Recommended: The Delegation – “Evergreen (Canceled World)”

Evergreen (Canceled World) sounds fashioned from pieces having no relation to one another except for the fact that one follows the next.  But the intriguing aspect about the debut from Gabriel Zucker‘s ensemble The Delegation is how that initial impression is occasionally refuted by the emergence of patterns from within the randomness of sound.  Sometimes it’s short melodic fragments that echo earlier passages.  Sometimes it’s the cyclic appearance of influences of modern big band jazz, chamber, pop, and avant-garde vocals and electronics and effects.  Sometimes these elements march in a parade and sometimes they fold back upon themselves so that one bleeds into the next.  And then there’s the surges of intensity and peacefulness and sometimes it gives a hint of something approaching predictability.  But no matter which form the pattern manifests, its presence is fleeting, giving only the faintest sense of a grand vision.  Sometimes that’s enough.  But sometimes, even when cohesion isn’t an option, there’s always the present moment and what it has to offer now.  Sometimes that’s the best way to enjoy an album.  And then sometimes, as it does on the album’s final track “Yellow Paint (Summaries II)/End Of Time (Canceled II),” everything comes together, coalescing into a unified, logical expression just in time for it to all come to a close.

Your album personnel:  Gabriel Zucker (piano, electronics, voice), Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), Eric Trudel (tenor sax), Jacob Teichroew (tenor sax, clarinet), Bryan Qu (tenor sax), Mark Chung (violin), Ron Lawrence (viola), Eric Allen (cello), Artemisz Polonyi (voice), Lorena del Mar Hernandez (voice), Bam Bam Rodriguez (bass), Gabriel Globus-Hoenich (drums) and David Su (electronics).

Released on ESP-Disk’.

Listen to more album tracks on the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon