l’Algérie, from pianist-composer Richard Carrick and his new-music ensemble Either/Or, is the second of three large-scale works inspired in part by the music of North Africa’s Maghreb region, where the composer has family roots. So, more than most music, this nine-part concert suite for “extended piano” (more typically called “prepared piano”), oud, violin, cello, and percussion lives in the realm of the imagination.
Like its predecessor The Atlas, l’Algérie is a concert suite that mingles Old World and New, grooving and drifting, familiar modes and eccentric effects, through-composed music and improvisation.
Storytelling
“Mémorial” opens with tones suggestive of controlled feedback and evolves into a contemplative collage of acoustic and electronic sounds that introduce the cast of instruments. Bahar Badieitabar’s oud enters with a brief melody, but the piece ends back in space. In “Aïn Bessem” the oud, again in its lower resonant register, and Jennifer Choi on the violin play an introductory duet that establishes a North African “setting.” I use that word deliberately, as listening to the album gives me the sense of a theatrical work peopled by instruments as “characters” who collectively tell a story.
The plot thickens in the rhythmic “Joie,” which brings in John Popham’s cello as low-end support, then the piano outlining repeated figures which solidify into unisons. A kind of mini-set of theme and variations thumps away, suggesting a ritual of solemn joy.
In an improvised “Interlude,” extended techniques from the strings create howls and squiggles until the oud again steps in with melodic riffing. The next two pieces form the heart of the album. The meditative “Reine” holds to an eccentric but steady 5/8 beat under colorful jazz-inspired pictures with an improvisatory feel, drawn first by Carrick on the piano, then by the oud, then the violin. Soaring harmonies develop from the ensemble over the continuing beat from the percussion and the low-end ostinatos. A final oud solo trickles over descending chromatic harmonies, and the piece ends with the sound-space opening up for a percussion solo from Justin Jay Hines.
The most unusual composition and timbres come from the extended piano in “Les Cloches,” where Carrick outfits the instrument with magnets, mutes, and a “harmonizer” (not the black box of that name that I remember from my electronic-music studies in the 1980s) that interacts with other instruments. Despite, or because of, the weirdness of the sound, the subtle dissonances, and the unorthodox rhythms, the piece develops into something quite lyrical and beautiful.
Homages and Resonances
To my ear, the bouncy rhythm and repetitious figurations of “Gnawa Loops” has affinities with sub-Saharan Afropop. It’s another setting for improvisatory play, and it serves as the show’s “dance sequence.”
Regarding this and other movements, the liner notes describe homages to various musicians from the region – Karim Ziad, Omri Mor, singer and oud player Reinette l’Oraniste, guembri player Mehdi Nassouli. Fear not: Familiarity with their music is no more required for appreciating l’Algérie than visiting North Africa would be de rigeur for enjoying North African music.
As many plays do, the album loses a bit of momentum in its second half, specifically here with the improvised and rather aimless “Inconnue.” But it finishes on firmer ground with the ruminative ensemble piece “Traverser.” Here the characters seem to mull over the preceding drama and resolve to carry on in concert and with fortitude – even as sonic clouds gather and thicken in the final minutes and the scene climaxes with a soaring piano figure. Exeunt.
This album is the second part of Richard Carrick’s triptych of Maghreb-inspired music, which began with The Atlas (our review of which is linked above). l’Algérie was recorded live at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre in New York City.
l’Algérie from Richard Carrick and Either/Or is out now on New Focus Recordings and available at Bandcamp.