The formula is simple. An ad-hoc string quartet with a willingness to ‘fit’ the music, an ace saxophonist with a case full of different instruments (soprano and baritone saxes, bass and contrabass clarinets) and a bass player who can swim happily along with the improvisational tide. Surman’s insert-note suggests that much of the improvisation is shared between himself and bassist Christopher Laurence, which is very much how things sound.
The opening At Dusk conjures the purity of a Bach chorale, but by the time we reach For the Moment, so much has been said (none of it too outspoken to spoil the reflective mood) that initial securities are quietly displaced.
Even by Dark Corners (track 2), Surman is starting to question, edging into a mysterious Beethoven-Bartok synthesis (Beethoven’s 15th Quartet, Bartok’s Sixth) before Laurence shuffles in, kicking the leaves on cool pizzicatos. The strings start to diversify, emboldened by the bass and then Surman lends his own smooth, sinewy presence. Stone Flower (composed in memory of baritone saxophonist Harry Carney) brings dusk that bit nearer, though there’s also some warmer music in store.
Moonless Midnight opens to a cello solo. The violist joins in (swinging the odd portamento), then a violin, and then Surman himself (at around 2'28''), pushing the arguments up to a higher pitch. Winding Passages revisits the bleached chordal sequence that underpinned Dark Corners, but give it a minute or so and Surman opts for a marked mood swing, something rather more emphatic and contrapuntal. An Illusive Shadow is based on an idea credited to Jon Tolansky and opens like a community of snorting reptiles escaped from Stravinsky’s Rite. It’s the most original piece on the disc with a certain softening of tone later on (Debussy and Ravel are somewhere in the vicinity).
Crystal Walls surfaces on icy tremolando s and a viola/violin duet, and although the colouring remains fairly dark the tempo soon picks up (Laurence plays a brief cadenza). The one instrumental ‘outsider’ – a few arpeggios on tuned percussion – sets the scene for For the Moment. Again, energy levels rise, but the quiet close cues swathes of aural mist and more questions are asked.
Coruscating (to quote the album title) is an after-hours listen, thoughtful but undemanding, imaginative but unpretentious. The artwork makes uncommon moods out of Brighton Pier, photographed (I presume) during last year’s ECM Festival in that much-loved seaside town. It helped conjure fond memories, but the music brought them closer still.'