Ruth Goller
Skylla

This is an unconventional work by Ruth Goller, highlighting her skills as a bassist and double bassist, as well as a singer and composer—she penned all the tracks—supported in Skylla by two refined vocalists in symbiosis with the sonic project, Alice Grant and Lauren Kinsella. A cultured, fine performer, Ruth Goller is involved in numerous musical projects, and her two solo works have received great praise from the press, indeed, Skylla from 2021 and Skyllumina from March 2024.

The compositions breathe jazz, although there is an experimental air that roams freely, creating inflections on the irregular side (when she uses the detuned bass), even though the care given to the vocal harmonies is exceedingly commendable.

Skylla appears as a concept album or the soundtrack of an alternative film whose sequences are dictated by long narrative titles, from which moments and movements belonging to situations experienced by a woman are depicted, balanced between prose and poetry. In a sense, Goller returns to the pure instincts that guided her when she was a punk musician as a teenager, working with different tunings for each song; she composes instinctively based on what she feels at every moment. As she herself says, "at that point, muscle memory no longer works, so I have to rely completely on my ear"... "Music is a language, and I always want to learn as much as possible about it".

Thus, 10 short-length tracks encapsulate a truly captivating sonic philosophy, and for its peculiar alien quality, undoubtedly of exceptional emotional and artistic appeal. In giving flow to harmonies, Goller deploys her mastery, developing an unusual musical creativity, therefore coexisting the emerging fragmentariness within each track (the rich jazz elements and not only those) with the intrinsic singularity belonging to each of them. Thus, one encounters a multi-level reading of the sonic material, which keeps ears glued to the auditory outputs, where the production and the artist work magic in bestowing naturalness to the pieces.

A kind of minimalism emerges from the flourishing thematic collage of soft gracefulness and divergences, inventing a disorienting harmonic garden, overflowing with disconcerting enchantment, autonomous and engaging. Originality seduces, while the harmonies remain internal to the multiple structure of Skylla, proving formidable in disparate expressions and extensions; nonetheless, the vocal tones convey naturalness and mystery, whose sweet levity makes the mix destabilizing, as it also lives on minute detachments ("cool" while being magnetic) that advance a psychological connotation: from a musical entity, it assumes an almost corporeal form of interaction with the listener.

The dreamlike range is transformed into tension, noticeable in the powerful strums of In more turbulent times, she managed to take the perfect shot as well as in the boundless and pure depths offered by the vocals of the following What’s really important she wanted to know - part 1, marked by the intense bass lines, channeling these into a kaleidoscope of novel sensations until discovering the rarefied atmospheres of the versatile ...part 2 and in the "heavy-metallic" parts of I is one.

The unsettling work of writing and imagination leaves one bewildered, so as to describe a predominant state of mind while listening. Yet if jazz serves as a recognizable starting point to try to describe the characteristics of Skylla, there are also elements of striking ambient and electronic disconcert as support, yet the improvisational trait confirms this great soul performance that could refine a delicate Pastorius-like mindset to a kind of intimate and conversational psychedelia, ultimately thanking those who collaborated on the work: singers Alice Grant and Lauren Kinsella, percussionist Bex Burch, guitarist Pedro Velasco, Barbara Goller, multi-instrumentalist Max de Wardener, singer-songwriter and photographer Paula Rae Gibson here for the artwork alone, designed by Velasco himself, with production/mixing entrusted to Kit Downes (a highly regarded jazz musician), mastered by Tyler McDiarmid, a renowned recording engineer with extensive experience, implying a stellar ensemble! Dedicated to her father Paul.

A few words about Ruth.

A prominent figure in the birth of new jazz in London and a member of punk-jazz groups such as Acoustic Ladyland, Melt Yourself Down, Vula Viel, Let Spin, Shabaka Hutchings, Sarah Gillespie, Josienne Clarke, Alabaster DePlume, and many others, Ruth Goller grew up in England but was born in Bressanone, South Tyrol.

After graduating, she moved to London to study jazz music. In 2007, she joined a London jazz-punk band, Acoustic Ladyland. In 2012, she co-founded Melt Yourself Down (with Pete Wareham, Shabaka Hutchings, Tom Skinner, Kushal Gaya, and Satin Singh) and the following year they released their first work. She still found time to participate in the African Express Tour organized in 2013 by Damon Albarn; and her stage appearances include those with Paul McCartney, John Paul Jones, Kit Downes, Sam Amidon, Bojan Z, Marc Ribot, and Rokia Traoré.

While playing with Melt Yourself Down, she co-founded another band, Let Spin, a post-jazz-punk quartet that immediately released its debut album. These are frenetic years for Ruth, tirelessly playing with many other musicians, and in 2015, Let Go, Let Spin's second effort, was released; she played in Things That Grow by Cara Stacey and in 2016 participated in Sarathy Korwar's world-acclaimed debut, Day to Day, whilst the third Melt Yourself Down album, Last Evenings on Earth was released.

In 2018, she played incessantly in live sessions and contributed to various record releases (Seedlings All by Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker; Emotion Machine by Paula Rae Gibson and Kit Downes). She joined Vula Viel alongside percussionist-composer Bex Burch and drummer Jim Hart, releasing the first work Do Not Be Afraid. In the same year, she played in More Arriving by Korwar and in Downes' first release, Dreamlife of Debris, under the ECM label.

She was a touring musician engaged with other bands during 2020 and continues relentlessly to release albums: with Melt Yourself Down (100% Yes) and Let Spin (Steal the Light), appearing in the revolutionary Warmer Than Blood by guitarist Chris Montague, co-produced by her. The beginning of 2021 saw her participating in Sam Amidon's eponymous debut for Nonesuch, until in that same year Skylla, her first record, was released, toured across jazz festivals throughout Europe, garnering widespread success.
Her activity is in continuous ascent as she explores the reaches of her personal professionalism and resplendent creativity.