What Matters to Ali (C3R 012)

Axel Dörner - trumpet
Diego Chamy - percussion, spoken word

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Recorded in Berlin, April 21, 2006. Released by C3R Records (Canada).

Cover photo by Vered Nethe.

"A fascinating recording, this 45-minute track for trumpet, percussion and spoken word. The cover captures the attention right away: we see the close-up of a wide-eyed wonderful kid staring at the camera with the facial attitude typical of children who are half scared, half curious of what appears in front of them. The piece begins with the pairing of rustling emissions—generated by Chamy on the drum skin—and pensively detached, peculiarly billowing exhalations by Dörner who sparingly uses a mute. In the background, the percussionist reads a text that goes on for quite a while, then the music is left naked and wordless until the end. It is immediately evident that the guys have no hurry or nervousness to spare, the margin between the sounds ample and welcoming. It's neither reductionism nor free-flow improvisation, recalling instead of two painters in a tranquil open air setting, confronting the results of their work as hues and layers are progressively added. Then it cuts to new tone comparisons, the trumpet slightly agitated in burbling slimy waters or in search of acute overtones while sparse hits of resonant bells attribute a ritualistic charm to the procedures. The most memorable occurrence of the whole CD starts around the halfway mark: after a soundless pause, Chamy elicits impressive mumbles from the bass drum, stunningly beautiful gentle drones upon which Dörner glues additional steamy protuberances and grayish hisses in a thorough dissection of his instrument. the adjacent elongated lamentations heard around the 30th minute, who somehow made me think "Alvin Lucier", are just fantastic. Although entirely shaped by timbral constituents that have been used time and again in recent years, there's not a single moment in this album that doesn't contain a wealth of significance.", Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

"Blocks of matter for a subtle and for moments hypnotic result. Beautiful and surprising.", Metamkine

"One 45 minute piece. Two very fine musicians. Recorded in one day in April 2006. Trumpeter Axel Dörner joins percussionist Diego Chamy for an extended improvisation that takes the listener for an exciting ride.[...] What Matters to Ali is an album that takes the ears for a wild ride and back again.", Tom Sekowski (Gaz-Eta Nr.64)

"Ah, what is it about Diego Chamy and Axel Dörner’s sleeve designs? Another great, if slightly unsettling one, this time for their What matters to Ali CD [...] This disc is another that features Dörner’s acoustic trumpet alongside Chamy’s percussion and spoken words, though here the speech seems to be limited to just a barely audible, far-off passage recited on and off for a few minutes at the start of the single forty-one minute piece. [...]

Beyond this opening speech, the music on What Matters to Ali is maybe a little more musical than what appeared on Super Axel Dörner, a real trumpet and percussion duo with a little less of the conceptual approach. Still Chamy doesn’t play completely straight here however. His percussion style is very simple, usually focusing on one simple sound for a while before shifting to the next. So he might repeatedly strike a flat, lifeless bell-like sound over and over while Dörner sprays a wide range of sound and texture over the top, or may fall silent for a while, suddenly reappearing with a groaning moan of a rubbed snare, or suddenly from nowhere striking a drum very loudly, making you jump at its unexpected arrival.

The tendency then is towards a slow, strangely angular music in which the two players seem to be challenging each other rather than playing together. When one musician changes tack, the other doesn’t necessarily follow suit, faster, busier sounds are often met with just the opposite, and things fit together in an unusual manner, as if the two musicians had recorded separately and then combined the two recordings, maybe leaving the listener to find the links between the two sets of sounds. This isn’t to suggest that the musicians aren’t listening however, I am sure they are, and have created this complex, slightly off centred sense of communication deliberately, so avoiding the predictable call and response techniques of much improvised music.

It's a pleasing, if challenging listen. Dörner’s playing is as remarkable as ever, covering the usual array of “nothing like a trumpet” sounds. On my way home from work this evening I gave a lift home to a young colleague, a bright student who is working with us for just a couple of months before returning to University. This CD was playing in the car, and as generally perceptive as he may be, he couldn’t come to grasp that what he was hearing was a trumpet. Eventually, after one wild spluttery section of the music he agreed he could hear the trumpet, but declared that this sounded like someone completely incapable of playing the instrument, blowing wildly in the hope of getting a note out of it. Its amazing how our perceptions of sound change depending on what we are used to hearing. Dörner’s playing sounds incredibly controlled and focussed to me, the work of anything but an amateur. Chamy works really well as Axel’s foil here however, refusing to slip into a similar set of textural sounds, pushing and pulling at the dynamic of the album rather than settling into a rhythm.

Not a disc that floats easily over the ear then, but a very nice piece of thoughtful, if difficult music that works well if you bring your attention fully to bear. [...] Its certainly worth laying your hands on a copy.", Richard Pinnell, The Watchful Ear

"One track, 45'39", many interesting parts popping out of a rather uneventful whole. Powerful cover photo.", Eugenio Maggi (Chain D.L.K., October 5th, 2008)

"This 45 minute improvisation by German trumpet player Dörner and Argentine percussionist Chamy initially carries a ritualistic quality, where the only rhythms as such is Chamy's tolling bell and spartan bass drum beats. But these rhythms are principally a recognition of how time can be divided, rather than anything that actually has momentum. Their laconic improvisational dialogue is, at times, exceptionally austere, but what they do is quite different from anything that could be categorized as New Silence.

In fact, Dörner plays his trumpet almost constantly. Sometimes he sounds relatively conventional, lyrical even -with each note curving upwards in a bittersweet arc- but his timbral vocabulary is vast. At one point he sounds like a manual approximation of Jon Hassell fed through a phase pedal before descending into guttural mutterings. More often he simply seems fascinated with the elemental properties of his breath moving through the instrument's tubing. This gives the effect of rushing wind or something more sibilant that, combined with Chamy's bells, paints an aural picture of rain heard falling outside a temple.

The last section suddenly becomes injected with edgy energy as Dörner growls, spits and hisses like a gas leak, while Chamy hits his bass drum in insistent patterns at various tempi like an agitated visitor knocking on an unanswered door. What Matters to Ali is a fascinating album and a pleasurable way of exercising your concentration span, but so much textural detail can be lost if played at the same level as, say, your new remastered Led Zeppelin Mothership compilation. It needs to be really cranked up. Seldom has an album so warranted a ´play loud´ sticker.", Mike Barnes (The Wire Nr.289, March 2008)

"One piece, forty five minutes of sheer silence, sheer noise and sheer delight.", Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly)

"The recording is one fascinating 45-minutes piece for percussion, trumpet and spoken word in which improvised music reigns (in a way that more than one president should.", Marcelo Morales (El Intruso, Año 4 Edición Nº38)

"When is percussion like brass? When both are used as sound sources rather than designated instruments. That’s what German trumpeter Axel Dörner and Argentinean percussionist Diego Chamy do on this intriguing, nearly forty-six-minutes single improvisation recorded in their shared city base of Berlin." Ken Waxman (Musicworks Magazine #101, Summer 2008, p.58-59)

"Dörner, winner of the 2006 SWR-Jazzpreis, contributes soft but intense trumpet textures while Chamy produces unearthly tones with a variety of objects on the head of his bass drum, while reciting an evocative text. The results are beautiful, subtle, and absolutely mesmerizing. Maximum volume is definitely recommended.", C3R