Reveille Magazine
Steve McPherson
Fantastic Merlins don't consider themselves a jazz group, exactly, but it's hard not to hear them as such, mostly due to the cumulative effect of tenor saxophone, upright bass and drums. That Jacqueline Ferrier-Ultan's cello often blends almost seamlessly with the sonority of Nathan Hanson's sax doesn't help, nor does the fact that they're brilliant, loose-limbed improvisers who respond to each other's musical suggestions with all the grace and fluidity of seasoned dancers. But that's where it starts to get interesting, because it's not just Ferrier-Ultan and Hanson who are spontaneously generating musical ideas- the entire band ebbs and flows together. For instance, bowed upright bass makes occasional cameo appearances in traditional jazz, but it often makes for an ill fit. Here, however, when Brian Roessler begins to draw sustained notes from his instrument, Ferrier-Ultan is there to respond in kind, and so the sound of opener "Look Around" is not "jazz with strings," but something more formless and almost Middle Eastern. The cello serves as a bridge between the sax and the bass, with the tone of the sax, but the attack of the bowed bass. The instruments drop in and out of focus, creating a lush and drowsy haze full of languorous and unresolved melodic fragments. As the album progresses, patterns emerge. The sharp right angles and abstractions of "Dance Partner" are followed by the meditative strains of "Runoff Water," which is in turn followed by the swagger of "Lenny," The standout track from their debut live EP, "Lenny" is still their most accessible tune, a groove that could soundtrack a lazy, late-night shot of a slow-rolling Cadillac winding its way through a black and white city. And thusly the album proceeds: for every barbed and boisterous stab, there's a slowly building and gospel-tinged lament. So no, you can't throw it on at a cocktail party and look classy, and you could try to nod along and snap your fingers, but you're more likely going to just sit and soak it in. The compositions sprawl out organically from simple starting points, as on standout "It Would Seem," which was recorded live at the Clown Lounge in Saint Paul. Hanson repeats a simple motif, then stretches and comments on it, the rest of the group percolating in the background. Hanson disappears, then resurfaces just as the fabric of the track is about to rip, drummer Federico Ughi dropping in powerfully and driving the melody back to the front with straight-ahead urgency. It's the album's most chameleonic and furthest-ranging track, and also its most compelling. Even if they're not "jazz" in the traditional sense, Fantastic Merlins make music imbued with one of jazz's greatest strengths: a complex but naturally woven and interdependent improvisational spirit.
Fantastic Merlins don't consider themselves a jazz group, exactly, but it's hard not to hear them as such, mostly due to the cumulative effect of tenor saxophone, upright bass and drums. That Jacqueline Ferrier-Ultan's cello often blends almost seamlessly with the sonority of Nathan Hanson's sax doesn't help, nor does the fact that they're brilliant, loose-limbed improvisers who respond to each other's musical suggestions with all the grace and fluidity of seasoned dancers. But that's where it starts to get interesting, because it's not just Ferrier-Ultan and Hanson who are spontaneously generating musical ideas- the entire band ebbs and flows together. For instance, bowed upright bass makes occasional cameo appearances in traditional jazz, but it often makes for an ill fit. Here, however, when Brian Roessler begins to draw sustained notes from his instrument, Ferrier-Ultan is there to respond in kind, and so the sound of opener "Look Around" is not "jazz with strings," but something more formless and almost Middle Eastern. The cello serves as a bridge between the sax and the bass, with the tone of the sax, but the attack of the bowed bass. The instruments drop in and out of focus, creating a lush and drowsy haze full of languorous and unresolved melodic fragments. As the album progresses, patterns emerge. The sharp right angles and abstractions of "Dance Partner" are followed by the meditative strains of "Runoff Water," which is in turn followed by the swagger of "Lenny," The standout track from their debut live EP, "Lenny" is still their most accessible tune, a groove that could soundtrack a lazy, late-night shot of a slow-rolling Cadillac winding its way through a black and white city. And thusly the album proceeds: for every barbed and boisterous stab, there's a slowly building and gospel-tinged lament. So no, you can't throw it on at a cocktail party and look classy, and you could try to nod along and snap your fingers, but you're more likely going to just sit and soak it in. The compositions sprawl out organically from simple starting points, as on standout "It Would Seem," which was recorded live at the Clown Lounge in Saint Paul. Hanson repeats a simple motif, then stretches and comments on it, the rest of the group percolating in the background. Hanson disappears, then resurfaces just as the fabric of the track is about to rip, drummer Federico Ughi dropping in powerfully and driving the melody back to the front with straight-ahead urgency. It's the album's most chameleonic and furthest-ranging track, and also its most compelling. Even if they're not "jazz" in the traditional sense, Fantastic Merlins make music imbued with one of jazz's greatest strengths: a complex but naturally woven and interdependent improvisational spirit.