Liebig, Steuart Stigtette / Delta
Album: Delta   Collection:Jazz
Artist:Liebig, Steuart Stigtette   Added:Jan 2006
Label:PfMENTUM  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2006-02-26 Pull Date: 2006-04-30 Charts: Jazz
Week Ending: Apr 30 Apr 23 Apr 2 Mar 19 Mar 12 Mar 5
Airplays: 2 1 1 1 1 2

Recent Airplay
1. Feb 06, 2007: Jena and Gomorrah: A Double Reed that Thinks
Render
4. Apr 25, 2006: Your Mommie's Jazz Program
Secret One-Hand Shake
2. May 05, 2006: Rock in a Position (extra klezmer edition)
Render
5. Apr 21, 2006: Memory Select
Mahoning
3. Apr 28, 2006: Memory Select
Dynamite's Dionysian Dance
6. Mar 31, 2006: Memory Select
Hector

Album Review
Ben Wolfson
Reviewed 2006-02-18
Chamber-jazz that's about 90% chamber and 10% jazz. Feels like fairly accessible modern classical with some improvisatory elements. The unusual instrumentation here (bassoon, clarinets, flutes, and bass), the abstract half-composed/half-improvised (but not in a jazzy way) feel, and lack of concern for, say, swinging puts this out of any overtly jazzy territory, even when the structure is pretty close to head-solo-head, while Liebig's active bass playing and the willingness of the players to be atonal and dissonant keeps it from the anodyne end of the ECM sound, though as with ECM, though, the recording here is preternaturally clear. In fact that clarity, combined with that willingness, makes the record seem a little dark and unstable—another element contributing to this is Liebig's fondness for having instruments play at different speeds simultaneously, especially when he plays (and his bass comes through perfectly) quick low notes while the others play much slower. Unfortunately the gauziness of the recording prevents even the most active parts from really hitting hard.
Many of these tracks are fairly self-similar wrt feel and pace, but try: 6, 10, 12, 11, 7

1: Fast and propulsive, even a little jaunty at first. Parts of this sound like tricks to get you to think you could dance to it, which would probably be a bad idea.
2-5 form a suite.
2: Abstract flurries with very brief solos interspersed. Ends with all members punctuating, one note at a time and together, spans of silences.
3: Opens with a bassoon solo, slow. Pace picks up when flute enters (1:20), things get punchier. 2:15 cycle repeats, except with solo clarinet, then with bass, then flute.
4: Slow and soft not unlike some of the Claudia Quintet's work, or the Vandermark 5 tracks dedicated to Feldman on “Acoustic Machine”. Everything sounds a little tentative here.
5: Busy opening, with very fast bass, slow bassoon, and in-between flute/clarinet. Propulsive middle.
6: Uncertain start with just bass clarinet & bass. Bass becomes more active and the flute takes the lead (occasionally with shakuhachi-like timbre), followed by a bassoon solo, then bass solo. Occasional full-group interludes between the solos.
7: Fluttery. This track is a bit hard for me to get a handle on: the non-bass instruments have play almost start-stop, without actuallystopping, and the bass moves all over.
8: Creaky and slow-moving, wouldn't be out of place after an ambient track.
9: Long seven-part suite in one track. Fitting with the title (“Seven Dreams about Time”) the piece is fairly “light” seeming. I don't mean it's insubstantial, just that it has a floaty, airy character—Liebig's bass playing is less prominent here. In fact “light” may be a bad word because even though there's nothing heavy about this, not all of the seven dreams are good dreams; in particular one section in the middle, with a trilling reed and very rapid, almost subliminal bass playing, is a bit destabilizing.
10: Fairly similar to 1 in tempo and feel at the beginning, but longer and with a little more development. Nice clarinet/flute duet in the middle, then a bass/bassoon duet.
11: Percussive bass playing is sinister sounding; other instruments go through a sequence of solos (clarinet-bassoon-flute) with some full-group passages between.
12: Repetitive opening a la Larval, which builts to a very active, everyone-solo-at-once frenzy—but then they stop on a dime (and the piece loses momentum). From there on out, calmness rules the day, until the last 25 seconds.

Track Listing
1. Hector   7. Cold Green Mystery
2. Mahoning   8. Our Lady Of The Illuminated Hand
3. Alchemy   9. Seven Dreams About Time
4. Light Cloud, Dark Cloud   10. Render
5. 1956-J No. 2   11. Secret One-Hand Shake
6. Dynamite's Dionysian Dance   12. Knowledge Is Gravity