Nate Wooley

After learning that Nate Wooley is a trumpeter-composer given to disassembling his horn and then blowing through its various parts, you might peg him as an avant-garde jazz instrumentalist with a fondness for John Cage. But charting his influences doesn’t pin down Wooley’s sound—or, rather, his collection of sounds. Wooley’s toolkit includes a raging, pitch-free thrum that has an ambient quality, even as his instrument is vibrating madly.

Sometimes the music is driven by the clanking of his trumpet’s valves, which creates a percussive quality. And he also strings together “regular” notes with authority; recent albums of original tunes and mainstream jazz covers have found the musician merging conceptual experiments with more traditional forms. In the space of the same song, he can provide memorable lines of melody over a swinging beat, then charge off into innovations that expand your understanding of his instrument.

Argonautica capitalizes on both these strengths. Its format–a single track that plays out over 43 minutes—allows Wooley to indulge his many influences within a compositional structure that feels expertly designed. Here, after a brief intro, we find a freewheeling opening section, followed by a meditative middle portion that toys with drone, balladry, and stray interjections of electronic noise. An energetic group finale adds psych-rock tumult. Each major subsection lasts about 15 minutes, and the overall fast/slow/fast construction flows like a more traditional three-movement piece.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22002-argonautica/