Accelerate Every Voice (Pyroclastic)
Cory Smythe
Released June 12, 2020
2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Top 10 Vocal Album
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n7xoWIdYmMAA7AoFi0rGZqa0Or7QafEIg
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About:
Many muddled accelerations shape this: beginning with my longstanding but increasingly spellbound appreciation for Andrew Hill’s record Lift Every Voice and the James Weldon Johnson-derived lineage of optimistic songcraft it transforms; likewise, the fast-evolving sophistication of collegiate a cappella (a scene suggested by Hill’s vocable-singing choir) on its mutating path from the Kipling-glossing “Whiffenpoof Song” to iridescent cyborg pop; the calamitous choirs of piano-engulfing ocean waves presaged in Annea Lockwood’s music and presently hastening inland; the crowds gathering in America to greet them, the crescendo of our infectious chants and cheers.
Thanks so much to Kari, Kyoko, Michael, Raquel, and Steve for their brilliant, inspiring and enormously generous musicianship—and again to Kari for her direction and tutelage in all things ‘aca’; to Ryan and Scott for their incomparable sonic artistry; to David for his patience, care, and Socratic methods; to Kris Davis for her superhuman work; to Chelsea Hadley and The Shifting Foundation for their invaluable support; to Julian Charrière for the enormous privilege of associating my work with his; to July and Spottswood for the visual rhythms of their pseudonymous collaboration; and to Liz, beloved a capella fan, for all the inventive ways you wed my joys to yours.
CS
Track Listing:
1. Northern Cities Vowel Shift 2:34
2. Accelerate Every Voice 4:12
3. Marl Every Voice 2:38
4. Kinetic Whirlwind Sculpture 13:29
5. Vehemently 3:57
6. Kinetic Whirlwind Sculpture 25:18
7. Knot Every Voice 1:50
8. Weatherproof Song 3:39
9. Piano And Ocean Waves For Deep Relaxation 19:02
Personnel:
Kyoko Kitamura: voice
Michael Mayo: voice, looper
Raquel Acevedo Klein: voice
Steven Hrycelak: vocal bass
Kari Francis: vocal percussion
Cory Smythe: piano, electronics
Compositions by Cory Smythe, Pluripotent Publishing (BMI)
Recorded by Ryan Streber in December, 2018 at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)
Vocal direction/additional production by Kari Francis
Mixed by Ryan Streber and Cory Smythe in August, 2019 at Oktaven Audio
Mastered by Scott Hull in January, 2020 at Masterdisk (Peekskill, NY)
Images by Julian Charrière, The Blue Fossil Entropic Stories I-IV, 2013 (copyright the artist © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany)
Album design and layout by Spottswood Erving and July Creek for Janky Defense
Produced by Cory Smythe and David Breskin
Review:
File under jazz? New music? Classical? Free improvisation? Try all of the above. The sonic language that Cory Smythe has brought to his own recordings as leader, and to his work as a collaborator and sideman, blurs any lines.
Smythe’s multifaceted, cerebral approach to music-making isn’t a surprise, considering that he’s played with Anthony Braxton, Tyshawn Sorey, and Vijay Iyer. A trio of records under his own name (2011’s Pluripotent, 2017’s A U T O TROPHS, and 2018’s Circulate Susanna) demonstrated the command he possesses on piano and electronics. Now he’s taking his compositional techniques to a new level with Accelerate Every Voice, his second effort for pianist Kris Davis’ Pyroclastic label.
According to the press release, Smythe may have been inspired by Lift Every Voice, Andrew Hill’s exquisite 1970 album that married jazz with a large choir, but Accelerate Every Voice occupies its own realm. Alongside a vocal quintet of Kyoko Kitamura (voice), Michael Mayo (voice, looper), Raquel Acevedo Klein (voice), Steven Hrycelak (vocal bass), and Kari Francis (vocal percussion), Smythe creates hectic, feathery sound-worlds that rest on a similar improvisatory plane to the music of Amirtha Kidambi, Ka Baird, and Fay Victor. His knotty, playful lightning-speed passages and hypnotic dronescapes are the perfect backdrop for the lush layers of vocal acrobatics that dart and dance throughout these nine compositions.
The spasmodic “Northern Cities Vowel Shift” kicks the program off with a dizzily intricate blast of wordless vocals. The title track follows with even more chaotic time signatures and turbulent conversational interplay that improbably and sublimely meshes. “Marl Every Voice” and “Vehemently” combine melody with psychedelic abstractions and textural beauty, while “Kinetic Whirlwind Sculpture” is an intense drony rumble. The record concludes with “Piano and Ocean Waves for Deep Relaxation,” a 19-minute sprawl of ambient tones. Expansive sound, cutting-edge vision.
Brad Cohan (JazzTimes)
