Margaux Oswald Collateral Damage - In Time, Hollow Oaks Become Chapels

2024

Margaux Oswald’s new project Collateral Damage, an international septet with three double basses, two electric guitars, drums, and grand piano, will have its first album released on Clean Feed Records in June 2024 with the title In Time, Hollow Oaks Become Chapels.

After a well received solo record and duo recordings with Jesper Zeuthen and Kasper Tranberg, Margaux Oswald is now presenting her first work as a leader of a large group of musicians. The ensemble was specifically chosen for its textural, timbral capabilities, as well as being a group of good friends and colleagues all having a connection to Margaux’s current hometown of Copenhagen.

Collateral Damage is an inter-European congregation creating spontaneous, multilayered music. The constellation could be described as unorthodox: a Swiss pianist, a Danish drummer, two guitarists, one Swedish and one Norwegian, and three double bassists: one Polish, one Latvian, and one Lithuanian. The diversity of languages mirrors the richness and multiplicity of musical perspectives inherent in this improvised chamber ensemble.

The group sometimes moves together as one big textural entity, and other times it lets itself differentiate into several contrapuntal musical layers. The three double basses, along with the piano, allow for a nuanced and complex exploration of both the low and high extremes of the instruments, while the jagged timbral explorations of the guitars fill out the middle register, combining with rattles, thumps, clashes, and percussive attacks from the cymbals and drums to create an utterly unique sound world.

The ensemble spontaneously alternates between smaller and larger sub-groupings and constantly shifts the musical roles and responsibilities. This is highly complex music with skilled musicians that could not be achieved without intense listening, strong personal initiatives, and respect for the musical choices of their bandmates.

This is free improvised music, but Margaux Oswald’s artistic vision comes through crystal clear by way of the deliberate choice of musicians both in terms of their instruments and their personalities, the editing, choosing, and ordering of the tracks of the album, as well as the mysterious unspoken direction a leader can give to an improvised ensemble.