Dans le Morvan

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On their second duo album Dans le Morvan, Isabel Duthoit and Franz Hautzinger explore a radical set of timbres and tonalities from their instruments and vocals in an hour-long series of eleven live improvisations. While the sounds all originate acoustically, they more often reference the hissing and whirring palette of analog synthesizers than the conventional tonality of the clarinet, voice, and trumpet that create these sounds.

Hautzinger’s appearances on experimental improvised music albums began in 1993 and he released his first album as leader, Bent, in 1996. Vienna’s thriving community of like-minded improvisers drew international visibility, and since then Hautzinger has consistently collaborated with high-profile improvisers, performed in new-music ensembles, created solo trumpet albums, and worked with local peers like Martin Siewert and Burkhard Stangl.

Beginning with two different French trios in 2002, Duthoit’s albums have documented her clarinet and vocal improvisations for over two decades. Notable collaborators have ranged from jazz-adjacent experimentalists like pianist Georg Gräwe and drummer Christian Lillinger, to musicians who have played in unconventional punk bands like drummer Roger Turner of the Noseflutes, and Luc Klassen who played bass for beloved Dutch innovators The Ex.

While Duthoit and Hauzinger’s first duo album, 2017’s Lily, contained some dense moments to create dynamics, it more often surrounded their hissing and clicking palette with space—sounds were often quiet, thin, or spread through time. A couple of tracks on Dans le Morvan do follow this blueprint, especially the pointillistic “​​Le chêne solitaire et le pic vert”. But from its opening track, Dans le Morvan more often asserts an extroverted approach—opener “Le granit parle et le merle noir” alternates rhythmic trumpet-voice interplay with sections of thick trumpet noise and vocal growls. Other tracks like “Les eaux vives et le pinson des arbres” and “Les urodèles et les anoures” emphasize the album’s exploration of dense soundscapes formed from just two unconventional acoustic sources. © Steve Silverstein/Qobuz