Represencing

"Represencing is the 2nd installment of the Joshua Abrams sound world introduced on his 2010 Eremite album Natural Information. Recorded at home in Chicago summer of 2011, Abrams again organizes small group statements around the resonant grooves of the North African ceremonial instrument the guimbri with a unique and broadly assimilative compositional voice. Sources from traditional musics to minimalism, jazz to krautrock, animate Represencing but Abrams is always grounded in the solidity of true working musicianship and he proves himself an artist fluent not just in styles but traditions.Abrams' guest musicians embrace his polyglot approach. Goaded (the guimbri is partly constructed from animal-hide) by Abrams to focus on a particular facet of their musical vocabularies, Jeff Parker and Emmett Kelly appear as finely contrasting rhythm guitarists, Michael Zerang gets virtuosic on a tambourine and David Boykin devotes himself to altissimo long-tones and circular breathing. Others perform more structural roles, such as Jason Stein's bass clarinet, or, as with Nicole Mitchell's diaphanous choir of flute parts, function as landscape. The Moondog-influenced 'Sungazer' is an aria for Tomeka Reid's spirited cello.Throughout the album gong rhythms, synthesizer 'sub' bass, harmonium and organ return as unifying coloristic elements. Abrams likens the overall concept to 'entering a forest from different directions,' and cites the AACM, Sandy Bull's duets with Billy Higgins, Don Cherry, Arnold Dreyblatt, Hamza el Din, Popul Vuh, and Pharaoh Sanders as inspirations." Housed in a beautiful screenprinted sleeve.