For its fifth album, the former
Tin Hat Trio is minus one founding member, accordionist
Rob Burger, but takes in three new musicians: harpist
Zeena Parkins (who has recorded with the group before), clarinetist
Ben Goldberg (who has recorded several
jazz and
klezmer albums under his own name) and multi-instrumentalist
Ara Anderson, who contributes a number of horns and keyboards to the mix and has played before with
Tom Waits and others. Despite the personnel shift -- founders
Mark Orton (guitar, piano and other instruments) and
Carla Kihlstedt (violins, voice and more) remain -- and the wider canvas, the basic M.O. of
Tin Hat remains relatively intact. The group has been described in the past as "acoustic chamber music," and while that is as apt a tag as any, it's also rather limiting.
Tin Hat draws from a number of not-always-compatible genres -- among them various branches of
classical music, world elements and the freeness of
jazz -- but then blurs the lines until none are particularly recognizable as such. But for
The Sad Machinery of Spring the reconfigured, largely instrumental group specifically looked for inspiration in the works of surrealist Polish writer
Bruno Schulz, who was killed by the Nazis in 1942. The essence of
klezmer and related Eastern European sounds hover over
Sad Machinery's compositions and improvisations, but
Tin Hat is too unorthodox and resourceful to be so obvious. There is a balance of many moods and sonic variations among these tracks, ranging from playful and carefree to bucolic to jarringly eccentric. Whether that reflects
Schulz's own creations most listeners will probably never know, but no matter:
Sad Machinery is hardly a passive listening experience, but it's never boring. ~ Jeff Tamarkin
