CD Digisleeve 4 pagine

Andrea Massaria _ chitarra _ effetti
Meinrad Kneer _ contrabbasso
Joe Hertenstein _ batteria _ percussioni

Per maggiori informazioni:
www.andreamassaria.com
www.joehertenstein.com
www.meinradkneer.eu

"(...) Non chiamatelo Jazz e nemmeno Free Jazz. Quanto racchiuso nell’album “The Absence of zero”, primo lavoro del trio Massaria/Kneer/Hertenstein (Setola di Maiale, etichetta indipendente) parla di “improvvisazione creativa”, sorta di filone chiamato a raccogliere linguaggi disparati e anime apparentemente lontane del pentagramma, sino a farne dialoghi, trame e visioni. Il tedesco Joe Hertenstein, già membro della James Choice Orchestra, giostra alla batteria, al contrabbasso troviamo Meinrad Kneer (artista impegnato anche come direttore dell’etichetta “Evil Rabbit Record”, sigla dedita alla musica improvvisata) mentre il triestino Andrea Massaria, leader del trio, lavora alla chitarra e agli effetti.
Classe 1965, docente di chitarra Jazz al Conservatorio “B.Marcello” di Venezia, Andrea Massaria riversa nell’album nuovi stimoli e antiche convinzioni, dando ulteriore rilievo allo stilema dell’improvvisazione, trama che paradossalmente non si improvvisa ma che gioca su intese comuni e tragitti diversi: “L’improvvisazione creativa si sgancia dalla codificazione del Jazz – sottolinea il musicista triestino – e pure dallo stesso Free Jazz. Propone invece una formula dove stili, generi e culture possano trovare una interazione assoluta. L’idea di comporlo in studio è sorta dopo il felice tour fatto in Germania nel 2022 – aggiunge Andrea Massaria – quanto vissuto sul palco e trasmesso al pubblico ci ha spinto a questo progetto in trio nel segno di una improvvisazione creativa, molto intensa nel linguaggio ”.
Sono in tutto cinque le tracce (senza titolo, solo numerate) che dipingono “The absence of zero”, circa 45 minuti che provano a narrare l’assenza dello zero, numero apparentemente “vuoto” ma nutrito di legami e sostanza. Ecco allora un album dove giostrano timbri, suoni, graffi, sentieri spesso impervi e rievocativi, tra cui i colori della terza traccia; quasi un viaggio in altitudine alla ricerca di orizzonti e ossigeno.
Come tutti i lavori griffati da Andrea Massaria, l’ascolto non è agile e richiede un (ri)ascolto per poter poi suggerire risposte, suggestioni e scoperte." Francesco Cardella, Trieste News, 2024.

"(...) The Absence of Zero is the title of a long poem by Canadian poet R. Kolewe, published in 2021. The Absence of Zero is also the title of a November 2021 trio recording made in Berlin by guitarist Andrea Massaria, double bassist Meinrad Kneer, and drummer Joe Hertenstein, an international trio whose members are currently based in Trieste, Germany, and New York, respectively. What can these two different works, in very different media, have in common? Kolewe’s poem, inspired by relativity theory as well as the phenomenology of everyday life, is a meditation on the malleability of time and how we experience it. Massaria, Kneer, and Hertenstein’s music, created in the real-time crucible of free improvisation, is the record of how time is experienced in all its patchiness and plasticity when it is transposed into sound.
The sounds favored by the group over the course of these five untitled, texturally thick tracks are elastic—elastic both in their responses to each other and in relation to themselves. At the collective level, the three voices are in constant communication and mutual adjustment throughout, the pull of one counteracted by the push of another. Individually, each musician expands and contracts the boundaries alternately opening up and limiting his instrument’s range as it moves back and forth between conventional and unconventional soundworlds. Massaria trained as a classical guitarist before moving into jazz and free improvisation; here his spiky lines and broken rhythms reflect something of the dexterity of classical guitar technique while repositioning it at the outer limits of its musical potential, helped along by the use of various electronic effects. Kneer counters Massaria’s electronics with purely acoustic playing, leveraging extended techniques with fingers and bow to match Massaria abstraction-for-abstraction. Underneath it all Hertenstein free pulse drumming maintains a constant chatter of cymbals, snare, and tom toms, alluding to the kit’s conventional role rather than reprising it.
The last word can go to Kolewe’s The Absence of Zero, one of whose quatrains uncannily suggests something of what it is like to listen to Massaria, Kneer, and Hertenstein’s The Absence of Zero: Uncertain if there are figures without boundaries, leave pages blank, nothing uncovered distance scattering error quantum error & so beginning with unrecognized constellations." Daniel Barbiero, Percorsi Musicali, 2023.

"(...) The Absence of Zero is a long poem by Canadian poet R. Kolewe (Book*hug Press, 2021) which is an example of thinking in language, a meditation that explores time and memory in both content and form and is an elegy to the 20th century, and the disparate fragments of its ideas that continue to affect and disrupt our present. The Absence of Zero is also the album of Italian, Trieste-based guitarist Andrea Massaria, German, Berlin-based double bass player Meinrad Kneer and German, New York-based drummer Joe Hertenstein, recorded at Berlinaudio in Berlin in November 2021.
The free improvised album borrows the poetic sensibility of Kolewe’s poem and offers five instant compositions, all titled «Zero», and all ranging from explosive free jazz attacks to textural or more fragmented soundscapes, and from noise to radical free improvisations. Obviously, Massaria, with his effects-laden, thorny-sounding electric guitar, Kneer and Hertenstein keep exploring and expanding the sonic palettes of their respective instruments, with their own extended bowing and percussive techniques.
The five pieces suggest restless and dramatic, powerful and tense conversations between strong-minded individuals, that demonstrate timbral curiosity and deep listening, openness and indecision, constant questioning and mystery, and always surprise and push each other’s sonic boundaries. But most of all, The Absence of Zero highlights the joyful sense of witnessing the drama of abstraction, naturally, in the absence of zero." Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts*, 2024.

"(...) The five-part The Absence of Zero is so abstract it makes Remedy II sound downright conventional. An improv throwdown between Hertenstein, Andrea Massaria (guitar) and Meinrad Kneer (bass), the pieces sound best when heard as a continuous experience. The seething hum of “Zero Three”, cultivated through a series of bowed and scraped bass harmonics, cymbal washes and eerie, decaying guitar tones, evokes an alien void. Conversely, the remainder of the album—particularly “Zero One” and “Zero Four”—deliver riveting, electro- acoustic guitar chirps, upper-register pizzicato bass runs and Hertenstein’s relentless percussion. Whether through default or design, The Absence of Zero could give trad-jazz purists an allergic response, which is not necessarily a bad thing." Daniel A. Brown, The New York City Jazz Record, 2024.

01 _ Zero One 11:40
02 _ Zero Two 8:38
03 _ Zero Three 10:13
04 _ Zero Four 4:51
05 _ Zero Five 8:59

(C) + (P) 2023

CD Digisleeve 4 pages

Andrea Massaria _ guitar _ effects
Meinrad Kneer _ double bass
Joe Hertenstein _ drums _ percussion

For more info:
www.andreamassaria.com
www.joehertenstein.com
www.meinradkneer.eu

"(...) The Absence of Zero is the title of a long poem by Canadian poet R. Kolewe, published in 2021. The Absence of Zero is also the title of a November 2021 trio recording made in Berlin by guitarist Andrea Massaria, double bassist Meinrad Kneer, and drummer Joe Hertenstein, an international trio whose members are currently based in Trieste, Germany, and New York, respectively. What can these two different works, in very different media, have in common? Kolewe’s poem, inspired by relativity theory as well as the phenomenology of everyday life, is a meditation on the malleability of time and how we experience it. Massaria, Kneer, and Hertenstein’s music, created in the real-time crucible of free improvisation, is the record of how time is experienced in all its patchiness and plasticity when it is transposed into sound.
The sounds favored by the group over the course of these five untitled, texturally thick tracks are elastic—elastic both in their responses to each other and in relation to themselves. At the collective level, the three voices are in constant communication and mutual adjustment throughout, the pull of one counteracted by the push of another. Individually, each musician expands and contracts the boundaries alternately opening up and limiting his instrument’s range as it moves back and forth between conventional and unconventional soundworlds. Massaria trained as a classical guitarist before moving into jazz and free improvisation; here his spiky lines and broken rhythms reflect something of the dexterity of classical guitar technique while repositioning it at the outer limits of its musical potential, helped along by the use of various electronic effects. Kneer counters Massaria’s electronics with purely acoustic playing, leveraging extended techniques with fingers and bow to match Massaria abstraction-for-abstraction. Underneath it all Hertenstein free pulse drumming maintains a constant chatter of cymbals, snare, and tom toms, alluding to the kit’s conventional role rather than reprising it.
The last word can go to Kolewe’s The Absence of Zero, one of whose quatrains uncannily suggests something of what it is like to listen to Massaria, Kneer, and Hertenstein’s The Absence of Zero: Uncertain if there are figures without boundaries, leave pages blank, nothing uncovered distance scattering error quantum error & so beginning with unrecognized constellations." Daniel Barbiero, Percorsi Musicali, 2023.

"(...) The Absence of Zero is a long poem by Canadian poet R. Kolewe (Book*hug Press, 2021) which is an example of thinking in language, a meditation that explores time and memory in both content and form and is an elegy to the 20th century, and the disparate fragments of its ideas that continue to affect and disrupt our present. The Absence of Zero is also the album of Italian, Trieste-based guitarist Andrea Massaria, German, Berlin-based double bass player Meinrad Kneer and German, New York-based drummer Joe Hertenstein, recorded at Berlinaudio in Berlin in November 2021.
The free improvised album borrows the poetic sensibility of Kolewe’s poem and offers five instant compositions, all titled «Zero», and all ranging from explosive free jazz attacks to textural or more fragmented soundscapes, and from noise to radical free improvisations. Obviously, Massaria, with his effects-laden, thorny-sounding electric guitar, Kneer and Hertenstein keep exploring and expanding the sonic palettes of their respective instruments, with their own extended bowing and percussive techniques.
The five pieces suggest restless and dramatic, powerful and tense conversations between strong-minded individuals, that demonstrate timbral curiosity and deep listening, openness and indecision, constant questioning and mystery, and always surprise and push each other’s sonic boundaries. But most of all, The Absence of Zero highlights the joyful sense of witnessing the drama of abstraction, naturally, in the absence of zero." Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts*, 2024.

"(...) The five-part The Absence of Zero is so abstract it makes Remedy II sound downright conventional. An improv throwdown between Hertenstein, Andrea Massaria (guitar) and Meinrad Kneer (bass), the pieces sound best when heard as a continuous experience. The seething hum of “Zero Three”, cultivated through a series of bowed and scraped bass harmonics, cymbal washes and eerie, decaying guitar tones, evokes an alien void. Conversely, the remainder of the album—particularly “Zero One” and “Zero Four”—deliver riveting, electro- acoustic guitar chirps, upper-register pizzicato bass runs and Hertenstein’s relentless percussion. Whether through default or design, The Absence of Zero could give trad-jazz purists an allergic response, which is not necessarily a bad thing." Daniel A. Brown, The New York City Jazz Record, 2024.

"(...) Non chiamatelo Jazz e nemmeno Free Jazz. Quanto racchiuso nell’album “The Absence of zero”, primo lavoro del trio Massaria/Kneer/Hertenstein (Setola di Maiale, etichetta indipendente) parla di “improvvisazione creativa”, sorta di filone chiamato a raccogliere linguaggi disparati e anime apparentemente lontane del pentagramma, sino a farne dialoghi, trame e visioni. Il tedesco Joe Hertenstein, già membro della James Choice Orchestra, giostra alla batteria, al contrabbasso troviamo Meinrad Kneer (artista impegnato anche come direttore dell’etichetta “Evil Rabbit Record”, sigla dedita alla musica improvvisata) mentre il triestino Andrea Massaria, leader del trio, lavora alla chitarra e agli effetti.
Classe 1965, docente di chitarra Jazz al Conservatorio “B.Marcello” di Venezia, Andrea Massaria riversa nell’album nuovi stimoli e antiche convinzioni, dando ulteriore rilievo allo stilema dell’improvvisazione, trama che paradossalmente non si improvvisa ma che gioca su intese comuni e tragitti diversi: “L’improvvisazione creativa si sgancia dalla codificazione del Jazz – sottolinea il musicista triestino – e pure dallo stesso Free Jazz. Propone invece una formula dove stili, generi e culture possano trovare una interazione assoluta. L’idea di comporlo in studio è sorta dopo il felice tour fatto in Germania nel 2022 – aggiunge Andrea Massaria – quanto vissuto sul palco e trasmesso al pubblico ci ha spinto a questo progetto in trio nel segno di una improvvisazione creativa, molto intensa nel linguaggio ”.
Sono in tutto cinque le tracce (senza titolo, solo numerate) che dipingono “The absence of zero”, circa 45 minuti che provano a narrare l’assenza dello zero, numero apparentemente “vuoto” ma nutrito di legami e sostanza. Ecco allora un album dove giostrano timbri, suoni, graffi, sentieri spesso impervi e rievocativi, tra cui i colori della terza traccia; quasi un viaggio in altitudine alla ricerca di orizzonti e ossigeno.
Come tutti i lavori griffati da Andrea Massaria, l’ascolto non è agile e richiede un (ri)ascolto per poter poi suggerire risposte, suggestioni e scoperte." Francesco Cardella, Trieste News, 2024.

01 _ Zero One 11:40
02 _ Zero Two 8:38
03 _ Zero Three 10:13
04 _ Zero Four 4:51
05 _ Zero Five 8:59

(C) + (P) 2023