Rich Pellegrin - Topography

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Slow And Steady Records

Featuring Neil Welch, tenor and soprano saxes. Piano, production and compositions by Rich Pellegrin.

Having enjoyed Rich Pellegrin's albums of solo piano improvisations over the past couple of years, I was looking forward to this album of duets with sax player Neil Welch. Both musicians have spent time living on Whidbey Island, just north of Seattle and been inspired by the natural world there. The 13 tracks here are all portraits of landscapes, not literal evocations of nature but rather musical responses to the atmosphere of each place. At times they reminded me of Benjamin Britten's wonderful "Sea Interludes".

Opening track "Treeline" begins with a gentle theme on tenor sax, accompanied by piano evoking wind chimes. The sax then moves into noisy trilling and breathing sounds, like vapour trails through an empty sky. Much of the sax work on the album features skittering runs and ghost notes, breath noises and rattling valve gear, also foggy multiphonics. These extended techniques offer a fine counterpoint to the impressionistic piano textures.

Each track is based around a sketch composed by Pellegrin then developed through improvisation. Rather than "tunes" or "grooves", this is abstract and meditative music, mostly in free tempo. Expect very economical playing with extensive use of space and silence. It quickly hooks the listener into a quieter world where small sounds are significant. "Canyon (day)" has sax played into un-damped piano strings to trigger resonances, the sax growling gently and sighing as the strings die away.

"Marsh" is perhaps the most pictorial piece, with the sax emulating bird calls and the fluttering of wings, underpinned by muddy chords from the piano. In contrast, "Stream" offers a lot of musical development in four minutes; inventive piano lines and voicings recall Bill Evans in conversation with husky sub-tones from tenor sax. "Field (day)" and "Field (night)" offer an even wider tonal palette with prepared piano - in this case a  subtle effect probably involving some strings being muted by card. Harmonies evolve and expand, rather than moving from one chord to another.

This album explores a quite radical level of economy and I can't imagine it being done better - every note counts. The effect is both panoramic and intimate, helped by the variations in reverb between different tracks. There's a feeling of two artists rambling with an open mind but never getting out of step. It conjures up a world of distant foghorns, waves echoing in caves, multi-timbral arpeggios and chiming gongs.

© Stephen Godsall

BANDCAMP
https://www.richpellegrin.com/
http://www.neilwelch.com/
https://www.slowandsteadyrecords.com/