Deranged Particles by Felix Henkelhausen

There are plenty of reasons that Felix Henkelhausen is one of the most in-demand and ubiquitous bassists on the bustling Berlin jazz and improvised music scene. His peerless technique, devotion to experimenting with time, and his nonchalant versatility allow him to fit within all kinds of disparate contexts in which his rhythmic and harmonic depth routinely elevate any project he’s involved with. He’s a keen listener with a hunger for new sounds extending well beyond jazz tradition, much of which end up surfacing in his own music, albeit in fully sublimated fashion. He can’t help but absorb new ideas.

In 2021 he recorded a trio album with Belgian keyboardist Bram De Looze and the veteran American drummer Eric McPherson. During the session the drummer demonstrated some specific rhythmic permutations he’d been researching and toying with at the time. “It’s basically 3 / 4 / 5 all at the same time, in all kinds of inversions,” recalled the bassist, was so inspired he went on compose a new set of tunes adapting those schemes in his own distinct voice. The piece that opens this beautifully dense new album is dedicated to the drummer whose ideas have been utterly transformed in the context of Deranged Particles. While improvisation and heightened interplay characterize the music, the bassist is pushing this agile sextet away from jazz orthodoxy toward a multivalent concoction in which endlessly complex rhythmic patterns shape the action.

“I think Deranged Particles sounds more futuristic and potentially something that’s less connected to the term ‘jazz’ than what the quintet does,” he says, referring to the project he’s led for several years now. He notes that our relationship with the Internet has encouraged isolation, yet at the same time forced us to be hyper-connected. The music here reflects “my perception of this immense chaos and the fact that we are dependent on each other no matter how different our positions are.” Indeed, the members of this virtuosic sextet inhabit Henkelhausen’s complex writing individually, tracing specific patterns and grooves, but the music would fail without the devotion to an ensemble sound. The complex, contrapuntal group sound is something of an analog to the polyrhythms that reside at the heart of the music, as seemingly isolated lines not only somehow fit together, but seem to rely on the puzzle-like assemblage to function.

While the conception belongs to Henkelhausen, it couldn’t be realized without such a stellar cast, most of whom have worked with the bassist in other projects. He was still a teenager when he first began playing with drummer Philip Dornbusch, and he goes back almost as long with Stemeseder. He has long worked with Philipp Gropper in the tenor saxophonist’s group Philm, while first encountered tuned percussionist Evi Filippou in Stephen Schultz’s Large Ensemble. He only knew British trumpeter Percy Pursglove by reputation, but there’s little doubt that his instincts were correct when he invited him into the fold. Together they possess a rich, varied timbre, particularly Stemeseder and Filippou, who can extend the percussive thrust, smear colors, or shape contrapuntal marvels, morphing between any of them fluidly.

“I like this abstract idea of a futuristic community that has its own rhythms, grooves, language, totally disconnected from humans on earth,” he explains. “I guess it’s a mix of these things, or imagining how rhythms would sound on another planet.” That quality is even more pronounced on the closing track, “Particle VIII: Particles,” where the rapper Myka9 casts a hypnotically alien vibe that subtly adds another sophisticated polyrhythm to an already stuttering jam. He says it’s all “music that is based on interlocking grids, particles that are individual yet intertwined,” a description that can aptly apply to the way the sextet operates.

Peter Margasak
Berlin, July 2024

outernational music for interplanetary people

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