Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Matkovič, Igor
Label: Celinka
Released: 2012
Length: 57:31
Rating: 4/5
A familiar face at the Ljubljana music conservatory, 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 pop to jazz, and he has been building his name, and keeps building it, with appearances at many of the best-known jazz festivals, both at home and abroad.
»Sonic Motion« is really the logical successor to the album “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 a point of getting to know each other and calibrating, the two musicians quickly outgrew that frame and set themselves a new challenge. So, 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 knitted into a proper driving gear, so with a crew as tight as the one radiating from »Sonic Motion«, making the album was practically a logical consequence.
At its core, the quartet is classically jazz in design. And it doesn’t hide its traditional jazz-school roots at any step of »Sonic Motion«. Matkovič, though, has refined that basic, elementary framework with his – very own – sharp sense for ideas, which together with the rest of the trio culminated in the juicy intensity of a condensed statement of pure-blooded jazz school. At every turn it’s stirred up by the dynamics of how the lead motifs are strung together, and especially by a colorful tangle of sonic improvisations that make the expression of each individual emotion their priority.
The tracks for the album were recorded in just two takes. Whole. So this album carries a distinctly warm, organic feel in its sound production. It really comes across like a living concert organism. Played in the studio. And the performance is basically unrepeatable, one of a kind. That’s one of the magic tricks only jazz knows. The rhythm line has that classic, old-school jazz-tradition sound, especially in how the drums respond, and all the more do Matkovič and Crnčec step away from those frameworks now and then. The quartet’s interaction works like a happy complementing of building blocks that sounds well known at first listen yet stays unexplored all the same, so the listener is gripped by a curiosity that gratefully leads them from the first to the last second of this release.
»Sonic Motion« is no easy bite. It’s an album that grows slowly, so it demands total commitment from the listener. The most refined and demanding music lovers will latch onto it quickly, and fans of jazz adventurousness will realize fast that this is an excellent achievement that can instantly stand next to the work 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 combinatorics between the lead ideas and the dizzying swerves of jazz improvisation. His “little school” of trumpet playing, in dialogue with the keyboards, creates the bulk of the progressive challenge, the unpredictable twists and, most importantly, the genuine touch of spontaneity. The opener State Of Mind flags all of this right away, with a trumpet solo improvisation that can be furious, irritable, untamed, and in the next moment restrained, serene and shy. A moment of intimacy and softness is underlined by Intuition, where Matkovič’s solos float over a repeating yet defined and proud keyboard motif, while the trumpeter veers off at certain points in the soloing and actually teases with strings of forms “between forms”. Those evoke a pensive stare, at moments a feeling of mental absence, standards that the revolutionary Miles Davis introduced to jazz long, long ago. The trumpet’s responses offer a similar touch of that playing in the penultimate Doors To Open. Moments like Sonic Space and, in the middle of the album, Approaching Chaos, boost the album with their sporadic impro-escalations of “Davis-isms” while also showing a bigger side of the experimental challenge, which, let’s hope, future Igor Matkovič albums will carry on as much as possible. Moments like these add a special note that stirs in more demanding listeners a desire to explore and uncover the point of such musical ingredients, while at the same time giving a positive jolt and teasing with an extra helping of the unexpected. That quality also deepens the recognizable character of the author’s originality.
»Sonic Motion« is an excellent jazz album, marked by outstanding dynamics in the way things unfold and by the full-blooded emotional expression of the trumpet’s voice. With its liveliness and a hefty dose of experimental edge, it gives Igor Matkovič plenty of room under the sun of musical creativity to build on these solid foundations of »Sonic Motion« artistically and to deepen his own distinctive trumpet language. 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 hold its own against the most succinct and insightful jazz works of currently active, well-known acts on the international jazz scene.
Line-up
Igor Matkovič – trumpet, trombone
Marko Črnčec – piano, keyboards
Robert Jukič – double bass
Vladimir Kostadinovič – drums
Production
Igor Matkovič
Track list
1. State Of Mind
2. Sonic Space
3. Intuition
4. On the Edge
5. Blue Flow
6. Approaching Chaus
7. Inner Voice
8. Mood Channel
9. Doors To Open
10. Keep It There
