HORSE LORDS & ARNOLD DREYBLATT - FRKWYS VOL. 18 EXTENDED FIELD (LP)

"Extended Field unites Horse Lords and Arnold Dreyblatt for the eighteenth volume of FRKWYS, an intergenerational collaboration of adventurous musicians drawn to the sonically radiant world of just intonation_an ancient tuning system in which scale intervals are derived from whole-number ratios. The galloping polyrhythmic thrust that's a defining quality of Horse Lords music remains omnipresent, and a piece like "Extended Field" employs the numerical matrix of Dreyblatt's system harmonically, but also rhythmically. On the endlessly morphing drone piece "Suspension", Horse Lords coax and caress Dreylblatt's striated bowing with their own pulsating tones. While its role in each of their work is different and arrives in disparate proportions to other elements, harmonic exploration is the heart of this stunning collaboration. As one can detect in the closing track "Impulse Array", the Horse Lords' rummaging through Dreyblatt's matrix produces the kind of sonic discoveries they live for. As Gardner notes, "Every turn reveals a surprising but somehow inevitable new chord, their progression strangely evocative of a Bach chorale both highly directed and without a goal." (label info)