Kate Gentile's "b i o m e i.i"

This year will be a big one for drummer-composer Kate Gentile. She and her frequent collaborator, pianist Matt Mitchell, have started a label, Obliquity Records, which will release two of the three albums she has set to drop this year. (Pi Records will release a triple album by Find Letter X, Gentile's electroacoustic quartet with Mitchell, Kim Cass, and Jeremy Viner, this October.) Flagrances, a set of "compositionally crafted improvisations" that teams Gentile with guitarist Andrew Smiley, has a July release date. Under consideration today is b i o m e i.i, a a piece in 13 movements, commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble, that premieres May 26 at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn.

Gentile's music is harmonically dense and rhythmically complex. Besides being a musician, she's also a gifted visual artist. She has a form of synesthesia where letters and words are perceived as colors. The titles for the movements in the piece are based on alphabetical preferences. After the music was written, Gentile created a glossary of invented meanings for the titles, and a backstory involving a biome on an alien moon. She cites musique concrete composer Bernard Parmegiani as well as fellow percussionists Ikue Mori and Ches Smith (his Congs for Brums project in particular) as influences on b i o m e i.i. Watching the video trailer she created for the album -- a fast-motion depiction of Gentile making the collage that appears in the album art -- the wriggling blobs of color reminded me of claymation artist Bruce Bickford's animations for Frank Zappa. Indeed, the music's intricacy and sonic palette recall Zappa circa Burnt Weenie Sandwich. But Gentile is clearly pursuing her own vision.

Joining the composer in the ensemble for b i o m e i.i are ICE members Jennifer Curtis (violin), Isabel Lepanto Gleicher (flute, piccolo), Rebekah Heller (bassoon), Ross Karre (vibraphone and percussion), Joshua Rubin (clarinet and bass clarinet), and Cory Smythe (piano). They give Gentile's scores a robust reading, and shift seamlessly between interpretation and improvisation. With b i o m e i.i, Kate Gentile offers us a world of ideas, teeming with life. I look forward to hearing more of her work.