I remember catching James Holden and Wacław Zimpel separately at the End Of The Road festival. Whether it was the same year I can’t remember, but they were offering very different experiences, with James’s brass-infused ecstatic dancefloor workouts the other end of the spectrum to Wacław’s exploratory reed work with guitarist Jakub Ziolek; so I was curious to hear how they would perform together with the end result not really what I was expecting.
The album is kaleidoscopic in its reach, with the insistent mania of the details on opener “You Are Gods” calmed down by the languid momentum. The variety of sounds is wide and a little frantic, and some percolate to the top like so many air bubbles as it revolves and changes constantly. There is nothing really to hang onto as it slips out of your hands, sine wave explosions jarring against electronic voices.
The LP contains six tracks, so they are all long enough to unfurl at their own pace with some definitely calmer than others. “Sunbeam Path” is a gentle journey, with sounds stretched beyond recognition and then fused to create an uneven tapestry, with a feel as if it has had too much sun; while “Time Ring Rattles”, the most recent piece written here, is the most polyrhythmic and although there is a list of items used, it is very difficult to differentiate in the stew-like hullabaloo. There is much evolution and replacement, but is is all disconcertingly off, its oddly industrial ambience affecting our ability to hear clearly. Sometimes the original sound of an instrument will be broken down and then dispersed, although the Eastern tranquillity that the clarinet brings to “Sparkles, Crystals, Miracles” as it appears through the mist is more of a salve. There is a lot of gravitational circling, as if the duo are trying to draw the other into a black hole; but somehow equanimity always prevails, with some low-level electronic scurf scattered across the solid single clarinet notes. “Incredible Bliss” is another shining polyrhythmic stutter, with reckless woodland algoza flute at odds with the runaway electronics. Composure is lost towards the end, but it is hard to say who sets it off.In fact it is hard to say how these were written; who had the idea first? Was it the chattering electronics or the distended and reappropriated reeds or was it just a magical combination that is impossible to explain. Whichever it is, The Universe Will Take Care Of You is genuinely an album that gives you something more with every listen and a must for everybody with a sense of musical adventure
-Mr Olivetti-
