Bernstein, Andrew

***Flying between virtuosic formalism and freewheeling openness, Andrew Bernstein’s (Horse Lords) new album Shadows and Windy Places is a gripping picture of the Germany-based saxophonist right now. Capturing recordings across the last five years and disparate sources—some are previous album sessions, others peak into Bernstein’s daily practice—they all fall perfectly into place to form an album as rich as a self-portrait and as spontaneous as a snapshot. “I often feel the pull to formalize my music, to have a reason for every decision, an internal logic that can be explained,” Bernstein says of the album. “This is countered by my lived experience, of music and otherwise, in a chaotic, improvisatory, and complex world. This music attempts to reconcile these impulses.” That tension between logical forms and chaotic, improvised flights only becomes more rewarding and joyful as Shadows and Windy Places unfolds through the hypnotic “A Shadow, Blooming” with subliminal flashes of gamelan and Ethiopian jazz, the silvery, pulsing “Of Infinite Space” and the playful, bubbling “Counting Sines.” They all revolve around the gripping centerpiece “In Blue”, an explosive performance where Bernstein doesn’t reconcile his impulses so much as fuse them entirely with his saxophone forming a fiery crucible. As both an end point for years of material and an opening statement to OMA, a new label co-founded by Bernstein and his bandmates in Horse Lords, Shadows and Windy Places is a defining work for the virtuoso saxophonist.