Friday, December 15, 2006

If you've been here you've probably already been there as well, but just in case you haven't seen Robert Kirkpatrick's fine write-up of the recent David Tudor/Gordon Mumma album, please do so now I've been meaning to pick this up for a while now and, with luck, will do so later on today (Other Music, don't fail me now).

Received two new releases on the Norwegian Sofa Music label yesterday: No Spaghetti Edition Festival's "Sketches of a Fusion" and Sidsel Endresen's "One". The former is a sextet boasting an impressive line-up of Martin Tetreault, Xavier Charles, Christian Wollumred, Tonny Kluften, Ingar Zach and Ivar Grydeland. Two long tracks, pretty nice first time through. Despite an apparently lengthy pedigree with ECM, I don't think I've ever encountered vocalist Endresen before. First impression is more of virtuoso (unusual) technique at the expense of musical interest but we'll see. Slightly odd that the TOOT recording on the same label from only a couple months back was also titled, "One".

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I've been meaning to pick this up for a while now and, with luck, will do so later on today (Other Music, don't fail me now)."

you should try DMG first, that's where I got mine a month or two ago. I wasn't too into it on one listen, I didn't think the Mumma tracks fit well at all in the middle there and the Tudor pieces didn't seem especially exciting, especially since I have a few versions of Rainforest already.

-jon abbey

Brian Olewnick said...

Well, OM had it. Picked it up along with the Loren Connors singles set. Just finished the first Rainforest and liked it fine.

Anonymous said...

Hey Brian,
Just noticed you linked to my Bags review (we've bee without power here for all of friday) so thanks. Glad you were able to find that disc, curious to hear your thoughts on it.

Brian Olewnick said...

The subject comes up every so often about precedents for current-day eai. Many are ill-considered, having superficial similarities but very different origins, lack if improvisation, etc. But I think you can often make a good case for Tudor. A lot of the two Rainforests here, I daresay, if heard under blindfold test conditions, could pass themselves off as very good 2006 creations. Pretty amazing.