Zeena Parkins "Between the Whiles"

I've been attuned to music featuring limited instrumentation lately–groups of singular timbres, soloists, duos, trios. I love hearing what can be coaxed out of a single instrument, or the interplay between two voices conversing. Notes growing close to one another. The slippery form that can morph at any moment to something solid. The single note that pulls everything together.

That being said, the music documented on "Between the Whiles" is not limited to a single sound or instrument. It covers a lot of terrain. But there is something about the nature of the music, it all being made from the thoughts of an individual, that makes every sound heard as if it came from one source. Everything flows effortlessly and has the feeling of an intimate performance.

The best moments are those that seem as if they've gone on forever but never die, always being piled on top of with something new and scraped away from to show the bare beauty. Zeena does some of the most exciting things with the smallest amount of material, and then, out of nowhere, it shines at a new angle and the idea is as fresh as when it started.

Zeena–drawing upon improvisation, minimalism, noise, rock–has developed a singular voice for herself. She summons voices that haven't been heard before and places them within contexts beautiful, abrasive, exciting, haunting and uses them to mold pieces that seem as organic as free improvisation but simultaneously as thought out as through-composition. Frankly, who cares how these pieces were made? The results are tremendous. This recording documents a powerful voice that should be heard.