In September 2021, Knoxville, Tennessee double bassist Evan Lipson entered a disused World War II-era ordnance storage bunker in Chattanooga’s Enterprise South Nature Park to record the long improvisation aptly titled Echo Chamber. The resonance of the bunker is remarkable, as can readily be heard in the first few minutes of the recording: miscellaneous, difficult-to-attribute sounds multiply and fall back on themselves, firmly establishing the bunker’s interior as an active participant in the performance that follows. And what follows is a stunning, virtuoso extraction of sounds from the entire, expansive range of the double bass, which Lipson plays with a variety of conventional and extended techniques. He is apt to approach the bass as a percussion instrument, using the bow to strike the strings as well as other points along its body, but is just as inclined to pull sharp, brittle overtones from it with bow and fingers, or to pluck upper register harmonies against a bowed, low register drone tone. These, along with a robust, hymn-like passage for bowed chords, exploit the resonant potential of the space to its fullest. An exciting performance indeed.
Daniel Barbiero
Avant Music News 