Black Current by Sawt Out [Burkhard Beins, Mazen Kerbaj & Michael Vorfeld]

"Kerbaj, Vorfeld and Beins seem to have rethought everything they possibly can about group improvisation starting with the sound (radical, cryptic, and shorn of its pelt) before progressing to group dynamics. It’s much to their credit that I always mistakenly hear electronic elements in the music of Sawt Out, when in fact it’s all produced by acoustic instruments, played by men possessed of demonic monsters who insist on changing the flowers into oak trees and every blade of grass is covered with red dust after their unforgettable visits. If you hear nothing else, take time to listen to ‘After The Rain’, a magnificent 18-minute event of controlled intensity, and then go and cover yourself in mud, earthworms, and fallen leaves." – Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector

"A largely quiet album which presents the listener with a subtle panorama of rustling, breathing, rattling and gusts of air, a plethora of sounds that could be created incidentally, either by living organisms or by industrial machinery." – Josh Landry, Musique Machine

"Beins and Vorfeld are masters at creating hydroplaning textures, exploiting the deep resonance and gentle tinkling of metallic percussion, through bowing, sustained friction, and more conventional means. They lay down a rich fabric for Kerbaj to splay out unpitched breaths pushed through his trumpet; flickers and drops of sound that alternately seem like beads of water sizzling into the air on a hot cast iron skillet or a lapidary mosaic translated into striated, tart circular breathing excursions. Sawt Out reminds us there is more to be mined from drilling down and digging even deeper." – Peter Margasak, Nowhere Street substack

"Sawt Out should be listened to the same way as satellite photos from a distant planet are observed." – Ken Waxman, Jazzword

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Since its foundation in 2015, Berlin-based trio SAWT OUT has shaped and refined its profile as a prominent improvisational unit. With their unusual acoustic instrumentation of trumpet and two sets of percussion, the three artists create bewildering sound-worlds rich in detail and musical interaction.

"Black Current" is their second studio album, and features a different approach than its predecessor from 2019. While the latter was more representative of the sudden changes and machine-like precision heard in the group's live performances, individual ideas emerge at a slower pace on this new album, and musical material rather flows in currents through the group, often blurring its instrumental origins, while shifting and transforming from one player to another. Nevertheless there's an extraordinary tightness to the group's interplay throughout the four tracks, sometimes giving the impression of one collective brain being distributed among three musicians, where each slight change of a musical element directly affects all the others.

More info on the band (including audio and video excerpts): https://mazenkerbaj.com/sawtout/

Al Maslakh is a UFO created in Beirut in the early 2000's, to publish the un-publishable from Lebanon's experimental music scene and beyond.

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