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Quark is the debut album of the Berlin-based experimental trio of American percussionist Stephen Flinn, French alto sax player and flutist Sylvain Monchocé, and South Korean tenor sax player Jung-Jae Kim (who recorded before with Flinn the quartet album 5 in the Afternoon, Creative Sources, 2025). The album was recorded at Orange ‘Ear Shop/Living Space as part of their series of live sessions in Berlin-Friedrichshain in November 2024.
These three improvisers have established their idiosyncratic sonic palettes. Flinn has spent decades experimenting with traditional percussion to create distinct sounds and phonic textures, and to find new extended techniques for expressing himself in diverse musical settings; Monchocé has developed unique extended techniques for his instruments, producing sounds that are in between electronics and acoustic, with a special interest in breathing granular sounds, multiphonics, overtones, and silence; Kim pushes the boundaries of sonic aesthetics and sound definitions: exploring and expanding dimensions of musical parameters, digging into infinitesimal sound territory, and approaching a new concept of composition (that he calls «Naturous Music»).
Quark offers five free improvised pieces that can be described as distinct. mysterious journeys in fragile, reductionist sound, or methodical research in timbral diversity and sonic color. Often, it is difficult to know who and how sounds are being produced. Silence, statis, and spatially resonant and acoustic experiences are essential elements in this trio’s aesthetics, as the trio creates unpredictable, rich, and nuanced soundscapes that flow through meditative waves and tranquil moments. The last. longest piece, «Himalayas», demonstrates best how this trio creates a cinematic, rich, and dramatic narrative.
This trio sketches its very own minuscule sonic universes, suggesting an intimate, but highly personal and immersive listening experience. Eyal Hareuveni (salt peanuts) |