Laurie Scott Baker - Gracility (musicnow)

Baker's role in the experimental music world of England in the late 60s and early 70s has been scantily documented up 'til now, mostly consisting of his work with People's Liberation Music, possibly leading some to think of him as "only" a politically oriented musician. This set goes a long way toward rectifying that misconception, not that the music contained herein isn't broadly political by implication but with the arguable exception of the brief Evan Parker pieces, it isn't overtly so.

The title piece alone, recorded in 1969, is cause to sit up and perk one's ears as it's the only occasion, as far as is known, that Keith Rowe and Derek Bailey performed together, here with Gavin Bryars on bass guitar and Baker on doublebass. It's a free improv work but with an interesting constraint: the amps had their volume controls set right on the edge of feedback and the musicians' instructions were only to avoid generating any such, a hazardous line that necessarily gets crossed on occasion. At it's strongest, it's a very impressive piece; Keith mentioned to me how surprised he was at how closely portions of it approximate a "Crypt"-like level of creative violence. It's virtually impossible to tease apart the contributions here; one can rarely even pick out Bailey with any confidence. Just raw amplified strings teetering on the brink of chaos, a valuable addition to both Rowe's and Bailey's discographies and to the accounting of late 60s British music.

The pair of brief solo soprano pieces for Evan Parker, "Pibroch 1926", are also something of a unique endeavor, as close to song form as I've ever heard him play. Two beautiful folk-based tunes derived from the singing of Calum Ruadh and serving to symbolize the General Strike of 1926 (they were part of a longer work of Baker's, "Will of the People"). There's a bit of overdubbing, recalling the Poppy No-Good era Terry Riley, which leads into...

...the most surprising piece here, "Bass Chants & Cues", a 1972 performance (apparently immediately after the trio, presumably with some others, had presented Rzewski's "Coming Together") with Jamie Muir (drums, voice--just before his tenure with King Crimson), Baker (bass guitar, synthesizer) and John Tilbury (organ). Tilbury had performed works by Riley before and the minimalist's influence is in full force here, the raga-inspired organ of his all-night sessions virtually taking possession of our beloved pianist. About halfway into the 51 minute set, Baker lays down a rockish bass line amidst his tape loops, Muir starts to bash away and we get an exceedingly rare opportunity to hear the wondrous Mr. Tilbury...rock out. There are moments when he presages Miles Davis from several years hence with long, spacey chords. I have to say, it's hard not to smile if, like myself, you've only seen John in relatively recent years, imagining him in action here! Much fun.

The 2-disc set closes with a 1970 recording by the Scratch Orchestra of Baker's "Circle Piece", a graphic score that evolves into a drone-like piece that recalls similar portions of Carla Bley's roughly contemporaneous "Escalator Over the Hill" (the Desert Band). It's quite rich and full of throbbing life, almost an extended orchestral tune-up, but bubbling with ichor. A fine way to end the collection.

"Gracility" is a wonderful documentation not only of a musician whose work should be much more recognized than it is, but of several exemplary instances of the kind of music that was being produced in London in that period, all too little recorded. Mandatory listening for anyone at all interested in the goings on then and there.

Available from musicnow

Patrick Farmer - Apis mellifera (organized music from thessaloniki)

Yes, honeybees. Recorded three different ways, two of which I find very, very beautiful. These are the pair, the first and third tracks, that sound the least apian; perhaps I should appreciate the basic buzzing more, dunno. The first, "moved to", is virtually in Lucier territory, shimmers of sine-like hum but sounding in irregular waves, like sonic auroras, with almost bell-like tones underneath. Just gorgeous. I guess I prefer my bees de-buzzed as the brief second track causes me to swat at my ears more than listen; perhaps the point. The last, miking the base of a hive, seems to catch all the billions of footfalls, chewings, wax-moldings, etc., with a faint hum behind. Quite different from the first, just as entrancing. Lovely disc.


Syndromes/Kostis Kilymis - Just Another Daily Bummer (organized music from thessaloniki)

Kilymis doesn't make it easy. Two "suites", as it were, the first made up of unrelentingly irritating sound; it's sometimes as though a vacuum cleaner is being held a few inches from ones ears (bees are preferable). Electro-metallic clicks, harsh onrushes of static; all well and good except there's a shallowness at play, a lack of depth-of-field that I find off-putting. Again, perhaps that's the intent, but it left me cold. The second portion is subtler, the layers of static and the spaces between supplying some degree of atmosphere, making for an attractive, burnished wash of sound. So, half and half for me on this one.


Stasis Duo - 3 (organized music from thessaloniki)

Matt Earle and Adam Sussman weave paper thin tones, quavering, barely-there shimmers that nonetheless have significant presence and, yes, depth. Fragile, quasi-melodies and rhythms peek through (ok, maybe a bit loopy now and then) but there's always a sense of "things behind", of hearing through several layers of scrim. you encounter scattered louder scritches and the odd subsonic thrum, but we're pretty much in the high, pristine ozone and it's quite bracing, stinging the skin. Nice.

organized music from thessaloniki

Available stateside via erstdist

About a year and a half ago, maybe longer, someone in Record Club came up with the idea to execute a variation on the exquisite corpse process, well known since early Surrealist times. In our case, we'd draw lots to determine sequence, two rounds of varying order. The first person would select a piece of music, using whatever criteria he or she desired, send it via e-file to the second who would choose a track that bore some kind of relationship to it. That relationship was, of course, up to the recipient to decide--musical, lyrical, textural, whatever. He or she would then mail their selection to #3 on the list and so on, cycling through everyone twice. So each person would only be aware of the track they received and the one they chose. The person in the 10 slot would carry the additional burden of relating the piece to both its precedent and the original #1 choice, thus completing the circle.

It took a while. But the results were finally unveiled last night and, I must, say, it worked spectacularly well, in several respects. The segues were beautiful and/or exciting, the connections multi-level and the arc of the evening wonderful.

I'll attempt to reconstruct the sequence from memory, though I'll be omitting many of the specifics. More space is spent on my pieces simply because I know my thoughts about them.

1) Nina began with an achingly beautiful a capella Shaker hymn, sung by a woman with a quavery but resolute voice (I'm thinking this area is a source for Robin Holcomb). It carried a very uplifting lyric, in the "things are bad but that's all-right" vein. Very pure and spare, something I'd love to hear more of.

2) Dan chose to shift gears only slightly, picking a piece by Pentangle, also featuring an unaccompanied female voice. I think it was the traditional song, "When I Was in My Prime" from the "Cruel Sister" album. Fuller than the previous track but equally gorgeous, expanding both the sonic range and the cultural palette.

3) I was on the receiving end of Dan's piece. Of course, I didn't have any idea of Nina's choice but, in retrospect, I liked the way this worked out both because the preceding two songs were quite short and that mine, while introducing non-vocal sounds for the first time, did so quietly. For a number of years, I'd thought of bringing the lengthy "Traditional Medley" from Henry Kaiser's 1991 album, "Hope You Like Our New Direction!". It had several advantages here: first, it was, in itself, a medley of several musical styles between which Kaiser had discerned a relationship, in this case, acoustic US blues and Vietnamese danh tranh music, here performed incredibly by Ngoc Lam. I liked the idea of embedding a mini-version of the exquisite corpse procedure within the larger...body. Second, the connection between it and the preceding Irish ballad only became apparent in the last 4-5 minutes of the 13-minute track when Kaiser's band, to the surprise of most listeners I daresay, breaks into a cover of the Dead's "Cold Rain and Snow" with Robin Petrie on vocals. The song itself carries some amount of Celtic aspect and Petrie's voice isn't all that dissimilar. I thought of the echoing motif in visual terms, the model (Dan's piece) followed by unrelated forms for a space before an altered model emerges some ways away. Plus, it's simply a lovely cut.


4) Nayland, though he didn't know the details of my piece, had picked up on the US/Asia connection and thought to split the geographical difference. He then brought down the room with a song from Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and his group, Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau. I'd heard of, but don't think I'd ever heard this late, large singer, a condition soon to be remedied. Dan pointed out that the structure was fundamentally C&W but transported to other dimensions. It also featured guitar playing quite akin to some on the Kaiser (ironically, that album also contained a Hawaiian song, which I'd previously brought to RC, the sublime "Kanaka Wai Wai" with Raymond and Elodia Kane). Fantastic song, amazing voice, singing about seeing a star through night fog.

5) Julia picked up on the romantic longing for the shining star, opting to shift from spirituality to angst with a great track from PJ Harvey's first record, "Dry", "O Stella", the opening lines croaked out, "o stella maris you're my star". The volume and intensity level had clearly arched. It's a powerful number, especially the rhythm section.

6) Dan upped the ante further. An aficionado of Scandinavian pop and rock bands, he unearthed a slab of a piece, a hard-driving number by, I regret to say, a group whose name I can't recall. Arggh. [edit: "Big Time" from the group, Soundtrack for Our Lives] It turned out to represent the apex of the evening in terms of solidity, things having coalesced from the vaporous Quaker hymn to this raw bolus of sound. A pick-ax and/or acid bath might be needed.

7) Which Nayland duly provided in the form of a skittering, nervous Art Bears piece. You could almost see the trio of Frith, Krause and Cutler hacking away at and gleefully dissolving the preceding edifice while retaining the anarchic rock spirit. Frith was on violin here, sawing madly, and the piece contained a false ending or two, once of which involved tape manipulation.


8) This was sent to me. I seized on Frith's violin and the tape work and also felt the desire to decompress matters further (without knowing about Dan's piece!). At the time I received the file, I happened to have recently heard Cor Fuhler's disc as DJ Cor Blimey and His Pigeon and especially enjoyed the track, "Man-Ray-Nance", which featured Cor on his keyolin, improvising rebab-style [one of the interestingly disturbing aspects of this piece is how convincing, to my innocent ears, Cor's playing is. I'm sure I would have guessed at a North Indian source for the string work, this despite the rhythm being clearly derived from a wavering tape]. It's quite a relaxed work, languid and warm and has the added and irresistible feature of, a couple minutes prior to its conclusion, shifting gears via tape warpage, morphing into a slow dance groove redolent of Jon Hassell and including taped speech concerning pigeon breeding. This last section also provided a kind of "ledge" for the next person, a feature Julia made brilliant use of.

9) She was interested in the collage aspect of Cor's piece and chose one by The Books, a fascinating track mixing (I think) mbira playing with newsreel coverage of a public art event in Venice (Georges Mathieu?) wherein a reporter is splashed with gold and black paint as "the maestro" works on a cross figure. [Just checked--the track is "Venice", from the 2005 album, "Lost and Safe".] Astonishingly, the reporter's commentary includes the lines:

And opens the canvas and out comes twelve
pigeons! Ha ha ha!
Twelve homing pigeons have just flown out of
the canvas.
Maestro, what are you doing?

:-)

10) Latching onto the cross imagery from The Books' piece, Nina had the inspired idea to achieve the circular connection by presenting an extraordinary sample of "sacred harp" or "shape-note" singing. I don't know the precise source, but presumably it was a large congregation (not a practiced choir), likely from somewhere in the southern US, singing a harrowing Christian hymn, the dark obverse of the Shaker's light, an immense, stoic army marching resolutely toward death. Hugely powerful and scary at once. Nayland remarked that had this been a Muslim group singing in Arabic, most US listeners would be hiding under their beds. Remarkable sound, the hymn absolutely belted out in only rough consonance. Perfect yin and yang beginning and ending.

A beautiful arc, both in intensity and even lengths, going kind of S-S-L-M-M-M-M-L-S-S. Beautiful gamut of music, each piece evincing its own strengths and connecting, intentional or otherwise, to its neighbors.

It worked so well, in everyone's estimation, that we immediately decided to do another and drew lots.

Guess who goes first?

Thanks to Dan, Julia, Nina and Nayland for a great evening and for a wonderful ongoing experience.

Annette Krebs/Rhodri Davies - Kravis Rhonn Project (another timbre)

Very strong, extremely well integrated set, Krebs and Davies meshing perfectly; had I been told this was a (complex) solo set, I'd have accepted that. There's a wonderful gliding aspect to much of the music here, maybe set into motion largely by Davies, a kind of slow, up and down swoop, that's quite entrancing, all the more so when adorned with pebbles of taped sounds, gritty static, etc. Great balance of soft dronage, occasional quasi-rhythms, super-sensitive inclusion of quiet voices--next to impossible to describe to any degree of satisfaction, but that's usually the case with something as beautifully positioned as this. Mandatory.

Max Eastley/Rhodri Davies - Dark Architecture (another timbre)

[No cover image available at this time, I don't think]

I don't think I'd heard Eastley's music since the old Obscure LP. My loss and foolishness. This is an absolutely lovely and entrancing site recording with contributions from Eastley's sound sculptures (presumably mechanically induced, though as natural sounding as could be, including firework-like bangs), his arc (described on his MySpace page as "a monochord of wood and wire, which is scraped, bent and flexed into an orbit of amplified effects"--I pause to note that the music which surfaces from that page is somewhat surprising, to me, given the present recording) and Davies, seemingly staying pretty much with his ebow on the harp. Not all smoothness and light--it grows quite troubled at points--but dwells in the space very convincingly. Might lose a bit of steam in the last few minutes, but an engrossing disc overall.



EKG - Electricals (another timbre)

Kyle Bruckmann (oboe, english horn, analogue electronics) and Ernst Karel(trumpet, analogue electronics) concentrate, as implied by the title, on the non-acoustic portion of their arsenal here, fashioning five fine pieces again, as with the previous releases, balancing the crunchy with the smooth, the fluttery with the grainy buzz. I get a subtle narrative flavor here as well; much of this music would work very well in partnership with visuals. When the horns do emerge, it's often quite effective in a plaintive, melancholy manner. The structures are off-center enough that I find new facets on each hearing, always a good sign. Good stuff.



Octante - Lúnula (another timbre)

The second recording by this quartet (Ruth Barberán, trumpet. speaker, microphones/Alfredo Costa Monteiro, accordion, objects/Ferran Fages, oscillators, pick-ups/Margarida Garcia, electric double bass) if I'm not mistaken, their first since 2003. More forceful than I might have anticipated, very rich and...whatever the adjective is for the sound of rubbing on surfaces of various textures and tensile qualities. It sometimes sounds, on the first of the two long tracks, that all four are deliciously drawing bows across multiple parts of their respective instruments. The second track begins with more space, more separation of instruments and perhaps nods a bit toward efi. It gradually splays out nicely though, seeping into far, quiet corners, before regrouping for some fine, harsher dronage and skronk.

Four solid, strong releases, all of which I'd recommend hearing. Nice job, Simon.

another timbre

Available in the US from erstdist

Ami Yoshida/Toshimaru Nakamura - Soba to Bara (Erstwhile)

From the opening, plosive pop, you know you're in for something special. Free, extreme vocalizing isn't the easiest thing on my ears; I often have much trouble getting past--not that I should, necessarily--the overt psychological aspects of it, or at least being able to balance those against their purely sonic value. With Ami's work, especially when, as here, she dwells mostly in what may be thought of as "strangulated" mode, it's tough not to picture her in some difficult-to-watch state of...seizure? But getting to the point of being able to mentally flip-flop those conditions, as I was eventually able to do here, allows one to experience an unusually powerful and, yes, emotional event. Not to relegate Toshi to the background. One almost necessarily foregrounds the human voice but Toshi is nothing short of amazing here, generally residing in the harsher, sunspotty reaches of his nimb, but varying the texture and pacing of his contributions with extraordinary touch and ear. The things that emerge from him at right about the 1/2 hour mark are just absurdly inventive.

A single track, ideally heard when played quite loud (the departing spouses and neighbors will be worth it) so the richness of detail emerges, and rich it is, like a split stone. Rough throughout, elements spaced irregularly but, in retrospect, with precision and an enormous range of colors. Rather surprisingly, the two recorded separately so that "Soba to Bara" is an after-the-fact construction; I daresay one would never have known--the balance is perfect all the way through. In fact, I even sense something of a growing cohesion as the work progresses; the last several minutes strike me as particularly exquisite.

Not sure there's anything out there quite like this, with that kind of brutal/delicate balance. Great, uncompromising recording.


Christof Kurzmann/Burkhard Stangl - Neuschnee (Erstpop)

Could we get much further from the above release? The three main tracks (Cuts one and four are kinda throwaway) attenuate song forms in a loving and obsessive manner. They go down easily, yes (this is Erstpop, after all), but like a highly carbonated beverage, with much to tickle the auditory canals, each static burst paired offset with a mellow throb, each clarinet squeal twinned with gorgeously strummed guitar. The duo uses several pop or folk pieces as touchstones, Phil Ochs to Neil Diamond, in every case paying deep and sincere respect while pulling and stretching the constituent elements into unique shapes, magnifying tiny textures or melodic kernels, always somehow maintaining the song form. Stangl has a number of stunning moments on guitar and Kurzmann's voice, for me, works far better than I've heard before. The music on the long cuts is strong and enjoyable throughout but achieves something like transcendence at the end of the last track when that eai classic "Song Sung Blue" has its dulcet genes grafted into a scratchy vinyl recording by the Austrian singer/yodeliste Maly Nagl. Why it works, I've no idea, but it's brilliant.

The sweet lemon sorbet to the bitter, powerful noodles and soup.

erstwhile

Robbie Avenaim/Cor Fuhler/Dale Gorfinkel - Plains (Conundrom)

Fuhler's releases on his own label continue to surprise and delight. This 2006 recording finds Cor on two pianos, his companions on vibraphones (Avenaim doubling percussion). The trio takes maximum advantage of this instrumentation, not just in the ringing tintinnabulations (Fuhler approaching the piano most often with e-bow, it seems), but with mechanical attacks of the vibes and a healthy dose of ratcheting crunchiness. Four tracks, each with its own virtues, each having something of a layered feel, proceeding in a steady stream of keens, hums and jangles. There are times (no doubt due to the instruments involved) where it subtly recalls the Bryars of "Hommages", other times it drifts into steady-state AMM-ish territory. Excellent balance between serenity and hyperactivity. I've played it five or six times today, Saturday, and I'm hearing new stuff each run through, always a pleasure.

If they don't have it already, erstdist should have it soon.


Miguel Prado/Julien Skrobek - American Nightmare (Why Not Ltd)

I doubt it's necessary, at this point, to get into the combative aspects of this release again. Suffice it to say that while I have some general sympathies for the situation in which certain musicians find themselves (insofar as the dominant influence in this tiny corner of the world is one with which they have profound disagreements), my suggestion is to make their position evident via "better" music or, if that's dismissed as irrelevant or a implicit siding with the very hierarchical imperialism they're fighting, make the argument via words, either in conversation (as Mattin did with me a couple months back) or text.

Sometimes, that "better" music option is approximated, at least to my ears; I think I'm more amenable to much from these folks than many (am I still the only person who liked Mattin's "Songbook"?). I'm not so sanguine about the sounds on this one. Prado (prepared cello, prepared piano) and Skrobek (synthesizer) produce sparse, disjunctive sounds (done in real time, together? I don't know) that have a surface similarity to something like MIMEO's "sight" but, for me, lack that recording's extraordinary poetry-at-a-distance. In the back cover text, they lament music "upheld for aesthetic criteria only", but I think this betrays a shallow view of what "aesthetics" means for humans, relegating it to an artsy superficiality rather than fundamental fuel. Skrobek injects bubbly, annoying synth sounds quite often, presumably with an intentionality a la John White in "Treatise" performances but, for me, without a clear understanding of purpose, i.e., knowing that the text encompasses such readings, even if many of the performers don't realize it. Silly noises are fine, but when only done as a kind of nose-thumbing, wear thin.

But sure, I can hyper-aesthetize this recording as any other, and it scans ok, it sits back there puttering away pleasantly enough; track two works pretty well. I doubt that's what was intended, though. Skrobek's "Double Entendre" is a big favorite of mine so far this year. "American Nightmare" doesn't deliver the whack alongside my head that I imagine was desired.

I would have expected this to be available for free download--maybe I'm missing something but I don't see it. Otherwise, Why Not

Cheapmachines - Secede (entr'acte)

Originally intended as a collaboration with the late sound artist Helmut Schafer, the pieces here were realized by Philip Julian in contemplation of that project. It's sort of divided into two parts: the first four tracks are rough and gnarly electronics, excellent harsh tumbles along a spiky trail, full of detail and interest. There's then a brief calm, a cut full of rich hum. The next two tracks are airier, full of metallic, echoing pulses and hums, hollow and foreboding. The final combines the two approaches into a mighty burr, a roaring grind like some massive drill worming through stone. Good, tough disc, well worth a hear.

Will Montgomery [Brian Marley] - Legend (entr'acte)

A reading by Marley (from a project he did with Rhodri Davies) is worked by Montgomery in ten equal length pieces--almost 4 minutes each. They emerge as gentle drones, ringing, silvery thrums that snake through the atmosphere. Usually, even when thoroughly messed with, one can detect vocal qualities when the voice is the source but I'll be damned if I can do so here. While initially holding my interest, the relative sameness of the tracks (though they do kind of evanesce along the way) and their gradual slide into what I think of as "loopy" territory caused that interest to wane. I think I would have preferred a single, lengthy piece; not sure about the rationale to slice into equal slabs. The last track, though, expands on the sounds of the empty room wherein Marley spoke and is wonderful--just rumpled air.

Marinos Koutsomichalis - Anasiseipsychos (entr'acte)

Multiple, richly layered sine tones, often acting in concert to give the impression of perpetually rising or falling (á la Tenney). The sonic effects, the ear drum-rattling and all, are fine but the conception struck me as too shallow, too science-experiment-y for me to find aesthetic purchase.

entr'acte

Saw a very good, small exhibition of Anselm Kiefer works on paper at the Met yesterday, worth checking out if you're around. Can't locate reproductions of my three or four favorites from the show, but the above is rather nice. Went with my friend Betsy; one of the (many) good things about going to a place like the Met with someone else is that even if you've been there countless times, which I have, the other person likely has her own special areas, areas you've perhaps not frequented. In Betsy's case it was a few medieval cornices from northern Spain and France, things I'm sure I've never even glanced at but which, once seen, are incredible. Thanks, Bets!

*****************

My niece Tiana had spent a couple of weeks in Mississippi a little while back, working on rehabbing houses in the wake of Katrina. While there, she became aware of a radio station (I forget the call letters) that had been more or less washed out three times in the past several years, their audio collection ruined. She joined an effort to secure donations of CDs to replenish their stock and, natch, asked Uncle Bri to contribute a few.

As it happened, several weeks ago I was running into something of an emergency situation regarding my own storage of CDs and had removed several hundred from the racks into a closet. This was done with no little pain. I've always liked being able to glance over and see, en masse, everything I have, including items I no longer particularly enjoy, for which enthusiasm had waned. But I was fairly ruthless; after all, I was only moving them several feet, placing them behind a closed door. Still, I went through, in alphabetical precision, parsing through them (inevitably encountering some causing the, "Hey! I didn't know I had this!" and even the, "Hey! I have two of these!" reactions) and culling those that, realistically, I'd likely never listen to again. Sent them into the closet already somewhat bulging with paintings and drawings and the book overflow that had long since outgrown our shelves.

So when Tiana called, I had a ready bunch of items from which to draw. At that point, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. I went through the pile, pulling out things that were relatively straight ahead (ie, not things that nobody in the world, including me, would like, but more popular fare), ending up with as many as I could fit into a backpack for the journey to Poughkeepsie last Sunday, probably about 80. I'll list the casualties tonight...

nah, no I won't.

Mark Sadgrove/Anthony Guerra - Iron Sand (a binary datum/black petal)

Two guitars with electronics and some very soft vocals. I don't know Sadgrove's previous work, but this fits in nicely with what I've heard from Guerra in the last few years. Quite languid, tonal strumming with a frothy series of drones beneath, sometimes recalling tamburas, very pretty in a hazy way. Does part of me want to hear more bite? Sure. Would I like more uncertainty as to what direction the music will take as it unfurls. Yep. But there's something so restful about it and it's just prickly enough that I simply loll.

black petal a binary datum


jgrzinich - Phase Inversions (Mystery Sea)

Three pieces, which I hear as something of a suite (though there's no indication of such), lasting about 20, 20 and 10 minutes. I picked up a kind of "Bohor" vibe here, a very attractive one, though in a narrative kind of way, doubtless unintended by Grzinich. I always imagined the great Xenakis work as a massive mechanical process, perhaps a huge burr boring (burr-boring-bohor, you see) into the earth. In the first track of Grzinich's set, "dispersion trajectory", it's as though we're looking back in on the Bohor sinkhole centuries later, the tunnel having acquired a hollower tone (a wonderful one), its roughness not quite as rocky as before but still capable of throwing up the odd gnar or knot of metallic shavings. There's a underlying swell here, though one that possesses a grinding aspect that funnels back an amount of scree as it proceeds. The second, "membrane formation", seems to revisit the site a few decades hence; the detritus is still encountered, though it's taken on the tones of metal casings playing in the wind against the side of a boat, but the hum has become smoothed a bit, maybe the tunnel has been tiled. The final visit, "spectral remnants", is millennia hence, the tunnel having been thoroughly scoured, the solar wind whistling through, only echoes of its former granularity remaining.

....I like music that summons forth images like this! :-) Fine work, recommended for those who enjoy Olivia Block, among others.

mystery sea

Asher - Miniatures (sourdine)

This one raises all sorts of issues, indeed.

As is often the case, I plopped this into the CD player with no particular knowledge about its whys or wherefores. I'd, of course, heard a great deal of Asher's work over the last few years and, for better or worse, have come to expect to hear music inhabiting a general area. The two discs of this release came with no info whatsoever.

My initial impression was simply how stunningly gorgeous the tracks were. They're very much all of a piece, usually consisting of a solo piano (sometimes strings) playing music that might generally be said to be Satie-ish in character--fairly simple, very melodic, with a nostalgic or melancholy tinge; there are also a few tinged with the tango--mixed in/beneath white noise that connoted old tapes (though I'm guessing a good deal of it is radio static). No vinyl-related iteration of scratches but rather a stream of roughness. The effect was of music recorded a century ago, archaeological relics unearthed from burial in soil...

Slightly closer listening revealed that the piano parts were clearly loops of material, almost always having their ends joined seamlessly so they sounded more like a musician repeating the phrases rather than a loop. They were pensive, always very slow, as though someone was sitting at the keyboard, playing the same beautiful, somewhat sorrowful passages over and over. It's a wonderful combination of approaches: the blurry romanticism, the minimalist repetition and the abstract noise. The pieces, thirteen on each disc, are brief, thereby coming across as snatches of dream-scape.

I first assumed it was Asher at the piano. I don't know his ability or lack of same on the instrument, but none of the pieces are technically bravura in character so seemed to be within the reach of most players. Here and there though, on my initial listen, I wondered about that and, of course, the few tracks featuring strings belied this idea. So I wrote Asher, not sure if he'd be interested in unveiling the workings, but he did so. Listeners interested in hearing the pieces without such knowledge would be advised to cease reading at this point. I have my own reluctance about going into the details, but they raise enough interesting questions that I feel obliged to.

It turns out that Asher had sampled these passages from the radio, turning on a recorder when something seemed promising, extracting a short morsel and working with it. (I'm embarrassed to say I don't recognize a one of them!) This is only problematic insofar as the captures themselves, for me, have so much to do with how beautiful I find these "miniatures", and even then, only insofar as I'm concerned with assigning "credit" or authorship, a dubious venture. He's certainly transformed them to some extent by the excision and looping, as well as the decontextualizing of the given fragment, the choice of which is key. As far as a given piece here goes, I've just decided to listen to it "as is" (as much as that's possible given my knowledge) and when doing so, find the music to be extremely enchanting, mysterious and, yes, nostalgia-full. By the same token, one expects that this will be a one-off event, that Asher (or others) won't be churning out variations of this tack in the future. (Though, if that's the case, why not?)

The other quibble is with the fact of there being 26 cuts without much in the way of basic differentiation between them aside from what particular piece of music was sampled. The tape/radio hiss, as near as I can determine, varies within fairly tight parameters and sometimes seems augmented by other ambient sound, but basically you have the looped sample embedded within the hiss. Listened to as 26 pieces, this can become a bit much and one gets the sense of wishing matters were reduced to a single disc. On the other hand, it's not so difficult to listen to them as a set of multiples, like 26 prints on a wall, each different but occupying the same aesthetic territory. A kind of slide show, maybe. Heard this way, the issues more or less evaporate. Or, of course, one can hone one's ears a bit and learn to appreciate the differences.

Striking, stirring music, though, when all's said and done.

sourdine

Domenico Sciajno - Sequens (bowindo)

When I received the four new discs on bowindo, I happened to randomly choose this one to hear first. Glancing at the title and sleeve, I assumed it had something to do with the Berio set of Sequenzas though I wasn't very familiar with those at all. I'd heard different pieces over the years, but didn't own a collection of the work; my mental audio image of them was vague. So I was pretty much able, first time through, to listen to Sciajno's work with little in the way of preconceptions. I found it to be surprisingly absorbing and, by it's conclusion, I was entirely entranced and convinced. Surprising because much of the piece's language and phrasing seemed to derive from a kind of mid-60s avant music that I'm normally not so keen on, one with rather extravagant gestures and flourishes, a bravado that generally puts me off. Little did I know.

What I only gleaned via further investigation as well as, eventually, an examination of the score was that Sciajno, in this 1999 piece, had exercised a kind of plunderphonic option. He had taken recordings of the original 14 Sequenzas as recorded on the 1998 Deutsche Grammophon disc by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, added Sequenza VIIb for soprano saxophone from another recording and then included his own composition "Alla Berio..." for solo double bass. I quickly picked up my own set of the Berio, choosing the recent edition on Mode. While enjoying it greatly thus far, I'm nowhere near familiar enough with the pieces therein to easily recognize them (or parts thereof) in the Sciajno in any more than a general way. I will opine that he has a tendency to use sections that aren't so extreme in their extended techniques, arguably even portions that carry more melodic weight than their overall character might suggest.

Sciajno divides his work into four sections: a trio (flute, trombone, accordion), a quartet (trumpet, viola, harp, soprano saxophone), a quintet (voice, clarinet, bassoon, double bass, piano) and another quartet (violin, oboe, alto saxophone, guitar). Part of the genius lies simply in the arrangement of the sections, the way he not only weaves these achronous works together seamlessly enough that I daresay no listener unfamiliar with the Berio could detect that they didn't originate as such but also, erm, sequences the parts to form genuinely dramatic arcs replete with lulls and climaxes that are wonderfully paced. I lost count of the segments where the twining of instruments seem to have been made for each other, but they're legion, though I might guess that some of the bass accompaniment for the voice in Group III was designed. To be sure, someone with an intimate knowledge of these works might be able to say, "Oh, there's IX, here's II and that's a bit of XIV" but barring that, the music sounds absolutely solid and true. As evidenced in the score, there's more going on, a wider system of rules, but it's largely beyond my audible grasp.

All this would be merely technically compelling and fascinating as craft but for the fact that it succeeds so well as vital, lovely music. For myself, this is far more impressive as, roughly speaking, this area, what you might call the gesturally-oriented avant-garde of the 50s and 60s, isn't one that has had enormous appeal for me in the past. Having listened more closely now to work like the Sequenzas (and that of other composers I tended to lump into this basket, fairly or otherwise, like Ligeti, Kagel, Maderna) I'm sure it's been more my lack of understanding and, to that extent, the Sciajno has helped open my ears, for which I'm grateful. He finds a true, steely sort of Romanticism buried here, an exploratory aspect that occasionally takes a well-earned flight skyward. "Sequens" builds subtly throughout its 77-minute length; you're constantly wowed by the combinations he chooses, where he allows for repetition of given elements, the strong but flexible sense of structure conveyed, the sheer imagination in the use of "found" material. It never explodes in any gratuitous manner, but blossoms magically.

Wonderful surprises like this are one of the great things about new music. You never know.

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Three other releases featuring Sciajno were issued simultaneously on bowindo. I won't go into them in depth but just mention them in passing. "Diospyros" finds Sciajno treating bass clarinet improvisations by Gene Coleman. Too often, I find the latter's work uncompelling, but sometimes they're nicely massaged here; I'm half and half on it. "Hyaline" is a very fine duo with Kim Cascone, worth much more discussion than I can give it; do check it out. "Doves Day in Palermo" is a collection of duos with Coleman, Cascone, Robin Hayward, Andreas Wagner, Thomas Lehn, Gianni Gebbia and Tez. I found it a mixed bag, but several of the pieces are fine, especially the one with the otherwise unknown to me "Tez".

bowindo

Some thoughts on Sunday evening's performance at the Rotunda in Philadelphia, probably at least somewhat in contradistinction to the majority opinion. I'm not being really critical here, just trying to figure out why certain things didn't click for me.

The opening set was a brief one, consisting of two songs by Weyes Bluhd (Natalie Mering) on vocals, keyboard and tapes. Brooding and cloudy, her voice rising from shimmering organ-tones, buffeted by rougher taped sounds, I liked it much more than I thought I might. Struck me as honest, if operating within a small sphere. Had she played for 30 minutes instead of ten and remained in that area, it might have begun to pall, but as was, I thought it was fine; made me curious to hear more.

nmperign was up next and was where my problems began. I guess I've seen them, in one context or another, seven or eight times over the years. I've found the performances to range from extraordinary (with Le Quan Ninh and Yukiko Nakamura in Nancy) to...disconnected. The latter may well have more to do with me than them; I think there are simply occasions when I'm not hearing the sound sequence properly, not translating it into a form that registers. The same thing occurred, by and large, at this event. It was almost all on the extremely quiet, sparsely distributed side of things. Both Rainey and Kelley demonstrated wonderful control over their instruments, especially the former when he elicited very soft, yet very pure tones from the soprano. There were moments, to be sure, when matters coalesced for several seconds, where each action, near-unison or otherwise, made a kind of poetic sense, but these evaporated more quickly than I would have liked. Again, this could all be me. It's always fascinating to me how/why one makes qualitative judgments with music this spacious; it careens more into the subjective, I think, than most judgment, which is of course subjective enough. I was talking about it with a friend yesterday and saying it was like looking at a Japanese rock garden and feeling that the placement of the stones wasn't working for one. That "feeling" may be quite real (if wrong); explicating it is another matter, as is the possibility that one is simply missing the gist of the art. The general reaction in the audience, from those I spoke with, was far more positive than my own, so I'm entirely willing to chalk this up to my cottony ears.

Lambkin and Lescalleet I also found somewhat problematic, but in a different sense. Unsurprisingly, their set was pretty loud and rambunctious and, not meaning it as a back-handed compliment, but I found the loudest, most rocking parts to be the most successful. There were a couple of sections where things gelled perfectly and the duo just soared, including the point where Lambkin iterated regularly rhythmic harsh breaths into the mic and Jason ramped things up to ear-threatening levels. It was quite amusing to see him pressing his laptop keys as hard as he could as though they were pressure-sensitive! :-) He's always a pleasure to watch as he restlessly roams around the stage, planting recorders here and there, stringing wires or threading tapes. Lambkin was far more calm, wandering to an area off-stage largely hidden by a curtain, breathing into a mic, injecting only one or two (that I could hear) CD samples of classical music into the mix. So there were several very fine stretches of music, very exciting. But...on the whole, looked back upon as a full set, I wasn't sure how well it cohered. It kind of hit me like a standard rock set, a series of pieces (though there were no breaks apart from an intentional, and beautifully maintained period of silence that seemed to last about five minutes, Lescalleet poised over the keys of an old tape recorder) some of which were wonderful, some awkward, some kind of...routinely good. Not that coherence need have been the point or not, of course, that it might have been the case that I missed out on any number of aspects. The crowd roared its approval. I thought it OK, more or less what I expected, but not quite up to the level of their show at Issue Project last year or that of any handful of Jason's performances I've been fortunate enough to have seen in years past which, if nothing else, tend to have had an intense concentratedness and singularity of purpose that appeals greatly to me.

Speaking of coherence, the above might not have much. Just thought I'd put it out there as honestly as I could, aware that I was in the minority that evening.

Great to see the Philly crew and, especially to see Al Jones after far too long a time. And extra thanks to Yuko, whose pre-trip pork buns made any further enjoyment of the day mere icing on the cake. Their gustatory traces couldn't even be quashed by the dreaded cheesesteaks eight hours later....

One of my favorite players with Mingus, such a strong musician. Under his own name, I only have the 1979 Prestige 2fer that combines the Space and Freedom Book albums, recorded in 1963 & '64 with Jaki Byard, Richard Davis and Alan Dawson. Marvelous music here form rough-edged, burr-toned post-hard bop to Coltrane-ish explorations into modal playing. Great Byard, wonderful playing all around.

Ervin died at 40, in 1970....


I'm fairly sure this was among the first ten or twelve jazz albums I ever bought, probably early '73, likely influenced by a 5-star review in downbeat. I never really got into Evans much, ending up with just this and the following record under his own name. But I've found myself humming bits from Svengali many times over the years, I must admit. And it sounds pretty nice this fine Sunday morning. All but one of the tracks are by composers other than Evans (Billy Harper, George Russell, Miles, Gershwin), all of course arranged with great imagination, even the synth work. It's a solid album all the way through but the last track, the sole Evans original "Zee-Zee" is just fantastic, true to its title, a massive, sleeping thing, chest rising and falling, soft breath exhalations, dreaming in the form of Hannibal's trumpet filigree. Really an amazingly beautiful work, one that I almost never hear talked about.


On the other hand, this might be one of the last jazz LPs I bought new (as opposed to older things I'd come upon in the CD era). It's a nice recording, very clear sounding, with the pair tackling some classic Mingus tunes. Maybe a tad too relaxed--Evans was 75 and only four or so months from death, so tough to complain.

When we were dating, I took Linda up to see a solo performance by Lacy at Environ, probably the summer of '78. She still brings this up on occasion as an example of my early aural torture of her and her astonishing forbearance in putting up with me. It was a great show, of course.

I last saw him in an odd situation, in the plaza outside the Seagram's Building on Park Avenue, playing solo. It was part of some concert series, I believe (this was 6-7 years ago?) so there were all these exec types wandering around, sipping champagne. Lacy was his gnarly self, spinning intricate lines off Monk tunes and his own hermetic pieces. The crowd paid little attention, gradually evaporating. Beautiful set.

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Down to Philly this afternoon for nmperign/Lambkin/Lescalleet. Will report anon.

Richard Garet/Andy Graydon - Subtracted/Untitled (Altbau) (white_line editions)

I've been thinking about this area of music a bunch lately. I imagine we can agree that it's a different subset of new music, though related, from the post-AMM mainstream (if that phrase isn't oxymoronic). I don't think of it as "drone music" so much--though again, it is somewhat akin--but there tends to be a constant stream of sound, often straddling the border between tonal and noise, a layering of such strands and a sprinkling of shorter sounds/noises atop or betwixt. Often, field recordings might be a source for this stream, perhaps enhanced or modified to one degree or another. There's a tendency away from harshness, at least a few steps toward consonance, sometimes incorporating semi-melodic fragments. Maybe we can call it post-Fennesz.

Not to ghettoize it, but in the same way (and perhaps meeting the same amount of resistance) that some of us referred to a Swiss sound when talking about music that stemmed from Muller, Voice Crack, etc., I find myself mentally grouping Garet, Asher, maybe Chris McFall, a handful of others. And I've tended to enjoy the results very much at the same time as I get a smidgen of an inkling that, if uncritically accepted, a certain formulaic aspect could intrude. In other words, it's not "free" in the sense that "The Crypt" was; not anything can happen (so it seems to me--love to be proven wrong--but the level of improvisation involved is certainly less, sometimes apparently minimal, more of the music being carefully constructed). There's a general scope and approach that seems to be in play far more often than not.

I write the above not as a criticism, just as something I've thought about recently, and figured I'd take the occasion of this, yet another enjoyable release, to put it out there. The 3" disc contains two pieces designed with certain architectural sites in mind. In Garet's case, it's a tumble of metal well-known to Manhattanites, the ruins atop the abandoned Pier D jutting into the Hudson off the West Side Highway in the 60s. The connections, for this listener, remain obscure but the piece itself fits comfortably among others I've heard from Garet in recent months: a twining of a consonant hum with softly bristling static, gradual waves of differently timbred hum or static, keens that verge on feedback, lower rumbles, all proceeding calmly, adrift in a kind of serene haze. Though, given the subject, it is quite possible to envision fog, twisted metal and faintly hooting warning beacons at some points. The combination of variation and sameness makes it difficult to identify sonic landmarks with any degree of certainty; when some abrupt turntable noise appears right at the end of the 14-minute piece, it's rather arresting insofar as it protrudes. The work enjoyable while in process; looking back, it disappears like smoke. That's interesting; it's unmemorable but in an intriguing way.

Andrew Graydon, whose work I don't believe I've previously heard, takes as inspiration the Altbau projects of Mies van der Rohe. Perhaps even more than in the prior piece, the connections are hard to discern, but the music is quite different, with a smooth strata of extreme low tones undergirding organ-like mid-range hums which, in turn, lay beneath ozone-altitude sizzles. Those middle tones have something of the quality of the blurred sonics of Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room", late in that piece, while the deeper ones plumb bass depths cavernous enough to extend into individually recognizable beats. Remember those gigantic worm-creatures in "Dune"? This might be what one of them would sound like, wending its way through the earth just beyond about a foot of stone. Impressive track.

white_line


Richard Garet/Brendan Murray - Of Distance (Unframed)

The music on this disc edges perhaps even closer toward defining the territory I was referring to above. "In Parallel" is a thin strand of steely drones, many plies deep though more concentrated in timbre and range. It's somehow less absorbing to me than Garet's "Subtracted". This is an example of where, to my ears, the approach lapses a bit into the "too pat". It's very attractive and there's nothing "wrong" with it, but it's lacking a sense of risk that I want to here even in the most ethereal of work. I get the sense that both musicians know they can do this and do it well; my AMM-ish prejudice wants them to attempt something they're not so sure about. The second track, "The Tyranny of the Objects", achieves that degree of danger somewhat more, utilizing rougher sound sources (including semi-rhythmic ones) and progressing in a more forceful manner--not wafting but almost steamrolling; wonderful piece. The two tracks are close enough to what I hear as poles in this area--the overly genteel and the "contemplative but disturbingly unsmooth", if you will.


Phantom Limb & Earth's Hypnagogia - In Celebration of Knowing All the Blues of the Evening (Unframed)

I'll endeavor to ignore the noms used by Shawn Hansen and James Fennelly. Performed on Farfisa organs and oscillators, we're talking serious dronage here, augmented with what seems to be inadvertent external noises. For about its first half (there are six tracks, but the music flows unbroken), it's one welling pulsation, albeit with a dark undercurrent that modulates just below the surface, almost unheard. It's quite surprising, then, when it explodes into a fuzzy eight-note pattern in a vaguely Indian scale that, in turn, crumbles into blocks of chords, sounding like Poppy Nogood after too much hooch. The work ends with the Farfisa equivalent of a guitar feedback blowout. Odd piece. I loved it up through the explosion and initial crumbling/stumbling but thought it kind of limped home. Perhaps the point.


These two releases from unframed recordings arrived with two others, a pair of 7" vinyls (imaginatively and artfully packaged, as are the CDs). It's been a while since I've encountered something so baffling/annoying. Each record contains brief tracks by six musicians, several of whom I'm always very interested to hear. Record #1 has Lary 7, Joe Colley, busratch, Toshio Kajiwara, Tommy Birchett and Dieb 13, while the second one contains work by Ian Epps, Kenta Nagai, Annette Krebs, Chris Forsyth, Giuseppe Ielasi and Koen Holtkamp. Three cuts per side, each separated by a locked groove track. So the listener must sit there, attempt to position the stylus near the beginning of each non-locked track, automatically missing at least several seconds of same, lift it when the piece ends, rinse and repeat. Why this torture? Dunno, except as, well, mild torture. Yet I dutifully crouched over my turntable and wended my way through first the one (largely--totally?--turntable-based) then the other (guitars). The snippets weren't bad, some rather fetching (Krebs' hum/tape piece especially) but all gone before you knew it. Buyer beware.

unframed recordings

Finally made it up to the Guggenheim yesterday to see the (annoyingly titled) Third Mind exhibit (the influence of Asia on American artists, 1860 - 1989). It was far more weighted to the post-1960 period than I expected. Of the earlier work, the Whistlers stood out, including this amazing Nocturne from about 1870, iirc:


There were also a couple of Utagawa woodcuts there as a reference point that outclassed the rest of the field.

Some spectacular works from the 50s and 60s, though, including a gorgeous Agnes Martin grid painting, two incredible Reinhardts (the blackest of his cross paintings that I've seen), some fine videos, a relatively small installation of the Dream House (I'd never been inside one before! Not sure how that never happened) and a whole section devoted to Fluxus.

But the highlight was a room housing some 15-20 visual works by Cage, with several of the "Where R = Ryoanji" series, one of which is pictured above. Just so beautiful, especially the pieces on smoked paper, a couple I'd seen before. Such grace, such openness, such musicality even. I know there's at least one book devoted to his prints, "To Sober the Quiet Mind". Anyone know of others? (I can't locate an image of the smoked paper piece from the show--can't quite recall the title, something like "Eknida"--but it was generally not too dissimilar from this one:


Afterward, Carol and I ambled uptown, ending up at 106th and 3rd for a fine lunch at a Puerto Rican place--roast pork, cod salad, yucca. Took a lovely stroll across Central Park up north, past the intriguing, mammoth, steam-issuing piles of compost, through the woods (found a great tree where a thick, very symmetrically unfurled vine had been barked over, creating an amazing kind of sculpture), into my old neighborhood around West 105th St. Lovely day, everything enhanced by those Cages....

Three new releases that investigate aspects of quietude.


Julien Skrobek - double-entendre (taumaturgia)

Wherein Skrobek takes a cue or two from Sugimoto but heads out in an oblique direction. On the first of two tracks, guitar strums isolated in space nod to Taku but the strums are far more colorful and the intervening space, though often silent, is inhabited by gassy rumbles and electronic bleeps. I get something of a slowly whirling constellation image, four or five elements wheeling into "view", but in a complicate manner, their rhythms not divisible into one another so the entrance of each from the darkness is a surprise. The second is sparser, made up of a handful of electronic sounds (plus the odd, pretty guitar strum), again each circling to the fore, alone or in unpredictable combinations. Something very nice, very unforced about the way Skrobek feeds the elements into the mix; the space between attains a plasticity of sorts. Very thoughtful, very good work.


Radu Malfatti/Taku Unami - goat vs donkey (taumaturgia)

A live recording from November 2008. I've been terribly remiss in keeping up with Malfatti's work the last few years but from what I gather (there's some good discussion in this IHM thread, this is a relatively rare recent example of his improvisatory work. That same thread has arguments pro and con the ambient noise that's very present here as well as the somewhat rough recording quality, neither of which bothers me in any way. Malfatti, as is often the case, blows long, softly burred tones on his trombone, spacing them out over irregular intervals, allowing substantial time to elapse between exhalations. Unami excites small items via computer (or directly?), causing buzzes, rattles, (hand-claps!) etc., also in a periodic manner. In his case, one sometimes can't quite tell which sounds are his, which are the room's. Again, no real matter. The piece flows beautifully. Unlike the Skrobek, there is a sense of a pool, of gentle ripples and floating objects jostling one another; everything is "there", it's just a question of what wafts into audible range at a given moment. I find it absolutely fascinating, serene, warm and stimulating. One of the best new releases I've heard in a while.

taumaturgia


Robin Hayward/Rhodri Davies/Taku Unami - valved strings calculator (hibari)

In large part, this recording delivers kind of what you suspect going in, though there are rough edges to be found. It's generally quiet and sparse but explodes harshly (though briefly) on several occasions. On first listen, I was very much into it, enjoying the blobs of sound floating around--Hayward's burps, Davies' plinks and Unami's rattling. On second listen I was a tad less convinced, maybe finding the sound too up front when I wanted it to recede. Subsequent hearings find me going back and forth, probably to the disc's credit. I find it messes with my expectations regarding space--it gets a little claustrophobic at times, something I normally am somewhat averse to but here...dunno. Back and forth. Interesting recording, certainly worth hearing.

hibari
Available from erstdist

Bhob Rainey/Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase (Chris Cooper) - Ain't It Grand/Journey to the Center of Something or Other (Sedimental)

A 7", 33rpm release, entirely unlabeled as to which side is whose responsibility, but who cares? One's Rainey, the other Cooper, both are good and both occupy dense, rapidly moving collage-like territory. Each is only 3-4 minutes long, compressed to opaline hardness but, despite some humor, without a trace of Zornian hyper-reference. If I like the one with the intense hums near the end, the one without the harmonica section, a tad better, eh, they're both loads of fun and could have gone on for far, far longer. If you have a turntable, don't hesitate. Even if you don't.


Novi_aad - Jailbirds (Sedimental)

Novi_sad is Thanasis Kaproulias, a youngster from Greece. He apparently has three prior releases of which I'm unaware but my interest has been piqued, to say the least. Two cuts of 20 or so minutes, the first a marvelous combination of field recording and dronescape (yes, in that sense, not a new approach to be sure, except this sounds like nothing I've heard recently), with elements gradually emerging along its flow, including some seriously deep bass throbs, ending surprisingly with snatches of Icelandic film dialog. Really good and rich, great track.

The second takes a very different tack and is almost as successful. Much harsher up front, with some piercing wails and an abrupt, cracking explosion, it settles into a beguiling rhythm of soft sparks over a monotone hum. About halfway through, he shifts to a grainy, complex rumble that, while enticing on its own, somehow I hear as losing a bit of focus. Still, not a bad ride. Listeners who have enjoyed work from the Asher/Richard Garet end of the spectrum (like me) should certainly hear this.

sedimental

So, at Record Club last night, leading off Round Two, Chris Cochrane plays this piece--it's kind of raunchy, bluesy rock; my initial impression was Mountain (!). Scroungy guitar, thick yowled vocals, fuzz-saturated, pretty nicely throbbing in a way that some bands were '69-'70. The rhythmic thrust reminded me a bit of "Willie the Pimp" and some of the slide guitar work reeked of Zoot Horn Rollo. I'd never really heard Mallard, but that was about as close a guess as I could hazard.

Nope, it was Sir Paul from his recent album with Youth (a person, I take it).

Could've knocked me down with a feather. Now, I'm not going to be rushing out and buying this by any means but within the genre, it was a pretty damned good number. I know that, historically back through the mid-60s, McCartney was the Beatle with by far the most adventurous tastes (into Ayler, attending AMM, etc.) but something like this, which is only fractionally along that kind of pathway, still makes me want to smack him alongside the head as it hints at what could have been for 40 years. But no, instead we get Wings...

As always, a fun evening at Record Club. Chris also brought a Henry Cow live performance from the recent 40-year anniversary box, a piece I went back and forth on, liking some aspects, finding others too mechanical. Nayland played a great piece from the Ethiopiques series, a rousing number from '71 with female vocalist and a fairly awesome sounding "police band". Julia had a couple of nice ones--a French film soundtrack from '70 or so with great funky organ work and Miles from the soundtrack to "Ascenseur pour l'Echafaud". Nina expanded RC boundaries with a tape of her younger brother, aged about 8, playacting a horror film at home in the late 70s; fantastic "field recording", actually.

I played the first track from John Butcher's "Resonant Spaces" and the Dirge from Britten's "Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings" with Peter Pears (thanks, Betsy!) which, to me, stands as a strong antecedent to Scott Walker as well as being quite beautiful in its own right.

A few days ago, I'd been admiring a very beautiful pencil drawing Betsy had scanned onto her facebook page, a view of her feet just beyond a very pregnant belly (containing twins!), a plate with an apple, spoon and knife nestled just beyond--really an amazing drawing--and was inspired to draw a bit when I got home that day. Which I did (my feet! and surroundings), with so-so results, it's been a while. But I'd also been missing playing my vinyl having had a relative deluge of new releases around, so I picked up where I'd left off and put on Eno's "Music for Airports", today transformed into "Music for Drawing". I guess this is often cited as one of the touchstones of ambient music and, of course, in a sense it is. However, it retains its backbone.

The scores of the four pieces are lovely.


Each of them has a stream-like quality with this odd sort of semi-regularity. It's generally evident from looking at them what kind of structure the piece will take, just the bare bones, an interesting type of graphic score. And despite the dreaminess of the sonic elements here--soft piano, hornlike synth and hushed voices--there's a rigor rarely encountered in most of its purported progeny. It sounds pretty great, I have to say.


The three records here, for my money, are the last things of Eno's I consider first rate. I kept up with his output through 2000 or so and there were enjoyable releases in the later 80s and 90s but they always seemed to be a shell of the work from, say, 1972 to 1982. The price of fame, I guess, and producing vapid pop bands. I've no desire whatsoever to hear the revival of the Bush of Ghosts duo (or an approximation thereof) but the original really sounds as vibrant as ever. Take one great idea (derived in some part from the Reich of "Come Out" and "It's Gonna Rain" but taken in an entirely different direction), graft it onto the post-punk latinized funk of 1979 Talking Heads, and it just works. "The Jezebel Spirit" is a small masterpiece, beautifully constructed, the new music twining seamlessly around the paranoid radio host. I believe this is the first time I heard Laswell, as well (couldn't resist).

I saw the video from which the cover images were taken once; I forget where. It was entrancing in an alien kind of way.


I'm always a little bit surprised at how well this one holds up. For all the woozy, gauzy cotton candy it helped spawn, there's something solid about "On Land: that won't go away. Partly, I think, it's the beautiful melodic sensibility Eno still retained (don't know what became of it soon afterward); Jon Hassell being on board doubtless helps. I've often referred, when writing about contemporary musicians who straddle the boundary between field recording and more or less ambient or drone-based music, to Eno and it's usually this recording in particular. Maybe it's nostalgia talkin', but I really think that approach has rarely been handled more deftly. Wonderful sense of languid melancholy.

Always loved this cover among the several of close-up map images.

(Various) Relay: Archive 2007-2008 (Manual)

It's been a strong year thus far and here's yet another very fine release, a collection of ten improvisations from various permutations of the musicians involved with the Manual label and invited guests. Ryu Hankil seems to have shown very good judgment in culling these tracks from what I imagine to have been a substantial volume of work; almost every track is at least strong, often very compelling. The sole exception perhaps not very surprisingly, is a trio with Choi Joonying, Jin Sangtae and Mats Gustafsson. The latter is all too often intent on muscling his way through, something he's extremely adept at in other contexts but ill serves him here. It's not terrible, but when compared with, for example, the trio of Choi, Hong Bulki and Kai Fagaschinski, it's fairly clear which reed player has the deeper understanding of this area of music.

Most tracks are in this guest/residents format. Listeners familiar with the fine, fine work of the Manual, Balloon & Needle, etc. crew will have a good idea of the general territory covered here--rough-edged electronics of the open circuit kind, usually on the quiet side but with the odd explosion, etc., but there's more than ample variation to be heard. It's not "new" in that sense, just very accomplished. Other guests include Toshi Nakamura (a deliciously bumptious duo with Park Seungjun), Klaus Filip, dieb 13, Iida Katsuaki, Noid, and both Takus. Joe foster is also present in both a trio and as half of English with Bonnie Jones (an excellent cut).

Writing about it in detail is something of a fool's errand. I'll say that my favorite track may have been the trio of Choi Joonyang, dieb13 and Joe Foster if only for the fact (guess, I suppose) that dieb13 inserts a dose of viscosity into a textural area that tends toward the crackling and prickly; makes for an especially dense and piquant stew. (Though I think Filip does that a bit as well). The last piece brings together ten musicians and--of course since it's a Sugimoto composition
--is by far the quietest in the collection. More external sounds than musicianship here. I'm probably more of a fan of this aspect of Taku than many, but I found it quite successful.

A mandatory pick-up for those at all interested in this neck of the woods.

manual

Available stateside via erstdist