Mike Bullock - Mild Disappearances (Songs from Under the Floorboards)

As fine a bassist as he is, the few times I've heard Bullock dealing with electronics, I've also been very impressed. To some extent, he combines the two here though it's the electronics that are to the fore, though precisely what he's using is not listed and I'd be reluctant to even guess about it. Quasi-basslike sounds filter through the mix seeming to be possibly sourced from some unexpected meeting of bow and resonant wood but, again, who knows? Field recordings are present as well, birds and water sounds well represented. But the unexpected spine of the first track is a ping and descending glissando (again, the later possibly bass-derived?) that form a kind of melodic reference point around which the remainder of the sounds cluster and from which they disperse. It's a nice gambit and if it hangs around a minute or two longer than I might like, it's still refreshing enough to make the piece stand out and infuse it with an unusual richness. Though not nearly so overt, a subtle sense of tonality continues throughout the disc, even when it's fragmented into scattered clawings at the bass or fractured sine tones. Bullock keeps the mix deliciously viscous, balancing the shrill with the rumbling, evoking landscape while remaining abstract (I thought of Kiefer more than once). The last cut brings the bass more into play and is substantially sparser but still manages to retain the earlier depth, just pushing it into a different area, and a really interesting one, dark sounds existing in a large, even darker space. A fine recording--don't miss it.


Kiyoharu Kuwayama/Masayoshi Urabe - Heteroptics (Songs from Under the Floorboards)

A 2002 date with Kuwayama (cello, viola, percussiona) and Urabe (alto, percussion). For me, it lies on an uncomfortable divide wherein musicians are aware of and attempting to enter into the (then) newish territory of post-AMM improvisation but still retain a good bit of the emotional trappings of post-Ayler jazz. Urabe's playing, indeed, reminds me most of Joe McPhee with a similar balance of abstraction and a deep, almost spiritual color. Somehow, with McPhee I find that a more natural quality; with others, as well as it may be handled, there always seems to be something of a remove. Which isn't to say that the music here doesn't succeed on its own; it's pretty effective, the ghostly alto lamenting over parched string scrapings or the ghostly rattle of metal. There are moments of near-silence but, interestingly, even then, the sounds that appear carry some sentimental weight--curious how that happens. It's soon enough back to the haunted wailing though. There's a moment, some 38 minutes in, when one of the pair appears to toss a large metal pipe or two onto the hard floor with refreshingly raucous results--would that this abandon was followed throughout. As is, while not entirely up this listener's alley, I can easily see this being highly appreciated by, say, fans of Kaoru Abe.

Intransitive

Ben Owen - 05012009FP (cdr)

I love hearing field-recording based work that still manages to confound my expectations of the are. It's still fascinating to me why some work and others don't; wish I could pinpoint the whys and wherefores, but maybe not. Ben Owen's collection of four pieces begins with a set of sounds more complex than initially sensed: water, yes, some owl-like hoots (not sure of the source--perhaps the "two pipes" of the title), a pervasive, grainy hum, large but more distant thrums (boat engines?), the sound of heavy wooden furniture being pushed across a resistant floor--it's rich, mysterious and evocative and immediately plunges one into this presumably fictional construct. A very strong sense of place, even if it's difficult to discern the boundaries or to entirely plant one's feet on the ground. With the odd, somewhat violent interruption, the first piece establishes itself and then just sits there, breathing. Very lovely. The brief "walk wind rain", despite its title, is more truculent, the elements buffeting the mic. Again, it's quite rich, thick juicy sounds zooming through the frame, evaporating, replaced by rainwater gurgling through a gutter. Those burbles segue right into "ceiling mid level", where the dynamic level is reduced to a bit more than a simmer but, again, with periodic eruptions. That tension between agitated calm and outright violence explodes again on the final track, "in hull", the soft water drips dispersed by the odd, shuddering moan, as though the hull in question has run up against some unforgiving wood pilings. It's disquieting, uncomfortable.

A very fine recording, issued in an edition of only 50 so, hop to it.

ben owen


mpld - lacunae (winds measure)

"lacunae" is a DVD release by Gill Arno, operating under the nom, mpld, two tracks, a brief one under 5 minutes and one of 33 minutes duration. The opener establishes the mood and frame: black and white flicker images, initially much more dark than light, allowing the viewer only glimpses of what eventually coheres into a landscape, low-horizoned, with the square silhouette of a building on the left. The sounds are percolations, clicks and a thin whistling whine. As track two commences (seamlessly as far as the sound goes), the image shifts to a brighter, but still flickering one, again a landscape, sea in the foreground, the scene bisected vertically, on a slant, by an artifact of the camera, I think, a thick black wedge, sharp on the left side, blurred on the right. The flicker-image necessarily brought to mind the fine Richard Garet/Asher collaboration, "Melting Ground", though the visuals here are darker, "older" looking. As well, they're still images, though the flicker imparts an odd sense of motion and it takes some amount of discernment to realize that nothing is, in fact, moving. The motor of the boat from which this has been shot (? I presume) gains prominence as does the intensity of the flicker as more light enters the frame. The water journey continues, the scenes slowly changing, the gurgling of the propeller in water surging and subsiding, shifting pitch an timbre. Some 23 minutes in, the dark outline of a man is seen in a still shot, against a craggy shoreline; views of other passengers ensue. At about 28 minutes, there's a startling close-up of a washed-out facial image, mannequin-like, blank. During the waning moments, the soundtrack reduces to a soft burble while the visuals become gently abstract, fold into negatives.

"lacunae" is a haunting, lovely piece, adrift in memories and their sensual associations. Excellent work.


Andrew Hayleck - weekend (winds measure)

I was also sent this cassette by Andrew Hayleck but, as my only cassette deck sits in my car, I was forced to listen to it whilst traversing the wilds of New Jersey, not the ideal situation (auditorily or olfactorily). I can only say that it sounded pretty good, full of sounds that ranged from the urban street to insectile (it's compiled largely, if not entirely, from field recordings) and that both pieces, lasting about 13 and 11 minutes, flowed along very well, seemingly infested with detail, as near as I could determine amid the sounds of speeding vehicles.

winds measure

Christian Munthe/Lee Noyes - Onliners (*for*sake)

When last I wrote about Munthe's music, in May of 2010, I remarked how difficult this "area" of improvisation is for me to evaluate, nestling as it does (to my ears) in what I think of as the post-Bailey tradition, an approach that still strikes me as a particularly forbidding tract to cultivate. As I wrote then, Bailey's shadow is so long that it's impossible not to hear him lurking around.

Munthe, now as then, negotiates the territory ably enough and, in fairness, seems to consciously leave the Bailey-esque boundaries as often as possible, but it's still a hard music for me to settle into comfortably.

That caveat aside, the duo with percussionist Lee Noyes is nicely spiky, Munthe seemingly scraping at his strings as much as plucking them, Noyes responding in kind (dare I say "post-Lovens?"). There is that efi conversational aspect which, again, isn't quite my cup of tea but I can easily imagine this appealing to differently attuned listeners. Unsurprisingly, I most enjoy the tracks, like the second one here, where the duo migrates the furthest away from the field.


Christian Munthe/Christian Jormin - Sedimentology (*for*sake)

From the same year (2009), another duo with a percussionist. It begins promisingly (again, from my point of view), sounding far more like an extension of Partch than Bailey, with ringing, bent guitar notes and spare percussion. But they quickly fall back into a not dissimilar territory than was the case with the Noyes recording--agitated, occasionally frantic, percussive playing with little space. The remainder skirts the borders between the verbose and the slightly more considered, always sounding better the nearer it is to the latter. Munthe does have a good sense of space and elastic pacing when he allows himself to recede a bit. As I said the last time around, I'd like to hear more of this facet of his work.


Anders Lindsjo/Christian Munthe - The Ping of the Pong (*for*sake)

Here, Munthe teams with another guitarist, Anders Lindsjo but, aside from the exchange of sound sources, the overall feel of the session is akin to the earlier duos (this one is from 2010). Scrabbling, slithery, scratchy, sibilant, sliding, scurrying....sustained, maybe even incessant. I take it for granted, I suppose, that the constant activity is something valued by the musicians, a burbling stew that hopes to yield a frothy richness, but I can't help but want to hear more consideration, more attentiveness to the room they're in, not so much to each other. Again, that's my mishigas, not necessarily that of those directly involved and, as with the other discs, they perform what they choose to perform pretty well.


Christian Munthe/Christine Sehnaoui - Yardangs (Mandorla)

My limited knowledge of Sehnaoui's work had also led me to place her, more or less, in the Bailey/Parker lineage and "Yardangs" (a tip of the hat to whoever chose the title for alerting me to such a wonderful word) does little to dispel that notion. She's very good, quite adept in covering a huge range of sounds though almost all are clearly within the saxophonic tradition, even when dealing in breath tones and spittle. The same might be said of John Butcher but he, often enough, has a conception that removes his instrument from being squarely in that tradition whereas Sehnaoui extends the existing one. Again, to this listener, things work better the sparer it gets, less well when things become agitated.

Again, I don't mean at all to disparage Munthe's work, it simply exists in a space that I don't find so conducive, that's aurally aggressive in a manner that I find too much "in your face", leaving the audience fewer listening options than I like having. Fans of the efi/Emanem persuasion will doubtless find the goings-on here very much to their taste and, to the extent I can honestly hear the music as such, it does a fine job at elaborating on that tradition.

*for*sake

Mandorla

A few words on George Lewis.

Like many outside of Chicago, I first heard Lewis in the context of Anthony Braxton's "Creative Orchestra Music, 1976", particularly his solo feature on the infamous march piece. In the summer of '77, as I've written many a time, I first saw him live at the Tin Palace with an incredible Braxton quartet that otherwise included Muhal, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall. Lewis, I guess 23 at the time, brought the house down on several occasions that day, once causing Brax to step to the side and deliver an exaggerated bow in his young trombonist's direction.

I don't have a distinct recollection of catching him around otherwise in those days though doubtless I'm forgetting some events (maybe with Anthony Davis?). I *do* remember him up at Environ, not a little pissed off at an interview with Albert Mangelsdorff that had been run somewhere, wherein the German had maintained that he was the only trombonist able to play overtones, Lewis wanting desperately to walk up to him, 'bone in hand, and proffer a rich, multi-layered blaat.




His first recording, from November 1976, is already remarkably self-assured and experimental, mightily impressive for a 23 year-old. The sidelong piece for three trombones is a fine mix of approaches, pointillistic alongside trad-referring chorales, bluesy wails amongst strangled squawks, etc., all cohering amazingly well, not sounding like a mere grab bag of effects, but as a considered walk through a catalog of available sounds and structures. Side two has three pieces more "in the tradition" and beautifully played, especially the closing "Lush Life", as pretty and imaginative a version as you're ever likely to hear.

I'm not precisely certain of the chronology of these four albums as the remaining three don't include recording dates, but they're all from 1977-79.

Lewis began using electronics (at least on record) around '77, a fairly unusual move (in the way he was using them) among AACM-affiliated musicians, presumably deriving from his knowledge of and working with people like Ashley and Behrman in conjunction with his increased activity at and eventual directing of The Kitchen. Ewart always struck me as an interesting player--often fantastic as part of an ensemble, a bit tending toward new-agey things on his own. Here, he's fine on flute, alto and bass clarinet, as well as percussion. There's a typically rambunctious first piece, well played but fairly standard for the time followed by a more fascinating piece, the pair dealing more in pure, extended tones, rubbing them up against each other. Lewis also contact mics his instrument. Lewis' "The Imaginary Suite", which takes up side two, is marvelous and a clear antecedent (if, in fact, it preceded!) the following recording; indeed, part two of this piece is virtually the same. Using low horns, percussion and a bed of electronics, Lewis fashions a music that was leagues away from what any of his AACM cohorts (with, perhaps, the partial exception of Anthony Davis) were doing while at the same time injecting enough grit and blues to easily distinguish it from the white, post-minimalist music of the period.

In years past, this was always on my Desert Island Discs list. Not certain if it would be today, but it's still damn great. Lewis, Davis, Ewart and Teitelbaum. Two sidelong tracks, the first, "Blues" a bit more raucous for a while before mellowing, the title track all rich, deep smoothness. For sheer sonic gorgeousity, this is tough to beat. But more, as said above, this simply not only stood out, but stood very much apart from the work of any jazz-based musician from the period that I can think of. The title track, following a wonderful, billowy beginning, settles into such a beautiful electronic bed, something that might be akin to the Eno of the period, but far deeper, from which Ewart's alto emerges like some wondrous fern, unfurling leisurely but inevitably, splintering, coalescing. And Lewis--well, there's no more beautiful trombone solo in jazz--if this is jazz--to my ears. Everything is in there. And, the piece just ceases with the trombone dangling out there. Soooo good. Hmmm, maybe still Desert Island....

It might just be that Lewis didn't release much more through the 80s, but this is the last recording of his I have on vinyl. On Lovely, no doubt having to do with his tenure as Director of the Kitchen. A quartet, as above with J.D. Parran replacing Davis. Very different from the Charles Parker disc, beginning with a swarm of percussion and double reeds (Ewart on musette, Parran on nagaswaram), an intriguing variation on minimalism. Low horns and electronics don't appear until about halfway through the first side, foghorn-like, buoys in the clatter. There's actually a brief snatch of what sounds like some very Rowe-ian guitar in there, presumably Teitelbaum-generated. It's a fascinating step, on the whole and, if I don't love it as much as the Parker homage, it indicated some intriguing branching out.

But...I'm not sure what happened. I think the next thing I have under his own name is the "Voyager" disc on Avant ("Changing with the Times", which I liked even less, was approximately co-synchronous--I see "Berlin Tango" listed at AMG, but I'm unfamiliar with that). Somewhere in those 10-15 years, his use of electronics had become, to my ears, overly academic and bland. Subsequent releases ("Shadowgraph" and others) didn't rectify the situation to these ears. I saw a performance of a work of his in Nancy in 2002, a quartet wielding light sabers that triggered sounds--not very good. (Although I relish the memory of hanging out in the wee hours at a table including George and Teitelbaum, the former proving to be a voluble storyteller and exceedingly friendly person). However, I did have the good fortune to witness a duo with the late Bill Dixon at Vision Fest in 2006 that was extraordinarily beautiful, thoughtful and sensitive. I've no doubt that I've missed things along the way from Lewis that I should have heard--I don't think I've encountered anything emerging from his professorship at Columbia, for instance. I was hoping for more from his book on the AACM as well.

Still, one of my favorite musicians, all things told, from this period and I'm extremely grateful for any number of musical memories, live and on record.

I've sort of gotten in the habit of posting any semi-decent watercolors or drawings on facebook and letting them just slide down the page, something I find rather attractive, truth to tell. But since I have a rare grace period here (no discs to write up!) and I don't feel like talking overmuch about the three Kronos vinyls I've played recently, I thought I'd post a couple of groups of paintings, and a drawing, that seemed to work out well enough.

Last year, I did a set of a dozen t-shirt paintings, four each in red, indigo and light grey, which I enjoyed a bunch and which yielded maybe six decent pieces. So I decided to do a few of black cloth and found the batting average to remain the same: two I like very much, two with some redeeming qualities but some awkwardnesses as well. It also allowed me to deal with the problem of Payne's Gray, a color that absolutely beguiles one while wet but tends to dry in a cakey fashion, much to the painter's chagrin. The first three dealt with that by layering on indigo (mixed here and there with other blues and red) in a kind of oil-painting manner, as glazes. On the last, by working wet into semi-wet, I somehow managed to avoid the harsh dryness--one shot, no return--very happy with that one, the fourth as well as the second.

In any case, in order:










Last month, our dear friend Carol gave us an old scoop of some kind--perhaps a flour scoop?--she'd found in a shop in France. It's a lovely object, old white enamel with wonderful rust stains, and I quickly set about getting it down on paper. First a fairly simply drawing:



Then a fairly simple, if ill-drawn watercolor:



For some reason, I had an urge to work at it in, more or less, a monotone of some kind, and to concentrate on just parts of it. I kind of like the way these turned out:





All for now, thanks for looking.

Paul Vogel - Godwit Songs (Munitions Family)

A cassette release (though I heard it on disc) of highly abstract electronics that bear, at best, only a passing resemblance to the song of the godwit--at least that's the assumption I'm making, though perhaps it's a singularly eai-oriented bird...In any case, it's very good: two tracks, the first being more aggressive and "noisy", beginning with some gentle, metallic pops before they're overwhelmed by harsh, contact-mic-ish scratches, severe whines and more. It never gets too dense--much more reminiscent of Sachiko M than most toiling in this area. Very solid, although things get more godwit-like on the second track, which I find all the more successful. It's really just as active but much quieter, yet within the compressed dynamic range, there's an enormous amount of space and differentiation; an entirely convincing sound-world is created, one that might well refer to the avian, amphibian and insectile life one observes with one's ear to the ground. Lovely.

Munitions Family


Michael Johnsen/Pascal Battus - Bitche Session (Organized Music from Thessaloniki)

Not bitching as such but, rather, recorded at a place called Bitch in Nantes, this is a cassette recording of pretty uncompromisingly harsh electronics (Johnsen-electronics, saw, Battus-magnetic pick-ups). Also a cassette release, also heard by yours truly on disc, also very noisy but there the comparison with the Vogel ends. It's very active, more percussive than you might guess given the instrumentation, full of squawks and screeches and, ultimately, unsatisfying to me. That blurry, subjective line between interesting and uninteresting noise gets crossed here, for me; I don't pick up as much consideration as I like--perhaps the pair is unconcerned with that or is choosing to operated in a more Mattin-oriented manner. Don't know, but as uncompromising as the music undoubtedly is, it also failed to grip me. Curious to figure out why the difference in personal appeal between this and Godwit Songs. Your mileage may vary.

Organized Music from Thessaloniki


Jonas Kocher - Solo (Insubordinations)

Solo accordion, that is, a form I'm admittedly partial to and Kocher, who I don't think I've previously heard (someone will prove me wrong, no doubt) [and, indeed, Richard, did--sorry about that] delivers admirably. What comes through more than anything else is a deep love of the instrument and the huge variety of sounds of which it's capable. A live set, Kocher is very patient, using a great deal of space, his choice of sounds running much of the gamut from virtually inaudible to full-throated squeeze-boxiana. The set sounds only loosely organized, as though Kocher is taking some delight in discovering the sounds as he happens on them, worrying less about the overall structure which nonetheless coalesces very nicely and naturally. There's an especially beautiful high drone portion about 20 minutes in that I could have happily listened to for a long time. Difficult to describe otherwise; not as extreme as Costa Monteiro on the same instrument but well to the left of Klucevsek et. al. A fine recording--don't let it slip under your radar.

Insubordinations


Kevin Drumm/Jérôme Noetinger/Robert Piotrowicz - Wrestling (Bocian)

One of two handsomely produced 45s issued by the Polish label Bocian, this one features two excerpts from a 2005 live show by what I guess one could call a power trio. Now, I'm not as big a fan of Drumm as many though I've no doubt this assemblage is quite capable of producing a healthy blast of noise, but they seem not so well served by these brief snippets. Artur Nowak, who recorded the event, mentioned how great the entire show was and it well may have been. Here, we get two parcels of ear-rending sound, mere peepholes into the concert. One can imagine its entirety, I suppose, and the samples are tasty morsels of the kind, but...I guess I have to question the strategy in such a release. It may have been a matter of this or nothing, though, and fans of the three musicians will doubtless consider it worth the expense. It does have its (short) moments.


Tomasz Krakowiak - AP (Bocian)

Krakowiak's 45 works far better with regard to this medium and, to these ears, is a stronger set of music. Two pieces lasting 4'59" with Krakowiak on cymbals and microphone. By description, it sounds like nothing unusual: one with stroking of the surface (with the mics? not sure), generating keening overtones and unaccompanied by low-end rumbling from some other source, the other a more delicate version of same, the deeper tones taking on a very poignant quality as though commenting on their higher-pitched neighbors. But the particulars of the pieces are somehow unique and very, very rich. I imagine there are countless rubbed or bowed metal recordings about--this is one of the better ones I've heard. Ok, I admit, I would have liked to have heard this music at greater length, but still.....

Bocian Records

Jürg Frey - "Metal, Stone, Skin, Foliage, Air" (l'Innomable)

It's been a good year, thus far, for great recordings. Rowe/Malfatti, two amazing Pisaros and now this one.

Frey's piece, superbly performed by Nick Hennies, dates from 1996-2001. I think this may generally be the case, although I don't know Frey's oeuvre intimately enough, but his work tends to be more overtly active than many other Wandelweiserians. "Metal, Stone, Skin, Foliage, Air" is set forth in clear, readily delineated sequences yet manages to breath in a very natural manner, not to come off as didactic in any way. As with other work I've heard from him, there's an undercurrent of narrative that's as beautiful as it is extremely subtle. As with much wonderful contemporary composed music (especially that emerging from the Wandelweiser group), while experiencing it, any lines between the written structure and the acoustic, physiological effects produced by the instrumentalist(s) performing it are blurred; it's very difficult (for me, anyway) to parse out both while listening, something I can only do in retrospect.

Depending how one wishes to break it down, MSSFA is in 9-11 sections. I take it they're precisely time, though the breaks seem to fall on 10-second marks rather than whole minutes. Given general Wandelweiser aesthetics, it's a bit of a shock when the piece begins in full force with a light, steady, medium tempo rhythm is heard on what sounds like a glockenspiel or celesta, though the wavering pitch has me wondering whether it might be a home-constructed metallophone of some kind. Immediately, one hears the dual nature of the music: the structure (here, at first, simply the rhythm) and the larger effects of the sound, in this case a wealth of gorgeous overtones. I'm not sure if there was overdubbing employed of if it's possible that overtones from a single source can result in the kind of scalar sequences one perceives here; whatever, the case, it quickly draws you into the world. At 7:20, we shift to a different set of metal, though still in the same family, with differing overtones. The rhythm remains the same, constant. This portion also lasts for 7:20, giving one the initial view that we'd encounter a series of these equally timed portions. Wrong.

At 14:40, a haze of cymbalry occurs, though again there are high, ringing overtones that sound as though they could be from other sources. In any case, the explicit rhythm has ceased but the continuation of a metal sound acts as a bridge. Mirroring the first two sections, though not strictly duplicating them, at 19:30 the palette shifts, remaining in the brushed metal area (tam-tam?) but lowering the overall pitch, shifting the overtones. So, we've had four sections and, again, have a limited view of the overall structure, a view that once more is subverted when, at 24:20, the stones are introduced, maintaining the non-explicit rhythm (though there's something of a pattern in the sense of iterated circular movement as they're rubbed on what seems to be a metallic surface, perhaps a bowl. I should say, I think these are stones. So, in this transition, Frey has kept the general attack, changed the source.

At 29:10, there's the clearest break in the composition, what turns out to be the conclusion of the first half of the work. A light, tapping rhythm, more rapid than at the piece's beginning, is heard on a snare drum and it's metal side (again, guessing). It alternates in steady beats of 20/16 for a while, before morphing into 8s and 12s. Sonically simpler than the previously heard sounds, it's something of a palate cleanser, refocusing us on rhythm (in a fascinating way) while still holding on to vestiges of overtones in the delightful apposition and eventual mix of these two "dry" sounds. This is followed, at 34:10, by what I hear as a kind of fulcrum upon which the piece swivels, again branching out into unexpected (but right-feeling) directions, a rich, wonderful bass drum section, very low and resonant, the initial touch all but unheard, the rhythm found in the throbs.

The second half of MSSFA is even richer, phenomenologically more awe-inspiring than the first. Not to belabor the reader more than I've already done with all this descriptiveness, but for the final four sections, Frey introduces air (recordings of wind sounds? again, it's mysterious) and foliage and also, I think, combines them with previous sources, resulting in some terrifically complex sets of sounds; that is, complex when concentrated on but fairly simple in outline. Again, that dichotomy is utterly delicious as one mentally flits back and forth between appreciating the overall structure, the various substructures, the pure beauty of the sounds, their poetic distribution, the varied durations and rhythms--all of these elements combined in an unfussy manner so that one may either appreciate the whole or the parts, ideally not bothering to distinguish between them, just experiencing the work. I'll just add that the concluding section possesses an otherworldly beauty that's exceedingly rare.

A great, great recording. Thanks to Frey and Hennies.

Listen.

l'Innomable

available from erstdist

Writer/musician/DJ/other-stuffer Kurt Gottschalk recently published a collection of short stories, "Little Apples", an often subtly interlocking set of brief, NYC-based pieces. They're quite good. He asked seventeen artists for images of apples, one of which precedes each story. One of those is by yours truly.

The stories are funny, quirky, sad, resonant. Read it.


Here's the book's facebook page

You can order/download it at lulu

Five releases that feature Ernesto Rodrigues, recorded between 1999 and 2010 in various settings. Rodrigues has been heard on many, many discs, enough that I wouldn't presume to use these examples of anything definitive regarding a partial career arc, but in very general terms, they might be seen as limning some parts of a pathway. He's always, from what I've heard anyway, trod a line between (for lack of better shorthand) efi and eai, gradually casting aside some of the busier aspects of the former, but never entirely jettisoning that particular approach to group interplay.


His duo from 1999 with Jorge Valente (synthesizer and computer) finds the pair (Rodrigues on violin, prepared violin, signal processor) in very scratchy, skittery mode on one piece, loopy and bloopy on another, spacy here, harsh there, less, as I hear it, expansive in exploration of areas than unfocussed. Within this, there's still a good measure of call and response, in solid efi fashion, less of a concern with the space. Now, to my ears, this makes things not so interesting, but especially at the time of its release, I could imagine it being door-opening to someone coming out of the (say) Wachsmann/Turner environment.

Skipping ahead a few years to 2005, tp the extent this could be considered representative (a dubious assertion, perhaps), one hears large strides having been made. No doubt some of this is due to his compadres here: aside from son Guilherme (cello), there are Angharad Davies (viola), Alessandro Bossetti (soprano saxophone and Masafumi Ezaki (trumpet), forming an attractive strings/winds quintet. It has its scratchy and overcrowded moments, to be sure, but there's a far greater sense of space, of sounds unfurling. They get into a very nice, sandpapery drone area about midway through, the pops of the strings contributing an especially fine layer. At about 33 minutes, it also lasts for just the right duration--a good recording all around.


Another brief set (less than 27 minutes), from 2006, finds Rodrigues in the company of Gust Burns (piano), Vic Rawlings (Cello, electronics, loudspeakers) and David Hirvonen (electric guitar, electronics). Through most of the performnce, we're in scratchy drone territory, pretty restrained though somehow I feel it's less focused than I'd like to hear. Several minutes from the end, the music takes an abrupt turn into a harsher area, a nice tonic for what transpired earlier. In this instance, I may have liked to have heard more, further development, although that "coda" can also be understood as a tantalizing path, trod on for a little bit, opening to some glimpsed landscape but closed for now.

"Erosions" is a 2010 date with Rodrigues' viola accompanied by Wade Matthews' electronics and field recordings and Neil Davidson's rumbling acoustic guitar. Interestingly, I have the sense that, although the sounds here are quite full and active, the music is informed by quieter, more contemplative approaches heard or taken in the interim which have imparted a rich, breathing quality to the work, a sense of pacing and breathing that wasn't as prominent earlier (again, going from a meager number of samples but also of what I know of Rodrigues' prior catalog). I wasn't crazy about a previous Davidson solo effort but he fits in just fine here. In fact, the trio gels really nicely, creating a churning sound-world, with hints of drone, that results in one of the better recordings I've encountered from Rodrigues, well worth hearing.

Finally, from a bit later in the same year, we have "Suspensão",an double disc octet date with Rodrigues (viola,harp, metronomes, objects), Guilherme Rodrigues (cello), Gil Gonçalves (tuba), Nuno Torres (alto sax), Abdul Moimeme (prepared electric guitars, objects), Armando Pereira (toy piano, accordion), Carlos Santos (electronics, piezo elements) and José Oliveira (percussion). In some ways, it recapitulates the journey of the previous decade, a bit over-busy here but well integrated and spaced there (no mean feat with eight players). The second and fourth of the four lengthy pieces here work excellently, really establishing a true-sounding space (the accordion helping out greatly). The other two, perhaps intentionally, harken back to the busier, scratchier approaches of prior years.

Since first encountering the music of the Iberian improvisers, I guess more than ten years ago now, I've been impressed by the territory they (speaking generally) carved out for themselves, distinct in a number of ways from the improv being practiced elsewhere. As they, inevitably, began to mingle more and more with other European, Asian and American musicians, the music widened in many respects, perhaps lost some idiosyncrasy in others. But here, as elsewhere, it's heartening not to hear complacency, to continue to hear the searching, often along that difficult, slippery and occasionally very rewarding path between efi and eai.

Creative Sources

Roberto Mallo/Miguel Prado/Ryu Hankil - Sannakji (Manual/Taumaturgia)

Mallo (alto sax, amplifier), Prado (plastic tapes, bags excited with motors) and Hankil (speakers with Piezo vibrations) craft a really nice, quiet, intense session here. The first of the two long tracks especially is abuzz with insectile sounds, sputters, faint whines, kind of like a small pool of water alive with bugs, gases, currents--low key but always very active. Space eases in as the piece progresses, the gases dissipating a bit, the crawlies burrowing under. It's a very fine subset of sounds, rather unique in some ways and quite bewitching, well arrayed.

The second track begins similarly, a delightful spread of ticking sounds especially, but expands out a good bit into a wider palette, particularly the amplified sax of Mallo, a high, dry tone, and some fairly loud electronic interruptions. It's somewhat more disjunctive that the earlier piece but that's likely a good thing--it may not feel quite as whole or "successful" but it shows the trio not resting once they've accomplished something, instead fanning out for other game. A fine job, an excellent listen and nice to see the Galician/Korean connection.

taumaturgia
manual
available from erstdist


No Hermanos Carrasco - Mímesis Intemperie (l'Innomable)

In which the brothers Carrasco (Edén, saxophone, hoses, bell, idea, production) and Nicolás (violin, objects, production mix) place themselves in two different environments, outdoors, and play discreetly. The first seems to be in or near an amusement park (aside from the cover image, there's nothing quite like the screams of children on roller coasters), the second (following a couple minutes of silence on disc) at some remove from concentrated activity, the sounds of birds, ducks and wind dominating those of motors and sirens. In each, rap and rock bass lines percolate through the mix on occasion, blurred, from a distance. Also in each, the Carrascos play fairly unobtrusively, sometimes making recognizable sounds on saxophone and violin, other times leaving it to the listener to guess if it's them or the environs.

Overall, I wasn't so struck by the outcome (Richard enjoyed it much more than I did, however). I found the instrumental playing, actually, a bit more self-conscious than I wanted to hear--the violin work on the second track, for instance), where it sounds overly imitative of birdsong. Not always--sometimes things blend finely, but often enough that it bothered me. I did find the pieces more successful when I stopped really listening for detail and just allowed all sounds to, as best I could, achieve equilibrium, more easily done in the amusement park track than the following one.

Nice idea and, possibly, one that could be more easily sunken into were one present at the time, ideally a distance away from the brothers, so as to let their sounds come and go more smoothly amongst the others.

l'Innomable

Available from erstdist


Jamie Drouin/Lance Austin Olsen - Absence & Forgiveness (Infrequency)

One of those all too rare experiences when an entirely lovely recording drops in from out of the blue, or Canada in this case. Though not much info is provided, both appear to be utilizing electronics of some sort and the three pieces are live improvisations. They share an extreme delicacy and quiet, combining faint sine-like tones with various other small sounds, buzzes, clicks, etc., all spread out, gently pricking the space, weaving this way and that. By description, it doesn't sound all that different from any number of efforts in recent years, but something about this one stands apart--the sensibilities involved are unique and, I get the feeling, simply more intelligent than many, making subtle choices that you don't come across often. You think you have things pegged then, on the second track, they don't so much as veer off as take an adjacent path that was there all along but untrod, introducing brief, low flutters and tiny snatches of spoken word, coloring the field in an unexpected but, retrospectively, absolutely appropriate manner.

The final track seems to bring in all these elements, but again, very low key, very subtly. Something about it just gels even more than the first two, feels even more a natural extension of one's room space. Really good, better than I'm able to delineate here.

It'd be a shame if this one gets overlooked. Do yourselves a favor and check it out.

infrequency

Zeitkratzer - Zeitkratzer Plays PRES (Bôłt)

In which our indefatigable avant cover band takes on electro-acoustic works from the 60s and 70s by Polish composers, and wonderfully so. I should say, at the outset, that I'm entirely unfamiliar with the five composers represented here (Eugeniusz Rudnik, Elzbieta Sikora, Krzysztof Knittel, Denis Eberhard and Boihdan Mazurek)--my loss--so I've no idea how close or distant these realizations are frm the originals, but I'm guessing it doesn't matter too much.

It's a live recording and seems to have been done in one shot as there are a few seconds of ambient sound between tracks. Indeed, in his excellent liner notes, Michael Libera mentions this importance of Zeitkratzer member Ralf Meinz (credited with "sound") who apparently greatly augmented the product of this chamber ensemble on the fly, resulting in a true electro-acoustic work, once removed. Group leader Reinhold Friedl was given some thirty hours of music to study and from which to extract pieces to render. Those chosen, assuming the recreations are fairly accurate, tend more toward the minimalist/drone-y than one might expect from music of this area, though he points out that Polish electro-acoustic music had a very different character from German or French of the period.

In any case, the results are delightful, whispery, brushy swathes of sound, flurries of pizzicato on Sikora's "View from the Window" (an amazing sound), the deep, impressive thrums of Knittel's "Low Music" (a highlight here), the super-complex tingly drone of Eberhard's "Icon (for tape)", my other highlight and something I'd very much like to hear in its original form.

A fine recording, my favorite work yet from Zeitkratzer.


(Various) PRES Revisited (Józef Patkowski in Memoriam) (Bôłt)

An interesting notion: Disc 1 contains seven works by four Polish composers, more or less in the electro-acoustic area while Disc 2 consists of live interpretations of each piece (plus a group improvisation) performed at Cafe Oto in London by (in part or whole) Phil Durrant (violin), Mikołaj Pałosz (cello), Eddie Prevost (percussion), Maciej Sledziecki (electric guitar) and John Tilbury (piano). The set is dedicated to Józef Patkowski (1929-2005), who founded the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in 1957, remaining in charge there until 1985.

Again, the composers chosen, aside from Penderecki, are new to me and I've no idea how representative these works are, if they are at all. Bogusław Schaeffer's "Antiphonia" reminds me of quasi-similar vocal work by Penderecki (though who influenced who, I don't know), with clouds of voices intoning in harsh harmonies, ably (and, to my ears, more interestingly) reinterpreted by Phil Durrant on solo violin. [I noticed in the course of writing this, that Schaeffer's music was used by David Lynch in the soundtrack for "Inland Empire".] His "Assemblage" is an itchy piece constructed largely from pizzicato violin fragments (an 8-string device he designed himself) and prepared piano. As interpreted by Sledziecki, it's a little "No Birds"-Frithian, but not bad. "Collage", by Rudnik, fits more cleanly into other tape collage work of the era, an excellent, bumpy piece incorporating tape scraps rescued from the trash bin and some wonderfully fluttering, deep electronics. It's rendering by Pałosz and Sledziecki is ok, if a bit over-dependent on fuzzy guitar. I'd never heard Penderecki's "Psalmus" (1961) before, for electronics (possibly with vocal material as a source?) but it's of a piece with parts of his "St. Luke's Passion", eerie and haunting. Tilbuty's solo version on prepared piano is as gorgeous as one would expect but also sends him into an area subtly but distinctively different from his more frequent Cage/Feldman sensitivity--for Tilbury nuts, like yours truly, reason enough to get this set.

Mazurek's moody "Episodes", featuring flutes and (strings, is an extremely lovely, dark piece and is given a rich reading by Durrant, Prevost and Pałosz while his "Esperienza" is a powerful engine of explosives and drones; the quintet performance is lively and rich, featuring a wonderfully spiky Tilbury "solo". Rudnik's "Dixi" closes out Disc 1, all thin slivers of electronics, like dozens of aeolian pipes, coalescing and dispersing. Appropriately, it's interpretation is given over to Pałosz who produces an extraordinarily dense, harrowing and intricate reading, in many respects outdoing the original, no mean feat.

Disc 2 closes with an extended "Homage to Boguslav Schaeffer's Symphony". Not knowing the original, I can only listen as though to an improv (which this essentially seems to be) and say that it's an enjoyable enough one, if nothing to much out of the ordinary (though, again, lovely Tilbury)

The set includes an extremely informative booklet, with much info on the composers and their work. Again, an excellent job.


Bohdan Mazurek - Sentinel Hypothesis (Bôłt)

Well, now I know at least a little about Mazurek via this double disc set documenting work from 1967-1989. I'm loathe to write very much about it as I feel especially ill-equipped to comment on this area of music, one which I'm reasonably ignorant of, especially in bulk form like this. Individual pieces from different composers, as above, seem more graspable and, if you will, compartmentalizable. Much of Mazurek's work, as presented here, falls into what I hear as a genre of electronic music that I have difficulty differentiating among--taped electronic sounds arranged in collage fashion, a tendency toward the usage of histrionic voices, things that often hit me as dated and effects-driven. I'm sure I'm missing a good deal, not hearing these works in all their fullness.

Here, a good bit of Mazurek's music feels similarly. There are exceptions--"Canti", is quietly subtle and quite beautiful, made up of "low, vibrating string of [a] harp, noisy crowd in a room, woman's voice, processed whisper...". "Sinfonia Rustica" is odd in another way, an enjoyable bed of natural sounds with a strangely jazzy oboe occasionally keening atop. Others are half and half, like "Daisy Story" (1977-79), which meanders around for much of its 19+ minutes, then launches into a kind of minimalist explosion, though one that's more purely mechanical than rhythmic in a human sense a la Reich.

So while much of Mazurek's music doesn't particularly excite me, I can easily imagine listeners more devoted to this area finding a huge amount to enjoy here. As with the other Bôłt releases, the packaging is excellent and the liner notes very comprehensive. I'm quite happy to have received at least a little bit of exposure to the world of PRES and the Polish experimental scene in general.

Bôłt

Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning (Bôłt)

So we have, at last, a full recording of the Cardew piece, something that had previously only been available in fragments going back to an early issuance on Deutsche Grammophone. This one was performed during July 2010 by about 60 people, musicians and non-musicians alike (in adherence to the composer's instructions), most of them Polish and, fwiw, no names that I recognized.

A question immediately surfaces, however: Aside from documentation, of what value is a recording of a work like "The Great Learning" which, as near as I can determine, is a resolutely participatory piece? Even in live situations (and I know a performance organized by Nick Hennies is upcoming in Austin), I would think that the obvious thing to do would be to allow for extra seats, instruments and scores, encouraging audience members not to merely sit and listen but to actively engage with the work. Being at such an occasion and simply listening would strike me as missing the point. [Nick, in a facebook back and forth on Cliff Allen's page, gave reasons why inviting anyone who attends to sit in might not be such a good idea; the score is more complicated than I realized] Yet here are these four discs, some 270 minutes of sound, sitting in my room--what else to do with them?

So, with some reluctance, I sit here and try both to imagine myself amongst the crowd and at the same time, evaluate the music. Now, I fully admit, that I'd be uncomfortable participating in a performance of "The Great Learning", particularly the intoned, vocal sections. Chairman Mao, who was directly responsible for the deaths (largely by starvation but directly as well) for untold millions of people (between 40 and 70 million by most estimates) isn't someone I hold in very high esteem, whatever other worthwhile qualities he may have had. [As Nick points out below, I was greatly mistaken about this--for some reason, I always associated this text with Mao, not Confucius---my mistake] This may well color my appreciation of the sounds heard here as, almost inevitably, I vastly prefer the instrumental passages to the vocal ones. Not that these are "great" or terribly fascinating to listen to, but at their best (ok, yes, the percussion sections) one picks up on the communal excitement and sense of interpersonal unity that one assumes was one of Cardew's goals. Sometimes, as in Paragraph 2, with the drums and long-held voices, both combine quite effectively and one gets the sense of the kind of potential that's here. The more drawn out and indecipherable the words the better, as far as I'm concerned, so Paragraph 3 (which reminds me very much of parts of Centipede's "Septober Energy"; curious if Tippett drew inspiration from this work), all putty-like and elastic, functions well. All sections have their merits; I found Paragraphs 1 & 7 the most rewarding musically, 4, the least, fwiw.

Personally, I'm glad to have this document and I imagine anyone with a serious interest in Cardew will feel the same. But it's best considered as a part of his oeuvre, perhaps not so much as a recoding one intends to listen to as often, say, as the piano pieces or the better readings of "Treatise".

Bôłt

Mark Wastell/Lasse Marhaug - Kiss of Acid (Monotype)

There's something about scraped or otherwise abused resonant metal that generates a sound of extreme complexity, the surface irregularities serving to carom the sounds within the basic structural regularity of the material, setting up a delicious, fractal yin/yang. By the same token, I imagine it's irresistible for those with a liking for electronic sound modification to use such metallic source material as a basis for further exploration and that's what Marhaug has done with Wastell's strokes here, the latter recorded in 2004, the augmentation done over the following year.

At first, Marhaug respects the quiet, shimmering tones of the tam-tam, layering the gentle billows atop one another, very much retaining the character of the source before hinting at mischief to come with an abrupt shard of noise. The second, longer section begins conservatively enough but gradually veers away from obvious sourcing, Marhaug adapting the sounds to his own ends, retaining all of the richness and complexity but extending the palette into other realms before retreating back into metallic clouds. It's simple on the one hand, but especially when played at volume reveals an enveloping mass of detail that's very entrancing. Good job.

As further inducement (or deterrent), the handsomely produced package includes wry liners from our own Alastair Wilson....


Lionel Marchetti - une saison (Monotype)

A two-disc set containing four previously released tracks, dating from 1993-2000. I was familiar with only one, "Portrait d'un glacier (Alpes 2173m) which appeared on Ground Fault about a decade ago and which I enjoyed very much then and still do today. It's the one work here that eschews vocalizations and, imho, is all the more powerful because of it.

Marchetti's pieces are always very complex, intricately constructed from widely disparate sources, weaving a dense dreamworld that, to my ears, is sometimes very convincing, but sometimes carries an artificial feeling that gnaws at me. The three works aside from the glaciated one all include the vocals of Hélène Bettencourt, operating in a moaning kind of manner all too reminiscent of the Shelley Hirsch's of the world, something it takes me some amount of concentration to get past. Still, Marchetti does manage to transcend this at times, notably in "L'oeil retourné" which builds wonderfully to an icy, clean plain. It's rocky, tough sledding for much of the music though ultimately worthwhile; one can sit back and marvel and the sheer ingenuity of the construction even if one isn't always moved by the outcome.

The release includes a booklet containing a fine essay by Michael Chion which also concentrates on the glacier piece which, imho, is the true gem here.


Alessandro Bosetti - Royals (Monotyoe)

I admit that, after very much enjoying his work with Phosphor and several earlier recordings, much of Bosetti's recent work, a good deal of which has involved vocals, has left me cold. This one, unfortunately, continues that lineage.

It's very odd, sounding like an updating (with more advanced technology) of the work Nicolas Collins or maybe Scott Johnson was doing in the late 80s. There's a text, more or less self-referential, spoken on the first piece by Fernanda Farah, whose voice is (I take it via computer) echoed on a piano in strict unison; most of the vocals are treated this way, I think--electronically iterated in real-time by various instruments. There's something almost archaic about this; I guess it was mildly interesting the first time one encountered it (Richard Teitelbaum?), but it seems somewhat pointless now. The music and rhythms also have that kind of 80s post-minimalist feel, a bit sterile, almost drum-machine-esque. When the explicitness of the vocals and rhythms dissolves, as it does later in that first track, the results are much more enveloping and inviting, while still possessing somewhat the quality, inherently and in fact sonically, of ice cubes swirling in a crystal glass. When he brings out his soprano, the piece begins to sound a bit Braxton-y, in a good way, maybe a sidewise elaboration of the Ghost Trance work, the undercurrent of voices used effectively. But then it returns to the structure used at the beginning and pales...

"Life Expectations" continues the use of vocals triggering music, apparently rearranged found conversation in this case a la Scott Johnson. When the leaden rhythm appears, again one can't help thinking 80s post-fusion; very hard to get past. "Dead Man" uses text by W.G. Sebald, in French, alternating with a kind of mocking razz from what sound like kazoos mixed with other instruments. Again, a piano precisely echoes the words, an effect that has grown tiresome.

So, I don't get it overall but it's well-crafted and I imagine has its audience.

Intriguing cover art by Kati Heck...

monotype

Alessandra Rombolá/Michel Doneda - Overdeveloped Pigeons (con-v)

With Album Title of the Year neatly sewn up, we proceed to the music provided us by Rombolá (flutes, tiles, ceramic objects) and Doneda (soprano and sopranino saxophones, radio, objects), recorded in 2008. I've been familiar with Doneda's work for well over a decade but have only encountered Rombolá on a handful of occasions. Still, what expectations I had of the music turned out to fit pretty well, with some exceptions.

The pair concentrate on breath tones at the harsher end of that spectrum, whooshing through the space, augmented by valve pops, leavened by hummed multiphonics, all in a loose framework that maintains mood throughout each of the five pieces. Well handled, though the general approach isn't going to sound appreciably different than much of what we've heard from, at least, Doneda, for some time. Except for the non-woodwind parts, that is. By including Rombolá's ceramic work and whatever objects that Doneda is manhandling, especially on the first and last cuts, the pair manages to elevate the music into a new and exciting territory. There's something wonderfully chaotic about that clangor mixing with the long, reed-generated tones. Those tracks make the disc worth hearing and, I hope, bode well for future investigation.

Oh, and lovely cover art by Alejandra Calabrese!

con-v



Juan José Calarco - aguatierra (unfathomless)

A melding of field recordings near canals around Xochimilco (an area of Mexico City) and improvisational recordings with electronicist Pablo Reche. As has happened dozens of times in the past few years, I'm presented with a item that's tough to evaluate in any sensible way except to remark on how generally enjoyable and/or immersive (or not) I find the recording and whether or not there's something "extra", some emergent quality in the music that strikes a special sweet spot. Well, it does provide auditory goodness, Calarco's choice of sounds tending toward a mixture of wet wooliness, layers of hums, sloshes and warm, wooden knocks, basically straddling the areas implied by the disc's title. It's not overly dramatic, often subsiding into a quiet mix of delicate, everyday sounds, which is welcome. Is it more than that? Not that I can hear. This isn't necessarily a criticism as, in essence, it's perfectly enjoyable to hear, but once heard, it doesn't leave me with questions, hasn't incited any new avenues of thought.

unfathomless

Esther Venrooy - Vessel (entr'acte)

Recordings of installations can, of course, be problematic, some more than others. On this and the next one, we find one that manages to work superbly on it's own digitized feet and one that seems more incomplete.

Venrooy's "Vessels", which was installed in the Diapason Gallery, Brooklyn, in 2008, is sourced from the varied and often behemoth sounds of cargo ships on the river Waal in the Netherlands, enhanced here and there and overlaid in elastic, viscous patterns. If anything, it might recall some of Olivia Block's work with similar sounds ("Heave To") but Venrooy's sensibility is very much her own. The ultra-deep mix of hums, whirs and echoing bangs that begins the piece evolves into sloshing water and the low thrum of submerged engines. That thrum takes over, a wonderfully complex and rich sound, enveloping the space (I can imagine how this would have worked in situ!), eventually subsiding back into a set of ringing tones and distant aqueous clangs.

The recording runs only a half-hour, but it's time well spent and an impressive addition to Venrooy's already outstanding ouevre.

entr'acte


Eric la Casa/Jean-Luc Guionnet - Reflected Waves (Ondes réfléchies) (Passage d'Encres)

Another discafication of an installation, this one staged in Melbourne in 2005. To these ears, though not without its attractions, it suffers more than the Venrooy by being heard apart from its intended environment; one track here is apparently an unedited room sample, the other was perhaps constructed from various extracts. One gets a strong impression that the spatial character is a defining element, that having the organ chords stemming from one location or several, the voices from others, the bangs and clangs from still others would have a vastly different effect than hearing them issue from a pair of speakers. Putting oneself in the frame of mind to listen as though one was sharing the space helps and it's entirely possible to imagine walking through a gallery filled with these reflected waves. Given that, I don't find the installation quite as compelling as Venrooy's. The organ, presumably Guionnet, is quite nice, oozing through the space, enveloping disembodied voices and all else in its path. Those voices, especially when presented as cold excerpts enunciating single, apparently unrelated words, grow tiresome. Other found vocal tapes, such as a Chinese woman urging a sale of some two dollar item, a couple of pop song shards and a horde of demonstrating union workers chanting slogans, seem haphazard and non-illuminating. But saying all this, it seems, in this case, especially futile knowing how much I'm necessarily missing.

The disc lists a DVD mpeg some 9 1/2 minutes long, but I couldn't get it to play on any system--Region 2? The release also includes a very handsome, full-size booklet documenting (in French) the installation.

Passage d'Encres (though I don't see mention of this release there, as of 4/28)

(photo: Yuko Zama)

Radu Malfatti/Keith Rowe - Φ (Erstwhile)

In some ways, the cover image sums things up very well. A piece of fibrous paper that's been subjected to a world of wear and tear, resulting in extreme unevenness, holes, tatters. Yet Rowe has drawn on this erose surface as straight a line as he can, as purely as possible, an impossible task given the terrain. The ratio of top to bottom sections isn't quite that golden (1.618 to 1) but perhaps that's also something felt to be ideal but, in reality, unachievable, like an unbleeding, uninterrupted line.



Rowe is a man of very strong opinions as is, I suspect, Malfatti. While open to all manner of challenges, there are certain premises to which he holds fast and the Wandelweiser group, generally speaking, doesn't accept them. Given the popularity of these composers in recent years among many of the same listeners who hold Rowe's work in high esteem, he's spoken about his misgivings a bit, acknowledging certain positive aspects of the music while feeling it's overly restricted in others, as though (my interpretation of his thoughts, possibly not his own) their music is but one subset of possibilities and unnecessarily limiting in and of itself. So an encounter with Malfatti, a leading exponent of the Wandelweiser aesthetic, was bound, at least on Rowe's part, to engender an amount of tension. And they run headlong into it on the very first piece.

The three-disc set, an extraordinary document, is beautifully structured: two pieces by composers each musician admires on the first disc, one composition by each musician on the second and an improvisation on the third. Malfatti chose to bring along Jürg Frey's "Exact Dimension Without Insistence". I've no idea whether or not he gave any consideration as to how anathema a piece like this would be for Rowe to perform. After all, the guitar part calls for eleven repetitions of a specific pitch, at preordained times over the course of 20 minutes. While he had often performed graphic scores over the years, I'm not sure there had been an instance of Rowe playing precisely notated music since...Amalgam, in 1978? The notion runs counter to several of his deepest precepts, including the freedom to inject whatever sound one chooses (or not) at moments one deems appropriate in the context of the room (and more). Much less having to tune his guitar! Or at least one string. The piece ended up taking the better part of the day to record, such was his difficulty in "just" playing these eleven notes and in the end was compiled by Christoph Amann from fragments derived from several stabs. To my ears, however, the result was worth it. As with much of Frey's music I've heard, there's an underlying sensuousness, even a plaintive quality that comes through the severity of the score in a way I think of as Beckettian. I can't help hearing Malfatti's three notes (I might add that though the score calls for three evenly spaced quarter notes, Malfatti, more often than not, allows a slight bit of extra time between the second and third, indicating he's perhaps not so subservient to the score either) as a kind of call: "Where are you?", with Rowe's single response, "Here." Frey's sequencing, sometimes alternating, sometimes not, is wonderfully poetic and touching; one almost expects an answer from the guitar after the trombone call; when it doesn't occur, you're worried. Similarly when the lone guitar note is sounded three times with no reply. So much drama wrung from so little material.

Rowe brought along Cardew's "Solo with Accompaniment", a piece he knew deeply and containing a "solo" part that would seem to suit Malfatti well, which is to say, one consisting of single, lengthy lines. I'm not at all sure how one is to interpret the score, with its tic-tac-toe-like grids, except to assume that the accompanist, here Rowe, has a great degree of freedom as to how to render the markings therein. Rowe is marvelous here, using some manner of electronics (I've no idea what, exactly) to generate piercing, short wave radio-ish slivers, rich, deep lows and crunchy tinkles that may be scouring pad sourced. The two often sound in quasi-unison, Malfatti's sonorous, pure horn the perfect foil for Rowe's scattered abrasions, yin/yang, Malfatti steadfastly tracing that line across the ravaged, bedraggled soundscape.

The score for Malfatti's "Nariyamu", as reproduced in the tray behind disc #2, appears to be fairly simple (only one page is shown--I'm not sure if that's it in its entirety or not) but its realization is very complex and subtly beautiful. The essential element is unison or near unison held notes by trombone and electronics, Rowe generating a multi-layered buzz, crescendo and decrescendo, more or less matching Malfatti, with a substantial rest between sequences. But right from the beginning, there are tiny activities occurring alongside: what initially seems like Malfatti gently tapping his fingernails against his horn as well as drip-like sounds. A kind of regularity nonetheless accretes via the main sequence, but several minutes in, this falls apart, orients itself, re-coalesces, continues on. As in much of Wandelweiser-area music, the real beauty lies in the poetics of the choices made--where to alter the schema, where to allow extra silence, what groupings to choose, how to subtly inflect the sounds generated. "Nariyamu" does this brilliantly, becoming a living, breathing creature and, going out on a limb, I can hear in Rowe, given somewhat more freedom of exposition, a growing appreciation of this aspect of Malfatti's, and by extension, Wandelweiser's work.

Rowe brought along his "Pollock '82", a new set of pages created for this session. Unlike the Malfatti or Frey scores, his is pure graphism, consisting of actual details from Pollock paintings, reproduced in ink by Rowe and laid out, intuitively spaced, on staves. Though the score, as seen beneath the tray for Disc 3 here, includes several sections of dense blottage, the rendition as heard continues along the sparse, quiet path previously followed, albeit with an absence of clear pattern. Malfatti, who had introduced percussive elements in the prior piece, here presents breath tones and windy growls for the first time; he still pretty much maintains that respiratory rhythm, exhaling to produce sounds, inhaling in silence, a slow, subtle pulse. Rowe keeps his palette light, using high, scattered tones, the odd plucked note, scraps of static and tracings of contact mic, as though these particular spatterings of paint are microscopic portions of the whole. It's a very strong, very complex performance, the intricacies of which I think I'm only just penetrating.

The improvisation making up Disc 3 is easily the most difficult to write about or, for me, to grasp. I do have the impression that it's Rowe at the helm to some degree. He's operating in what I think of as "Twombly mode". As opposed to the Rothko-inspired "tingeing of the space" approach of several years ago, I get the sense of him encountering a very large, white canvas upon which he make art marks, leaving much of the surface untouched. Dots, squiggles, smears, a dab of REO Speedwagon. Not that Malfatti is merely tagging along, hardly so. He supplies much of the color, the stains of hue that give depth to Rowe's marks and often links to surprising emotional power as when he inflects, up or down, his low trombone tones so as to recall whale song. The space is so vast, so little to hold onto. I'm not sure there's another improviser willing to cede so much space as Rowe though, at least in this respect, he fits right in with the Wandelweiser aesthetic, an arrival at a similar point via differing paths. There's a quiet monumentality achieved here, an appreciation of the sheer largeness of space, with a tacit acknowledgment of how little, how subtly, we affect it. Again, this piece will doubtless reveal more and more for years to come.

A great, great recording.

Erstwhile