The innovative and provocative first album by the recently performed partnership of Paul Dunmall and Roman Mints. These two acclaimed creators and performers of new music have come together to produce an album that explores experimental and beautiful sound worlds.
Paul Dunmall, saxophone
Roman Mints, violin
“ Mr. Dunmall is certainly one of the best living avant/jazz saxists and blew some minds once again at the Vision Fest earlier this year (June of 2008), as well as a few days later at the Living Theatre with Tony Malaby, Mark Helias and Kevin Norton. The Living Theatre set was recorded for Clean Feed and should be out in the not too distant future. I hadn’t heard of the classical violinist, Roman Mints, before this disc but he is well respected on the other side of the pond and has recorded the works of Alfred Schnittke, Elena Langer and Ed Bennett.
“This disc appears to be an entirely improvised acoustic duo. I love the way the duo work with similar sounds and textures. The seem to float together and swirl around one another closely, both playing cautiously and taking their time to come together. What is interesting is that Dunmall often sounds different than usual, his sound and interaction complementing Roman’s expressive yet controlled sound perfectly. Both players blend their sound and bend their notes so that it is difficult to tell who is starting a phrase and who is ending one. There is a section on the third track where the soprano sounds like a distant ship passing in a fog while the violin sounds like a flock of birds flying overhead. That is the thing about great improvised music, when it works, it takes us on a journey or tells us a story, creating a scene and then letting the scene evolve. When both players get rambunctious, it gets quite exciting and erupts into an incredible conversation.” —DMG Newsletter
“…what really matters is his ability to work with each of the selections on the composer’s own terms. There is no questioning the technical skill he brings to each of the pieces he performs. More important, however, is his acute awareness of where the music actually resides beneath the surface level of all the marks on the score pages.”—Examiner.com