audio
Wrack: Cracked Refraction :: Porter 4061 (2012)
Kyle Bruckmann – oboe, English horn
Tim Daisy – percussion
Anton Hatwich – bass
Jen Clare Paulson – viola
Jason Stein – bass clarinet
“The unusual front line of Kyle Bruckmann’s Wrack—viola, oboe, and bass clarinet—gives the quintet a narrow timbral range, but it uses wriggling, high-intensity counterpoint to create an exhilaratingly bright, multilayered sound. As Bruckmann says in the liner notes of the group’s forthcoming third album, Cracked Refraction (due from Porter Records on February 21), “I take perverse glee in using the wrong tools for the job.” The onetime Chicagoan started Wrack as a jazz-oriented project, but over time he’s come to focus more and more on jagged themes, unwieldy time signatures, and tricky pinpoint interplay (a la Anthony Braxton), all played with the postpunk energy of his old band Lozenge—on “Exacerbator,” for example, Jen Clare Paulson’s acidic viola slashes against the grain of a charging unison pattern from Bruckmann’s oboe and Jason Stein’s bass clarinet. Drummer Tim Daisy and bassist Anton Hatwich make for a whirlwind rhythm section, and when they buckle down and play hard they sometimes seem to splinter the front line with their momentum as they signal the rapid-fire shifts in Bruckmann’s knotty, episodic compositions. The intensity can be pretty relentless, which makes the occasional quiet passage—like Paulson’s lyrical, almost hushed solo on “Notwithstanding,” accompanied by light percussion and pointillistic bass—hit just as hard emotionally as the wind players’ most furious barrages.” (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader)
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Exacerbator
Wrack: Intents & Purposes :: 482Music 1050 (2006)
Kyle Bruckmann – oboe, English horn
Tim Daisy – percussion
Anton Hatwich – bass
Jen Clare Paulson – viola
Jason Stein – bass clarinet
“Bruckmann effortlessly occupies the space between jazz and classical music, generating movements of somber reflection one minute, turbulent intensity the next. From Morton Feldman-esque minimalism to Charles Ives-like bluster, Wrack has few equals. . . Historically, attempts to combine classical music with jazz often tend toward the programmatic and cerebral. Bruckmann’s writing sounds wholly organic and natural. With Intents & Purposes, he delivers an album rich with tricky contrapuntal writing, bolstered by unusual arrangements and intricate interplay. Whether Wrack qualifies as free jazz, chamber jazz or some other hybrid is irrelevant: this is music made by artists unafraid of genre constraints.” (Troy Collins, All About Jazz)
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The System Cannot Withstand Close Scrutiny (excerpt)
Slippery Disciplines (excerpt)
Intents & Purposes (excerpt)
Further Ado (excerpt)
LOZENGE: Undone :: Sickroom 028 (2005)
Kyle Bruckmann – accordion, minimoog, organ, oboe, voice
Kurt Johnson – bass
Philip Montoro – metal percussion, drums
Mark Stevens – drums
“LOZENGE, a four-man band from Chicago, makes a clattery, distorted racket… Cheap organ and synthesizer, clanking percussion, clobbered drums and cranked-up bass work up stop-start patterns that sound like progressive rock locked in a dank boiler room…. Every so often, someone howls a line like “What are we waiting for?” amid the din, or the music switches to a sardonic oom-pah. All the lurching and buzzing is invigorating and hilarious, unless you’re prone to motion sickness.” (John Pareles, New York Times)
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CHICKNSHIT (excerpt)
EYETEETH
STUMBLOR (excerpt)
EKG: No Sign :: Sedimental 041 (2005)
Kyle Bruckmann – oboe, English horn and/or analog electronics
Ernst Karel – trumpet and/or analog electronics
“EKG is capable of a langorous lyricism while in other cases this tendency is willfully crushed and ground down into a gritty landscape of fine-grained glass and silt. Open and inviting tones draw the listener in at the same time tenser noisy outbursts work to alienate. Tightly controlled grainy textures splutter to life and dissolve into hovering drones. The sequencing can be jarring (as when the largely open “Days” collides with the claustrophobic “Hours”), but the effect is of an irregular pendulum’s swing – a fevered and woozy oscillation through tension and release.” (Steve Rybicki, fakejazz.com)
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gasps & fissures :: 482Music 1027 (2004)
Kyle Bruckmann – oboe, English horn, suona, and mijwiz
(with Kurt Johnson, double bass)
“Gasps & Fissures’s microscopic constructions are meticulously built from some of the music’s smallest bits. . . Bruckmann’s classical and jazz influences are stripped down and dissected, resulting in music that’s as much electronic as it is either of the aforementioned styles. Gasps & Fissures inhabits the areas in between these territories, not straddling them so much as existing deep in the cracks, where many wouldn’t even think to look. Like a slide of single-celled organisms bursting to life under a microscope, this album finds flourishing life in the most unexpected of places.” (Adam Strohm, Dusted Magazine)
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Rasps & Fractures (excerpt)
Gaps & Fictions (excerpt)
Exponential (excerpt)
Grand Mal :: barely auditable 1234/Pax recordings (2003)
Kyle Bruckmann – oboe, English horn, suona
Ernesto Diaz-Infante – acoustic guitar
John Shiurba – electric guitar
Karen Stackpole – percussion
“An unusual ad-hoc grouping, with Chicagoan Bruckmann horning in on a nest of Bay Area experimenters. Grand Mal is a bright-toned yet challenging suite of snippets, as far from standard improvisation blowouts as it is from patience-draining Austrian angst. Which is to say, no quarter is given the eardrums, yet good humor carries the day… A disc to return to again and again, impressive for its lofty levels of extended virtuosity, but even more for its improvisations-each showing its own beautiful kind of composure.” (Tom Djll, Transbay)
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Purchase CD or digital downloads securely HERE.
Wrack :: Red Toucan 9323 (2003)
Jeb Bishop – trombone
Kyle Bruckmann – oboe, English horn
Tim Daisy – percussion
Kurt Johnson – bass
Jen Clare Paulson – viola
“Bruckmann’s compositions are a carefully constructed balancing act between a written hybrid of jazz/classical motifs and improvised interplay. These seven compositions (with one non-original) emphasize a dark, reflective sound that thrives on dynamic variance… On Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”, the ensemble cuts to the core of the piece in perhaps the most breathtaking version of this song ever recorded (after Ornette, of course).” (Jay Collins, One Final Note)
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Gearshifts & Parentheticals (excerpt)
Mitigating Factors (excerpt)
Elegy for a Boiled Frog (excerpt)
Extenuating Circumstances (excerpt)
Six Synaptics :: barely auditable 333/ertia creations 02 (2002)
Kyle Bruckmann – minimoog and live processing
Scott Rosenberg – alto, tenor and sopranino saxophones, flute, contrabass clarinet
Michael Zerang – multiple percussion
“The music builds up a head of steam, but it never reaches a point where a predictable continuity of momentum is achieved. Instead, it feasts on irregular movements, serrated edges, and explosive outbursts of sound that are the product of the imaginative minds of the players.” (Frank Rubolino, One Final Note)
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Purchase CD or digital downloads securely HERE.
