A chime introduces Jessica Ackerley’s new album All Of the Colours Are Singing, like a sublimated elevator call or shop bell, and then a couple more sound out at a lower pitch through the rustling of what might be beaded curtains before in the manner of a morning mist or smoke rising from peat, the drone of a viola and bass dispel the illusion. For we are not in a store but a clearing, as the slender crashes, rolls and other gestures of the drums nudge for a little space, the viola bows and bends or furiously splinters and violin arcs elegantly overhead as Ackerley’s electric guitar stays embedded within the centre.
The guitarist possesses great range and subtlety on her instrument as she explores the gradients of scuzzy noise and limpid nature, here for the most part harnessing her more extreme tendencies in pursuit of something more porous and classical. In that sense the record evokes the solo sketch Wave: Volume I, a kind of shelter from the storm as during a year in Honolulu she was inspired by the sinuous waves and pulsing frequencies of the Pacific Ocean, more than the searing improvisations of SSWAN or even the torchlight excursions and staggered Americana of her trio album All Hope With Sleeping Minds which she released with Chaz Prymek and Nick Turner earlier this year.
All Of the Colours Are Singing was recorded between Honolulu and New York City, with Ackerley feeling the pull of both locations as she assembled the core trio of her electric guitar with Walter Stinson on the upright bass and Aaron Edgcomb on drums while Concetta Abbate tracked the string arrangements back in Queens at the other side of a continent, playing the violin on the opening two tracks and imbuing the second side with the deeper and coarser tones of her viola.
Born in Alberta but making her name over the span of a decade in New York City, where she was drawn to the rock and noise scenes as well as the city’s enduring and ever revolving free jazz circuit, Ackerley moved to Hawaii to pursue a PhD. As she was producing All Of the Colours Are Singing her closest friend in Honolulu was diagnosed with cancer, which had a sobering effect on the rhythms of the record, adding to the sense of flux before the final masters were completed this past February. Her friend would pass away just one week later.
Hence all the colours between expectancy and anxiety, familiarity and uncertainty, joy and grief. ‘Forward motion is never a straight line’ treads a little bit warily and when it picks up speed, it does so with a start and a scamper rather than with any real sense of surety. Beyond the specifics the mood and tone might therefore recall the Cy Coleman standard ‘I Walk a Little Faster’ with its rumpled sandcastles and sturdy chin. The song becomes sparer in the middle section as Ackerley’s jerky plucks stagger across the scene, before meatier riffs and drum rolls, which include the sound of Edgcomb’s sticks rubbing together, race towards an inevitable corner, a crossroads or a checkpoint.
Maintaining the air of uncertainty, ‘To See Takes Time’ is short and specious but seems content to linger in this space if only for a brief while, before the composition warps and seems to play in reverse as it builds elliptically towards the title piece.
Little paint daubs in the form of dialup harmonics make for an elegant and variegated canvas on ‘All of the colours are singing’, which is also the record’s centrepiece. Ackerley’s electric guitar is accompanied by the lush strings of Abbate’s viola, as Stinson plays a triumphant and almost euphoric upright bass while Edgcomb pulsates behind the drum kit. More hopeful and verdant, it begins to gather and swell through the eager drum rolls and oscillating strings of the last minute. Yet on ‘The dots are the connections’ some of that positivity stalls, giving way to a circular piece which spins at moments like a Ferris wheel ride or those whirligig cups and saucers, but mostly feels like a heedless march down the sidewalk where the drifter or excursionist has already put up the shutters.
Defying the still life of its title, ‘Nature Morte: Time is Fleeting’ proves more cloudy and atmospheric but also more purposeful, as over droning strings and bass plus reverberating cymbals Ackerley puts on her hiking boots, making the ascent on foot by virtue of some judicious guitar tremolos. Then the sky breaks and we are suddenly walking on air, a rarified space of sweeping strings, walking bass, martial drums and Ackerley’s shapeshifting guitar as the ensemble play with a sense of grace and some celestial yearning. Just one lone quavering string serves as a sign of portent, before those familiar clouds cover over the scene, leaving our hiker thoroughly stranded.
If all of these manoeuvres appear to be building towards something more definitive, the grand finale proves no less open-ended. All Of the Colours Are Singing closes with a ‘Conclusion: In Four Micro Parts’ which features spiky and angular minimal rock in the manner of Shellac plus the smudged bass lines and strained or incandescent strings of Ackerley’s background in free jazz, as she burbles away on the guitar and a few claves mark ragged time in the middle section. A late turn embraces contemporary classical pastoralism and there is still just enough room for one final lapsed shimmy, bumping into walls and rushing towards that which cannot be divined as the quartet catch on their heels with a leery glance back over their shoulder.
