Rothko - No Anchor No Rudder No Chart No Sails
(Burning Shed)
While you savor Rothko's recent In the Pulse of an Artery EP (Bella Union)
and anxiously await the live Not Gone, Not Forgotten (due out on Lo
Recordings sometime soon), No Anchor No Chart No Rudder No Sails should keep
you in a state of suspended delight. A superb set of unreleased Rothko
presented by the very low-profile Burning Shed label, No Anchor is billed
as "an exclusive collection of outtakes." If these are our favorite English
all-bass concern's outtakes, then what they left in must be pure gold. And
it is--as you've no doubt divined from the praise we regularly heap upon
this outfit.
Rothko's music continues to be a unique celebration of the bass. The quartet
of impressionistic poems that lend this set its title finds the instrument
freed from its sideline role as rhythmic ballast. No anchor, indeed. For
Rothko, the bass is a brush, responsive to the slightest of gestures. An
imperceptible flick turns the fine, flowing scrollwork of "No Chart" and
"Crystal" into broad and bold calligraphy. Bass and body often fuse in
sensuous sinuousness, deliquescent curves consuming instrument and
instrumentalist alike. The arco couplings of "Abstract" are almost too
intimate for outside ears.
Though Rothko always works well in miniature, and even the momentary
glimpses of "Earthed" and "No Rudder" are to be treasured, the lengthier
pieces prove especially rewarding. "No Sails" is as alluring and open as the
ocean's embrace. "Hunt For" is glorious--stormy blue abstraction parting at
the tender urgings of shafts of light--while "Terrible Scrape," the album's
sublime closer, belies its fearsome title with celestial whisperings and a
holy aura worthy of Arvo Pärt.
Where Rothko has previously paid homage to Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson,
whose exceptional fluency in jazz and folk redefined the language of the low
end, No Anchor includes a tribute to Durutti Column maestro Vini Reilly.
"Two," "Into Sunlight," and "For Vini" certainly reflect Reilly's guitar
lyricism, transposing the trebly substance of his fragile sketches for the
richer resonances of the electric bass. And, like Reilly, Rothko is liberal
in the incorporation of electronics. "Through Corridors" and "No Anchor" are
seemingly spun around samples, the silken weft of bass deftly woven with the
coarser warp of sampled sound. When not subsumed by noisy swells, the
expressive bows and bends also suggest that a future tip of the hat to Steve
Swallow is in order. Until then, "Abstract" will serve nicely.
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