This Full Mouth cs826

Senses of materiality, particularly themes of bodily materialism, animate another album I want to discuss this week: This Full Mouth, recorded in Berlin in March (& very soon to appear on Creative Sources...), seems to be something of a development for percussionist Ben Bennett, joining the father-son team of Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues in Europe for an ambitious trio outing. Bennett has largely been recording only within a narrow group, i.e. Jack Wright & the other "family" musicians from Rawl (per the review here in February...), along with US sax player Michael Foster (himself last appearing here with the quartet album Glow, reviewed January 2023...), so meeting these Lisbon musicians in Berlin seems to be another step. (This is after Bennett had already released Petrichor on Creative Sources, but from within his usual musical cohort, as reviewed here in November 2021....) And of course the Rodrigueses are fixtures in this space, including for their trios with various "guests," the two most recent being Con versa tions (recorded back in 2021 with fiddler Gerhard Uebele, and more tonal per se than most of their sets...) & Live at Sonic Krause (a "digital only" release with electric guitarist Hannes Buder, previously unknown to me), while the two prior were Secrets under Trees (reviewed November 2023) & L'âge de l'oreille (reviewed May 2023) — and of course there're various classics, e.g. RRR (reviewed August 2018) to mention Olaf Rupp again.... (And the two did finally release a duo album too, Intenso como o Mar recorded in Lisbon this past December, featuring a poem by Ernesto....) In any case, the release with Bennett comes as something of a surprise, but also as an opportunity to ponder a US musician I'd been following coming to record with Rodrigues (per e.g. Blaise Siwula & K'Ampokol Che K'Aay...): Bennett can be difficult to feature at times, it seems, as This Full Mouth can lack a bit of foreground, e.g. as low rubbed percussion or other subtle interventions (& senses of hiding...), but he also does animate a general percussive sense through the ensemble, pizzicato, scrapings, various short string figures moving through a generally pointillistic texture. There's also a sort of darkness to the music, surely suggesting the nocturnal at times (pace Ernesto's series of nocturne-esque albums, the most recent — for quintet with piano — simply titled Nocturne...), vocal-esque at times too (per rubbed percussion...) or even zoomimetic (not unusually...), quiet & growling through a (broad...) sense of dusk — but also invoking the industrial, with light street traffic, lonely.... (So themes of continuity & survival do seem to apply again here as well....) This sort of foreboding or barren landscape (& sense of distension...) then contrasts with Bennett's cultivated sunny disposition, i.e. videos of him sitting & smiling for hours.... Perhaps that might be described as a situated circumstance, whereas for This Full Mouth, things become unsituated. Or maybe the landscape is actually more uncertain than barren.... (And track titles do delve more into the depths of bodily materialism, seeming to recall the Foster collaboration....) Some passages are indeed quiet too, pensive, scuffling.... The general result is even a sort of calming, at least superficially then, but also a deep-seated ambivalence (almost looming anxiety...), a yearning for other worlds perhaps, but also a determination to stick with this world, to appreciate this world... i.e. not necessarily a good world, but our (ongoing, material...) world. Abiding. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

On trouvera rarement deux improvisateurs aussi complémentaires, complices et empathiques que les Rodrigues père et fils: Ernesto à l’alto et Guilherme au violoncelle. Ils peuvent autant se confondre et se compléter à 100% que détonner et se distinguer en toute indépendance avec une belle imagination. Un de leurs buts musicaux est de prolonger et renouveler leur créativité instantanée en petits groupes ou ensembles plus larges avec un grand nombre d’improvisateurs aussi divers que redoutables les obligeant à se redéfinir et inventer de nouvelles stratégies. Très souvent, ils s’associent à des improvisateurs « moins » ou « peu connus » de manière exponentielle et compulsive avec un pourcentage de réussite créative tout à fait remarquable. Récemment, on les a entendus avec Alex Schlippenbach ou Gunther Sommer. Voici une fantastique session avec un lutin bateleur de la percussion au sol, l’américain Ben Bennett qui fait un malheur avec un tambour ou deux, une cymbale et quelques baguettes et accessoires maniées de manière extrême et dirons- nous acrobatique. L’aisance de ce farfadet est un spectacle en soi. Mais pour notre bonheur auditif et méta- musical, l’interaction imbriquée et la complémentarité du trio fait de cet enregistrement un enregistrement exceptionnel et un des plus beaux parmi les (trop) nombreux témoignages du tandem Rodrigues. Cinq improvisations très diversifiées pour une cinquantaine de minutes bien remplies. Les audaces sonores de Ben Bennet s’inscrivent au plus profond des sonorités cordistes entre le minimalisme radical et les complexités spectrales et moirées d’Ernesto et de Guilherme. Le percussionniste ajoute sifflements, vibrations croassantes, grondements craquants, frottements bruitistes, frictions organiques… à leurs oscillations, drones, harmoniques, scintillements aigus produits par leur extraordinaire science du frottement de l’archet… Son travail est inssaisissable et quand vient la percussion rebondissante des baguettes sur les peaux on est projeté au sommet du free-drumming authentique sauce Lovens intégrale avec un maximum de variations dans les frappes, leur puissance, densité, angle de choc, ou déambulation digitale. Pour les dingues de percussions free radicales, ces extemporisations et sonorités de Ben Bennett méritent de figurer dans une anthologie. Vous en aurez plein la bouche ! Ernesto et Guilherme peuvent d’ailleurs se permettre d’évoluer au bord du silence sans lâcher le momentum de cette difficile entreprise. Face à l’extrême musicalité des Rodrigues, et l’audace improbable de Ben Bennett, on en reste comme deux ronds de flanc. Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg (Orynx)

The father-son duo of Ernesto and Guilherme Rodrigues may be some of the most prolific improvisers out there, which is saying something. Their seemingly never-ending output provides a real-time document of a living, breathing, ever-changing improvisational practice. With This Full Mouth, the duo is joined by percussionist Ben Bennett, known for his work with luminaries such as Michael Foster and Jack Wright. Bennett’s playing represents extended technique for percussion taken to perhaps its most logical extreme. His drum set is completely deconstructed, with drum heads placed on the floor and a variety of objects utilized to create wild and unexpected sonorities.
On This Full Mouth, one can hear the fruits of the Rodrigues’ decades of experience improvising together. Bennett’s percussion alchemy is an important x-factor in pushing their playing into unknown territory. On “Break/Even,” Bennett plays as if he is shooting sparks out of his drumkit, and the Rodrigues’ strings interplay at a delirious pace until the music slows to a creeping, wavering drone. Bennett’s extended technique takes center stage on “Changed Blood,” and is perhaps as close to Evan Parker’s saxophone playing as percussion can get. The trio chirps away frenetically, conjuring a woodchipper of sound. Bennett’s wobbly percussion technique turns to a death rattle, and Ernesto’s droning cello provides the perfect backdrop for Guilherme’s scratchy viola. Though the energy slows somewhat towards the end, as a whole This Full Mouth represents improvised music at its most animated. Levi Dayan (Dusted Magazine)