documenting the journey. This not only gives Torn plenty of raw material to shape, it provides a narrative through-line to shape it around.  The trade-off of doing it with Torn is that both Berne and Smith sometimes sound a bit less like themselves, the former’s tone thinned-out and sweetened and the latter’s beats bulked up like they’ve been given an Olympic trainee’s injectable cocktail.