(ECM)
Surrounded by muted piano, gongs and brushed drums, Agbabian’s experimental songs are creepy but tuneful and beguiling
She writes strong, hummable melodies … Areni Agbabian. Photograph: Mher Vahakn/ECM Records
Areni Agbabian is best known as a featured vocalist with the Armenian jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan, although her debut for ECM Records is most assuredly not a jazz album. She was born and bred in California, but rarely sounds American: her cut-glass delivery is more akin to a European arthouse singer, and she has certainly absorbed the folk songs and microtonal scales of her Armenian heritage.
Areni Agbabian: Bloom album artwork
The opener, Patience, sets the tone: it’s a sorrowful melody that starts like a Gregorian chant and ends oddly reminiscent of Radiohead’s Karma Police, sung in a pure, frictionless timbre at the upper end of a contralto range. This is not a voice that gets down and dirty: it floats a few inches above the earth on a higher, more rarefied plane, unsullied by the elements.
Instead of being accompanied by Tigran’s florid improvisations, Agbabian accompanies herself, with a piano style that is fugal, sparing and minimal. Sometimes she mutes the piano strings, which meshes well with the textural percussion of Nicolas Stocker, a Swiss drummer who uses brushes on drums and cymbals and teases out gentle noises on bells, gongs and Tibetan singing bowls.
Agbabian can write strong, effortlessly hummable melodies. A haunting theme is repeated on Petal One, Petal Two and Full Bloom as the album’s leitmotif. Mother is an intense, slow-burning ballad, like an old Celtic folksong played in ultra slow-motion, while two songs explore the unusual modal intervals of an ancient Armenian hymn. Most interesting of all may be The River, where Agbabian improvises melismatically over Stocker’s clattering drums, like a malfunctioning soul-singing robot.
Often she is more interested in exploring sound and texture for its own sake. Yearning sees percussionist Stocker creating a gentle, gamelan-like pulse on a West African thumb piano, while Agbabian plays zither-like riffs on a prepared piano. Sear sounds like a rigorous avant-garde piece by Morton Feldman, accompanied by the slow, intense rumble of Stocker’s drums. It is a creepy and beguiling collection from a real talent.
If Agbabian’s voice is smooth and unadorned, Leïla Martial’s voice is all sharp angles and wobbly shapes. On Warm Canto, she uses plenty of transgressive vocal glitches – yodels, whoops, rhythmic sighing – while the other two members of her Baa Box band (drummer Eric Perez and guitarist Pierre Tereygeol) contribute similarly eccentric vocal harmonies, using ultra-low baritone growls and throat singing. It’s fascinating but often a little too busy and cluttered – the trio only start to connect emotionally when they pare back the vocal gymnastics.
A new album from Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble is always a treat. Like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, El’Zabar’s Chicago outfit explores jazz music’s ancient African roots as well as its freakish avant garde branches. Be Known: Ancient/Future/Music mixes off-kilter bebop with hypnotic minimalism (using an mbira along with other African percussion) but manages to make it sound funky and soulful rather than joylessly academic.