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New Music | Patricia Brennan, Of the Near and Far (Pyroclastic)
Veracruz-born vibraphonist Patricia Brennan is on a great album streak! It began with 2021’s Maquishti, a solo vibes+electronics debut that introduced her melodicism amidst long ambient tones and silences; expanded on More Touch, anchored inside a rhythm-heavy quartet that included drummer Marcus Gilmore and percussionist Mauricio Herrera; then hit abstract jazz-dance overdrive on Breaking Stretch, her Septet encompassing an expert alto/tenor/trumpet horn section. With Of the Near and Far, Brennan embraces expansive psychedelic orchestrations: Miles Okazaki’s electric guitar, a string section (conducted by Eli Greenhoe) and electronicist Arktureye topping a jazz quartet (the marvelous Sylvie Courvoisier wailing on piano), playing compositions inspired by night skies and the symmetry of constellations. It’s mostly large, boisterous creative music, thrilling and propulsive, a headful of starry ideas seemingly more “difficult” in their explanations than upon close listens. Brennan’s vibes and marimba are at the action’s center only intermittently; but her writing’s exquisite playfulness, and the ensemble’s cohesive attack make this explode.
