Matthias Muche - Trombone Alone [Col Legno]

Released via the Austrian Col Legno label on April 24th, 2k26 is "Trombone Alone", the latest album outing by Cologne-based trombonist Matthias Muche who presents a set of five compositions over the course of roughly 49 minutes, focusing on the trombone as a solo instrument enhanced and extended by both acoustic - a.k.a. physical - and electro-acoustic means and alterations. With "Solo BELLER" Muche takes the listener into a fully electro-acoustic realm in which arrays of quasi rhythmic clicks and cuts are accompanied by the brittle and slightly decaying Spoken Word performance of Anthony Moore which reminds us of a sound aesthetic once introduced to the world by long distance landline phone calls or tapped telephone lines until a rather extreme and intensely disturbing ultra high frequency signal erupts out of nowhere whereas "Solo GLEITER" introduces a series of spiralling up and down swirls alongside most beautiful, rural, solemn and melancholic passages evoking memories of majestic alpine mountain ranges whilst a kind of dubbed out dialogue between the instrument and itself unfolds before "Solo QUATER" weighs in a rather minimalist sequence of both raw and heavily processed trombone signals, an alternation between longing desire and its dark, twisted and obfocuscated, digitally mutated mirror image further evolving into a rather inward looking solo meditation. Furthermore we see "Solo BUTTER" catering a series of maritime and well sustained klaxon'esque trombone transmissions seperated by extended periods of silence whereas the subsequent final piece that is "Solo GLOCKEN" sees the instrument drowning in a Field Recording of church bells ringing heavily, presumably recorded at the occasion of some kind of ceremony or service, with the trombone slowly emerging from the very back of the mix in a (Dark)Jazz informed and certainly nocturnal manner. A rather interesting approach to an instrument not necessarily associated with musical experimentalism. Go check.

Album artwork on Instagram!