The Sealed Knot and Lê Quan Ninh

The Sealed Knot
Surface/Plane
Meniscus

Lê Quan Ninh
Le Ventre Négatif
Meniscus

When confronted with a sticky problem, my metallurgy professor father said the solution always came to him when he shut up and "listened to what the rocks wanted." Two new releases from reactivated local improv label Meniscus exhibit a similar eccentric professional devotion: These guys are probably up with the chickens at sunrise, figuring out the important questions: What will make the cymbals ring like a temple bell? What will make those cello strings hiss like a teapot? Will the drumhead find true happiness being hit by a tennis ball?

The Sealed Knot, a trio featuring percussionist Burkhard Beins, harpist Rhodri Davies, and violoncellist Mark Wastell, are the musical equivalent of a talented vegan chef who can make gluten taste like virtually anything. The group concocts windswept billows of rustling sounds, then seasons them with ribbons of near-silence. Rarely do their chosen instruments sound like themselves: Instead, they keen, whine, and grind, and in the midsection of "Plane," creak together like a crank tightened beyond its limits. Still, it's not the novelty of the music, but rather the more traditional tones that surprise you. When the woody gnaw of the cello, the silvery vibration of the harp, or the steady pulse of the drum emerges from the maelstrom, they can make you shiver.

In the often austere and restrained world of spontaneous composition, where artists eschew the conventions of performance, the Sealed Knot's labelmate Le Quan Ninh radiates a luminous charisma through that most opaque of improvisational recordings, the solo percussion disc. He begins by building delicate edifices out of a pyrotechnic array of clatters, skitters, and squeals, and then proceeds to knock them down with gusto in a closing set of three big, sweeping pieces that move with the speedy single-mindedness of a tornado moving across the prairie with deadly grace. "Appuis et alentours" starts off with blustery swishes and ends in a loose clatter, like a snowball rolling down a hill of cutlery adding forks and knives with every turn. The closing track, "Autres distorsions élémentaires," rains down bells and triangles, and pelts cowbells, quarters, and hubcaps against your windows. And by that point, you have no will to shelter yourself from it: If that's what the drum wants, how can you tell it no?