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Janel Leppin, ensemble volcanic Ash

BEST Jazz albums 2022 jazztimes

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Jazztimes EDITOR'S PICK  

"Janel Leppin is a picture of versatility. Not only has she been a pillar of Washington, D.C.’s cre- ative music community for the last 20 years, but the cellist, composer, arranger, and singer has made significant marks in other scenes as well. She’s contributed cello arrangements to the Messthetics, played with punk outfit Priests, and records art-pop under the Mellow Diamond moniker. Leppin leans into a jazz-centric vision on the majestic and occa- sionally abrasive Ensemble Volcanic Ash, which affirms her place as a boundless musician who constantly leaves the listener intrigued. It’s a puzzle in which jazz, chamber music, contemporary classical, and punk seamlessly coalesce with bracing results. 

Ensemble Volcanic Ash, comprising Leppin, bassist Luke Stewart, harpist Kim Sator, guitarist Anthony Pirog, alto saxophonist Sarah Hughes, tenor saxophonist Brian Settles, and drummer Larry Ferguson, exquisitely captures strings-driven melody, harmony, and noise at a furious clip. They both tug at the heartstrings and bust ears. Leppin’s shimmering yet melancholy cello opens on a classical note on “Children of the Water,” setting a charged tone. “Woven Forest” is uplifting in a Coltrane-esque sense before putting the pedal to the metal at the halfway point, in which Pirog (also of the Messthetics, and Lep- pin’s husband and frequent collaborator) sprays heavy doses of guitar skronk.

The nine-minute epic establishes Leppin as clear leader of this mighty troupe, her bows, scrapes, and clatter illuminating a wide range of soul-baring emotions while her band serves as a rhythmic beacon of light. Ensemble Volcanic Ash runs the gamut of the meditative (“Her Hand Is His Score”), the spiritual-jazzy (“Clarity”), and the punkish freakout (“She Had Synesthesia”) with near-effortless command on its dazzling debut." – Brad Cohan / Jazztimes EDITOR'S PICK  

The Best Jazz on Bandcamp: July 2022 

"It’s rare to encounter a recording with the kind of melodic richness delivered by the latest from Janel Leppin. The magic of the melodies on Ensemble Volcanic Ash is in both their voicing and their motion, behaving like a river that marks the path and carries passengers along by the force of its currents. 
The mix of chamber jazz, art rock, contemporary classical, and electronic music are merely facets through which the melodies becomes focused, like glass soaking in sunbeams and spitting it back out in a prismatic light show. 

I’m pretty addicted to this record, and don’t anticipate that waning any time soon; your results may vary—but I doubt it." – Dave Sumner / The Best Jazz on Bandcamp: July 2022 

4.5/5 Stars All Music

"Washington D.C.-based cellist Janel Leppin introduces her stylistically wide-ranging and experimental collective Ensemble Volcanic Ash on their 2022 eponymous debut. An impressively hard-to-pin-down artist, Leppin is a conservatory-trained performer whose music has often straddled the line between ambient pop, edgy, guitar-based indie rock, and avant-garde improvisation. With Ensemble Volcanic Ash, Leppin leans heavily into the latter, bringing together her ear for classical composition with spiraling, free jazz improvisation and cinematic soundscapes. Joining her in the group is her husband, guitarist/keyboardist Anthony Pirog, with whom she first became known for their equally genre-crossing duo albums. Also featured are bassist Luke Stewart, harpist Kim Sator, drummer Larry Ferguson, alto saxophonist Sarah Hughes, and tenor saxophonist Brian Settles. Together, they play a deeply textural and atmospheric brand of instrumental music that feels like it could be a soundtrack for an art film.

The opening "Children of Water" has a mournful quality, like a film noir theme for a movie set in the Middle Ages. Equally compelling, "Woven Forest" has a roiling, minor-key cello groove over which the group trade twisting, harmonically adventurous solos. Yet more languid, "I Pose" is a shimmering tone poem in which Leppin's darkly attenuated cello is offset by fairy-wing flute and harp accents before crashing together against waves of saxophone and electric guitar. The rest of the album follows suit, much of which sounds like a fever-dream collaboration between chamber string ensemble Bang on a Can, saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, and noise-rock outfit Sonic Youth."

Salt Peanuts

"American cellist-composer (and textile artist) Janel Leppin’s Ensemble Volcanic Ash materialized after years of incubation on Washington D.C.’s verdant new music, art rock jazz and improvised music scenes. Leppin has worked with most of the musicians of this seven-piece ensemble for over a decade, including husband Anthony Pirog (with whom Leppin played in the duo Janel & Anthony) and bassist Luke Stewart (of Irreversible Entanglements fame), and created a unique, genre-bending sonic palette, with fascinating cinematic qualities.

Leppin’s compositions for the Ensemble Volcanic Ash tell suggestive, colorful stories. The opening, brief piece «Children of the Water» set the chamber and elegant, emphatic yet deeply sensual emotional territory of the album. The following «Woven Forest» relies on a driving groove that propels the solos of Leppin and alto sax player Sarah Hughes and later a scorching one of Pirog. The mini-suite «She Had Synesthesia» and «Her Hand is his Score» cement the telepathic dynamics of Leppin and Pirog, both are not shy from raw and ecstatic eruptions. «I Pose» patiently builds an incantatory, powerful cello-driven climax evoking transcendence. «Silvia’s Path», referring to poet Sylvia Plath, is a minimalist piece that celebrates Philip Glass-like repetitive patterns.

Leppin’s most impressive compositions are the last ones on the albums. The album’s centerpiece, the nine-minute «Volcano’s Song», was inspired by Leppin’s flight during the 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano after a long European tour, but its seductive, cyclical melody owes much to the avant-klezmer of John Zorn’s Masada book of compositions. «A Palace for Alice» was inspired by the mystic-spiritual music of Alice Coltrane, and especially by Coltrane’s «Journey in Satchidananda» (Impulse, 1971), and highlights the playing of harpist Kim Sator and sax player Hughes. Leppin closes the album with the first song she ever composed, the beautiful melancholic but somehow unsentimental ballad «Leaving the Woods», which she first recorded on the 2012 album of Janel & Anthony (Pirog) «Where is Home» (Cuneiform). - Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts

The Quietus

Complete Communion: Jazz For July Reviewed By Peter Margasak

Like an increasing number of creative musicians Washington D.C. cellist and composer Janel Leppin has no interest staying within the confines of any given genre or musical world. She’s worked in various contexts with her guitar-playing husband Anthony Pirog and a couple of years ago she released a stunning chamber ensemble performance of The Heart Sutra, a Susan Alcorn suite. On this new album she carries on, open to where curiosity leads her, with a dedicated, versatile group going along with her…her knack for multi-partite compositions that keep opening up new sound worlds is all her own. ‘Woven Forest’, one such piece, ricochets through numerous shifts, with tender melody and heady grooves supported by nifty arrangements that endlessly reorient the rhythm section (bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Larry Ferguson), the horns (saxophonists Brian Settles and Sarah Hughes) and the strings (Leppin, Pirog, and harpist Kim Sator), while carving out space for extended improvisation, including a ripping guitar solo. The richly varied improvisations are seamlessly interwoven into lapidary arrangements, whether rock-driven or propelled by off-kilter swing. Her ease in so many contexts never attracts attention in and of itself. Instead, her writing seems to simply require such range..there’s a lot of goodness to digest.” - Peter Margasak, The Quietus

On a really good night, it only takes seven people on a stage to make you feel impossibly hopeful for the other 7.8 billion or so on Earth. Like on Saturday night at Rhizome, where Janel Leppin’s Ensemble Volcanic Ash created a 30-minute jazzlike surge that embodied all the complexity and grace of human cooperation — that intuitive, empathetic, semi-telepathic teamwork thing that helps set us apart as a species." - The Washington Post on Ensemble Volcanic Ash

"Two collaborators, two performances, two live recordings and when you add everything up, it sounds something like infinity... Listen deeply, then listen again. " - The Washington Post on The Heart Sutra

"These nine songs press heavenward with exquisite emotion." - The Wire Adventures in Modern Music on The Heart Sutra

"Leppin’s ability to transcend classical training on the cello to this new wave of eclectic, experimental music makes her music so interesting to listen to. Leppin is bringing a whole new style to the table." - Aquarian Weekly on Janel Leppin

"Instrumental intimacy swept up in arrangements that cluster around her voice, as delicate and as imposing as a sheet of falling ice.” NPR Music on Janel Leppin

I’m a cellist, composer and arranger who plays a lot of instruments and sings. Sometimes I add magic to recordings of artists I love. I tour worldwide but when I’m home I make art by weaving my performance outfits into tapestries. I started making bespoke clothing with these weavings on them and started working with awesome music/art friends, too. You can hear my newest releases on the music PAge + MY bandcamp PAges. read what journalists have said about my music + art work on the press page. you can be in the loop if ya like via email updates on the form below, Cheers!

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