The Swiss-German-French quartet Trapeze came to life in December 2022 during a residency at Malterie in Lille, accompanied by a series of concerts and encounters as part of the Muzzix & Associés festival, with the support of Impuls Neue Musik.
While the gathering of these 4 improvisers is unprecedented, their musical paths have mostly crossed before. Saxophonist Sakina Abdou and trombonist Matthias Müller can be found in the pianist Eve Risser’s Red Desert Orchestra. Within the Lille collective Muzzix, of which they are both members, the saxophonist also forms the trio Abdou/Dang/Orins with drummer Peter Orins. The latter has also collaborated with Matthias Müller in the Satoko Fujii Berlin Orchestra and shared the stage in 2019 with Joke Lanz in the ephemeral ensemble Butcher’s Cleaver led by Czech trumpeter Petr Vrba.
These four artists share a common heritage of European improvised music and free jazz. They have a passion for sound manipulation, sometimes pushing the boundaries of audibility and seeking to expand the techniques of their instruments. Transforming musical listening and disrupting musical and sonic paradigms, they offer an album here that plays with forms and cultivates ambiguities.
photo: Philippe Lenglet
Press:
About Music Unlimited #39 – Wels – Concert | The Free Jazz Collective / Eyal Hareuveni
The quartet (…) already refined its chaotic, dadaistic dynamics, propelled by the hyperactive, inventive drumming and the constant supply of inventive cinematic, cartoonist quotes by Joke Lanz, both charging the music with a stimulating, subversive aroma, while Abdou and Müller keep this volatile commotion on solid but intense ground. At one point, when Joke Lanz sensed that Abdou and Müller refer to a jazz phrase, he immediately played and muataed a spoken-word quote from an album on the masters of jazz, mocking such reverent, respectful homages, and making his point by tossing this vinyl in the air.
About Music Unlimited #39 – Wels – Concert | NMZ – Neue Musik Zeitung / Holger Pauler
Das Quartett „Trapeze“ mit der großartigen Saxophonistin Sakina Abdou (sax) vereinte gar alles in einem Auftritt. Gemeinsam mit Matthias Müller (tb), Joke Lanz (tt) und Peter Orins (dr) entwickelte sie einen dynamischen Reigen, bei dem alle Mitspieler*innen ihren gleichberechtigten Platz hatten. Soli kamen nur im Ausnahmefall vor, stattdessen begab sich die Vier auf die gemeinsame Suche nach neuen Formen, die mitunter arg verfremdet und frei, dann wieder rhythmisch und beinahe tonal daherkamen. Das alles funktionierte nicht ohne einen gewissen Hauch von Selbstironie: Joke Lanz war sich nicht zu schade, seine Vinyls bis zum Anschlag zu scratchen, um sie anschließend im hohen Bogen von der Bühne zu schleudern. Von wegen „Jazz Master“! Lautes Gelächter und lang anhaltender Applaus.
About Jazzwerkstatt Peitz – Concert | Jazzwise / Peter Margasak
(…) In Trapeze [Sakina Abdou] and trombonist Matthias Müller seemed to relish swapping roles with absurdist turntablist Joke Lanz, blowing terse, jagged lines that seemed to pile up on themselves like so many DJ samples, while the latter sometimes embraced more serene, streams of sonic fluidity. Drummer Peter Orins somehow navigated the endlessly switching roles, holding it all together behind the kit. (…)
About Level Crossing – Album | The Free Jazz Collective / Fotis Nikolakopoulos
This quartet’s music came out late in 2023 but it missed my best of list by a few weeks. I think it’s time to correct this mistake. The quartet is made of by the great, already making her presence very fruitful and strong, Sakina Abdou on the saxophone, trombonist Matthias Muller, my personal favorite Joke Lanz on the turntables and Orins himself on the drums. Just like the titles on the six tracks of Level Crossing, the music is playful, energetic and seems to elevate their playing into a non-hierarchical stance. Ego-less maybe. Clashing between playful electronics and acoustic sounds, syncopated rhythms from the drums, a sax that, at some points is unrecognizable, an ethereal presence that goes against the noisy character of the instrument and a fresh approach to the trombone (call it a part of an elastic rhythm section), the CD is a totally joyful listen. On the other hand it is so good, that brought, many times, a smile to my face. This is how improvisation should sound.
photo: muzzix
photo: Philippe Lenglet