Games & Motifs by Games & Motifs

There’s something liberating about free improvisation, about allowing yourself to not only disregard rules, conventions and expectations ('free from'), but also to invent something new instead ('free to'). The potential downside of it is that free music can become something non-committal, something random, when it lacks focus and/or discipline. When it threatens to evolve into a music of chance, things might disintegrate or dissolve.

With Games & Motifs, guitarist Willem Heylen, drummer Anke Verslype and a band of carefully assembled accomplices, counter this possibility. Not by seeking refuge in fixed song structures, predictable chord progressions or even pre-set melodies, but by working with specific sets of rules and motifs, turning all interactions into musical games that retain the spirit of spontaneity while at the same time compelling the artists to be creative with(in) specific parameters.

And you know what? Even with these agreements, the music’s range is striking. With esteemed colleagues such as Jozef Dumoulin, Lynn Cassiers, Yannick Peeters and Frans Van Isacker, musicians with well-honed affinities and even intense, long-standing working relationships, the sextet can bring a dizzying wealth of sounds and ideas to the table. They allow the music to combine the ethereal with the fickle, the hypnotic with the surprising, and light with darkness. Over and over again, invention is key.

The titles already hint to instructions and/or restrictions, with the robustness of a couple of dark, bluesy grooves offsetting the compactness of the ‘stopwatch’-pieces, the otherworldly textures of the masterful album opener or the ominous feel of disorientation of “Transition 2”. Taken separately, the diverging sound waves, rhythmic rustling, kissy sounds, semi-narrative detours, throbbing pulses, futuristic bleeps and soft-spoken vocals refer mostly to themselves. In the context of this group interplay, they become meaningful motifs adding depth to a rich cohesion.

Cohesive, yet surprising, both for the musicians and the listeners. It can be a frustrating thing to observe a process to which you’re a mere bystander, grasping for straws. Games & Motifs finds a deft balance between form and freedom, showing and telling, inventions and agreements. As such, it’s not just an adventure, but also an invitation to delve into the myriad possibilities of their music game.

--- Guy Peters

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