Archipelago by Hunter Underwater

.Komposition: Hui-Chun Lin, Guilherme Rodrigues, Gábor Hartyáni, Guido Kohn, Hunter Underwater
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Recorded at Zentrifuge, Berlin on October 7th, 2022 by Tito Knapp
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Mixed and edited by Tito Knapp, Guilherme Rodrigues, Hui-Chun Lin.
Mastering by Studio Zentrifuge.
Graphic design by Carlos Santos.

Production by Ernesto Rodrigues.

REVIEWS

Continuing to develop a distinctive sound world for four cellos, Hunter Underwater has released a second album, Archipelago, recorded in Berlin back in October 2022. This is a much longer album — twice the length & divided into individually named tracks — compared to Hunter Underwater (recorded in 2021 & released in 2022), which I never actually reviewed, but did mention e.g. in the January 2023 review of Offshore Adventures, i.e. from the "similar" quintet for trombone, two cellos, and two double basses around Hui-Chun Lin. That was also a second album (albeit with personnel changes), as coincidentally recalled here in a couple of other reviews this month.... And then Archipelago is much more sophisticated than the relatively more random & rhetorical Hunter Underwater, forging an increasing sense of underwater world, perhaps even coming to recall genres of "whale song" albums.... (And I might also compare its watery evocations to Jon Rose's new Aeolian Tendency, for which he uses self-made instruments to capture the sounds of wind. Archipelago is not so impersonal-passive however, i.e. not capturing the sounds of seas, but evoking them....) So joining Lin, who seems indeed to be cultivating this sound world in general (while also being slower with releases...), is the prolific Guilherme Rodrigues — who brings a more lyrical, quasi-romantic vibe at times... — along with (again) Gábor Hartyáni & Guido Kohn, with whom I'm (still) not otherwise familiar, but who do seem to bring a strong sense of suspension & shifting textural interplay. (There're various harmonics, bouncing string attacks, sorts of hocketing... including passages of smooth extension.) There's also a little story about Buddhist monks to open the album, and the speaking voice for that is uncredited.... The story passes in about a minute though, the music being relatively subdued to start, conjuring a distinctive minimalism at various points as it goes, almost tuneful at times, and with a real sense of repose (while building to some intense moments as well...). As noted, the result is much more coherent than the first album, i.e. leaving aside various tangential notions of "What can four cellos do?" to focus more on the particular sense of underwater scene here. And the impression does linger. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

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