Label: Celinka
Release date: April 11, 2012
Producer: Igor Matković
Genre: Jazz
Rating: 9.0/10
A familiar face at the Ljubljana music conservatory, a trumpet professor, composer, arranger, pianist and above all trumpeter, Igor Matkovič is a man with plenty to say for his age. As a trumpeter, keyboardist or producer he has already played on more than 30 albums by artists from both pop and jazz, and he has been building his name, and keeps building it, at many of the best-known jazz festivals at home and abroad.
“Sonic Motion” is really the logical successor to “Motion In Two Dimensions” (2010) and a step up in Igor Matkovič’s collaboration with keyboardist Marko Crnčec. If “Motion in Two Dimensions”, an album of covers of well-known jazz standards, was the point where they got to know each other and calibrated, the two musicians quickly outgrew that frame and set themselves a new challenge. Once drummer Vladimir Kostadinovič and bassist Robert Jukič joined, the Sonic Motion quartet was born, and it first presented its music in early 2011. The bonds between the players turned into a proper driving engine, so an album from a crew as tight as the one radiating from “Sonic Motion” was pretty much a logical consequence.
At its core, the quartet is built along classic jazz lines, and it doesn’t hide its traditional-school roots at any step of “Sonic Motion”. But Matkovič has enriched that basic, elemental framework with his own, one-of-a-kind ingenuity, which, together with the rest of the trio, peaks in the juiciness of a condensed statement of pure-blooded jazz. At every turn it’s kept lively by the dynamics of the lead motifs strung together, and above all by the colorful tangle of sonic improvisations, which put the expression of each individual emotion first.
The tracks for the album were recorded in just two takes. In full. So this album carries a distinctly warm, organic sound. It really feels like a living concert organism. Played in the studio. And the performance is basically unrepeatable, one of a kind. That’s one of the charms jazz knows so well. The rhythm section has that classic, old-school-rooted sound of the jazz tradition, especially in how the drums respond, and the more Matkovič and Crnčec occasionally drift away from those frameworks. The quartet’s interaction works like a happy fitting-together of building blocks that sound pretty familiar “at first listen” but are still unexplored, which fills the listener with a curiosity that gratefully leads them from the first second to the last of this record.
“Sonic Motion” is no easy bite. It’s an album that grows slowly, so it demands total devotion from the listener. The most refined and demanding music lovers will bond with it fast, and fans of jazz adventurousness will quickly realize this is an excellent achievement, one that can instantly stand next to the works of well-known acts on the world jazz scene. Matkovič is an ambitious musician, so he loaded the album with an exceptional amount of message, sparkling in the often demanding combinations between the lead ideas and dizzying detours of jazz improvisation. His “little school” of trumpet playing, in dialogue with the keyboards, creates most of the progressive provocation, the unpredictable turns, and, what matters most, the genuine touch of spontaneity. The opener State Of Mind makes all that clear right away, with the trumpet solo improvisation furious, irritable and untamed one moment, then restrained, serene and shy the next. Intuition underlines the moments of intimacy and softness, with Matkovič’s solos floating over a repeating but well-defined and proud keyboard motif, while the trumpeter veers off at various points in his soloing and actually teases with strings of forms “between forms”. They stir up a pensive, faraway stare, at moments a sense of mental absence, the standards that the revolutionary Miles Davis introduced into jazz long ago. A similar touch of that playing shows up in the trumpet’s responses on the second-to-last track, Doors To Open. Moments like Sonic Space and, in the middle of the album, Approaching Chaos, reinforce the “Davis-isms” with their sporadic improv escalations, while also showing a bigger side of experimental challenge, which, let’s hope, Igor Matkovič’s future albums will follow with as much as possible. Moments like these add a special note that stirs up the demanding listener’s urge to explore and discover the point of such musical ingredients, while also excitingly unsettling and teasing with an extra helping of unexpected turns. That quality deepens the recognizable character of the author’s originality even further.
“Sonic Motion” is an excellent jazz album, adorned by outstanding dynamics, full-blooded emotional expression in the language of the trumpet, and a lively spread with a good dose of experimental edge. Under the sun of musical creativity, Igor Matkovič carves out enough room to artistically build on the solid foundations of “Sonic Motion” in the future and deepen his original trumpet voice. This is an album that will only get its due recognition for its quality once it’s discovered abroad, since, as already mentioned, it can instantly go toe to toe with the tightest and most insightful jazz works of today’s best-known acts on the international jazz scene.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. State of Mind
2. Sonic Space
3. Intuition
4. On the Edge
5. Approaching Chaos
6. Blue Flow
7. Inner Voice
8. Keep it There
9. Doors to Open
10. Mood Channel
Lineup:
Igor Matkovič – trumpet, electronics
Marko Črnčec – keyboards
Robert Jukič – bass guitar
Vladimir Kostadinovič – drums
