This Appearing World

This adventurous collaborative recording teams American avant– garde pianist and composer Marilyn Crispell with two Kiwis – reed player Jeff Henderson and ethnomusicologist Richard Nunns. While it can’t really be categorised as world music per se, any more than it can be called jazz or even contemporary classical, all three of those complementary genres are present in their most loosely defined sense. An album that is much more about sounds themselves, rather than any recognised melody or set structure, these at times challenging improvisations gestate, grow, meander, find small crevices to nest in, and then mutate into new haiku-like statements.

No stranger to out-there compositions, the 66-year-old Crispell was integral to the ensembles of multi-instrumentalist jazz improviser Anthony Braxton and bassist Reggie Workman for over a decade. Wellington-based Henderson is a well-respected player, venue operator and artistic director in the New Zealand capital, and Nunns is the undisputed world authority and exponent of taonga puoro (ancient blown and percussive Maori instruments). Between them they are capable of moving from minimalist ambient whispers to full-on atonal blasts.

As usual, Nunn’s work is particularly evocative and otherworldly. The accompanying DVD, featuring both a performance and an interview, gives visual context to the recording and demonstrates how some of the more unusual sounds are actually created.