Adam Schatz is nothing if not eclectic and musically profound. The saxophonist, composer, and keyboard player, known for his curious indie pop songwriting project Landlady, as well as playing alongside the likes of Wye Oak, Japanese Breakfast, Sylvan Esso, and This Is the Kit, is also a longtime curator of jazz and experimental music. That is why his latest album, Civil Engineering, Vol. 1, seems like a delightful inevitability. It’s thr result of one day in a Manhattan recording studio, creating improvised magic with bassist Carmen Quill (Scree, Tilt) and drummer Qasim Naqvi (Dawn of Midi).
Labelling Civil Engineering, Vol. 1 as jazz is fairly accurate, although the overall sound eschews labels. As with all improvised music, it’s fascinating to see what choices the three musicians make at any given time and how they react to each other’s choices. Beginning on a unique and sonically positive note, “A Test of Attention Spans and Contact Cleaner” sees Schatz bringing multiple saxophones and chiming keyboard notes to the table, as Quill and Naqvi weave seamlessly around them. The track is odd and mysterious but also gentle in its approach. As it occasionally veers towards the cacophony of free jazz, it never fails to seem welcoming.
Meanwhile, “A Border Between the Lands of the Living and the Leaving” takes a more modern approach but is also lightly sinister, as the low grumble of a synthesizer gives off a distinct air of tension. Adam Schatz’s mesmerizing piano lines mesh with sparse electronic percussion and Quill’s upright bass, to which, in an inspired move, she eventually takes a bow, and Schatz finishes the song with a deeply felt saxophone solo.
There’s an odd playfulness to the weird but elegant tracks like “A Voice Screaming All Aboard” and the off-kilter, lo-fi jazz closer “A Rock Solid Reply”. There’s also a rugged charm to the cracked experimental bop that’s all over this wild, exciting record. The epic, mind-blowing “A Pox Upon Your Upstairs Neighbors” takes cues from Thelonious Monk, Tom Waits, Vince Guaraldi, and the freewheeling avant-garde ecstasy of Albert Ayler.
Despite all of the jazz references in this review, there’s so much on this album that can be attributed to punk, neoclassical, krautrock, and ambient. It’s mostly jazz in terms of the instrumentation. Like the best music, it doesn’t so much adhere to genres as it does suggest entirely new ones.
“To me, a sentient work in progress, I feel that improvisation is such a damn gift,” Adam Schatz writes in the album notes. It’s obvious in listening to Civil Engineering, Vol. 1 that Schatz, Quill, and Naqvi have truly enjoyed being in each other’s orbit. The intensity and willingness to explore multiple musical avenues have resulted in a work of immense power, fueled by the imagination of three amazing artists.