It was nice to wake up this morning to an email from Daniel Jones announcing that he had become a father for the first time. Congratulations to Dan and to Laura, and keep your ears open in twenty years time for a bright new spark on the experimental music scene called Jack Jones. After such a great start the day went downhill fast however. A headache nagging for much of the day put me in a bad mood which was only made worse by the dismal performance of the England football team tonight. Still, I saved a really enjoyable little CD to listen to again and write about tonight so the day has ended well. What is it with Capello and the 4-4-2 formation though? Grumble grumble…

The disc in question then is a new release on the Olof Bright label by Christine Abdelnour Sehnaoui and Magda Mayas named Teeming, a great straight-up hour of sensitive, fluid improvisation split into three tracks. Sehnaoui is an alto saxophonist, and Mayas a pianist, and after a few moments of listening here this should be obvious to most, but still the depth of sounds and the speed in which they are switched between on this release is partly what makes Teeming such an enjoyable listen. There is so much going on here, and it keeps changing and moving on as quickly as you can listen. The interaction between the two players is really wonderful to delve into, one minute full of inside piano scrapes and chimes combining with soft warm sax tones, the next thunderous deep piano notes mixed with angry noteless fluttering with so much in between. Mayas in particular sounds really versatile here, as if she knows every inch of her instrument inside out and can find a certain sound in a flash when it is needed. The three pieces were recorded at the infamous Pappelallee 5 residence in Berlin, I am guessing with Mayas’ own piano, so explaining the familiarity with the full range of sounds. This is not to suggest that Sehnaoui is in anyway in the shadows on this release, her playing suggests a bold confidence here that only comes from years of working with one instrument.

The third track here, the excellently titled twenty-one minute piece I could only watch it happen begins in a manner quite unlike anything I have heard on this kind of record before, an immediate collapsing of odd small sounds from both players on top of each other, little gasps, dull metallic chimes, wooden sounding thuds- the sensation being of a myriad of different small heavy items all falling down a set of wooden stairs at once. This only lasts a moment or so, but sets up the mood for the piece, a jerky, bouncy avalanche of sounds, all in tune with one another but rushing past the ear for several minutes until things calm a little. This is busy, full-on improv, but there is so much variety in the sounds, so much evidence of two sets of ears listening intently and responding accordingly that this doesn’t matter. Both musicians have a wide enough palette of sounds to keep things from becoming repetitive, and there is enough surprise and invention in the music to keep me engaged completely, the music doesn’t ever sound date or generic.

Teeming is a great title for the album. There is so much going on here, and there really is a sensation of being caught in a flood of sounds, crashes, bells, whistles and scrapes all rushing past either side of your head but the streams crossing and folding along the way, tying up in knots only to unravel themselves a few moments later. This is a great CD for putting on in a darkened room and just listening into, following the different sounds, trying to second guess where each musician might be going, getting thrown off the scent and pushed away somewhere you weren’t expecting. This is a really great CD for close, engaged listening. Its not one that you can let just float past in the background, it pulls you in, hurls you about and drops you out the other end. This is just really great improvised music that makes the most of the sonic possibilities of two simple acoustic instruments. Two musicians that sound immediately in tune with one another and able to converse, wrestle and argue with each other through the music. One for improv fans old and new, those that like the rough and tumble as well as those that prefer texture and colour. Great disc, available here.