Zweifel. German for “Doubt.” From the root word zwei — meaning “two.” Or, when really straining the poetics of Middle High German for the purposes of this clumsy metaphor… Zwei — meaning “dopple.”
As in “doppelganger.” A supernatural double which reflects our inner self.
Contradictions — like confronting our distorted mirror image — arise when listening to Spencer Zweifel and the Life or Death Situation. Life or death? Light or dark? Jazz or post-rock? The acute technique of Dave Holland or the broad texture of Tim Hecker? Was that a metal riff on the track “Medusa”?
The seemingly disparate puzzle pieces start to inch closer as the first sax solo of “Here’s the Situation” rumbles everything together. But don’t get comfortable! The table has flipped over from the noise, and there’s a new puzzle to solve on the floor. This one reminds us of a sci-fi movie from the 70’s… And then a crescendoing gust from the trumpet blows it all away before anything is solved.
Funded by a Weld County grant, and recorded at Mighty Fine Studios in Denver, Zweifel assembled an eclectic 8-piece instrumental outfit of jazz and rock specialists to make sense out of all this chaos — coalesced through a trumpet-alto-tenor frontline and a massive 5-person rhythm section. Out of the wreckage of their studio sessions comes intuitive melodies, grounded jazz harmonies, and dense soundscapes which provoke an appropriately impassioned internal argument in the listener.
Take, for example, the second track: “The Sound and the Fury”. Like the soliloquy from which the track derives its name, we finally take a breath inside our kingdom as the music settles to a trumpet and piano duet. And then, suddenly, a symbol crash at the castle gate. Macduff is knocking on the walls, and Lady Macbeth can’t wash the blood off of her hands. We look into our reflection and opine our status to our own doppelganger, “Life’s but a walking shadow… Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.”
Walking shadow? Sound and fury — signifying nothing? More contradictions. Another thesis statement bound in oxymoron. Zweifel explains his unique approach to composition, and why these discrepancies are best confronted in cacophony:
“I like records where the background noise has a lot to say,” Zweifel said. “The atmosphere becomes its own character. And I wanted to capture that feeling on something deeply personal.”
The approach is beautiful, technical, and evocative. Regicide striking in perfect, metronomic time. This passion project blends technique from the classroom and execution from the heart. You could say it’s jazz for rock fans. Or rock for jazz fans. Blah, blah, blah.
No such boundaries exist on tracks like “The Zone”. Rattled from our sepia monotony, the puzzle becomes irradiated from a catastrophic meltdown inside the guitar amp. The listener blinked inside the storm of ambient particles, and the electrons disappeared in an erratic sine wave. We observed the puzzle’s contents, and another contradiction emerged… is the next track about life, death, or both at the same time?
This is all to say: There is no doubt — kein Zweifel — that jazz, rock, and fusion fans alike will appreciate the virtuosity and emotionality of Spencer Zweifel and the Life or Death Situation. And I hope to meet the twin stranger of Colorado’s most-skilled contradiction again soon.
