(((O))) Review: Janel Leppin & The Ensemble Volcanic Ash – Slowly Melting / Pluto In Aquarius

When I think of the female cellists that took me on a whole other level, I think of Helen Money, Jo Quail, and Hildur Guðnadóttir who worked on film scores such as Tar, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, and the academy award for best original score for the 2019 DC movie Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix in the title role. These three women show how far they can take it a step further and prove themselves how far they’ve come.

Now, added to that list is Washington D.C.-based cellist Janel Leppin. Over the past two decades, Janel has become one of those composers who has gained strength going beyond her cello arrangements, but she is also a multi-instrumentalist playing guitar, bass, piano, and a Prophet-Five synthesiser. Between her collaboration with her husband and guitarist Anthony Pirog, which makes part of Janel and Anthony, and working bands and artists such as Marissa Nadler, Priests, Skysaw, and Eyvind Kang, Leppin keeps that fire burning brightly and never lets it go out.

That and her two albums released on the Cuneiform label; Slowly Melting and Pluto in Aquarius with the Ensemble Volcanic Ash, are like breaths of fresh air going beyond the jazz sound, beyond the experimental rotations, and beyond the classical arrangements. She wants to prove that she’s more than just the genres, but to prove she’s a fighter, a rebel, and not backing down by stepping into the boxing ring, knocking Ronda Rousey out with a massive, hardcore punch and becoming the next champion.

Listening to those two albums, you feel as if you’re inside this dream, re-visiting the darker corners of the world, knowing that something dangerous and something horrible has happened. From the brutal, turned menacing post-apocalyptic decay between ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Dirge’, there’s a sense of the Berlin School of Music floating into view, looking at the landscapes in all of its glory.

When we get to the free-jazz wackiness that’s going on from ‘Cruel Motherfuckers’, ‘Old Guard’ to ‘We See Dark Money’ you can quite tell the Volcanic Ash and Lippel channeling the styles of Lol Coxhill, John Coltrane, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, Ron Geesin, and Hans Werner Henze, all bets are completely off the table before they walk into Amon Duul II’s territory during the Yeti period with its dooming turned Sabbath-like attitude on the psychedelic metal forces for ‘Our Time’.

‘L.A. Land’ sees Lippel walking into the eerie quietness in the city of angels with its ambient turned spaced-out synths and cello, setting up the walking around the heart of the city, which is empty, no human being is alive, and being the last man on earth, having the whole city to yourself, you get a sense in which you feel that Rod Serling had visioned his short stories in the Twilight Zone.

The title-track is Janel leaping into the scores of the video game industry where she, in a parallel universe, recorded this track for the 2025 Bloober game, Cronos: The New Dawn. With its post-rock, classical doom, and new wave sound in its late ‘70s, early ‘80s orientation, she captures the post-apocalyptic scenery in the heart of Poland with its 28-days later motif and the Traveler, embarking on this spiritual journey to stop the Change.

It’s her tribute to the late, great Manuel Gottsching and his first two Ash Ra Tempel albums which speak volume, and bits of Klaus Schulze’s Irrlicht thrown into the mix. Once the Ensemble calms down for a sigh of relief on the romantic turned bossa-nova ballad ‘Susan Was a Warrior’ it becomes a walk down the beach to look at the sun in all of its glory in the hottest part of the summer in the middle of Rio De Janeiro.

That’s how incredible both Janel and the Ensemble Volcanic Ash are; they know where to go, and how to approach their musical boundaries which is evidential and forthright in their pure honesty that is on those two albums. A construction of wonder, surrealism, unexpected twists, and a magnitude that’s deserves massive sparks of pure electrifying jolts you really need to get your blood pumping.