Kosmos

Bremer / McCoy's latest

Bremer / McCoy’s Kosmos opens with “Higher Road,” which, this early in the morning at least, contains electric piano that sounds a lot like a jazz guitar tone. This tone is extended further and continues into track two, “Dream.” The thing is, I awoke very early this morning, having dreamed I traveled, years ago, to a small moon that was so close to its planet, it was within the planet’s habitable atmosphere. It’s the neatest dream I’ve had in quite a long time. This album is a fitting way to wake from this dream. Jonathan Bremer’s simple acoustic bass-lines and what Qobuz’s blurb calls “pianist/tape delay artist” Morten McCoy’s keyboard and piano, and electronic manipulations, easing me back into the world of wakeful consciousness.

Kosmos is filed under “electronic,” by Qobuz. I can see why, given the development of what begins as a jazz album, with acoustic bass and electric piano, into a fuller synthetic sound, with the tones of woodwinds blending in with something I can’t place. The first two tracks have been just keyboard and bass—spare, but not, since the sounds are so full. “Mere Liv” continues to expand the synth/keyboard sounds beyond the simple beginning of an electric piano, but only slightly. The album is, I would suggest to whomever classified it as electronic, perhaps a kind of “electronic jazz.” Maybe it’s the harmonic structures that kept it from being filed under a jazz heading.

”Hvor du er” uses the sound of an acoustic piano, with the acoustic bass plucking away all the way through this fourth track. There has been no percussion. It keeps space open in the sound-field, so there is no crowding of either the bass by the keyboard or piano, or vice versa.

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/ouzcb71408hja

Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/album/364375236?u

I would like to learn about tape-delay art and how it is used on this album. Qobuz’s blurb states that the album was recorded without extensive overdubbing, and that McCoy’s manipulations of sound were performed in real time, during recording. I know just whom I’ll ask: my old friend Matt, whose music is over here, on Soundcloud.com.

Matt Fagerburg: https://soundcloud.com/matt-fagerburg

The deep sounds of the bass and the occasional high-pitched harmonic, keep time moving, and on the last track, “Universal Love,” there is a high-pitched tone that is held, perhaps using McCoy’s tape-delay techniques, through the piece. It is a drone that works with the changes by the piano and bass. The simple tone takes on different aspects as the bass and piano move under it. And echo effect is deployed with good effect, to the piano, and a Fender Rhodes-style sound (perhaps produced by the real article, a Fender Rhodes electric piano) takes the album out, under the faint swirling of the simple tone and some repeatedly echoing acoustic piano.

I find that I want to continue listening to the album, which has gone by so quickly, as it seems. I am fully awake, and it is still the middle of the night. I think I will give it another go.

Just as there were, on “Universal Love,” so on track one, “Higher Road,” there are liberal use of an overhanging, high-pitched tone as well as echo on the acoustic piano. Somehow it did not make the impression the first time through, that it’s making on me now. And the melody holds a longing that my heart clutches at. Then, as track two opens with an acoustic piano run, some bass notes, and continues with Fender Rhodes (which I now am sure is the real deal), the longing is gone, and we are in the “body” of the album. And I didn’t know what to make of the wavering flute sound. It seems to be a synth tone, based on how many flute notes are going simultaneously during “Dream.”

Here is their label’s bio of them: https://www.luakabop.com/artists/bremer-mccoy.