Max Arsava — Nowhere Dense

At the risk of looking like a bad person, I’ll be honest: when I looked at at the line up on this, I wasn’t hugely excited, purely because I’ve heard a few improv albums which have combined electronics with acoustic instrumentation to little joy… So I’m very pleased - and humbled - to say that I was totally wrong here, it’s a really solid, engaging, and fun album. That line up is: Max Hirth - tenor saxophone, Ignaz Schick - turntables, voltage-controlled sampler, Max Arsava - piano, synthesizer, electronics, Alex Bayer - double bass, and Flo Fischer - drums, with Arsava the composer of all the tracks. Nowhere Dense has eight tracks, ranging from a couple of minutes in length to over ten minutes in length, and the whole recording is about 50 minutes long.

The album starts with a short track, ‘digital monads’, that’s purely electronic - or at least sounds that way; electronic clicks and burbles, rhythmic pooting, and sounds stretched and stressed - it’s brief but does establish that the electronic elements of the ensemble are going to be important. Next up is ‘utility dust’, which has a nice, slightly drunken start, before the piano and sax lock into a tumbling melody in fits and starts; the whole band then joins in with this, with electronic abrasions playing against the ensemble. The opening section of the third track, ‘interior motives’, is dominated by staccato, pointillistic playing, building a whole beyond its parts, before the track settles into an effective quieter passage where the electronic aspects shine brightly. The fourth, and longest, piece is ‘mager/choral’, which begins with a compelling sparse section held together by a repeated short bass run and discordant piano chords; this more restrained atmosphere continues, with more abstract electronic sounds and a duet for quiet piano and breathy saxophone, accompanied by textural rumblings and rattlings. Following this, ‘adherent terrain’ has more sharp ensemble playing, with a great stop/start section that brings the cartoonish work of John Zorn to mind - in fact, the track is almost a mirror response to the previous piece, contrasting its more subdued atmosphere with twirling and darting improv, ending on a near-heavy ponderous rhythm. The sixth track, the gloriously named ‘gif ooze’ is again dominated by electronic sounds, a wonky and playful piece of electroacoustics, whilst the seventh piece, ‘inchoate decline’, creeps along on a hypnotic jazzy line until the ensemble separates into individual paths. The final track, ‘bit debris’, is another short track where the electronics are foregrounded; a good textural piece to finish the album.

This is great; it has a similar feel to recordings from the Zorn/Yoshihide/90s Japan axis, with its playful use of electronics or sampled material (here, the turntables) - though without becoming wacky or arch. This is combined with solid, accessible jazz elements, and I feel like the album has real crossover appeal; it’s more hardboiled than, say, Bohren & der Club of Gore, but I think it would appeal to people into the noisy peripheries of rock. A great, energetic, focused album which is challenging, but accessible and fun - a rare combination.