Steph Richards with Joshua White
Steph Richards blows her trumpet in water vessels on some of Zephyr's tracks. (It's unclear what kind of water vessels she employs, though it's not exactly important either.) When she makes bubbles during "Sacred Sea," snatches of pitch occasionally come to the surface, as if the bubbles hold the sound and release it when they pop.
The piece has a lot of open space, including several seconds where neither she nor pianist Joshua White play their instruments. Richards just taps her water bowls. As the piece goes on, her trills and runs sound like fragments of adventurous predecessors on the horn: Miles Davis, if his track on "He Loved Him Madly" was isolated; Bill Dixon exploring a room's acoustics with his extended technique; Lester Bowie having fun with his horn.
Zephyr features three suites, consisting of between three to five separately banded sections. Richards was six months pregnant when she recorded Zephyr. While that isn't quite a central theme to the whole album, the use of water acts as a link in some of the tracks. Two suites are inspired by environmental topics, and the idea of raising a child while such issues taken on greater significance; the other is influenced by the idea of a baby living in water.
Considering the baby, though, explains the hushed moments of the Sacred Sea suite. Richards often blows freely, but she isn't always loud, per se. White plays in the title section as if he's trying not to disturb the baby. But on the rest of the album, the pianist doesn't worry about such things. He frequently uses prepared piano as a percussive counterpoint to Richards, imitating a rusty ride cymbal in some moments, adding both pulse and pitch elsewhere. He also does some Cecil Taylor-esque accompaniment in "Nixie," gathering fire as he moves forward.
But the focus remains on Richards, and she spends her time producing a wide variety of textures that keep the program varied. The Sacred Sea suite is followed by Sequoia, which shifts away from the restless sound to a cleaner tone in "Cicada" before diving into some aggressive wah-wah mute squawks. "Sequoia" almost has a buttery classic sound, which contrasts delightfully with White, who sounds like two pianists playing at once.
The four "Aurora" segments of Northern Lights feature plenty of contrasting moods, from White's emphatic percussive beat in part one - adding fire power to Richards' bent, twisted notes - to the finale, where trumpeter briefly breaks away from some more quick, darting lines to approximate the roar of guitar feedback. It offers an emphatic conclusion to this varied musical journey.
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