A daring vision of flute and voice

So dextrous a musician is the flutist Laura Cocks that, at shows, their instrument occurs to the eye as merely another limb. A powerhouse New York-based collaborator and interpreter within new classical and experimental music, notably as director of the leading-edge new music group TAK Ensemble, Cocks now releases their first solo statement of improvised compositions with FATHM, an acrobatic intertwining of flute and voice that nods to strange and fleeting visions: among them, birds, string, seeds between the teeth. On FATHM, Cocks applies all the facility of their work as an interpreter of commissioned works – on extensive display in their last solo venture, 2022’s field anatomies – towards the development of an uninhibited, yet highly focused musical language. 

If the album’s mysterious tracklist reads as a sort of cryptogram, then listening to FATHM evokes a process of decoding, parsing the bounds between vocalization and instrument. The album’s opening track, »A thread held between your fingers«, finds Cocks as their own flickering shadow, simultaneously playing the flute and squealing in tones just slightly removed in pitch. »Illinois« is then reclaimed from Sufjan Stevens’ relentless grip as a furious mumble of half-blown notes with underlying trickles of voice. Cocks experiments further with these hoarse timbres on the three infinitive tracks: »To beget« and its later variations »To outstretch« and concluding track »To fly«, which trace the evolution of a dancelike triplet motif. »FAVN«, apparently a faithful depiction of an elephant with severe sleep apnea, may reconcile itself to the sensitive listener through its sheer commitment to the grotesque, while »A seed sucked between your teeth«, orbiting languidly around a major ninth, invites more celestial considerations. »A marsh wren« might take the titular bird as a point of departure, but it quickly imagines a species of its own, singing a song of bustle and snaps and smacks. On »YARN«, Cocks suggests another sort of animal song by making a counterpoint of mews and growls. The flutist’s skill with balancing these peculiar hybrids ultimately distinguishes FATHM as much as Cocks’ ferocious energy; this is an album as happy to shout as it is to slither.