SydeBoob Duo: Au Naturel

Anthony Braxton created his own language of structured improvisation, cultivating a rarefied balance between composed materials and guidelines for spontaneous performance that is unparalleled to this day. Braxton’s music has the uncanny quality of allowing for a remarkable degree of freedom in interpretation and performance while still retaining its identity as his music. SydeBoob’s performance of Composition No. 304 opens with gestures that move homophonically, and alternate between sustained tones and short staccato gestures using delicate timbres. As the duo enters its improvisation, we hear faint, fragile whistle tones in the flute before Elder enters with a modulated sustained tone that mimics a didgeridoo. Sarah Steranka’s flute glides through fricative played and vocalized sounds before the two launch into an adventurous and engaging dialogue of extended timbres that builds organically to a cathartic high point. The duo reprises Braxton’s composed material at the end, making a satisfying structural shape.

Max Johnson’s Translucent Yawn, with text by Todd Colby, is organized around ensemble sections that are broken up by solos for both flute and soprano, and different manners of interaction in the duo sections. The opening features spoken text over a disjunct flute line, with phrase endings marked by unison high sustains. The two play two short phrases in rhythmic unison before the flute plays a lyrical solo. The duo material that follows picks up where they left off, with the two moving rhythmically together. A soprano solo that follows features wide leaps and a subsequent flute solo is increasingly agitated and virtuosic. When the soprano re-enters, it is with quasi-scat singing material, before a dramatic yelled passage by both performers. The climactic section features an interwoven contrapuntal dialogue that culminates in a brash high register arrival. Johnson closes the piece with a dolorous choral passage, ending with a stark minor second.

Eric Moe’s The Frontierswoman, with text by Mikko Harvey, unfolds as a clear narrative, with the soprano articulating a macabre and fantastical story of medical mishap. The vocal style is conventional initially, with less emphasis on extended technique than the other repertoire in this collection, while the flute primarily adds instrumental color and word painting. A flute solo passage signals a break however, integrating a series of multiphonics into freely unfurling passagework. When Elder returns, her text delivery style is momentarily casual (“the patient was speechless”) before returning a “proper” art song presentation. Tongue ram flute articulations, and even hand clapping, make their way into the piece, expanding the sonic palette for the retelling of this quixotic story.

Beat Furrer’s Invocation VI makes an apt responsive bookend to the Saunders work, as both mine possibilities for inventive composite timbres. But while the Saunders invites listeners to consider each sound object as a unique gem, Furrer builds ensemble mechanisms that are powered by forward direction and rhythmic energy. Off-kilter, glitchy micro phrases are fit together to create textures which are simultaneously irregular while reinforcing familiar gestures and pitch content. The result is layered music which can be listened to close to the canvas, for each detail, or further back, for the gradual iterative changes that shape the overall structure. SydeBoob’s prodigious virtuosity is on full display here, as they navigate the performance demands of Furrer’s score with command and fluidity, creating a soundscape that seems far beyond the capacities of only two performers. It is a strong ending to this excellent debut album from an impressive duo dedicated to bracing, ambitious chamber music. Invocation VI ends with ritual mystery, with delicate, airy gestures that close this album enveloped in sensual mystery.

– Dan Lippel