Or Bareket: /AYIN/
Enja Records

Bassist Or Bareket's third quartet album is produced by Joel Ross, which can't help but make one wonder how /AYIN/ would have sounded had the vibraphonist also played on the album. That said, the sound Bareket, keyboardist Fabian Almazan, saxophonist Godwin Louis, and drummer Savannah Harris produces is in no way wanting. Louis and Harris were also with the bassist on his SAHAR (2022) and YOM (2024) releases, while Almazan, credited with piano and electronics, joins the group for the first time. With three-quarters of the players present on all three releases, it's natural for the new set to sound as if it's following in the earlier ones' footsteps while at the same time bringing the players' connection to a higher level of integration and maturity.

Bareket, who's worked with Camila Meza, Ben Wendel, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter, Marta Sanchéz, and others, animates the performances with rhythmic dexterity and circumspect note choices. As the composer of the album material, he knows the tunes backwards and forwards and thus grounds the quartet with playing that's lucid, locked-in, and authoritative. He brings a similar intelligence to his writing, which is explorative and inventive. Consciously striving to avoid cliches and previously adopted formulae, Bareket aims to create pieces that establish clear identities whilst also ensuring space remains for players to impose themselves.

The title demands clarification, obviously. According to Bareket, it's “a letter in both Abrahamic alphabets of Arabic and Hebrew,” with one translation rendering it as “fountainhead,” “the place where water emerges from the earth.” The slashes? They signify a deep “glottal stop” that when pronounced properly makes the titular word a vowel and consonant. In truth, none of that's critical to one's experience or appreciation of the album, which, recorded at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, Connecticut, packs a steady stream of commanding performances into its thirty-five-minute frame.

Like the album title, the compositions often have interesting back-stories. "Four Drops,” for example, alludes to the bassist's daily ritual of sharing four drops of coffee with his deceased ancestors, his father, two grandfathers, and great uncle. “Ecdysis,” on the other hand, is, in his words, “the proper scientific name for the process by which a snake sheds its skin.” The word doesn't so much refer to the music itself but more that in coming to the new album he felt a need to leave his previous release behind and come to its successor fresh. ”Tsu'unu'um,” derived from the Mayan word for hummingbird, does bear a musical connection, with Bareket melodically building the piece around the image of a time-traveling hummingbird flying within a church or museum. Applying a hocketing design to the piece proved to be a smart move in vividly suggesting the circular motions of a bird trapped inside a building.

The inclusion of spoken word poetry by Rasha Nahas in the gentle opener “Manaquish" makes for an arresting start, but it's the only time a fifth person appears on a track. Her soft voice beautifully aligns with the peaceful hush of the band, with Godwin purring alongside her and Almazan tastefully enhancing the piece with chords. The subsequent “Ancestor Worship” catches the ear in a different way by layering bowed textures across a propulsive bass pulse. With “Four Drops - Shadow Primogeniture” the album enters energized quartet mode, with Godwin's smooth soprano channeling Wayne Shorter (not the only time), Almazan contributing freewheeling commentary, and the others driving the performance with high-level elasticity. Interestingly, Bareket's compositions also often exude a rather slippery Shorter-like quality when their melodies are oblique and angular in a manner reminiscent of the legend's. Intricately woven, the pieces find all four voices entwining provocatively and Almazan a seamless fit. As a player, the leader never elbows the others aside, but he does anchor the takes with solid bass work, whether plucked or bowed.

September 2026