MARY HALVORSON'S CODE GIRL — Artlessly Falling (2020) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Artlessly Falling is the second album by Mary Halvorson's Code Girl. Its core remains Halvorson on guitar; Tomas Fujiwara on drums; Amirtha Kidambi on vocals, and Michael Formanek on bass. Trumpeter Adam O'Farrill replaces Ambrose Akinmusire, and Maria Grand is added on tenor saxophone and voice. The date also includes three vocal cameos by Robert Wyatt. A primary influence on Halvorson, she composed these songs especially for him. Her lyrics throughout reflect not only detailed attention but a methodology in which each poem strategically conforms to its accompanying musical construct. Artlessly Falling showcases deeply focused, expansively articulated, abstract musical languages that remain warm and welcoming, even amid dissonance.

"Lemon Trees" is a nearly exotic mutant waltz introduced by Halvorson's circular guitar pattern as Kidambi and Grand wordlessly vocalize behind Wyatt, who delivers the lyrics in a lithe, world-weary tenor. O'Farrill fills in behind him until the stanza ends and he solos as Fujiwara and Halvorson support. The feel is buoyant and airy. Kidambi's wordless groan meets Formanek's dark bassline in "Last-Minute Smears" before Fujiwara's snare and beer-can percussion frame an elliptical melody articulated by Halvorson's striated chords. O'Farrill's serpentine trumpet and Grand's tenor emotively entwine themselves around one another before Kidambi includes a particularly venomous and vengeful quote from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, providing a bewildered sense of dislocation and primeval conviction. While "Walls and Roses" is introduced by Fujiwara's cymbals and Halvorson's fingerpicking under Wyatt's vocal; it erupts in under a minute as the guitarist unleashes distorted shredding. Kidambi calms her on the second stanza, but Halvorson shakes loose here, and between each succeeding exchanged stanza, as Fujiwara and Formanek brace her screaming lead lines. The amorphous structure of "Muzzling Unwashed" is a set highlight as trumpet, guitar, bass, and drums create an exotic backdrop for Kidambi's languid delivery. "Bigger Flames" commences with Halvorson's playing simulating an electric ukulele amid a shimmering snare cascade from Fujiwara, bittersweet horn lines, and slippery time signatures. Backing vocals enter and leave at odd junctures, while Halvorson interjects loudly over Wyatt as the tune turns in on itself. "Mexican War Streets (Pittsburgh)" and "A Nearing" each clock in at over ten minutes. The former balances form and abstraction with lyrical playing from the soloists until Halvorson whomps on a Black Sabbath-like power riff that sends the band toward free improv. The latter, introduced by a long solo from Formanek, offers detailed ensemble playing a complex melody that is expanded by Kidambi and the guitarist with help from O'Farrill. When it cuts loose, powerful soloing from the horns and guitarist stridently engage dissonant post-bop. The title track begins like an indie folk tune, highlighted by Kidambi's tender singing. A minute in, Halvorson's slide guitar ushers in shapeshifting changes and kinetic exchanges between players. The tune sends Artlessly Falling out with dramatic, emotional resonance. This remarkable album cannot be quantified, only experienced. Mary Halvorson's Code Girl are so mercurial in method and content -- and mystifying in execution -- they actually deserve their own genre.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    The Lemon Trees 7:15
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
Voice – Robert Wyatt
2    Last-Minute Smears 8:58
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
Percussion [Beer Cans] – Tomas Fujiwara
3    Walls And Roses 3:33
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
Voice – Robert Wyatt
4    Muzzling Unwashed    10:51
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
5    Bigger Flames 5:15
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
Voice – Robert Wyatt
6    Mexican War Streets (Pittsburgh)    10:40
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
7    A Nearing    10:32
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
8    Artlessly Falling    7:15
Written-By – Mary Halvorson
Credits :
Bass – Michael Formanek
Drums – Tomas Fujiwara
Guitar – Mary Halvorson
Tenor Saxophone, Voice – Maria Grand
Trumpet – Adam O'Farrill
Voice – Amirtha Kidambi
Written-By – Mary Halvorson

MICHAEL MANTLER - Hide and Seek (2001) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Michael Mantler, jazz and new music iconoclast, has been on a quest for the past 25 years to find new marriages of voices and words in his compositions. Here, with the help of distinguished vocalists such as Robert Wyatt and Susi Hyldgaard, he has succeeded in perhaps finally finding that direction without faltering. In the past he has employed not only Wyatt and Hyldgaard, but also Marianne Faithfull and the poems of Beckett, Brecht, Mallarme, and others, but always with mixed results. His earlier album, Many Have No Speech, was a solid shot, but its musical excesses outweighed its literary tomes. Here, Mantler has stepped back from the precipice and has found a text worthy of his adventurous muse: Hide and Seek, a play by the American writer Paul Auster, who is also a poet, critic, novelist, screenwriter, and the founder of the National Story Project. It is gratifying to hear Mantler's restrained compositions, played chamber style by an ensemble that is larger than on any of his voices projects. Hyldgaard, who also plays accordion, is featured prominently alongside Mantler's gorgeous trumpet lines. Her and Wyatt's voices interplay here, set in tight yet relaxed vignettes where tension and bewilderment are the wheels that carry on the dislocation of meaning between the singers. Musically, Mantler keeps his orchestra shaded, behind the curtain of expression, coloring in the tension, giving it as little room to breathe as possible without overstating their place. In the longer instrumental passages, Mantler directs them like a jazz band setting the winds in direct counterpoint to the strings and Per Salo's piano, ripping through the middle with flourishes of clustered chords and invertible counterpoint. The tango atmosphere created by the accordion is the bearer of drama in the sung score. Whenever you hear it, it signals another confrontation between the protagonists. It's an exhausting but wonderfully musical ride through the elements that make speech and language possible, at least in the economies of its exchange both musically and vocally. It's wonderful to hear Wyatt used so much here, his voice creating meaning from the repetition when he sings: "You can't just say words/Words mean nothing/Just words." Language ceases to be what it once was and disappears into the string section, leaving listeners with sound itself as the transmitter of meaning. Mantler, it seems, has finally found his "operatic" voice. by Thom Jurek   
Tracklist:
1 Unsaid (1) 2:36
2 What Did You Say? 2:19
3 Unsaid (2) 2:01
4 It's All Just Words 1:38
5 If You Have Nothing To Say 2:46
6 Unsaid (3) 1:32
7 What Do You See? 1:27
8 Absolutely Nothing 4:10
9 Unsaid (4) 1:49
10 What Can We Do? 4:20
11 Unsaid (5) 1:38
12 It All Has To End Sometime 3:39
13 Unsaid (6) 1:29
14 I Don't Deny It 1:38
15 I'm Glad You're Glad 2:14
16 Do You Think We'll Ever Find It? 2:15
17 It Makes No Difference To Me 2:09
Credits:
Cello [Cellos] – Helle Sørensen
Flute, Oboe, Clarinet [Clarinets] – Roger Jannotta
French Horn – Martin Cholewa
Guitar [Guitars] – Bjarne Roupé
Lyrics By – Paul Auster
Piano – Per Salo
Trombone [Trombones] – Vincent Nilsson
Trumpet [Trumpets], Programmed By [Electronic Percussion Programmed By], Music By, Producer – Michael Mantler
Vibraphone, Marimba – Tineke Noordhoek
Viola [Violas] – Mette Winther
Violin [Violins] – Marianne Sørensen
Voice – Robert Wyatt
Voice, Accordion – Susi Hyldgaard

MICHAEL MANTLER — The Hapless Child and Other Inscrutable Stories (1976) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

A surprising step after his earlier work with the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and their juxtaposition of avant-garde soloists in a modern orchestral context, Mantler created a virtual prog rock album, setting Edward Gorey's Freudian/gothic texts to music that owes far more to Henry Cow than Cecil Taylor. Enlisting ex-Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt on vocals and Jan Garbarek alumnus Terje Rypdal for some soaring guitar work, he managed to create a very convincing, enjoyably literary recording with potentially large appeal. The song structures are fairly consistent and the melodies often catchy, alternating from somber dirges (quite appropriate to the text) to up-tempo rockers. Much of the success accrues to Wyatt, whose reedy, intelligent voice gives exactly the right ironic inflection to Gorey's eerie tales. When in the title track he lightly sings the opening line, "There was once a little girl named..." then drops into a minor mode for, "Charlotte Sophia," you know things don't bode well for the song's heroine. Indeed, all of the lyrics are compelling little stories and it's to Mantler's credit that his compositions couch and project them instead of competing for attention. The Hapless Child has assumed a bit of cult classic status as a one-off prog rock project and it largely deserves the rep, holding up reasonably well over time. Brian Olewnick 
Tracklist :
1 The Sinking Spell 5:10
Vitti Gorey / Michael Mantler
2 The Object-Lesson 5:00
Vitti Gorey / Michael Mantler
3 The Insect God 4:58
Vitti Gorey / Michael Mantler
4 The Doubtful Guest 4:47
Samuel Beckett / Vitti Gorey / Michael Mantler
5 The Remembered Visit 6:27
Samuel Beckett / Vitti Gorey / Michael Mantler
6 The Hapless Child 7:02
Vitti Gorey / Michael Mantler
Credits
Bass Guitar – Steve Swallow
Drums, Percussion – Jack DeJohnette
Guitar – Terje Rypdal
Music By – Michael Mantler
Piano, Clavinet, Synthesizer [String Synthesizer], Producer – Carla Bley
Vocals – Robert Wyatt
Voice [Additional Speaker] – Albert Caulder, Nick Mason
Voice [Speaker] – Alfreda Benge
Words By – Edward Gorey