ink on paper |cs173

[...] TiIt's an angular approach of sudden shifts, sharp shocks and elegant sustains, constantly working the gesture. A bold, playful yet utterly serious exploration. Gail Preist (Real Time)

Stunning and subtle. In both the solo performance and in the group … he focuses on textures, mostly playing with the bow, though he is capable of producing a full bodied bass sound too. I don’t know many bass players with such a command of extended and alternative techniques. Arie Altena (DNK-Amsterdam)

Solo double bass. Majkowski is a youngish (27), Australian musician, new to me. On a couple of pieces, including the lengthy title cut, he finds a fairly unique area of high, quick bowed sounds, several tonalities rapidly interspersed (via overdubs), connoting activity not unlike the dozens of ants prowling the disc's interior sleeve. Personally, I didn't find this ground so interesting, however. On others, he quite ably plies a kind of approach I might think of as pre-Guy, free playing, somewhere between Malachi Favors at his driest and, say, Peter Kowald. On the last track, he takes his time, investigates the properties of the instrument more concentratedly, and fares better. Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

A surprising doublebass album. Mike Makjowski (I don’t remember hearing him before) presents a stunning range of extended techniques thrugh a set of sometimes long but always focused tracks. “Pizzicato” is the most “normal” track, and the bassist shows a strong sense of spontaneous composition, with a few original sounds. But there’s better. On “Ink on Paper” he uses multitracking to generate unsual effects that are well controlled and relveant. And on “Current”, he seems to be using sheet metal over his bass to produce deep rumbles. Here, he goes on for too long, but I had never heard something quite like that. François Couture (Monsieur Délire)