Mary Halvorson’s ambition has followed a clear trajectory. On albums designed as showcases for her own tunes, the experimental guitarist has steadily added additional instrumentalists to her crew, beginning with a power trio, early in her career, and winding up with a group of eight players on 2016’s Away With You. As Halvorson has developed her skill as an arranger, her varied interests in jazz, rock, and other styles have found new ways to interact. When all her influences click into place, the result is like little else, in any genre. The pileup of melody often feels luxuriously imaginative, instead of complicated for its own sake.
Even after some unexpected moves, such as her solo covers album, it’s always seemed reasonable to expect this bandleader to keep fielding ever larger groups. But it turns out that increasing the number of chairs on stage isn’t Halvorson’s only strategy for pushing herself. Her latest record, Code Girl, introduces a new band of the same name, and this time, she’s back to writing for only five players. Drummer Tomas Fujiwara and bassist Michael Formanek are longtime collaborators. Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, usually heard playing on the Blue Note label, is a more recent associate. But more than any other member of the group, it’s vocalist Amirtha Kidambi who helps Code Girl feel like a fresh aesthetic zone for the guitarist.
The singer’s creative practice is impressive in its range. Trained in the South Indian Carnatic tradition, Kidambi is an artist you might also find interpreting a Nina Simone song as part of a contemporary opera festival’s takeover of a New York City mall. Elder Ones, a fiery and focused group that Kidambi leads, has an incantatory power that distinguishes it within New York’s improv-noise community. She is a perfect fit for Halvorson’s arrangements, which often thrive on internal contrasts. When the leader’s guitar progressions turn ominous, in the final minutes of “My Mind I Find in Time,” Kidambi unleashes some galvanizing melisma that slices through the gloom.
She can also blend into the group. “The Unexpected Natural Phenomenon” starts out in mournful melodic territory that Kidambi observes with chill solemnity, but when Halvorson lets rip with some wild lines, the vocalist follows with finely controlled yowls and raspy vocalizations that fit the new mood of abandon. And before a field of grungy distortion hits, during “Possibility of Lightning,” the group’s initial, sprightly approach is matched by some of Kidambi’s most playful phrasing.
The potential of the entire ensemble seems to fire Halvorson’s imagination. Over the course of this double album, she pursues a few songwriting modes that are new to her catalog. The mordant balladry of “Accurate Hit” is a sound Kim Deal could love. The opening stomp of “Drop the Needle” aligns with the world of new-classical groups like the Bang on a Can All-Stars, or Buke and Gase.
There’s also plenty of the improvisational intensity that fans of modern jazz have come to expect from a Halvorson project. In his solo during “Pretty Mountain,” Akinmusire ventures some harsh textures on his trumpet while managing to keep Halvorson’s melody in view. And no matter the number of twists each song proposes, the rhythm section sounds as brilliant with the guitarist as they do in Thumbscrew, their collaborative trio.
Halvorson’s lyrics manage the difficult task of wearing Beat poetry’s influence without seeming like a pale imitation. Crucially, ambiguity doesn’t seem like a placeholder for absent meaning. There are often clearly identifiable emotional stakes here, even when the narrative particulars are obscured. The first song of the album turns noticeably on the line, “Status is an obstacle”—a phrase that might come easily to someone whose career has taken off over the last decade. But in a group, and on an album, that goes by the name Code Girl, words aren’t meant to say everything. The pleasure of this kind of text comes from the way it invites active listening as a means of interpretation.
