Naomi McCarroll-Butler & Jason Doell Four Former Myrrh Formers Formed Her Horn for Murmurs

“I’m into noise, freaky old hymns, and sombre bagpipe music,” declares Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Naomi-McCarroll-Butler in her online bio. A person of unimpeachable taste, in other words. This tongue-twistingly titled recording (available digitally through Bandcamp or as a limited-edition cassette) is a joint venture with Jason Doell, who generated four discrete pieces of music by feeding samples of McCarroll-Butler’s improvisations on various percussion, wind, and string instruments into his own algorithmic software, which he’s dubbed “sad(john)low” (a near anagram of Doell’s name, though that could be a coincidence). Often the cyber-processing is inconspicuous. The chiming, percussive opener, “blush angel thinning place,” is reminiscent of Harry Partch’s self-made, microtonal sound world, as is the stringier, more abrasive second track, “EATYRHRTOUT.” Wind instruments dominate “you & i are earth 1661,” with a sputtering (possibly processed) soprano sax succeeded by a spare and pensive clarinet solo. These pieces, interesting in their own right, feel like appetizers for a marvellous main course: the 20-minute-long “a hummming, thrummmiiing circle spunnn/Holy Shimmer.” Here, early on at least, the hand of Doell/sad(John) is most apparent, producing a kaleidoscopic drone which, sure enough, hums and thrums and shimmers, never settling into anything close to New Age/ambient narcosis. About three-quarters of the way through, the mood intensifies when drummer Colin Fisher enters the soundscape, rolling forcefully around his kit. Meanwhile, McCarroll-Butler, on alto sax, steps forward to straddle the border between incantatory free jazz and the sombre bagpipe music she’s so fond of.