Food

“This is not a miracle”

ECM Records (ECM 2417 Bar Code 473 9039)

“This is not a miracle” was released in November 2015 and represents Food’s third album for the Munich based ECM label.

Food began in 1997 as a quartet featuring English saxophonist Iain Ballamy plus the Norwegian trio of Thomas Stronen (drums), Arve Henriksen (trumpet,vocals) and Mats Eilertsen (bass). Also making extensive use of electronics the group recorded a series of acclaimed albums for the Feral and Rune Grammofon labels before Henriksen and Eilertsen departed to pursue solo careers in 2006.
Ballamy and Stronen re-trenched and decided to continue as a duo releasing “Molecular Gastronomy” (all their albums thus far had boasted food related titles) on Rune Grammofon in 2007 with the help of guest musicians Maria Kannegaard (piano) and Ballamy’s old Loose Tubes colleague Ashley Slater (trombone, post production).

Food then moved to Manfred Eicher’s ECM and released “Quiet Inlet”, their début for their new label, in 2010. This was followed in 2012 by “Mercurial Balm”. Both recordings are reviewed elsewhere on this site.

“Quiet Inlet” and “Mercurial Balm” both included material culled from improvised live performances. The group’s concerts usually feature the core duo working with guest musicians to create a single unbroken piece of improvised music, with these subsequently being edited and subdivided into individual tracks on the eventual album releases. “Quiet Inlet” features Ballamy and Stronen alongside trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer and guitarist Christian Fennesz. These two also appear on “Mercurial Balm” and this second album also features contributions from Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset and the South Indian slide guitar specialist and occasional vocalist Prakash Sontakke.

I’ve been fortunate enough to witness Food live on a couple of occasions, the 2010 Cheltenham Jazz Festival where they appeared with Christian Fennesz, and the 2011 Harmonic Festival in Birmingham which featured another guest guitarist, the Norwegian Bjorn Klakegg, plus cameo appearances from the Birmingham based trumpet pairing of Percy Pursglove and Aaron Diaz.

“This is not a miracle” is subtly different to its ECM predecessors. Although the group’s signature electro-acoustic sound remains intact and is instantly recognisable their working methods were substantially different. The new album was created in the studio rather than on the road and the resultant pieces are not only shorter but also contain a degree of pre-composed material, all of it written by Stronen. There is also a substantial element of post-production with Stronen shaping, structuring and polishing the group’s improvisations after the event.

The drummer explains;
“With this record I had the time and the will and the idea to do more on my own. I wanted to take the music further and I had an idea of a slightly different sound perspective; still atmospheric but also more direct and composed. So Iain, Christian Fennesz and I went to Ulf Holand’s studio in Oslo and we played around some sketches I’d written down. Not notes, but ideas I wanted to try out. Structural ideas. Often when we play live we develop a mood over quite a long time. Now, instead of taking time to find out where to go I wanted to go there directly, with a clear idea. Over three days we explored this way of working and recorded a lot of material, hours of it”.

He continues;
“I took all the files with me and worked on the music in my studio for about five months. I wanted to make something that was close to our best improvised music live, but expressed as shorter passages. So I cut the music to the bone”.

The result is Food’s most accessible album to date with some of the tunes exhibiting a real pop sensibility. Stronen credits the influence of engineer Holand with regard to this stating that “he pulled the music of Food closer to a rock or electronica sense of expression”. Holand has previously worked with Satyricon, Motorpsycho and the late David Bowie and collaborated with Molvaer on the trumpeter’s breakthrough album “Khmer”.

Stronen continues;
“Only the grooves remained untouched. Everything else was chopped apart and moved around. I’ve cut into Iain’s saxophone playing and the guitar phrases. Sometimes I’ve taken melodic fragments from Iain and Christian and looped them, or taken details from three or four pieces and layered them in one piece, or built melodies by combining phrases. It was a very different process from how we’ve previously worked, with the result that the tracks are more like tunes than improvising pieces”.

With Eicher not involved in the production process until the mixing stage this is very much Stronen’s album. As well as his usual acoustic and electronic drums and percussion he is also credited with Moog and Fender Rhodes. All three musicians are credited with ‘electronics’ but this extensively soundscaped music also has a warm and human feel thanks to Stronen’s array of small acoustic percussive devices -bells, woodblocks, chimes, bowls etc. - and the more obvious humanising presence of Ballamy’s saxophones.

However Ballamy isn’t heard straight away, the atmospheric opener “First Sorrow” is built around the eerie chimes of Fennesz’s guitar, crackling electronica, and the varied sounds of Stronen’s various percussive devices. 

“Where Dry Desert Ends” is based around an electro-acoustic drum groove and layered synthesiser melodies and drones, these sometimes embellished by the fog horn like boom of Ballamy’s tenor sax. With its taut grooves and hooky melodies it’s more obviously ‘poppy’ than much of Food’s previous output, albeit a left field kind of pop that variously recalls something that Brian Eno or Kraftwerk might have attempted.

Ballamy really comes into his own on the title track which is based around his breathy tenor sax melody. The sweetness of Ballamy’s playing is countered by the darkly brooding elements of electronica that permeate a piece propelled by Stronen’s low key acoustic drum grooves.

Tenor sax also takes the lead on the following “The Concept Of Density”, a more urgent sounding piece featuring bustling drum grooves, both acoustic and electronic, and the ghostly jangle of Fennesz’s guitar. 

Fennesz is prominent on the unsettling “Sinking Gardens Of Babylon” where his clangorous guitar is offset by Ballamy’s purity of tone on tenor sax and the intermittent bustle of Stronen’s drums and percussion.

“Death Of Niger” juxtaposes Ballamy’s gently keening soprano sax and Stronen’s colourful percussion with a nebulous, ambient backwash but ultimately it is one of the album’s less memorable tracks.

“Exposed To Frost” is altogether more urgent and unsettling with its restless, gnarly electronic textures contrasting with the serenity of Ballamy’s long lined tenor sax melodicism. There’s a sense of the Englishman representing humanity about to be engulfed by the threatening electronic maelstrom.

At nearly seven minutes “Earthly Carriage” is the lengthiest piece on the album and is closer in feel to Food’s earlier work as it builds slowly via the ambient layers and sound-washes that coalesce around Stronen’s fractured electro-acoustic drum grooves. It’s haunting and effective but arguably rather too long and could have benefited from more rigorous editing.

“Age Of Innocence” explores similar territory but does so more concisely, and ultimately more effectively. Stronen’s grooves are more pronounced and Ballamy’s strands of sax melody are delightful.

“The Grain Mill” offers something of a return to the harder edged electronica that characterised the first half of the album. Crackling electronic pulses and grooves are humanised by the tinkling of a child’s glockenspiel before Fennesz’s dramatically chiming guitar eruptions.

The album concludes with “Without The Laws” which offers another example of Food’s tough new sound. Glitchy drum and electronic grooves are wrapped in swathes of heavily processed guitar as Ballamy’s piercing sax clears a path through the swirling electronic fug. 

“This is not a miracle” is Food’s most accessible record to date yet shows no hint of artistic compromise. The album is a triumph for Stronen who has imbued each piece with captivating sonic detail and has achieved a consistently interesting and absorbing balance between the various acoustic and electronic elements.

In yet another twist the group have been playing some of the pieces on “This is not a miracle” in concert. The music that was developed via the combination of preliminary sketch, group improvisation and studio post production has now been notated and rehearsed and pieces from the album are now being performed live, juxtaposed with hitherto more typical passages of spontaneous improvisation. The group have also been working with visual artists Knut Bry and Dave McKean to bring yet another dimension to their live performances.

Thus Food continue to break new ground. “This is not a miracle” is an excellent album that is strongly recommended to all existing fans of the group but which should appeal to adventurous listeners of rock and electronic music too. Food has a jazz heart but its music goes far beyond the usual jazz parameters to create a sound that is very much its own. 

 

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