Recorded in the vast space of the CK Agora theatre in Wroclaw, Something Between is an album that reflects the size and shape of the venue in which it was performed through its reverberant feeling of volume and density.
The seven tracks are open compositions, in that various target points or junctions were predefined as goals for the musicians to aim for, with the ways and means of getting there left up to their own improvisatory skill. So here there are drones and clangs, rippling percussion, long stretches of bowed and lengthened guitar, and electronic passages that unfold in occasionally surprising dimensions.
It’s one of those records where the number and identities of the people who made it seem almost irrelevant; the music enters, reveals and unfolds itself with an abstracted fervour that manifests occasionally into recognisably harmonic and melodic shapes (with a hint of post-rock) sent soaring to the theatre’s ceiling, then dissolves outwards and onwards. So while the fragrant guitar runs of “Dry Water” resolve themselves pleasantly, the following “Visions” is equally happy to squirm and fluctuate in fine improv style, unravelling notions of continuity that will doubtless set genre traditionalists’ teeth on edge. The interplay of electronics and electrified strings may not perform any remarkable feats of innovation or even disruption, but sometimes it’s just as pleasurable to delve into the sound of of a group content in their dexterity and desire to think outside the musical commonality. Above all, the CK Agora theatre itself adds such a presence to the recordings that it deserves full credit for gracing Makemake with such perfect tone and texture.-Antron S Meister-
