Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
A wild and dynamic journey, Schengen, from bassist Giovanni Maier and drummer/percussionist Zlatko Kaučič, takes audiences through a sonic exploration of fiery tempests, pacifying lulls, and jazz session-style jamming. Comprised of a single track that lasts for over 51 minutes of completely improvised music, the recording is a testament to these artists’ stamina to create sound passages in an entirely stream of conscientious format.
Joining Maier and Kaučič is a talented ensemble of saxophonists, trumpet and clarinet players, guitarists, bassists, flutists, and drummers. The music is ongoing, shifting and moving through a cavalcade of evolving stages, depicting a variety of temperaments. The soundscapes display a kinetic vigor, flowing from one phase to the next naturally, building and ebbing organically.
The dialogue between the musicians has an extemporaneous voicing, drifting sporadically and changing course randomly in midstream. Vocalist Elisa Ulian surfaces intermittently, scatting and chanting in hypnotic yelps. Just as the listener believes the track has reached its finale, subliminal-like clusters emerge from the piano and flute, building the momentum and setting up the next phase of the vignette with saxophone trills and buds of sonic peeps taking center stage. There are numerous crests made along the tune, which is interspersed with shallow junctures that demonstrate creativity in its purest form.
Essentially homemade, Schengen concludes with a feast of instruments splashing, congealing, and saluting one another. It is an experience that one can relate to one’s own world, moving through various stages in a single lifetime. The track is the antithesis of monotony, as activity is continuously free-flowing, unhampered, and unimpeded. Just as the incremental moments in one’s lifetime shifts one’s course, traveling from infant to senior, so too does the progressions along Schengen. The musicians travel from one phase to the next, coming together at the ending in a giant heap of gushing soundwaves.
