{"product_id":"amba-zoh-chris-corsano-bill-orcutt-the-flower-school","title":"Amba, Zoh \/ Chris Corsano \/ Bill Orcutt - The Flower School","description":"Although Amba has often recorded a bunch of tune-oriented albums for Tzadik, she’s a free improviser at heart, and this trio arguably provides the most effective, elastic context for her playing yet. Yet what’s most astonishing about \u003ci\u003eThe Flower School\u003c\/i\u003e is how it elevates and transforms the playing of all three participants. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt appears that there was more than enough trust in the room to allow each player to push-and-pull. Anyone who pays attention already knows that Orcutt and Corsano are mercurial figures, perpetually adapting, adjusting, and challenging one another so that every performance by their duo seems to spring from a different inspirational source. Inviting a third person to the party could threaten a slowly cultivated balance—whether between Orcutt and Corsano or Corsano and Amba—but in this case the addition only heightened various dichotomies: soft vs. loud, bruising vs. tender, furious vs. lyric. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch has been made of Amba’s debt to the free jazz of 1960’s, particularly the way her vibrato-drenched tone dips into valley of sacred music, but here she carves out a space that’s entirely hers. On tracks like “The Morning Light Has Flooded My Eyes” and “What Emptiness Do You Gaze Upon!” she reveals a meticulously sharpened gift for motific improvisation, taking a single phrase and chiseling away it until she’s discovered every possible permutation, all the while driven by the feverish energy and empathy of her cohorts. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis group also displays Orcutt’s masterful support skills, as he often takes a single chord or two, letting them float in mutate in the background or splintering them into patient, reserved arpeggios that ripple alongside Corsano’s circular sculptures and the saxophonist’s edgy blowing. Two of the album’s five tracks are duets between Orcutt and Amba. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe collection is bisected by “Sweet One,” a delicate lattice formed by Orcutt’s tremulous electric guitar arpeggios and Amba’s spike acoustic pointillism that basks in its own leisurely beauty for a couple of restorative minutes, while the album closer, “Moon Showed But No You”, is a searingly beautiful ballad where the guitarist unspools clusters of notes somewhere between vintage Loren Mazzacane Connor and a distorted kalimba, while Amba puts an upwardly arcing melodic line through its paces, finding new wrinkles at every turn. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s hoping that this recording is the start of something, but even if this album is the beginning and end, the level of communication and rapport feels eternal.","brand":"Palilalia","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":51329915552022,"sku":"RMX-68189","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0839\/7750\/2998\/files\/6a0db91cfa5b1a1d89f83650.jpg?v=1779286439","url":"https:\/\/resident-music-uk.myshopify.com\/products\/amba-zoh-chris-corsano-bill-orcutt-the-flower-school","provider":"Resident Music UK","version":"1.0","type":"link"}