Bone Bells, out March 14, 2025 via Pyroclastic Records, thrives on the pair’s bold instincts, improvisational daring and far-ranging compositional vision
“Courvoisier and Halvorson have a chemistry that brings out something new in both of them… [Searching for the Disappeared Hour] is a totally involving and, in its own warped way, beautiful session of music.” – Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz
“Courvoisier and Halvorson reach across the specifics of their approach to celebrate a mutuality of taste: of melodic shapes, of rhythmic structures, of harmonic colour.”– J.D. Considine, JazzTimes
Individually, both pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are revered among the most distinctive and innovative voices in modern creative music. Adeptly shifting between the realms of contemporary chamber music and avant-garde jazz, Courvoisier has been hailed as “a pianist of equal parts audacity and poise” by The New York Times. With her transformative approach to jazz guitar, Halvorson has been called “the most future-seeking guitarist working right now” by NPR.
Over the course of a collaboration that has become vital in less than a decade’s time, Courvoisier and Halvorson have merged those two remarkably singular voices into a single, dauntless vision. With Bone Bells, their third album as a duo and second release for Pyroclastic Records, the pair affirms their place as one of the most thrilling and venturesome piano/guitar tandems in that pairing’s relatively small pantheon.
“I feel a real musical kinship with Sylvie,” Halvorson says. “We’re coming from very different places musically, but there’s a lot of overlap musically and in where our interests lie. It’s been fascinating to explore those intersections and tensions.”
“I’ve really gotten to know and love Mary’s language more and more,” adds Courvoisier. “I can hear where she’s going and our sound has really evolved. I can now write tunes not just for guitar and piano but specifically for Mary and me.”
Out March 14, 2025, Bone Bells splits its compositions evenly between the two artists, alternating their contributions from one track to the next. Both insist that the credits shouldn’t be considered so strictly defined, however, as each piece has been shaped by the collaborative process during rehearsals and performances. That’s been the case since their 2017 debut, Crop Circles, through their acclaimed 2021 follow-up, Searching for the Disappeared Hour.
On Bone Bells, Halvorson’s eerily mournful title track is followed by Courvoisier’s tempestuous “Esmeralda,” named after a sculpture by the Dutch artist Cornelis Zitman, which veers from elegant to eruptive. The guitarist’s “Folded Secret” is built on a labyrinthine, cyclical vamp punctuated by Courvoisier’s percussive prepared piano, while the pianist’s “Nags Head Valse” is a delirious danse macabre that shares its name with a British pub the two encountered while on tour.
Halvorson’s mesmerizing “Beclouded” is redolent of both soaring flight and hazy consciousness; Courvoisier’s madcap “Silly Walk” draws its fractured-mirror sensibility from both the famous Monty Python sketch and a series of grid-like sculptures of the same name by the Swiss artist Sophie Bouvier Ausländer. Dizzying unison lines unravel into probing improvisations in Halvorson’s “Float Queens,” while Courvoisier lifted the dynamic “Cristellino e Lontano” from one score and applied it to the starkly entrancing piece that concludes the album.
Bone Bells takes its name from a passage in Trust, the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2022 novel by Argentine-American author Hernan Diaz. Like so many decisions made by the pair – from their in-the-moment sonic interactions to the seamless integration of piano preparations and guitar pedals – the choice of the succinct yet evocative phrase was made largely by instinct. Its borrowing has less to do with the words’ original meaning or intention than with the implications they take on when divorced from that context and appended to the mysterious, discordant title track.
“The book is really interesting in the way that it deals with the disparate perceptions that people can have of the same story,” Halvorson explains. “But I just really liked this phrase for its poetic quality.”
It’s an alluring title for its suggestion regarding the sonic qualities of the skeletal system, carrying a haunting suggestion of an innate, organic soundworld summoned from deep within the body – a notion more than echoed by the duo’s stunning and profoundly emotive music.
*** BIOs ***
© Veronique Hoegger
Sylvie Courvoisier
Pianist-composer Sylvie Courvoisier, a Brooklyn-based native of Switzerland and winner of Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022, has earned renown for balancing two distinct worlds: the deep, richly detailed chamber music of her European roots and the grooving, hook-laden sounds of the avant-jazz scene in New York City, her home for more than two decades. Few artists feel truly at ease in both concert halls and jazz clubs, playing improvised or composed music. But Courvoisier — “a pianist of equal parts audacity and poise,” according to The New York Times — is as compelling when performing Stravinsky’s epochal Rite of Spring in league with new-music pianist Cory Smythe as she is when improvising with her own acclaimed jazz trio, featuring bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen.
Courvoisier’s newest ensemble, the atmospheric, shape-shifting Chimaera, features Christian Fennesz on electric guitar/effects, Nate Wooley on trumpet and Gress on double-bass alongside a pair of percussionists: Nasheet Waits on drums and Wollesen on drums and vibraphone.
Mary Halvorson
Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has been described as “a singular talent” (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes) and ”NYC’s least-predictable improviser” (Howard Mandel, City Arts). In recent DownBeat Critics Polls she has been celebrated as guitarist, rising star jazz artist, and rising star composer of the year, and in 2019 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Halvorson’s most recent release, Cloudward (Nonesuch), features her Amaryllis sextet, with Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums), along with special guest Laurie Anderson (violin) on one track. The ensemble debuted with a pair of 2022 releases, Amaryllis and Belladonna, which showcase Halvorson’s string writing deftly interpreted by The Mivos Quartet. Amaryllis and Belladonna shared Jazz Album of the Year honors in the 2022 DownBeat Critics Poll, and Amaryllis took the top spot that year in the annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll.
Pyroclastic Records
Pianist-composer Kris Davis founded Pyroclastic Records in 2016. By supporting artists in the dissemination of their work, Pyroclastic empowers emerging and established artists to continue challenging conventional genre-labeling within their fields. Pyroclastic also seeks to galvanize and grow a creative community, providing opportunities, supporting diversity and expanding the audience for noncommercial art. Its albums often feature artwork by prominent visual artists—Ellsworth Kelly, Julian Charriére, Dike Blair, Raymond Pettibon and Gabriel de la Mora among recent examples. 2025 Pyroclastic projects include albums from Ingrid Laubrock, Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson, Ned Rothenberg, Kris Davis with the Lutosławski Quartet and more.