January 31, 2025
Shakkei - Alexandra Grimal & Giovanni Di Domenico
Label: Relative Pitch Records
Catalog #: RPR1216
Location: New York, United States
Release Date: January 24, 2025
Media: compact disc or digital download
bandcamp.com entry
discogs.com entry
About a month ago, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House posted a review of Echolalia, a new album by pianist, Giovanni Di Domenico. The first track of the album was a fourteen-minute duet with French saxophonist, Alexandra Grimal. At the time, we wrote, "Their fourteen minutes shared on Echolalia is a pleasant, mellow quarter hour that disappears too quickly. We found ourselves wishing for more." Little did we know that the following month, a full album of duets would be released. Shakkei is just that album.
Wikipedia tells us that shakkei means "borrowed scenery", a "principle of incorporating background landscape into the composition of a garden found in traditional East Asian garden design."* We can only suppose that their album presents the application of that principle, transferred from gardening to music. We are then left to imagine as we listen to the music what scenery was borrowed that resulted in these sounds. (Spoiler alert: We couldn't quite figure it out and this review doesn't provide a crystal-clear answer to this query.) Nevertheless, we'll do our best to dig around the edges of the issue.
The tracks too have Japanese titles, which translate along the lines of "Tree Guardian" and "Request of the Stone". The tone of the titles provides an indication of the general nature of the music. It is intended to be sympathetic to the natural world, as gardens that invoke the concept of shakkei are in tune with their surroundings.
The instrumentation on all five tracks includes keyboard and saxophone, though there are three types of keyboards (acoustic grand piano, celesta and pipe organ) and two types of saxophones (tenor and soprano), used in different pairwise combinations.
The longest track on the album runs about twenty minutes and is titled Sanmai, which translates as Samadhi. For those who would like a reminder, samadhi is a state of meditative consciousness, essential for the attainment of nirvana.* We are very much open to the notion of a duet featuring pipe organ and saxophone being conducive to a meditative state. We don't suppose that the combination of the two instruments is especially common, but there is one previous example that immediately springs to mind. The forty-nine minute pipe organ/saxophone duet titled, Breath & Pipes performed by Roscoe Mitchell and Francesco Filidei, released in 2020 on the album, Splatter (PPPH review) is a sonic monument that certainly provided a conduit for extended musical bliss! On Shakkei, Sanmai is a worthy successor to this rather specialized tradition and takes the duet in a completely different direction. Where Breath & Pipes eventually reaches a crescendo of the full-throated bombast of which a pipe organ is capable, Sanmai coaxes much more subtle tones and drones from the instrument. Where Roscoe Mitchell weaves long threads of saxophone via circular breathing interspersed with short bursts, Alexandra Grimal follows a more nuanced path. She provides a steady breath of mellow pulses that complement the drawn out notes of the organ.
On Ishi No Irai (Request of the Stone), Di Domenico plays the celesta, which is a kind of bell piano, accompanied by Grimal on soprano saxophone. Here, in contrast to the organ which can sustain notes indefinitely, the celesta produces notes that quickly diminish in time. With this partner, Grimal plays much shorter notes at a quicker pace. It makes one wonder, given the concept of Shakkei, if the keyboard is providing the surrounding scenery, and the reed is the garden which seeks harmony with it.
The remaining three tracks feature Di Domenico on piano, exploring different landscapes while maintaining the sympathetic relationship with Grimal. The last track is the shortest, timing in at just under two minutes. It is titled "Yorishiro", meaning an object capable of attracting spirits, thus giving them a physical space to occupy during religious ceremonies.* We are inclined to admit the possibility that the music succeeds in summoning peaceful spirits from out of the ether to listen to the reverberations of the song for its brief duration, before departing.
We were pleasantly surprised to hear that a second collaboration was appearing a short space after Echolalia. In listening to the albums, we found much to enjoy in both. These additions to the long collaboration between Grimal and Di Domenico explore new territory while maintaining the appeal that has sustained their shared efforts over time.
personnel:
- Alexandra Grimal (tenor and soprano saxophones) (website; bandcamp)
- Giovanni Di Domenico (acoustic grand pianos, celesta, pipe organ) (bandcamp)