The album begins with light moving through the universe and ends with Smith considering what might be more powerful than light itself: love.
Burning Ambulance Music
“Dark Energy” Trio — Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet; Sylvie Courvoisier, piano; Marcus Gilmore, drums
“Lake Tanganyika” Sextet — Smith, Bobby Naughton, vibraphone; Lamar Smith, electric guitar; Mauro Refosco, percussion; Brian Jawara Gray, percussion; Pheeroan akLaff, drums
“Dark Matter, Particles of Light, Mirror of the Unseen” Octet / multiple configurations — Smith, Naughton, Lamar Smith, Bill Laswell, Melvin Gibbs, Refosco, Gray, akLaff. The album description specifically says this 22-minute suite shifts from trio to octet and back.
“Deep Canyons on Mars” Quintet — Smith, Naughton, Laswell, Gibbs, akLaff
“Meditation on Love” Sextet — Smith, Naughton, Lamar Smith, Refosco, Gray, akLaff
Wadada Leo Smith takes the movement of light through the universe as his inspiration for Constellations and Hemispheres. Light, he says, keeps moving, going through, around, or under whatever it encounters. Smith gives that idea a musical form by placing the same trumpet at the center of four different ensembles, each creating a different path for the music to follow.
Something sounding like machinery off in the distance opens “Dark Energy.” Over it, Smith’s muted trumpet is soft, plaintive, while Sylvie Courvoisier’s sparse piano notes seem to search for a way in. The percussion starts lightly, then builds in waves. Smith’s trumpet is like a leash, pulling the music in a particular direction as the drums grow heavier and more insistent. Later, the intensity falls away, leaving the trumpet and piano caressing the ending over a muffled drum roll.
Smith’s horn lightens up on “Lake Tanganyika.” It’s bright and clear. The drums throb underneath him while Bobby Naughton’s vibraphone holds a few notes, not really soloing but providing a solid foundation that Smith can play off.
The opening of “Dark Matter, Particles of Light, Mirror of the Unseen” is a barrage of piercing trumpet blasts, pounding drums, heavy bass and electronic sounds. Then it’s just a ringing guitar and a few lone piano notes left hanging in space. The vibraphone rings out a few scattered notes, drums and percussion rumble, and Smith’s extended trumpet notes spread overhead like cloud cover. Courvoisier picks out jagged notes, quietly at first, then faster and harder until her piano sounds just as percussive as it is melodic. Smith moves between curt, breathy phrases and detonating high notes that roil with the drums underneath him.
Electric bass and guitar hold long notes that rumble and roar off into space on “Deep Canyons on Mars.” Sputtering electronics help get them there. It sounds like a rock band you might hear in a canyon bar next time you’re on Mars. The rhythm picks up, the guitar starts picking out jagged notes, and then the vibraphone comes in with tinkling, spacey lines, while Smith blows short, muted phrases.
By the time “Meditation on Love” arrives, the music has come much closer to home. Naughton’s vibraphone carries the melody while Smith takes the trumpet from its upper register down into a warm, melancholy middle range. He plays a few high notes, but never pushes. The vibraphone adds single, ringing notes, with the drums staying quietly underneath.
Smith has described light as a revealer, something that exposes what is hidden, but his larger concern is how people might live together without war. The album begins with light moving through the universe and ends with Smith considering what might be more powerful than light itself: love.
