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Reviews

Gordon Grdina — Oddly Enough - The Music of Tim Berne
(Bandcamp Attaboygirl Records, 2022, DL)

Gordon Grdina's Haram — Night's Quietest Hour
(Bandcamp Attaboygirl Records ABG-3, 2022, DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2022-05-22

Oddly Enough - The Music of Tim Berne Cover artNight's Quietest Hour Cover art

Gordon Grdina is a musician who doesn’t like to be pinned down in any way. Over the last 15 years or so, he’s led ensembles called Box Cutter, East Van Strings, Haram, Nordic Sextet, The Marrow, Square Peg, and Nomad Trio, along with the standard Trio, Quartet, and Septet arrangements, mostly billed as Gordon Grdina’s ___. There have also been several recordings with just his name, not to mention numerous collaborations with a wide variety of other musicians. Suffice it to say, he’s been busy. These two albums are his 2022 contributions so far. Oddly Enough is a solo effort featuring compositions by Tim Berne. I say “solo effort,” though in this case, Grdina does utilize overdubs to feature multiple parts at the same time. He plays electric guitar, classical guitar, acoustic guitar, oud, dobro, and MIDI guitar, generally only one or two at a time. The MIDI guitar is used to supply tones that resemble electric piano and other instruments, though not in an imitative way — they’re just different colors blended into the mix. Berne’s compositions are full of strange chords and angular melodies, and are perfectly suited for this kind of arrangement, and most of them have enough going on that the absence of percussion is hardly noticed. Grdina does very rarely use the MIDI to add rhythmic electronic noises, as on the title track, but he doesn’t take that route often. “Enord Krad” is an outstanding example of the kind of imagination Grdina brings to the table. It starts out as a moody oud solo, joined after a time by subtle swells of chords on electric. Gradually the electric comes to the fore, with a heavily distorted tone and some intense string-bending while the oud provides backing (doubled by another electric, I think). It finishes with a steel-string acoustic taking the lead. 

The Haram ensemble takes us in a very different direction, being the largest of Grdina’s groups. It’s a ten-piece assemblage of Vancouver musicians that started playing in 2008 and released an album in 2012. Grdina plays oud exclusively, and the goal was to present modern interpretations of classical Arabic music: ney (Emad Armoush), riq (Liam MacDonald), darbuka (Tim Gerwig), clarinet ( François Houle), violin (Jesse Zoule), saxophone (Chris Kelly), trumpet (J.P. Carter), bass (Tommy Babin), and drums (Kenton Lowen). Armoush also sings on some of the pieces. For Night’s Quietest Hour, the whole crew is back on board after ten years, with the addition of Marc Ribot on guitar. Ribot had joined the ensemble for a couple of performances before the covid pandemic hit, and they managed a studio session to capture the new tunes they had played. The result is a fascinating and energetic set of five tracks that blend old and new seamlessly. While I was unfamiliar with the original material until checking out a few Youtube videos of more traditional groups playing them, I can say that every track here is a gem — all of the players are top-notch, and the modern instruments are incorporated intelligently. Ribot fits in perfectly, and his touches of grit are handled perfectly. Gordon Grdina has yet to release anything that’s not worth hearing, and these two releases are great examples of what he has to offer.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): Tim Berne, Marc Ribot / Ceramic Dog, Gordon Grdina

More info
http://gordongrdina.bandcamp.com

 

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