Mats Gustafsson - THEIR POWER REACHED ACROSS SPACE AND TIME-TO DEFY THEM WAS DEATH-OR WORSE (2023)

Their Power Reached Across Space and Time - To Defy Them Was Death or Worse is the debut full-length by prolific saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and guitarist/electronicist Joachim Nordwall. In 2021, the pair gave us a taste of their profound abstraction with the downloadable single "Shadows of Tomorrow" b/w "The Brain Produces Electrical Waves." This wordy title -- as well those of its individual selections -- was inspired by Cordwainer Smith's novel Space Lords. There is little to hold onto here, save for sound itself. This pair don't plan, they unite spontaneously in an uncompromising approach to sound, noise, texture, and collaboration.

While there are individual tracks, what they actually signify is nebulous. This is an album-length exercise in vanguard sound, dynamics, and texture, at once boundless and economical in presentation. An example is opener "There Are Some Worlds Where All Dreams Come to Die." It is introduced by a simple, low-end electronic pulse that guides the entire track. Gustafsson responds by pushing air through the horn, minimal tongue slaps on his mouthpiece, and elongated multiphonic, electronically treated notes. Other than the subtle utterances of those notes, the piece is one of static breathing sounds. While the proceeding "The Days of Days Was There" follows in a deliberate, hushed fashion, "Love Shows in Her Smile … It Is Confident" focuses on Gustafsson's sax techniques. His fingers fly over the valves and keys while his breath control adds a percussive emphasis to his movements. Halfway through, he takes a skronky, yet soulful solo. "Their Life Was Their Final Life" is the most ominous entry here. The melange of deep-toned synth sounds and minimal, ghostly high-register sax notes twist and turn around one another, floating in the darkness; they are seemingly waiting with apprehension for the arrival of a dreadful someone or something. "Birdbrain" may be improvised, but it is the closest thing here to a formal composition, thanks to the wind-like drones of Nordwall's electronics and low-string guitar notes centering, framing, and underscoring Gustafsson's wandering, canny flute. "Oh, Said the Strange Mind, You Want Me to Think for You" is so restrained and disciplined that its subtlety recalls the feel and drift of the improvisational interactions between Anthony Braxton and Richard Teitelbaum. Closer "Her Eyes Were Like … Cold Fires" is more kinetic. Gustafsson and Nordwall engage in rhythmic noisemaking and interplay. Careening but muted tenor sax notes pour down in rumbling, quick, incessant progressions as high-pitched electronics create codas, thematic phrases, and sonic sweeps across the back end. Their Power Reached Across Space and Time - To Defy Them Was Death or Worse is for adventurous improv fans as well as those listeners who truly enjoy abstract sonic invention. This is as far from a casual easy listen as you are likely to encounter, but it is also a riveting, almost alien-sounding encounter that resonates with emotion, wry humor, and discriminating taste.~Their Power Reached Across Space and Time - To Defy Them Was Death or Worse Review by Thom Jurek