tadd (Tadeusz Szmigiel): soprano saxophone, voice, fx
maot (Marek Otwinowski): acoustic fretless bass, daxophone, sound objects
Album's title: "In A Convex Mirror"
Label: Loom TM & Authors (2025)
album's link: https://loomtm.bandcamp.com/album/in-a-convex-mirror
Review author: Viačeslavas Gliožeris
Polish Jazz Focus On Debut
Don't be fooled by the name – Loom TM is not a rapper from the nineties (like Master P, Jay Z, LL Cool J, or The Notorious B.I.G.). Loom TM is the electro-acoustic duo from Poznań, consisting of two professional musicians, composers, improvisers, and sound artists – reed player Tadeusz Szmigiel (tadd) and acoustic bassist Marek Otwinowski (maot). What is expected, they don't play hip-hop; they play aerial free improvisations.
The last few years have obviously been a nice time for the free improvisational scene around the world – there are plenty of artists and recordings around, representing the genre. That is a good thing in my book – it's difficult to imagine a less commercially potential musical genre, so the community exists mostly on exceptional creativity and enthusiasm. The bigger problem is the quality, though. A friend of mine, a musician and music teacher, once said (during our discussion about the very ambitious but not so technically perfect new album of a young jazz artist): “To play avant-garde jazz, you need first of all to play bop perfectly.” In other words, sometimes we can hear musicians who choose to play “experimental” music just because it looks like an easier way, one simply doesn't need to be as skilled or trained for that. That is the absolutely wrong point of view.
Fortunately, with “In A Convex Mirror,” the duo's debut album, we don't have such a problem at all. Both members of the duo have spent years in the music business, but the listener doesn't need to know that. The music simply tells it all.
The “In A Convex Mirror” (the album's title draws inspiration from John Ashbery’s poem - “The surface /Of the mirror being convex, the distance increases /Significantly”) is a leisurely dialogue between two mature masters, where the silence and the space are both important ingredients. One can't find even a trace of desire to appear here. [tadd] plays predominantly soprano sax, often tuneful, emotionally colored, very jazzy. [maot's] acoustic fretless bass - not an instrument which can be heard among free improvisers often - sounds more like an upright bass, deep and physical. Unlike some abstract free improv recordings, “In A Convex Mirror” sounds closer to free jazz – there are tune snippets, and the whole music is better organized and framed. That makes it an easier, more accessible listening.
Besides soprano, [maot] plays daxophone – an exotic wooden instrument with electronics, sounding like imitating people's voices and animal noises. Both duo members use some electronic effects, but the album's music, by its nature, is still predominantly “organic”. A nearly one-hour-long album, eleven sketches at all, doesn't last too long. It sounds like a tasteful story-book, you read it without hurry, enjoying every minute of a good reading.
Recording quality is good, which is important for improv/sound artists’ music. The sound is almost sculptural; it looks like, at some moments, one can even touch it with fingers. Usually, free improvisational music recordings are the moment's audio “instant photos” of sorts. They bring creative moments to listeners who didn’t experience the music at the same moment when it was played live. Unfortunately, a large number of such released recordings will be listened to just once. “In A Convex Mirror” is a different bird – I listened to it 5-6 times already, and I believe I will do so one more day.
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