Anesthesia

Product Description

Here is another album with Russian musicians from the Norwegian label Losen Records. This is a joint album called ''Anesthesia'' that was recorded in Moscow by saxophonist Maria Artemenko, performing under the name Masha Art and LRK Trio; Yevgeny Lebedev - piano, Anton Revnyuk - bass and Ignat Kravtsov - drums. Harp player Maria Kulakova also took part in the recording of five of the seven tracks of the album.

The album continues the line of collaboration between the Moscow LRK Trio and the Norwegian label Losen Records, which has already released two albums by LRK Trio- If You Have A Dream (2017) and Urban Dreamer (2018). However, in creative terms, this new release makes an unexpected turn, because although the cover of the album shows ''Masha Art and LRK Trio'' in equal size, all the music is nevertheless written by Masha, and LRK Trio appears rather as interpretive, analytical power. This force is not opposed to the soloist, but co-creates with her. The trio playing gives new features to the sad, cold or at times frankly yearning musical images from the author of the music: rationalism, confidence, contemplation - and besides, they provide a rhythmic and timbre binding to modernity.

LRK Trio as usual, does not chew on the usual rhythms and proven sounds of the irrevocable past, but plays the one hundred percent twenty-first century, with the end of its second decade. This is the music of today's technocratic civilization, not created by machine algorithms, as is often the case now, but by live musicians. Even one might say, underlined alive. Moreover, they did not memorize the notes written by the arranger, but in a continuous stream improvise the living musical fabric in which the author of the music, the saxophonist, is brought to the fore when her saxophone is played. It is temporarily dissolved in the trio's sound landscapes when the LRK Trio play ensemble episodes, often dramaturgically contrasting to the thematic part of the pieces.

Review

4 Star Review

The last song on Masha Art & LRK Trio's Anesthesia carries the title 'Into The Sea (RIP My Sister Anya).' Those mourners among us, forever marked by some private tragedy, might recognize in the song's denouement the language of disconsolate grief. Above a wash of rolling percussion and listing bass, pianist Evgeny Lebedev interlaces a soaring major-scale harmony with its inverse. For a brief moment, bright hopeful chords clash against discordant chaos until the album closes with the low hum of abandoned strings vacantly vibrating.

It's a dramatic moment on the group's third release, its first widely available outside Russia. The album, for the most part, offers listeners the opportunity to hear a tight knit group nail saxophonist and bandleader Masha Art's compelling compositions. However, Lebedev's contributions stand out. Like 'Into the Sea,' 'Painless' displays his uncanny ability to render emotions that, on impact, feel almost painfully personal. It opens with a slow, staccato refrain. Art goes first, articulating notes purposefully, letting them resonate. Her solo luxuriates in the song's melancholy. Lebedev follows and opens with a few expansive chords before charting a simple melody that unfolds with the logic of a folksong or a lullaby. Then, as Ignat Kravstov's percussion tightens around him, he reveals these greywashed, pastoral chords. They arrive like the previous melody's solemn shadow.

The writing and performances on Anesthesia make it worth a listen, but Lebedev's contributions make it an even rarer find. It's an album with a lot to say, but even more to show.

Andrew Jones, --Downbeat Magazine July 2019