ghandhiduvalnadien2 by kaelen ghandhi, caleb duval, james paul nadien

"It is said, in some creation stories, that instead of getting right to it with the stuff of the universe, the gods spent a good cosmic while just tripping each other, yoinking each other’s noses and the like. In some cases it was participatory. In others they just sat in their own corner of the knowable universe and told themselves corny jokes. Long moments of stillness punctuated by the equivalent of a slap fight.
I don’t know why I think of it now. Ghandiduvalnadien2 is serious business.

There are many great moments here. I will not talk about them because that doesn’t help you, future, current, or potential listener. There are two and a half hours of music here in very long takes, but what you get to see over the course of them is this sense of innate joy and even humor that comes across in the process of creating even really serious business.

Kaelen Ghandhi on Tenor and Soprano saxes. I hear an unabashed love for the core sound of the instrument, where vibrato, noise, growling, and other timbral shifts are employed not to mask the core sound but to bolster it. I think that sometimes Ghandi is playing ballads in a zero gravity chamber, and I hope that sounds like a compliment.

Caleb Duval on Electric bass. You’re getting a careful attention to frequency range, taking full advantage of this instrument’s ability to occupy a wide space in the room or mix, but more often playing melodic counter-lines in a higher register, or playing the pick-up as a textural tool. The full-frequency moments serve as storms crossing the landscape.

James Paul Nadien on percussion. Someone who gives a lot to the music but without necessarily playing a lot. His steely focus to individual sounds serves an almost orchestral function in a trio context, and opening up he brings a distinct sense of phrasing to even the most thunderous downpours across the kit. It feels like you are watching an architect work with no visible right angles.

I listened to an unmixed version and was struck by how much everybody just paid attention, taking themselves in and out of the scenario without needing to be convinced. Sometimes they were big entrances and exits, sometimes it was all subtlety. The experience of each of these musicians in improvising with each other has allowed them a sense of rapport that gives the appearance of profound organization without constraint. I don’t want to say it sounds composed because that’s not the point, but it demonstrates what can happen when you passionately believe in and practice improvisation as something other than a supplement to another musical practice. Est domus in terris, clara quae voce resultat. Ipsa domus resonat, tacitus sed non sonat hospes. Ambo tamen currunt, guest and home as one. It’s this kind of fluid shift of roles that becomes hard to not describe with cinematic terms. And there’s something about it that sometimes makes me just cackle with delight.

The last thing here - one that comes to mind only after really wracking my brain for a neat conclusion, so you won’t hold it against me if it doesn’t seem neat enough. What a joy it is, as evidenced by the material here, to have complete, unquestioning faith in the totality of sound. Unlike more recognizable kinds of faith, which are so often bound in their expression by strict adherence to rules, this kind of engagement opens up a tesseract of possibilities, and celebrates them all so hard you’re left with nothing to do but clench your teeth."

- Adam Matlock

documents of caleb duval