The Sound of Listening (Edition)
Mark Guiliana
Released October 7, 2022
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nkVAbq0q7ah_Q1LkqZmS583uEuC-AqYig
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About:
Following his acclaimed quartet albums ‘Jersey’ and ‘Family First’, this third release is everything you’d expect from Mark Guiliana, whilst taking the music in new directions we’ve never seen from him before. In complete contrast to his latest BEAT MUSIC! work, ‘the sound of listening’ (intentionally lower case) is a deeply honest and expressive album by a musician who knows where he’s headed and what he wants to say with people he deeply trusts.
The title and idea behind ‘the sound of listening’ is taken from the book ‘Silence’ by Thích Nhất Hạnh, which considers, as Mark explains, ‘the inner silence required to truly observe the world.’ In ‘the sound of listening’ the entirety of compositional breadth of Mark’s acoustic and electronic influences is brought together, interspersed with miniature vignettes in a unified voice: the album speaks of Mark’s own journey and thinking with his relationship to music – to see the world and his presence within it through a zoomed out lens, where differences are unified and perspectives aligned.Track titles including ‘a path to bliss’, and ‘the most important question’, reflect Mark’s passionate response to his own exploration and path to serenity, which takes centre stage in this meticulously thoughtful, introspective album.
Over the course of his career, Mark has built a vast cult-like following for his own projects as well as with key collaborators including Avishai Cohen, Brad Mehldau, Gretchen Parlato, Meshell Ndegeocello, the late great David Bowie, and more recently St. Vincent. ‘the sound of listening’ reaffirms his authority as an artist where the expectation is there’s no expectation.
Track Listing:
1. a path to bliss4.41
2. the most important question
6. 17
3. a way of looking1.59
4. our essential nature7.07
5. the courage to be free1.57
6. everything changed after you left6.35
7. the sound of listening2.37
8. under the influence6.34
9. practicing silence1.40
10. continuation5.41
Personnel:
Mark Guiliana: drums, synthesizers (3, 5, 7), drum programming (7), percussion (10)
Jason Rigby: tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1, 3, 5, 7), clarinet (1, 5), flute (5)
Chris Morrissey: bass
Shai Maestro: piano, mellotron (1, 5, 7), ampliceleste (1, 5, 7), Fender Rhodes piano (2)
Recorded and Mixed at the Bunker Studio, Brooklyn, NY in March 2022, by John Davis
Mastered at the Bunker Studio, Brooklyn, NY in April 2022, by Alex DeTurk
Artwork & letterpress printing by Oli Bentley, Split
Produced by Mark Guiliana
Executive producer Dave Stapleton
Review:
It sometimes seems there are two Mark Guilianas. One is a traditional jazz drummer whose taut, propulsive quartet with saxophonist Jason Rigby, pianist Shai Maestro and bassist Chris Morrissey delivered tuneful, groove-centered acoustic jazz on his first two Edition albums. Then there’s Guiliana the electronic musician, whose work ranges from the muscular grooves of 2013’s Beat Music EP to the ambient textures and electronic percussion of this year’s Music For Doing. With the sound of listening, Guiliana not only brings both sides together but underscores the common thread in his bifurcated career: a compositional style focused less on melody and harmony than on rhythmic structure and timbre. And even though he modestly outfits the album with lower-case titles, the sound of listening is a major step forward. It starts big with the aptly titled “a path to bliss,” contrasting chordal haze — overdubbed flute, clarinets and mellotron — against thrumming, circular rhythms, all the while hooking us in through melancholy climb of the melody. With “the courage to be free,” the electro-acoustic blend is pushed further, as a burbling sequencer pattern is overlaid with reeds, arco bass, synths and vintage keyboards in a densely layered, two-minute symphony. There are also all-acoustic moments, such as “our essential nature,” where Guiliana’s lightly percolating drums need no help in keeping the rhythms poly, or the lilting “practicing silence,” a duet between Morrissey and Maestro that ticks along like an outsized music box. Ultimately, it’s not a matter of plugged or unplugged, so much as the uncanny interplay between these four, as if a single organism were bringing this multifaceted sound to life.
J.D. Considine (DownBeat)
