Music

Reviews:

"...If [lowercase, reductionism, etc] constitutes even a loose genre, Nmperign are surely amongst its leaders. In the decade-plus that they've played together, Kelley and Rainey have partnered with many like-minded musicians-- experimental sound artists Jason Lescaleet, Günter Müller, Alex Dörner-- as well as rock-leaning colleagues like Akron/Family and Damon & Naomi. In fact, they've been so busy with collaborations that this is the first studio album made by themselves. But it's no debut-- every second here shows how the pair's sonic communication has become as natural as spoken language.

Exactly what makes up their language is hard to pin down. It's easy enough to catalog all the nouns and verbs and see Ommatidia simply as a collection of tones, growls, and shrieks. But it's the sentences-- the way Kelley and Rainey arrange sounds and silences into commas and periods-- that produce magic. Some moments do capture the whole-- take the interlocking tones at the end of opener "Glass", the bursts of blare that cut hard to silence in "Prey", the windy whistling in "Variations V". But none of those moments would be as effective without what comes before and after. And though Nmperign's open approach makes everything spontaneous, you'll be surprised by how logical and structured it can all sound.

Of course, logic and structure here are relative terms-- in the context of all music, Nmperign's is an acquired taste. Even if you know this style well, you have to switch mental modes to fully absorb it. Put Ommatidia on as background, and its bursts of activity might cut through, but you'll miss a lot of it, too. Engage directly, though, and Kelley and Rainey's menagerie of sounds become more fascinating the closer you zoom in. In fact, maybe we should call Nmperign "expansionist." Their music may seem "reductionist," but its effect-– they way it increases your attention and expands your senses-- is far from minimal."

- Marc Masters, Pitchfork

 

"It's safe to say that nobody else makes acoustic music quite like Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey. As Nmperign, the duo craft microscopic symphonies with but a trumpet and a saxophone, utilizing their instruments as a software engineer utilizes a computer – repurposing, enhancing, deconstructing. “Ommatidia” demonstrates this analogy quite nicely – gusts of wind, percussive splatter, metallic squeaks and strange vibrations emanate from the CD; the sounds are hardly what one associates with trumpet and saxophone....

The broad dynamic range of the recording is a gift for deep listeners, and the long, breathy tones offer up many nuances. So, if you're already a fan of the work of this duo, “Ommatidia” is sure to solidify your stance; if you've yet to become introduced, it's a perfect opportunity to jump right in and enjoy. 9/10"

- Bryon Hayes, Foxy Digitalis

 

"Best Album of 2009"

- Howard Martin, Foxy Digitalis

 

"One the Top Ten Albums of 2009"

- Marvin Lin, The Village Voice

 

"[Ommatidia] is truly an honest album that captures in excellent clarity the position these two musicians are at right now, in command and control of their instruments, and working with sheer spontaneity to wrestle and fight with the clay and form music that lives and breathes through its own form, questions and resolutions.

Ommatidia is a great album to get lost in, clear the decks, either put on some headphones or close the doors and your eyes and follow the music through its shapes and angular maze of intertwined splutters, rasps, near silences and drilling aggression and just enjoy the level these two are working on. The sounds just come out of nowhere at what feels like just the right times, sections of calm and energy fit together and compliment each other well, it is simply a real joy to follow closely, mentally separating the two musicians so as to marvel at how they work together... This release bottles up years of invention, collaboration and musical familiarity into one finely distilled example of how great musicians that know each other well can produce great music."

- Richard Pinnell, The Watchful Ear

 

"Five years ago soprano saxophonist Bhob Rainey, who is half of nmperign, expressed his appreciation for decay, particularly the way it imparts an impression of a sound’s lifespan outside of the piece of music it happens to be passing through. Decomposition permeated their last album Love Me Two Times. In partnership with tape loop manipulator Jason Lescalleet, Rainey and trumpet-playing partner Greg Kelley used variations in tape and microphone quality, Alvin Lucier-inspired copying techniques, and some good old-fashioned cut and paste to transform spare utterances into artfully blurred, deliriously outsized, and drastically aged distortions.

From the get-go it’s been hard to reconcile the sounds nmperign make with the acoustic instruments they use to make them, but after that record they couldn’t take decay any further without plunging into pure Noise. Ommatidia seems like an about face. It is their first in a proper studio, a strange place for musicians who once recorded an album on a micro-cassette player, and the focus is squarely on the exacting attunement that Kelley and Rainey have evolved over 11 years of playing together... Nmperign have never sounded better. The album is named for the discreet elements that make up an insect’s eye, and the hi-fi recording renders their instruments’ smallest sounds with sharp clarity. It also allows the two men to plant tiny gestures that indicate that they aren’t over erosion just yet. On “Variation II,” a brief silence interrupts a sliding wall of hiss, like a dropout on an old cassette. And just over a minute into “Glass” they chip away at the improvising musician’s image of seriousness when flickering ribbons of striated breath sounds give way to an immaculate replica of the whistles of dropping bombs, which seem to land near the huffing of an old steam locomotive.

If the whole performance was so broad, it’d seem like a series of cheap shots; by delivering them as brief asides, nmperign use such measures to keep the listener on the edge of their proverbial seat throughout Ommatidia’s 37 minutes of hyper-detailed microsound."

- Bill Meyer, The Wire

 

"Herbert Brün used to say that “improvised music is the spontaneous use of an already-learned language,” and it was because of this that improvised music could never give birth to a new idea. While the former part of that sentence is true, I could never agree that improvisation has never produced anything original, and nmperign’s legacy is more than enough proof of that. When improvisation finally met with the sound world of rigorous experimental acoustic music, it opened a door to an immense, seemingly limitless sound world that is still explored today in the tiniest of detail. Over the past 10 years or so, Greg Kelley (trumpet) and Bhob Rainey (saxophone) have been at the forefront of this movement, having completely reinvented their respective instruments with an unusual amount of technical proficiency and formal/composition insight...

I first saw nmperign in 2001, performing as a quartet with Axel Doerner and Andrea Neumann (beautifully documented on the Thanks, Cash CD). After graduating high school and entering music school as an undergraduate, I was very excited about improvising, but over the course of the next four years I slowly lost interest. I felt like the music I heard from others, and my own playing as well, had reached a dead end with the possibilities of spontaneous musical interaction. Seeing nmperign was thrilling and absolutely revelatory; along with things like John Cage’s Silence and Herbert Brün’s experimental music seminar, it was one of the few musical experiences I’ve had that completely changed the way I thought about my instrument and music in general...

With so many people clinging to the post-modern idea that “everything has been done,” over the past decade experimentalism has continued to evolve and produce new and exciting music… That [nmperign's] creative spirit inspires someone to ask, “what next?” is perhaps more powerful than any otherworldly squeak or scrape ever coaxed from Greg and Bhob’s metal tubes, and is an intrinsic characteristic of this strange and singular music.

What often sets nmperign apart from their peers and imitators is that the technical exploration of their instrument never takes precedence over formal and musical sensibility. They don’t make music that is just about finding new sounds--they don’t make music that is “just” about anything. It draws on numerous microscopic elements to create a cohesive whole without ever becoming regressive."

- Nick Hennies, Junk Media

 

"Like with their previous work... Nmperign show they are true masters of playing their instruments with great care and making them almost never sound like a trumpet or a soprano saxophone. The instrument is a mere vehicle to produce sounds with... False air, sustained sounds, sometimes even percussive short sounds. I never like the sound of a saxophone - no mystery there, as I wrote this before - but when it comes to Rainey and his method of playing it, I am all ears. The six pieces on this CD are great. Very refined playing, highly free and improvised, but very open, fresh and spacious, but never 'silent' for the sake of being silent. Excellent"

- Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

 

"OK, gotta love the cover. Naked nmperign; it's been a while since I've heard them in such a format but their sound is unmistakable. The sounds themselves will be recognizable to anyone who knows their work, but the pieces, relatively short, are assembled for maximum impact and, to these ears, carry a higher concentration of mass and solidity than before. "Glass" begins in familiar nmperign territory, all windy, sandblasted breath sounds, slowly moving over its seven minutes to purer tones. Its elements might be familiar but the structure is just perfect: concise and sculpted, all curved angles. Several other pieces are more active, guttural...louder than one might expect, but the distribution of weight in each is almost compositional in character, really impressive how balanced they are. Great dynamic and, dare I say it, emotional range is covered over the course of "Ommatidia"'s 38 minutes. Excellent recording. "

- Brian Olewnick, Just Outside