Descended
Maria Finkelmeier; Jean Laurenz; Greg Jukes; Buzz Kemper
Bright Shiny Things BSTD-0157 (brightshiny.ninja)
A suite of pieces that features blended electronics, vocals, acoustic percussion and trumpet, Descended is a project that warrants close listening. It’s not an easy collection to categorize.
Jean Laurenz covers trumpet, vocals and percussion; Maria Finkelmeier, the composer, performs percussion and vocals as well. Laurenz is the great niece of Lafcadio Hearn, a 19th-century writer whose work explored Japanese culture, particularly ghost stories and mystical terror. The music is upbeat, yet distinctly scary. There’s a pop aesthetic to the beat-y sections, and the folk idiom I associate with Onibaba, a Japanese horror film. Sometimes cool and occasionally extremely hot, the collection shows a broad swath of influences.
Much of the disc features percussion, alongside spoken, wailing, or sung vocals (Yoko Ono in the recent Beatles documentary comes to mind more than once). Laurenz’s trumpet playing is melodic and assured, as heard on several tracks: Orbs of Ghostliness (muted, in a beautiful duet with Greg Jukes on accordion), and Mirror in Matsuyama, another duet with Finkelmeier on marimba. Mujina’s Arrival bops along on a drum kit, marimba and various electronic synthesized beats. A female voice (sorceress, hag?) croons and croaks. Deep basso readings by Buzz Kemper on tracks three and six deepify the creepifying.
The title might refer to Laurenz’ relationship (grandniece) to Hearn whose texts show up on three of the tracks. Her own texts are featured in two other tracks, Mujina’s Arrival and the Caribbean-infused Moon Song, whose childlike character (simple strophic sing-song with toy piano) slowly gives way to horror-movie sound effects; macabre, hair-raising stuff.
