LISA ULLÉN — Lisa Ullén / Nina de Heney / Okkyung Lee : Look Right (review)

LISA ULLÉN — Lisa Ullén / Nina de Heney / Okkyung Lee : Look Right album cover Live album · 2013 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
snobb
The duo of piano player Lisa Ullen and acoustic bassist Nina de Heney is a respected act on the Swedish experimental scene and the Swedish Radio "Artist Of The Year" nomination winner in 2012. Their previously released works demonstrate quite an individual combination of modern classical avant-garde and minimalist improvisations. On "Look Right", the Swedish duo is improved with the addition of Korean cellist Okkyung Lee. After spending years in New York and being an important member of the down town musical community, Lee moved to Europe earlier this year and found a new home in Berlin. Her solo cello album, recorded in Norway earlier this year, was full of raw vibrations, dark noise and Eastern meditation - not a very usual combination, which worked perfectly presented by Lee.

Here, being a guest of the minimalist chamber duo, Lee adds her scratching brutality in very controlled dozes, avoiding destroying the fragile beauty of piano-bass aerial constructions. Music on this album is fully improvised so there is no order, rhythmic structures or tunes, but different from the dominant avant-garde trends, it isn't noisy, distorted or aggressive. It is quite a unique combination of European chamber avant-garde, minimalism, Eastern meditative traditions and modern urban (punk?) street-wise aesthetics. Very free form compositions are acupunctured with staccato strings, keys and instrument body sounds into true musical ikebana with ideal harmony, proportions and ascetic beauty. Seven compositions of different atmosphere and energy are presented as seven different pictures of the same street, all related but never repeating. "Look Right" is a successful and intriguing collaborative work.
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