Mirco Ballabene – Right To Party

Niafunken

Mirco Ballabene has studied double bass to the highest level and has used that grounding on his latest album to probe the links between the academic music of the twentieth century and more improvisational techniques. This melding of the two is what makes Right To Party tick and also what makes it such an intriguing listen.

Choosing to work with Lorenzo Binotti, Massimiliano Furia and Piero Bittolo Bon, he has gathered a quartet that works well in both spheres and in the grey area between the two. All members besides drummer Furia count electronics as part of their arsenal. There is some complicated theory mentioned in the press release that, I have to say, goes over my head a little — but the outcome is a thrilling suite of piecesthat cover a lot of ground.

The opening section of wandering, stuttering bass, vibrating with exhaustion and creaking like old floor boards explores all textures and vibrancy of the instrument. It flickers like old film stock as fingers sweep and stall on the strings. It is mesmerising, intense and slightly disturbing. A staccato rhythm eventually materialises and a drunken martial drumbeat arrives, with the drums flaring and expounding and cymbals flashing.

There is a sweet insistence to the clarinet’s arrival and its tone shares some ancestry with the progressive, driven jazz of the 1970s, but it flowers and dances with the springiest of spring-like steps. The seamless grafting of something familiar to something freer and more intuitive is effortless for these players, and their generosity allows everybody to have their opportunity to lead the way of to highlight their particular desire over a loose framework, but which is quite measured, never really going entirely off-piste.

At times, it feels like a kind of shadow jazz, cymbals steal away from the glow of streetlights, the clarinet is smokey and its familiarity with the past is blurrily recognisable, but chooses to dance around and poke at the embers, causing unnatural shapes and eliciting a new draft of flames, cool but warm. The scrape of electronics and the flurry and graze of the unfamiliar are always burrowing in the background, infusing everything with an inexplicable aroma, a sense of the unexpected which in turns make the Dave Brubeck-led-astray piano melodies that appear from the undergrowth all the more unexpected. They and the clarinet and sax lines emerge moth-like from the scratchy cocoons of electronica, a slow and startling transformation full of vibrant textures, playful asides moving from wild jostling to gossamer-thin passages like birds at play, the horns attempting the rudiments of a new language, more abstract and diffuse.

The thrill of silence and the spare use of notes strips everything back to vying with the air around us as it infuses into the pieces; the waver of things barely there. They are spectral, moving with absolutely no rush, unfurling like a cold snake swaying into an East meets West horn motif , passing the baton from one member to another. The drums are a delight; a warm shimmer of cymbals, a study in shot selection, each rustle of sound part thought part study, both moving for the common good.

Towards the end of the final piece, the sound is so sparse that it feels as though it is drifting into space, distant satellites luring us further from home until a final resounding swell reminds us just where we are and what an adventure we have undertaken. Right To Party is a lovely set of pieces, full of warmth, imagination and quite some daring. You would be missing out on something special if you didn’t check it out.

-Mr Olivetti-