Straddling Worlds With Tangent Mek
I’m incredibly excited to catch the Berlin debut of the Switzerland-based trio Tangent Mek on Sunday March 8 at KM28. I included their remarkable debut album Immutable Traveler when I collected my 40 favorite albums of 2025, and it’s maintained its hold upon me, piling up folk-flavored balladry, extended textural excursions, collective improvisation, and chamber music sonorities, not as distinct approaches but simply as evolving terrain as the moment calls for it. That disparate quality from French violinist Anouck Genthon, Greek flutist Marina Tantanozi, and Finnish viola de gamba player Anna-Kaisa Meklin shifts around so much it’s hard to be sure where the group’s center resides, but that’s hardly worth fretting over.
It’s delightful that an unabashedly beautiful vocal piece like the title track can be followed by the fiercely aerated drone, marbling breath and grain in a dynamic act of levitation “Say it clear, say it loud,” which you can check out below. Elsewhere there’s the stunning opening piece “Glass Harmonica,” where upper register flute and violin shapes float and collide over occasional strums and terse patters on viola de gamba suggest the eerie sound of the titular instrument, while the gradual accretion of fluttering, spitting, and cycling sounds in “Drizzle” conjures a cave-like atmosphere, thickening and intensifying as it unfolds. Tangent Mek’s tour is in support of Immutable Traveler’s reissue as a CD release from the French imprint Carton on March 6.