Ben Monder – Amorphae (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Ben Monder – Amorphae (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 44:54 minutes | 683 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © ECM

Guitarist Ben Monder first recorded for ECM as a member of the Paul Motian Band on Garden of Eden in 2004, and Amorphae was originally conceived as a series of duets for Ben and Paul. A first exploratory duo session was recorded in 2010. After Motians death the following year it was decided to expand and complete the project with another highly influential and innovative drummer, Andrew Cyrille, adding also Pete Rende on synthesizer on two pieces.

So here we hear Monder solo, in duo with Motian, in duo with Cyrille, and in trio with Cyrille and Rende. This range of expressive options casts light upon Monders musical concepts and their adaptability. A guitarists guitarist, Monder is also a master of texture and unusual voicings, creating what one reviewer has called detailed sonic landscapes of mystery and power.

All the music on Amorphae is his, apart from, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” the Rodgers & Hammerstein chestnut from the musical Oklahoma!, performed here by Monder and Motian.

Ben Monder is a New York jazz guitarist who can play in a number of traditions but has gone further into his own, involving complex chords; deep sustain and swell-and-recede dynamics; fast picking; and long-form composition. Listening to his music can give you a strange, weightless, confusing sensation. He was part of the circle around the drummer Paul Motian, and “Amorphae,” his first album for the label ECM, was initially going to be a set of improvised duets between Mr. Monder and Motian. They finished some of these, but after Motian’s death in 2011 the balance of the record was completed through solo improvisations and duets with another drummer with a similarly expansive sense of time: Andrew Cyrille. (The keyboardist Pete Rende is obliquely present here and there.) The two drummers, using brushes and open space, encourage Mr. Monder in one of his natural tendencies: They help him explore sound. They help him get galactic. The album is an extended listening experience and a great one, especially late at night; its milestone here is a trippy, sepulchral version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” –Ben Ratliff, New York Times

Tracklist:

01. Ben Monder – Tendrils (05:21)
02. Ben Monder, Paul Motian – Oh, What A Beautiful Morning (05:22)
03. Ben Monder, Andrew Cyrille – Tumid Cenobite (04:49)
04. Ben Monder, Andrew Cyrille, Pete Rende – Gamma Crucis (05:15)
05. Ben Monder, Andrew Cyrille, Pete Rende – Zythum (07:06)
06. Ben Monder, Paul Motian – Triffids (02:55)
07. Ben Monder, Andrew Cyrille – Hematophagy (06:57)
08. Ben Monder – Dinosaur Skies (07:05)

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