Nick Fraser drums
Eric Chenaux guitar
Doug Tielli trombone, piano
Brodie West alto saxophone
Rob Clutton double bass
Recorded by Jeff McMurrich at 6 Nassau, Toronto
Mastered by Jean Martin
Cover drawing by Doug Tielli
Design by Jean Martin
2 Possessional (Clutton) 3:49
3 Also (Fraser) 4:49
4 Another Dance (Tielli) 5:20
5 Untitlement (West) 5:56
7 Parc Lineaire (Clutton) 9:45
8 Sketch #16 (Fraser) 4:20
9 Sketch #8 (Fraser) 4:02
11 Sketch # 13 (Fraser) 3:51
12 Furls (Tielli) 5:57
All compositions © SOCAN
www.drumhellermusic.com
Drumheller gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts
and the Ontario Arts Council.
"An all-star team of Toronto new-generation improvisors - sophisticated new music with a sense of wobbly fun, big-band-through-the-looking-glass (yet in a different, far less nostalgic way than Carla Bley or, say, Willem Breuker) ...a toronto improv supergroup."
Carl Wilson, zoilus.com
“Eminently quirky… Drumheller’s music is both grandly swinging and bizarre at turns. ….as striking, iconoclastic and superb as any group pushing the boundaries of jazz and improvised music today.”
Matthew Sumera, All About Jazz
Supergroup is both an apt and a ridiculous descriptor for Drumheller, which comprises some of Toronto’s most celebrated experimental and jazz musicians—Nick Fraser, Eric Chenaux (now a Parisian), Brodie West, Rob Clutton, and Doug Tielli—each member teeming with personality and talent as both a player and composer. While ostensibly fulfilling “supergroup” criteria, their slightly introverted and peculiar collective demeanour demands a more humble tag. Operating from a decidedly jazz foundation, the group’s skewed tunefulness and textural whimsy recall Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, or Eric Dolphy.
On their latest CD, Sometimes Machine, the group continues to avoid eruptions of free-blowing altogether, and instead celebrates more mundane ecstasies and, accordingly, more subtle and eclectic detours from form and idiom. As such, many of the album’s pieces disintegrate rather than explode, chasing wilfully aimless melodic distractions, stubborn loops, obscure instrumental colours, timbral non-sequiturs, or sentimental mirages. Meanwhile, there are more disparate moments, such as the closing track, Tielli’s beautiful “Furls,” which adopts a gestural language similar to that used by some members of Wandelweiser Group.
Sometimes Machine is a delightful listen, maybe Drumheller’s strongest disc yet. The group’s core ingredients remain intact, but each piece is an inconspicuous barrage of small, destabilizing elements.
Musicworks / Nick Storing
