The debut album of the Filamental ensemble led by Mayas was recorded live at the Music Unlimited Festival in Wels, Austria in November 2019 (Confluence, Relative Pitch, 2021), when Mayas was one of the co-curators of the festival’s program. Mayas seized the opportunity and fulfilled a long-term dream, putting together an international, eight-musician ensemble, comprised of like-minded idiosyncratic improvisers, with two reeds players – French alto sax player Christine Abdelnour and German clarinetist Michael Thieke, two cellists – Mexican Aimée Theriot-Ramos and Australian Anthea Caddy, two harpists – American Zeena Parkins and British Rhodri Davies, Welsh violinist Angharad Davies and Mayas on Fender Rhodes and harmonium.

But in today’s economic reality, it is impossible to take such an exceptional, experimental ensemble on the road and into the studio. So the sophomore album of Filamental, Ritual Mechanics, was recorded remotely with the musicians recording themselves separately, except Davies and Mayas, who were recorded by Mayas’ partner, Tony Buck (of The Necks fame, who collaborates with Mayas in the Spill duo), who later also mixed all the separate tracks.

But Ritual Mechanics, like Confluence (which refers to two rivers that meet and merge in Geneva), suggest a delicate and mysterious stream of magical sounds and is a singularly cohesive unit that subsumes individual style. Mayas composed two extended pieces, “Re-contour” and the title piece. “Re-contour” highlights the distinct and nuanced voices of the ensemble and their imaginative and unconventional sonic palettes and it unfolds organically and patiently with a dream state’s inner logic, slowly weaving and exploring its intriguing and often gently resonating sonic secrets. The title piece solidifies the collective larger-than-its-sum ensemble work and adds a dramatic and often chaotic percussive dimension to the enigmatic, dream-like and drone-like stream of exquisite sounds. But like the previous piece, it suggests a profound emotional impact and the most beautiful aesthetics of this unique ensemble.

Eyal Hareuveni, The Free Jazz Collective