Pedernal

"Pedernal's appeal is its serious playfulness ... Alcorn utilizes dyads and triads in deft arrangements so each musician gets an opportunity to contribute, shine and move the music. It unfolds and progresses sometimes languidly, sometimes scaling heights, but it is never encumbered by theory. The separation of the production also allows each voice to have their distinct place from which to play along or contrapuntally ... Susan Alcorn Quintet is composed of talented artists who use their skills and musical reference points not to reinvent the wheel or polishing the mirror. Under her aegis they simply and masterfully create a recording of grace, subtlety, unity, and compelling musicianship that balances and investigates the modern and the ancient".

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""Pedernal" has a sound akin to the chamber-jazz-Americana that Bill Frisell has made his brand, but it has a distinctive sound as well. The guitarist is [Mary] Halvorson, whose idiosyncratic use of a pedal effect can cause her sound to swirl and bend - in a manner that sometimes mimic Alcorn's steel guitar. Mark Feldman is on violin, and he is also a master of the kind of microtonal movement that a fretless instrument allows. The result is a "string band" that can lock into a tightly arranged tune that might be suitable for dobro master Jerry Douglas and then can loosen outward into a free-improvising ensemble that tests the limits of chromatic tonality ... The music is charming and melodic, but Feldman, Alcorn, and Halvorson - each of whom loves to move from playing precise passages to sabotaging the landscape with weirdly-bent-note twists - bring all kinds of wondrous creative improvising".

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"Capable of crafting scintillating solo statements or generating richly nuanced atmosphere, [Susan Alcorn's] astonishing versatility has allowed her to contribute to a vast array of projects. But it is encouraging to see her getting some additional exposure as a leader in her own right, with the elliptical and entrancing "Pedernal" ... The album's opener and title track, "Pedernal," is a gem, with a memorable folk-like melody and expert use of all five musicians, particularly the lyrical talents of Feldman and a charged dialogue between Halvorson and Alcorn, in evoking the wide-open landscape of northern New Mexico and the mesa for which the piece is named. The closer, "Northeast Rising Sun," is similarly engaging, with the band adding some joyful hand-claps to a piece that also seems inspired by Alcorn's folk/country roots, though the tune itself is derived from the Sufi devotional tradition. It also showcases [Mary] Halvorson's most rangy solo on the record, a characteristically devilish tone-twisting wonder".

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