By Ammar Kalia | Published August 2022
A storm is brewing. The skies are darkening and there is a humid thickness in the air; the wind is eerily calm. Then a flash of light, silence and the tooth-rattling force of the thunderclap. Its sounds reverberate, coaxing the clouds to burst and release their sheets of rain. The storm has come.
For saxophonist Isaiah Collier and drummer Michael Shekwoaga Ode, this roiling chaos is their creative space. Within it they eke out the anticipation of coming cacophony, they explode forth like thunder and lightning, and finally rest within the quietude of survival.
Having first met during Collier’s audition for Oberlin College, the twentysomething pair have developed an improvisatory telepathy far beyond their years. On their debut album as a duo, Beyond, they channel the rhythmic fury of drum and saxophone pairings such as Kenny Garrett and Jeff “Tain” Watts and Albert Ayler and Sunny Murray.
Across its seven tracks, Beyond plays through a wide dynamic range while Collier and Ode take turns to battle each other for musical supremacy.
Opener “Introduction: Take Me Beyond” features the spoken-word poetry of Jimmy Chan, setting the anticipatory scene for the coming aural onslaught with a trance-like ambience. Collier’s keening saxophone then moves us into the body of the suite, charging over Ode’s rolling toms on “Suns Of Mercury (Storms Of Revelations)” before settling into an earthy swing on highlights “Confessions Of the Heart” and “The Vessel Speaks.”
Producer Sonny Daze takes expert control of the reverb throughout, often making Collier’s long lines sound electronically processed to wash over Ode’s cymbal work. Yet, it is in the acoustic rawness of this duo’s playing that their strengths lie.
Listening to Beyond can feel like a challenge owing to its intensity, but surrender to Collier and Ode’s musical flow and you will be taken by their forces of nature, at once elemental and emotive.
Beyond: Introduction: Take Me Beyond; Suns Of Mercury (Storms Of Revelations); Confessions Of The Heart; Bend Of The Universe (Trust With All Your Heart); The Vessel Speaks; Omniscient (Mycelium); Hymn: Love Beyond Compare. (61:39)
Personnel: Isaiah Collier, saxophones, world instruments; Michael Shekwoaga Ode, drums; Jimmy Chan, gong, singing bowls, world instruments, vocals (1).
Ordering Info: division81records.bandcamp.com
