The Brooklyn Rail

As in art, minimalism in music can be an acquired taste. The first time you see a Carl Andre or Donald Judd sculpture, your reaction may be, “That’s it?” Some even take offense at an art that seems to be so direct as to circumvent a sense of mystery completely. But at its best, this is part of what gives this work its surprising appeal, and gradually the artists’ obdurate insistence on exploring a simple set of variables may become compelling. Likewise, when I first heard the circular arpeggios of Philip Glass, I was unmoved. Where’s the sense of progression, I wondered, the depth beneath the hammered surface, the soul? It took some listening to him and his contemporary, Terry Riley, to accustom me to the longer arc and alternate aesthetic sensibility of this kind of composition. Whether through Riley’s warm and encompassing style or the somewhat chillier approach of Glass, I began to gravitate toward the way—by treating melody as something that can be endlessly repeated or shifted through subtle modulation—other elements could come to the fore. Eventually, I gave in fully to the kind of spell this music can create, the envelopment by sound.

So when I heard recently that the group Natural Information Society was playing music at Roulette described as “ecstatic minimalism,” I was immediately on board to hear more. The concert opened with a fantastic solo set by the young trombonist Kalia Vandever, who augmented long tones of variable pitch with sound loops to produce soft, slightly melancholic soundscapes. Natural Information Society then took the stage, beginning with a completely transformed version of the lovely John Coltrane ballad “Naima” that demonstrated the band members’ perfect attunement to each other.

Led by composer Joshua Abrams, this group was formed in Chicago in 2010 and has won wide acclaim for its extraordinary ancient-to-modern-and-back-again body of work. Abrams plays an electrified guimbri (also known as the sintir), a three-string Moroccan instrument related to the bass guitar, creating a roiling, earth-deep foundation. A number of fine musicians have passed through the ensemble, with the current superb incarnation including Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, and longtime member Lisa Alvarado on harmonium. Three of her abstract patterned designs hung above the band, and she took the stage wearing a mod-inflected riot of saturated colors topped by a polka-dot rain hat. The core of the set was devoted to an hour-long work called “Perseverance Flow,” the astonishing title track of their newly released album (Eremite Records). The piece steadily revolves around a mostly two-note phrase, augmented by a soaring melody line. Bursts of sound flared from the harmonium, as the drum patiently stoked the long-simmering groove. With these restrained recurring elements, Natural Information Society burrows into the listener’s consciousness, the thick flow of the music fully hypnotic. The result was the total elastic absorption that results when the minimal turns magical.

Working in a similar vein but with a slightly harder edge was a group led by bassist Pino Palladino and guitarist Blake Mills, who performed recently for a packed house at Pioneer Works. Palladino has been the anchor of choice for various huge acts, ranging from Jeff Beck to The Who, and Mills has gigged with Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, and loads of others. But in this context, they dug into original instrumental material that combined trance atmospherics with simple unexpected melodies. Palladino’s bass provided an irresistible gritty texture, which Mills met with a dreamier, slightly elusive approach to the guitar. The tracks spun forward, propelled by the clean, driving percussion of Chris Dave and the electrified woodwinds of Sam Gendel.

From start to finish, the audience went wild. A standout track from the show—and from their latest recording, That Wasn’t a Dream (New Deal/Impulse!)—was the opener, “Taka,” an African-influenced jam playing in heavy rotation in my head. As in their debut recording Notes with Attachments (New Deal/Impulse!), gentleness collides with thunderous riffs, yet neither feels out of place. This is ambitious music that puts minimal elements in the service of an amped-up atmosphere, to brilliant effect. It’s as hard to pin down as it is compulsively listenable.

A whole different musical sensibility comes into play with the group called Gamelan Dharma Swara, which mines and respectfully extends the traditions of Balinese music. This large ensemble functions as a repository of the highly percussive type of music known as gamelan, from the Javanese word gamel, meaning “to strike.” Rows of metallophones are played with hammers, the individual keys struck and dampened in rapid succession. The players vary how much the tones linger in the air, creating clusters of sound of slightly varying pitch and lending the work some of its shimmering, atmospheric quality. Drums lead the group, and determine how long certain musical phrases will last and how often they will recur. Composers like Glass and Riley were known to be enchanted with gamelan, and to incorporate elements of it into some of their work. The repetition and pure presence of the music links it to minimalism, while bringing a range of different cultural traditions to bear.

The ensemble played a show recently at the Stone Circle Theatre in Ridgewood Presbyterian Church, which functions as its home base. The members see part of their role as to pass on this music to the next generation, and there was a welcome openness to young children attending the concert; they were invited to check out and try the instruments afterwards. Upping the ante significantly was a troupe of traditional female Balinese dancers, who performed with the group and added a quality of sensual, breathing life force. Using a series of discreet but fluidly connected movements and sidelong glances, they brought an unabashed sense of seduction to the music. The compositions included a newly commissioned work by Joel Mellin called Nor’easter, featuring choreography by Ilona Bito and Ndaru Kartikaningsih that evoked a storm, with the dancers seeming to embody sprite-like figures that emerge from the snow.

The different shadings of these minimalism-influenced works come as a tonic amidst the nauseating circus maximus of our national political life. Truth is shunted aside in favor of noisy proclamations and blustering policies. Meanwhile, the slow, patient work of such American ideals as due process and checks on governmental power are swept away by a president, a Congress, and a Supreme Court with no regard for these concepts. In this scenario, getting things done—like blowing up alleged drug-running boats without stopping to consider the legal rights of those on board—is the corrective to big government; it favors the thrill of action over the necessary deliberation of actually considering what we are doing.

Art can serve as a mirror, whose function is completed by our own reflection. Minimalist art demands the kind of attention that keeps us from racing away from ourselves, our problems, and our possibilities. It’s a useful model at this moment when we desperately need to slow the rush to tear things down before we have any reasonable idea what to do with the ruins we are creating. We also need to take a long hard look in the mirror and block those impulses before democracy itself is demolished.