Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone : Hideout; Wed 29

Photo: Peter Gunnushkin

Released earlier this year, this duo’s second album, Thin Air, is a morbid collection of off-kilter tunes defined by spidery melodies and occasional bursts of raw vocal harmonies. Mary Halvorson’s choppy guitar chords punctuate like shards of glass, blurting out jagged patterns. Violist Jessica Pavone counters with aggressive plucking phrases and whiny bowing. Together, they represent a captivating dissection of folk traditions, contrasting formally trained instrumentalists with decidedly amateur singing, like Velvet Underground–era Nico jamming with John Cage and Eric Satie.

In many ways this New York twosome reflects the creativity stemming from local cultural bastion the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Not only are Halvorson, a 2002 grad of Wesleyan U., and Connecticutt native Pavone steadfast associates of daring improviser Anthony Braxton, a leading voice of the Atlantic chapter of the AACM, but a similar spirit of fierce originality drives the young Brooklynites’ collaboration. Active in a number of projects, the two are at their most solemn and spare in this particular configuration, more closely resembling an avant-garde chamber group than a free-jazz face-off.

Abstract portraits like “Lullaby” and Thin Air’s title track straddle the divide between composition and improv with grace and confidence. Halvorson crafts freewheeling arpeggios that plunge into haunting figures mired in distortion. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the East Coast scene, and there’s no better showcase than Mitch Cocanig’s thoughtfully curated Immediate Sound weekly.

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