Unbounded by David Cross & Naomi Maki

Proof That Opposites Really Do Attract...

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then the music emanating from its wreck-strewn hard shoulder comes from classical musicians getting together for a one to one with chums from the world of jazz or rock.

Such unions are often memorable but for all the wrong reasons - Nigel Kennedy plays Jimi Hendrix is one abomination that springs too readily to mind.

I still have the terrors when recalling Yehudi Menuhin, who had about as much swing as a concrete bollard, vainly tried to jazz it up with Stephan Grappelli. Happily not all meetings from musical opposites are so cursed or misplaced.

Best known for his work in King Crimson, David Cross has been enjoying a particularly fertile period of late with his rock band (his album Closer Than Skin earned deserved praise from fans and critics alike), and now with Japanese pianist and singer, Naomi Maki in a venture which he describes as “electric chamber music.”

A Conservatoire graduate in Japan, Naomi Maki has studied both western classical music and traditional Japanese forms which adds much to this album of accessible, expressive and often romantic music.

She adorns the mournful elegy from Cross which opens the evocative Letters From The Front with limpid drops of bittersweet piano. This Pärt-like sparsity,. with its air of regretful contemplation is intensely emotional. The descending coda is beautifully carried by Maki’s rich soprano vocal.

At just over 15 minutes, American Walkway is typical of the album’s MO as a whole; a series of discretely connected episodes and interludes in which they give themselves permission to see where the playing might lead. Moods are established, gently explored and concluded, often to moving effect.

Maki makes great use of dramatic sweeps and Debussy-esque flourishes often providing Cross with a backdrop that is sensitive to the slightest movement of pace, tone and intention of her companion. Importantly, in the flow of improvisation, neither is afraid to do that thing which many musicians find almost impossible – to stop playing and to simply listen.

Using electric violin throughout the album, Cross deploys loops and distortion effects sparingly and wisely, giving the stately largo of Sassy a glacial texture; bringing something of the rock guitar to American Walkway or the wall of droning strings on Alarum and Coda.

Fall, on which Maki’s vocal adds a dreamy glamour, celebrates the space and resonance created between the voice and violin. There’s a very real excitement caused by not knowing what may happen next. One suspects it’s the same for the performers. Yet they show no signs of being tentative about their respective playing which never lacks passion.

There are moments when it feels like it could go wrong, as though allure of stylistic extremes proves impossible to resist. Curtain Call flirts alarmingly with Pachabel and risks being cloyingly sentimental. At the other end of the spectrum, the jagged sparring which opens The Stone’s Throw sounds like its trying a bit too hard to be dissonant for its own sake.

Yet throughout this beautifully recorded album they create something that is captivating and entirely accessible. Cross has said that his electric chamber music “demands attention and challenges preconceptions.”

With Unbounded he’s succeeded on both counts.