Wood & Steel

This is a simple, but fascinating meeting of French jazz flautist Joce Mienniel playing a Western Boehm-system classical flute and Aram Lee, the flautist from Black String, playing a bamboo Korean daegeum. Two different flutes of different materials, which give the album its name, separated by some 3,000 years. The duo are helped along the way by versatile Korean percussionist Minwang Hwang, on drums, gongs and by powerful shamanic singing on the track ‘Ethiopic’.

The two instruments clearly have their own distinctive sound: the Western flute, clear and pure in tone, the Korean flute lower, much more nasal with its characteristic buzz – yet sometimes the two instruments twine around each other so it’s hard to tell them apart, on the opening ‘Song of Willow’ for example. There are solo tracks for each of the two flutes and for Minwang Hwang on percussion. Joce Mienniel is fast and virtuoso, Aram Lee more yearning and soulful, bending and ornamenting his notes. The highlight of the album is the title-track, which is gentle and understated, but is rich in soft colours and overtones. What Wood & Steel demonstrates is the versatility of a tube you blow into and the different ways it has developed on opposite sides of the globe.