MARTINA VERHOEVEN QUINTET - Driven - Live at Roadburn 2022

Today - almost half a year after the announcement of the date - the first further news of Roadburn 2023 have been released. It's not terribly much, but it's something important: The main visual artist William Lacalmontie has been revealed and we now know that the presale for next April's Tilburg pilgrimage starts mid November.

Fittingly I also received a package from Dirk Serries, artist in residence in the Paradox jazz club during this year's edition, so I'll gladly take the opportunity to use this occasion for a quick review.

MARTINA VERHOEVEN QUINTET - Driven - Live at Roadburn 2022 (CD) (2022)

Martina who? Even if you've been attending the festival, chances are pretty high that this performance went completely under your radar. If you've read my Roadburn Sunday report and have a good memory, you will at least know that it was one of my personal favorites - and as soon as I saw that it had been made available on CD, I immediately had to jump and order it.

When I watched this freak-out unfolding in front of me I was under the mind-altering heavy influence of just being extremely tired and exhausted, which gave the happening that special extra intensity of being processed in a permanent flux of wake and dreaming consciousness.
So naturally my biggest question facing this recording was how the performance would work without that bonus. I can happily declare: This is still absolutely brain-melting nuts!

The Martina Verhoeven Quintet consists of herself on grand piano, Serries (among many other projects Yodok III) on electric guitar, Gonçalo Almeida (Albatre, Goz, Roji) on upright bass, Onno Gaevert on drums and festival regular Colin Webster on saxophone.

Colin Webster & Gonçalo Almeida

And while these players are all acquainted with all sorts of artsy, avant-garde and crazy stuff, one central stand-out trait of this performance in particular context was the complete lack of the usual something with black metal, doom, hardcore, psychedelic rock or whatever. No, the style on display here is a hundred percent pure coleman-approved free jazz. And I'm tempted to say that it's nothing but insane. But that would be a falsehood.

I lack the expertise to explain it properly, but even though the first impression is that everyone is just firing something at once with noone being featured in the foreground, but everyone except the mostly rather subtle guitar really going for it equally headstrong all the time, there also clearly has to be some method to the madness, right? Because it's not just wild this isn't music anymore cacophony. There's also a lot of room for nuance, dynamic and emotion. If I had only five new albums a year to listen to I could probably immerse myself into these fifty minutes daily for a year and still be clueless how all of this works.

Martina Verhieven & Dirk Serries

Between traditional techniques and experimental sounds the Martina Verhoeven Quintet unleashes a perfect free jazz storm that still continues to increase my already very high appreciation for the genre as a whole. Could I be biased, because this had been such a remarkably timed encounter of just the thing I needed then back in April? Maybe. But I'm sure this flawless recording, which captures all the brilliance, energy and enthusiasm also stands on its own without individual nostalgia.

Even though the band played three different pieces of twenty-five, fifteen and ten minutes length, the CD (nice little digipak with photo art from Martina Verhoeven) just packs them all onto one single track. The intention here obviously is that you should undergo "Driven" like the Paradox audience did - as one integral experience.
Personally, I'm very good with that. I think this thing is already among my top five live albums of the year. Yeah, I guess that is so.