Stuck at home in Slovenia because of the coronavirus pandemic, guitarist Samo Salamon reached out via email to the Canadian clarinetist François Houle to propose a long distance collaboration. Despite having some mutual musical colleagues, the two had never played together. Houle was quite enthusiastic about the idea. That was the genesis of Unobservable Mysteries by Samo Salamon & François Houle, an especially apt title for this series of duets made in a unique fashion. To build these tracks, Salamon first recorded half a dozen improvisations on acoustic guitar. Houle responded to them with his own improvised part, then laid down more solo tracks for Salamon to add his guitar. From listening, it’s impossible to discern how any of the pieces began. I might guess that Cradles, for instance, began with Houle’s clear tones and Salamon’s spidery guitar was the response, or that Hum and Sway was first a sequence of spacious guitar phrases before the clarinet played a melody over them, but I’d probably be wrong. No matter: Salamon and Houle prove to be quite compatible, combining a playful attitude with a slightly brittle sense of melody and the fearless momentum of their rhythms. While I was especially taken with Garden of Dust, nearly six minutes of deliciously rambunctious interplay, the eleven tracks never failed to hold my interest and repay my attention with music worth exploring again and again.
During the pandemic, guitarist Samo Salamon also reached out via email to fellow guitarist Hasse Poulsen, who agreed to work with him on a duet project. The result was the genuinely lovely String Dancers, with Samo Salamon & Hasse Poulsen each playing acoustic instruments. Both men also contributed ideas for the tunes, to the extent that Salamon describes them as co-writers. The brief notes that they each penned for the release emphasize the ease with which this set came together. From how Salamon and Poulsen interact and anticipate one another’s improvisatory directions, you’d think that they had been playing together for quite some time, but you’d be wrong. The duo’s strategies range from out of tempo pieces like the spacious Sometimes a Bird and the scruffy give and take of Mind Fuel to the insistent Free Noses and the engaging call and response structure of A Word We Heard. With the already porous line between improvisation and composition thoroughly obliterated in these spirited encounters, the listener is plunged into the sheer mystery of making something from nothing, a situation to be embraced by musicians and audience alike. Definitely recommended.
Samo Records; François Houle (cl) Samo Salamon (6- & 12-string guitars); Maribor, Slovenia (Salamon) & Vancouver, BC, 2020; Secret Pools/ Roots and Seeds/ Common Sense Mutters/ Cradles/ Garden of Dust/ Island of Shade/ Hum and Sway/ Jug of Breath/ Unobservable Mysteries/ The Wanderings of Water/ Longing Leaving Staying; 54:13.
Samo Records; Samo Salamon (6- and 12-string acoustic guitars) Hasse Poulsen (6 string acoustic guitar); Maribor, Slovenia (Salamon) & Paris, France (Poulsen, probably), June and July 2020; Ultra Serieux/ Austrian Lake/ Coverless/ Two Sides of a Mountain/ Sometimes a Bird/ Free Noses/ Soft Grass/ String Dancers/ Mind Fuel/ Cornering/ The Scent of Rain / A Word We Heard; 51:54. www.samosalamon.com
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