By Matty Bannond
Google can’t introduce you to Keenan Ruffin or Stan Zenkov. ChatGPT will
guess their biographical details with trademark confidence and trademark
lack of accuracy. These two improvisers operate beyond the reach of
data-driven detectives and AI assistants. The only way of getting to know
their artistic personalities is to listen to their music. There’s rich
reward for that sonic study.
Ruffin is a guitarist and Zenkov plays reed instruments. Both perform
frequently in Brooklyn. This four-track album, released in November 2025,
captures a 45-minute session from October 2024. The protagonists pass moods
and motifs around the studio, while Ruffin explores his pedals and Zenkov
cycles through clarinets and saxophones. Two distinct identities emerge in
sharp focus.
The prevailing character of the record is affable, welcoming and generous.
Ruffin often constructs arpeggio-adjacent shapes like ladders for his
listeners to climb, using extended effects to add warmth rather than discord
or discomfort. In the early stages of the title track, he picks notes like
water droplets. Later, he stifles his strings to produce a sound like a
windchime.
Zenkov is more excitable and energetic but successfully avoids crowding out
his colleague or overwhelming his audience. The shortest piece,“1000
Armed Massage”, has a tentative and peering-around-corners feel. It features
a balladeering central section, where the bass clarinet’s plummy voice hums
a melodic line as if embarrassed to have forgotten the lyrics.
The third track, “Turn the Wheel”, stands out for its spookier spirit. It’s
the album’s most industrialized district. Something is rotating behind the
initial exchanges. Zenkov plays more hectic material, while Ruffin deploys
his pedals and switches with more pugnacity. It’s a nervy, threatening piece
that suggests a cornered animal with titanium teeth bared and rusty claws
unsheathed.
In today’s age of intrusive tech tools and aggressive data scraping, it’s
impressive that Keenan Ruffin and Stan Zenkov have maintained such a low
digital profile—but faintly regrettable too. These are two disarming and
benevolent improvisers who share their unpretentious, open-hearted music
with the world on The Mechanics of Getting Anywhere. Listeners get
rich reward for time spent with this record. But don’t tell the robots.
The album is available on cassette and as a digital download here
.