Pyroclastic means relating to, consisting of, or denoting fragments of rock erupted by a volcano. The Pyroclastic label does have some incandescent releases – though Cory Smythe’s more subdued but still very rewarding album is not one of them. All compositions are by the pianist and composer, who appears in an ensemble on tracks 1-4, and solo on tracks 5-11.
Smythe writes that the four ensemble pieces became “more-or-less oblique renditions of the Jerome Kern / Otto Harbach standard Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, an object lesson in the transmutation of weather and grief into sound”. He returned to the song some months later, he continues, when it “grew steadily into a multi-panel painting, puffs of wood and string pouring out of the still-smouldering ruin of a piano”.
Smythe’s piano style is less purple than his sleeve-note writing – concentrated and acidulated – and extended techniques are prevalent. He works with some fabulous improvisers on the ensemble tracks – including Peter Evans, Ingrid Laubrock, Tomeka Reid and Stephan Crump.
Tony Scott produced a comparably obsessive tribute to Lush Life – a mark of the richness of song material. However, Smythe’s interpretations are indeed, as he writes, oblique renditions. Liquiform 1 begins as a springy, bubbling piece – literally so, as the percussion effects sound like quietly bubbling lava – and evolves into a pointillist free improvisation. Combustion 1 begins with toneless sounds on saxophone, followed by lugubrious melodic lines from the ensemble, including Sofia Jernberg’s wordless vocalising. Liquiform 2 is very bright and liquid, with amusing instrumental sound-effects.
The song Smoke Gets in Your Eyes remains deep buried in the solo piano tracks, with their various extended techniques. An impressive and intriguing release.
Discography
Liquiform 1; Combustion 1; Liquiform 2; Combustion 2; Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (seven versions) (58.19)
Smythe (p); Peter Evans (t); Zekkereya El-magharbel (tb); Ryan Muncy (as); Ingrid Laubrock (ts); David Leon (as, bar, cl); Joshua Modney (vn); Tomeka Reid (clo); Stephan Crump (b); Jessie Cox (d); Sofia Jernberg (v). Mount Vernon, NY, July and October 2021.
Pyroclastic CCD 33202
