Julia Holter - celebration (Engraved Glass)

Few things better than hearing exciting music from a name entirely new to me. Holter is (or was) a student of Michael Pisaro and, while one can easily detect his influence, the best work here entirely bears her own stamp.

The first of three pieces, and the strongest, is a wonderful composition called "Bars in Afternoons" which, indeed, mixes site recordings from bars in Paris and Los Angeles, presumably in the afternoon, with Holter's piano (I'm guessing), weaving through the beginning and her singing at the end. The casual, ambient conversation has a luscious clarity to it, perhaps due to it's being offset against a more distant speaker through which later on, among others things, wafts Elton John. The piano is in mid-distance, almost taking on the role of one in a cocktail bar, except playing music that sounds like highly abstracted Satie. These three dimensions, the talk, the piped in music and the piano, create a very rich atmosphere, absolutely immersive. There's a brief smattering of birds, including gulls and one or two other intrusions of displaced sound. Eventually, some 12 minutes into the 15-minute piece, we arrive at the final section wherein Holter, almost as though taking "stage" in one of the bars, breaks out in forthright, multi-tracked song, a lovely, wistful number pleading, "Don't make me over." Something of a Lynchian moment, it works beautifully. One of the single best things I've heard this year.

"La Celebración" almost sounds as though recorded some warm night by hanging a mic from a window, muted bass throbs emanating from a neighbor's house, birds, airplanes, a freeway some distance away. About five minutes in, this nocturnal calm is interrupted by what I guess are firecrackers, though the sound is rather muffled and, had I not had the title as a clue, I might have guessed it was, I don't know, someone punching a large cardboard box. Soon, however, the streamers and fireworks make themselves known with clarity, bursting all across the soundscape. Then, back to calm. A nice enough piece, though there's something fragmentary about it, at least when compared to the prior track.

Lastly, there's a realization of Pisaro's "Harmony 17", with Holter on cello amidst the sounds of Union Station in Los Angeles. I've not seen the score but from what transpires here, it might be that the instrumentalist is asked to play very quietly for the first portion of the piece, more prominently in the middle section and quiet again toward the end. You can just hear the bowed cello near the beginning (unless I'm mistaking some regional hum for it, which is quite possible given Pisaro's penchant for lengthy silences to begin a piece), blending in with the airy sound of the large room. At seven minutes, the low arco tones become overt, though again (deliciously) sounding as though they could have emerged from engine vibrations, then recedes again. The entire piece dips out briefly about midway through its 34-minutes, resurfacing with cello upfront, still carrying that low drone. A naive young man strolls over, interested in what's occurring, claiming to be a bassist yet not recognizing the instrument Holter's playing. "That's, like a violin, right? Whoa, no, a violin is super-small, right?" Love it. And the work continues, the cello either extremely soft or not playing, then once again emerging, etc. the sounds of the station a constant, that initial soft hum reappearing.

A fine release, very happy to have heard it.


Jez riley French/Joana Silva/Luis Costa - sonata for clarinet & nodar (Engraved Glass)

An interesting take on the integration of field recording and traditional music, a step or two away from the Rebecca Joy Sharp/Simon Whetham release on Gruenrekorder I wrote up a little while back. Here, clarinetist Joana Silva plays a composition by Henri Rabaud, "Solo de Concours", while walking through a rural landscape, dutifully followed by French and Costa recording her embedding therein. The clarinet doesn't appear until some 11 minutes in, but then occupies center stage, though Silva pauses often, allowing the landscape its say and drifts off into the distance on occasion. For myself, this is a case where being there was doubtless far more enchanting than listening to a recording of the event. I wasn't particularly taken with the Rabaud piece itself, but can imagine deriving enjoyment from the physicality of the experience, walking though glades, over streams, up hills, etc. while, in "3D", focusing on either the clarinet or the ambiance or both. On disc, that specific magic potential doesn't quite translate; one feels, more than usual, that something's missing, although I have to say the chain-saw encounter captures one's attention...

engraved glass

It was probably late 1970. I was 16, had been getting more and more into the burgeoning prog rock of the period (Crimson and Soft Machine, in particular) and, I think, had just heard Zappa for the first time. Rolling Stone (which, for the benefit of youngsters, actually was a largely music-oriented publication at one time) did something that, I think, may have been unprecedented, at least for them: they published four reviews by different writers (one was Lester Bangs, don't recall the others) of Captain Beefheart's "Lick My Decals Off, Baby", all raves. This caught my attention.

To my eternal shame, the next time I found myself in Recordland, Poughkeepsie's main record shop, I saw the album but instead opted for, gulp, Mott the Hoople's second record, the one with Thunderbuck Ram on it. What a mistake. In any case, returned shortly thereafter and picked up Decals. Changed my musical listening life, that album.

To say I'd never heard anything like it would be an understatement, yet I loved it immediately, everything about it. Thinking back, perhaps what stood out most of all was the band's way with rhythms. I'd already acquired an abiding dislike of standard rock rhythms, one I have to this day. There's little more boring to me than the plodding rhythms heard in 99%+ of rock. Whatever virtues a song may otherwise have, this often kills it for me. With Beefheart, not only were the rhythms themselves intricate, baffling and entirely dislocating (to me, then) but they shifted multiple times, six, seven, eight, during the course of a single three minute piece. There were odd instrumental interjections--solo bass (oh, how I still love those Rockette Morton lines), guitar/marimba, etc.--abrupt squalls of noise, that odd caterwauling banshee sound that my naive ears likely couldn't even place as a soprano sax.

And the lyrics. If there was one thing that rivaled rhythmic puerility in my growing distaste for rock, it was lyrical banality. Safe to say that wasn't one of Van Vliet's problems. Neither tawdry "I love you" nor the vapid fantasies of the prog crew, it was that special kind of surrealism with roots deep into the everyday--ironic, often very funny, but as perceptive as hell, the product of someone who clearly spent his life looking at, listening to and thinking about things.

(I should mention that, to the extent I've read up on it--not exhaustively--I side with the faction that spreads the credit around the Magic band, particularly to John French and Bill Harkleroad. Where those lines should be precisely drawn, I've no good idea.)

I quickly picked up "Trout Mask Replica", an even greater ear-expanding experience in many ways. To this day, they're my two favorite rock albums (to the extent you want to term them, "rock"). I find them nicely paired, TMR perhaps more protean in terms of pure creativity, Decals more refined but not near the point of sanding off the edges. I've never tired of them over the years, often pulling out one or the other and settling into the bliss.

Listened to "Spotlight Kid" and "Clear Spot" as they appeared, enjoying them greatly, if a bit chagrined at the apparent veering toward straighter (relatively speaking) r&b, though these days I enjoy them just fine. Then the creative trough of "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" and "Unconditionally Guaranteed", the latter one of the single most depressing things I've ever heard. I know "Shiny Beast" is held in very high esteem by many--I find it inconsistent, only the title track really holding up to previous work. Enjoyed the last two records much more though, probably having to do with the band personnel and their own creative contributions, I don't know that it was possible to entirely recapture the magic of the earlier groups. Listening to a number of the archival issues that have surfaced over the last 10-15 years, from 1965-70 especially, I'm consistently astonished at the things this group was attempting and often accomplishing.

So, Van Vliet died yesterday, at 69, after a decades long battle with multiple sclerosis, not having recorded any music since 1982, though continuing to paint for a good while. I went to an exhibition of his paintings at the Knoedler Gallery here in NYC, I guess in the mid 90s and was impressed, mostly by the sheer humanity present in his works, the animal affinity, the truly, in the best sense, childlike quality of them.

Listening to Trout Mask and Decals this morning, on vinyl, they're as brilliant as ever. I've mentioned before that it through an interview with Van Vliet that I first cottoned on to Ornette, in early 1972, a crucial exposure for me. I'm not sure that there's another musician who was more fundamentally influential on me than Van Vliet.

Thanks for everything, Captain.

"If you've got ears, you've gotta listen."

A new batch from Gruenrekorder...


Andreas Bick - Fire and Frost Pattern (Gruenrekorder)

hmmm...that cover image looks oddly familiar......

As advertised, two compositions, one based in flames, one in ice. A variety of sound sources are employed, from field recordings (volcanoes, cracking lake ice, iceberg "sizzles") to what might be thought of as science lab phenomena (gas flame sin glass tubes, ignited alcohol in a bottle, snow falling on aluminum foil). The pieces are clearly assembled and strike me as having something of the character of your standard magnetic tape works of the 60s, i.e., more concerned with contrast between blocks of sound, timbre and texture than structure (I'm certainly being unfair both to those older composers and, likely, Bick). This can make for intriguing listening on one level but I come away, ultimately, unsated. I need more mystery, maybe.


Cédric Peyronnet - kdi dctb 146 [e] (Gruenrekorder)

A multi-layered field recording done in and around water sources in the Taurion Valley in western France. Water indeed predominates, backed up heartily by birds, closed out by boat engines. There's more air in play than in the Bick which gets a thankful nod of appreciation from me as well as a more natural ebb and flow, largely with regard to dynamics. But..that's pretty much it. It's pleasant; one would like to have been there, listening, lying on the banks but--and perhaps this is a problem with the genre in general--one would be able to choose what to concentrate on, to linger with as well as, I'm certain, actually hearing more. Not particularly Peyronnet's fault, but I'm beginning to think that unless one happens to be in tune with the aesthetic judgment of the recorder/assembler, one's left with the nagging feeling, in relatively straightforward examples like this, that one would rather have done it oneself than necessarily accept the choices made by the recorder.


(Various Artists) - Playing with Words (Gruenrekorder)

Admittedly, I found the prospect of a 2-CD set of avant vocal works to be daunting. Of the 41 artists represented here, I only recognized a handful of names and those (like Jaap Blonk, Paul Lansky, Pamela Z and Brandon Labelle) didn't exactly have my heart doing flip-flops. Still, I noted that the collection ended with a piece by Julien Ottavi, and I persevered. There were some highlights: Tomomi Adachi's "Oyone", a very rhythmic work for a set of singers, reminding me a bit of Partch; a fun piece by abAna (Bob Cobbing, Paul Burwell and David Toop); an intricate and rich field recording (with voices) by Cathy Lane; an enjoyable, Glassian work by Julian Weaver; a good, large room muffled crowd conversation by Charlotte White; a fine Kazakhstan-inspired vocal and violin song from Sianed Jones; an intriguing closing work by Ottavi. But you have to wade through a lot of dross to unearth these nuggets, a questionable venture.

There's also an accompanying DVD from the 2009 festival with six performances, the only non-aggravating one, for my taste, again courtesy Sianed Jones who delivers an outstanding, lengthier example of her vocal/violin stylings--really good. In fairness, Jaap Blonk fans, of which I am not one, will enjoy his outing as well.


Bettina Wenzel - Mumbai Diary (Gruenrekorder)

In which Wenzel deploys site recordings from Mumbai which are perfectly enjoyable, ranging from street sounds to musical ceremonies, but insists on threading them with her vocals which, generally speaking, are somewhere in Shelley Hirsch territory, admittedly not a destination I find very appealing. She's good at what she does, her vocal pyrotechnics impressive I guess (sometimes sounding eerily like a shenai) but the question lingers: why? Why place oneself so prominently into the mix? What have you really added? I could imagine something more along the lines of Pisaro's "Transparent City" where the composer's contributions are deferential to the recorded sounds, in this case, Wenzel's vocals being just another element in the mix. But here, it's far too much her, and what she does isn't all that interesting. Where's Ami Yoshida when you need her?

Gruenrekorder

Stephen Cornford/Samuel Rodgers - Zinc [extracts] (Consumer Waste)

A delightful jewel, this 3" collaboration between Cornford (piano feedback) and Rodgers (piano, objects). Three cuts, about three, seven and ten minutes, forming a very lovely and full suite, the feedback imparting a strong but not too obtrusive scrim in which the tingling and buzzing sounds created inside the piano by Rodgers become embedded, slip out, catch again further on. The elements are delicately distributed but are themselves quite vibrant and tangy, making for a wonderful yin/yang, tickling the ear while stopping just short of scraping it. Put it this way: without entering his particular melodic territory, it's the kind of music I could imagine Tilbury creating, high praise indeed. Get it while it lasts--at 100 copies it may not be for long.

consumer waste


Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Aura (Etude)

Actually something of a duo as the source sounds for "Aura" were performed by percussionist Pilar Subira, the results edited by Costa Monteiro so as to cut "the attack at the point where the impact disappears and the harmonics start, keeping only the natural resonance and decay of the sound." [Costa Monteiro's notes]

Given that, it's not surprising that what one hears is a sequence of hums resulting, often from bowed metal, at some times silvery and glistening, at others dark and foreboding. There are a couple of brief volume surges but by and large, we're talking quiet, rich, acoustic drones. At 51 minutes, it palls a bit if one is listening very attentively, but it works fine as a domestic aural tinge. Not my favorite work from Costa Monteiro by any means--I think I prefer when he balances between this kind of area and brutalism--but not bad.

etude

**********



I'm not really interested in reviewing it as such but just wanted to make a general comment about the current incarnation of AMM, especially when they perform without guests, as on this new release. That is: I find myself listening almost entirely to Tilbury. His presence and extraordinary musicality simply cause the music to wobble out of balance. AMM needs a Rowe to act as a counterweight; Prevost isn't enough and, unfortunately, gets relegated to a kind of background noise. At the end of the concert here, Tilbury is so ridiculously beautiful that almost any additional contribution is beside the point. I think only Rowe, by insisting on interjecting a kind of real world harshness into the proceedings, would provide an element that could actually enhance the music, give it an additional dimension.

Very curious to get reports of the pair's concert this weekend at Instants Chavirés.

Taku Sugimoto - Musical Composition Series 1 & 2 (Kid Ailack Enterprise)

Something of an overview of Sugimoto's activity in recent years, at least in the composed vein, containing recordings from 2006-2010. Issued in two double-disc packages, each containing a small insert bearing a photo (the lightsabers, I think, in Vol. 1, Sugimoto on a ladder touching a wall with the back of a brush, perhaps performing "for objects"? on the other), a single score and, most interestingly, an essay in which he wrestles with the implications of graphic scores, especially if one has chosen to perform them "silently".

for lightsabers - from 2008, with Masahiko Okura, Yoshio Otani, Manabu Suzuki, Toshiya Tsunoda and Taku Unami. I accede to having absolute zero experience with the titular items but I suppose they're able to emit sound of a sort. Dry hums, soft sizzles, low pulses--this is pretty much the vocabulary, quietly arrayed by Sugimoto over a 30-minute period. Quiet, but consistently active.

for objects - recorded on the same day as the above, with the same quintet plus Sugimoto, is quite sparse in a manner we'd come to expect. Small sounds, bangs, shuffles, taps, all embedded within an audible ambiance, including automobile engines outside. As with other ultra-spare work of his, I find it oddly affecting. It could almost be a random recording of some interior with minimal, non-intentionally musical activity occurring, but there's the slightest tinge of purpose, enough to impart meaning. Good piece.

three timbers - the third piece from that date, using all six musicians. Very much in a similar spirit as the preceding track, perhaps even sparer, though with a good deal of light rubbing (maybe this is the piece Sugimoto is performing in the photo mentioned above), as though with paintbrushes and hands, and scattered hand claps. Somehow, a tad less fascinating than "for objects", though I could hardly explain why.

a chair 2 - from 2007, for Moe Kamura (voice, guitar), Katsuaki Iida (poetry reading, percussion), Tetuzi Akiyama, Sugimoto, Unami (guitars). Still spartan, retaining the ambiance, but with spoken word, calmly recited, with the very rare sound of pure, plucked guitar. About halfway through, however, there's a unison sequence of female voice and strummed guitar that's shocking in its loveliness. It surfaces suddenly and just as abruptly disappears, the piece returning to its initial setting. A few minutes later, the voice and guitar return for a reprise to close out the composition. Very nice. I haven't heard Sugimoto's duo album with Kamura, Saritote, on which this piece is performed (along with its first and third editions) but would like very much to.

modes of thought - recorded six days later, with all but Iida. In a way, this picks up on the melodic fragment from "a chair 2", ringing guitar notes and simply but clearly sung vocals (in English) in tandem. The intonation wavers, intentionally, the initial prettiness giving way to a slightly queasy feeling. It runs only 11 or so minutes but strikes me as it could have been shorter, the (relatively) steady pacing beginning to drag a bit as it goes on. Still, it almost sounds like something Julie Tippetts might have done, which is intriguing.

notes and flageolets opens the second volume, from 2006, with five guitars: Barbara Romen, Gunter Schneider (a duo I'd not previously heard), Akiyama, Sugimoto and Unami. Interestingly, for such an "early" piece, the guitars are fairly present and tonal, though the single notes hang softly in the air, backgrounded by traffic. It's gorgeous--somehow, the notion of using five guitarists, presumably something to do with the subtly varied intonations and resonances of their respective instruments, causes the music to vibrate and glow more, I imagine, than it would have if performed by a single musician.

15 pieces for guitars, from 2007 features the same five musicians as on "modes of thought", with Kamura playing guitar but not singing and the number of players on a given piece varying from one to all five. The sections range from a few seconds to 10 minutes long and are generally quite tonal and attractive, the most so on either volume. Save for the odd kerplunk, the music is dreamy and soft. In the middle, there are three utterly lovely scalar pieces, wonderfully simple, first with Sugimoto solo, then with Unami, then Akiyama added for a trio--marvelous. There's a bit of an arc, perhaps, from the start, cresting on that trio of pieces, eventually subsiding with the 10-minute finale, single high plucks, separated by several seconds, over street noise. Very, very enjoyable.

The final disc of these volumes, dating from March of this year,is comprised of two versions of string quartet and guitar, Sugimoto accompanying the Segments String Quartet (Kazushige Kinoshita and Hiroki Chiba, violins, Yoko Ikeda, viola and Nankou Kumon, cello), each lasting about 20 minutes. On the first rendition, the quartet plays a single held tone, somewhat wavery and scratchy, changing sightly in volume from minute to minute, while Sugimoto, every seven or so seconds, plucks out one note, pretty close to the same one. The second track is, well, exactly the same. I take it for granted it's a different performance but wouldn't want to bet my house on it. Maybe the harmonics in the strings are a tad more pronounced or maybe my ears were just picking them up more accurately. Interesting gambit, in any case.

A fascinating collection, at all ends, and a required listen for anyone following the path of this very unusual and gifted musician.

available from erstdist

Mike Shiflet - Llanos (Editions Shiflet)

So dense and rich...Though divided into six tracks, I tend to hear "Llanos" as an enormous block of sound with a complex, sponge-like structure that allows for a huge amount of spatial/aural perceptive activity on the part of the listener, focusing in on any number of layers and plies. Throughout, within the noise, melodic patterns persist and repeat, simple, almost carillon in nature as though one's hearing a distant bell tower through a maze of engines, traffic, wind, rain etc. Humorously, and very effectively, the three-note, descending "theme" of the fourth track, "Sunbathers", is a dead ringer for the opening notes of "Einstein on the Beach"; I kept expecting to hear female voices counting, "1, 2, 3, 4...". As is the case with the Fages recording below, Shiflet does a fantastic job dovetailing melodic elements (often subtle) with noise, adding to it an undercurrent of sheer voltaic power that makes the music absolutely gripping. Wonderful release.

Editions Shiflet

also available via erstdist



Ferran Fages - Lullaby for Lali (Etude)

A lovely LP by the ever-surprising Fages (guitars, melodica, electronics, field recordings), in the company of Lali Barrière (guitaret, metallophone, electronics). The same piece occupies both sides, first acoustic, then electric. It's a really enchanting mixture of extended song form and extraneous sounds, the former via guitar, metallophone and melodica, expounding several gentle, quasi-melodies, pastoral and, yes, lullaby-ish, floating over and among bowed metal, arcane electronics and ambient recordings. A real joy if your taste, like mine, doesn't preclude objects of shining beauty.

etude


Marc Spruit - Bits 'n Blocks (Soul Shine Through)

A brief (16 minute) CD containing two tracks of insect-inspired noise. Spruit seems to have taken a huge number of recordings and samples (from a no-input mixer, among other sources) and stitched them together in a rapid-fire cascade of tiny sounds, explosions, magnetic tape-type buzzes and countless other parcels whipping past your ears before you know it. Much like fast-flitting gnats, perhaps. Harsh, astringent, not as enveloping as I'd like to hear, something flat about the sound field, but very much in-your-face and intermittently exciting.

soul shine through

Michael Pisaro/Taku Sugimoto - 2 seconds/ b minor/ waves (Erstwhile)

Short of Yuko Zama, I may have been trumpeting the hosannas about Michael Pisaro's music as much as anyone over the past couple of years so it's interesting, to me, that recent efforts have given me a little pause. Not so much, but some. The first two releases on Gravity Wave each had aspects that mildly gnawed at me, as does this one, the highly anticipated, long-range duo with Taku Sugimoto.

The pairing is an inspired idea, of course, given Sugimoto's music of the last six to eight years which, at times, out-wandelweisered Wandelweiser at least in terms of sparseness. Add to that the fact that, quite recently both he and Pisaro have allowed faint traces of melody and expansiveness into their playing and it would seem to be a perfect match. And it is quite wonderful in some ways. Those who have been pining for Sugimoto to take a baby step or two back to the realms so beautifully explored in "opposite" will be very pleased on that score alone while listeners who may have found Pisaro's compositions a tad too acerb (I'm not among them) will certainly appreciate the large amount of pure sonic gorgeousity on display here. Me, I find myself going back and forth, experiencing a certain degree of discomfort.

For those unaware, the deal for the recording was this: Pisaro sketched out three compositional ideas, each for a 20-minute duration and relayed them to Sugimoto. Knowing his scores, I'm sure that there were levels of complication that aren't necessarily directly perceived by the listener. The two musicians performed the works in isolation from each other and the results, à la MIMEO's "sight", were layered atop one another.

This works absolutely beautifully in the first piece, "2 seconds". I'm not at all sure what reins the title put on the performers--sometimes it seems a "2 second rule" of sorts is in effect but often not--but the (partially?) serendipitous effects of the sounds (ringing tones, wooden clicks (a metronome?), a door or drawer opening or closing, what sounds like a coffee grinder, etc.) all slide across and through each other, floating with a calm quasi-periodicity that's enchanting and stimulating. There's a kind of dust-motes-in-the-sunlight effect, quite wonderful. This piece ranks among my favorites in Pisaro's oeuvre.

The trouble begins on the second track, "b minor" which, oddly enough, is the one that'll cause Sugimoto nostalgics to drool. Two guitars, one assigned "melody" (Sugimoto, I believe), one "harmony" (Pisaro), I'm given to understand, though I've no idea what other rules are in effect. It's pretty. It's very pretty. And for four or five minutes, it floats rather well, serene and rosy. But all too soon, for my taste, it begins to cloy. That sense of miraculous discovery attained on the initial track, of being pleasantly surprised and/or irked by what wafts into you, is largely absent here. There's a hint, perhaps, in Pisaro's playing, of the Beefheart of "Peon" or "One Red Rose That I Mean" but splayed out. It's attractive enough but I'm not sure more than that; halfway through, I'm aching for some real-world reference, some grime. I don't necessarily experience that with much similarly scrubbed Wandelweiser material; perhaps it's the overripe rosiness here that creates that thirst.

The last piece, "wave", is problematic in a different way. It's composed of two elements (I think. As I know from experience, I often underestimate just how much is occurring in Pisaro's music): a steady, complex drone with an organ-like feel (Sugimoto) and "waves" of field recordings emerging and ebbing (Pisaro), said recordings sounding rather abstract, wind-sourced, I think, but I'm not sure. The former, the dronage, is utterly wonderful; I could listen to an hour of that in sheer bliss. But the site recordings strike me as intrusive and, often, awkward. as though they were something hastily tacked on to enhance the drone. There's an oil and water aspect to the combination, something I hadn't heard in other Pisaro works where two such sound worlds intersect (the "Transparent City" series, for instance). Intentional? Perhaps but it never quite clicked for me.

As with the Gravity Waves, don't get me wrong--this is a fine recording and that first track is entirely fantastic. It's just not the whole ball o' wax that one's first hearing of the participants and methodology might have led one to expect. Get it and decide for yourself, though.

Erstwhile

Some thoughts on Sunday evening's performance by Keith Rowe and Kjell Bjørgeengen at Experimental Intermedia.

Arriving for sound check around 3PM, the pair anticipated that there would be a number of monitors available but they were unsure about the amount, working condition, size, etc. There were a few in sight and scrounging around a back room uncovered a couple more, six in total. Some amount of time was devoted to orienting these monitors as well as the table upon which they would operate. Keith resisted Niblock's attempt to get them to set up more or less against the wall, preferring a more central position with the audience on all sides, perhaps with the monitors arrayed in a rough circle, facing outward. This arrangement looked awkward, however, especially given the bulky, rectangular nature of monitors (smaller, more lozenge-shaped ones might have handled this well). Ultimately, it was decided that the largest would be situated in the shallow, arched area on the main wall and the four medium sized ones would be placed atop the four speakers that generate XI's wonderful sound; two in the front (that is, behind the performers), two in the rear. The last, smallest monitor, was simply laid on the floor in front of the tables, at an angle, nicely offsetting the more rigid placement of the others. All monitors would show the same image.

It took a couple of hours to get all six functioning at once, largely due to erratic conditions encountered in the cables, but eventually the half-dozen monitors were flickering away. Then arose the question of seating, Phill suggesting the "normal" routine there (rows on two sides, the main one set facing the action), Keith immediately objecting, preferring that the seats be more or less randomly scattered about, the audience members encouraged to take it upon themselves to orient however they chose. Given that the visual element of the upcoming show (what would appear on the monitors, not what the two grizzled performers were doing) was central and that they were at widely spaced points in the room, this made sense to me. But there was a good bit of back and forth on this, a strong reluctance to cede such power to the audience! Keith won out, however, and soon chairs were strewn willy-nilly apart from an orderly bank near the entrance to accommodate latecomers.


Keith would later observe (paraphrasing), "Now you would think that when an audience member arrives and sees the chairs arranged in this fashion, he would say to himself, 'What signal does this send insofar as how the performers think we should approach this event?'" But, no....As they trooped in (and it was, happily, a full house), most dutifully turned the chairs toward the table topped with mixing boards, loop stations and such, relegating the meat of the performance to the background.

(While, normally, watching musicians in this area do what they do isn't a major focus of mine, of course this can sometimes be quite enjoyable. The previous evening, when Keith played at Littlefield with Oren Ambarchi and Crys Cole [a fine set and I'd really like to hear more Cole] and having spent a good portion of the afternoon listening to him wax lyrical on "touch" as conveyed through the fingers of Clifford Curzon playing Mozart's 23rd Piano Concerto, K. 488, I derived great pleasure in focusing on Keith's own fingers as, with enormous grace and delicacy, they caressed his guitar-neck, stone, coiled metal scouring pad and butter knife.)


Seated in the rear, toward the left, Anne Guthrie and I turned our seats away from the protagonists, directly facing the nearest monitor (which, I was later told, might have luckily broadcast the best picture). Billy Gomberg and Richard Kammerman soon did likewise. I spent the entire show, some 40-45 minutes, looking into that screen, attempting as much as possible to immerse myself there, a very rewarding strategy for the most part, eye strain aside.

Both Keith and Kjell were looped to each other, Keith taping a couple of light sensors to a small monitor on their table, the sensors translating the flickers thus perceived into (don't ask me how) digital signals that modified the sounds emanating from his assortment of devices (no guitar neck). In turn, the sounds he created were fed into Kjell's system, altering the video output. Sometimes the affiliation between changes in sound or video was clear, often not. The video was entirely abstract and often flicker-imbued, the sounds generally harsh and, I think, not otherwise identifiable as "Roweian". At the most intense, the black and white flickering generated phantom colors (purples and yellows, for the most part, for me). [On Friday, I'd gotten a taste of where Kjell was traveling when, with he and Keith at MOMA, he searched out Paul Sharits' 1966 video, "Ray Gun Virus", a full-color affair that was similarly immersive and hallucinatory]. More, partly due to the flicker and partly, I think, to a layering of multiple images (sometimes sourced from oscillators) patterns emerged and subsided: single and double helices, all manner of wave forms, globules that were texturally differentiated from the base patterns, etc. Absolutely fascinating to simply lose oneself in, not knowing or caring which patterns were there in the monitor and which existed solely on my retinae. (which perhaps gets to another underlying idea for this duo, Zizek's distinction between reality and the Real, but I suppose that's another story....)

Graham Lambkin/Jason Lescalleet - Air Supply (Erstwhile)

Once again, I'm confronted with a release I enjoy very much but find very difficult to parse, to explain exactly why I like it. There's something insidious about it, some underlying itch that's almost belied by the surface smoothness which, if not quite as placid as the musical reference made by the album title, is certainly not hard to listen to cursorily. With a couple of brief, harsh exceptions, there's nothing particularly noisy or aggressive about the music, but there does seem to be a sense of lurking disquiet.

The album is bracketed by two longer tracks, the first mixing medium level hums with recordings of wind--not smooth wind but the buffeting kind, offering padded jabs at one's eardrums. It subsides further from there in the next cut, "Layman's Lament", muffled moans wisping over dark stone, metal or glass clanging off to the side, threatening, birds. "Color Drop" includes a melodic fragment that sounds eerily familiar; a lovely, cloudy piece humorously ended with some dour dialog about VHS tapes. There follows something of a triptych, three shortish pieces, "69ºF", "68ºF" and "67ºF", the first two quite similar (possibly much the same set of sounds altered?), the last introduced by a 15-second squawk of lava-like noise, but then deflating languorously like a wheezing, punctured dirigible. Very nice....

"Air Pressure" begins with what sounds like more explosions, though wrapped in enough padding to render them muted and implosive, offset by further wheezing, the deflationary spiral continuing. The title track has circled around to the territory covered in the opener, but from another angle, bleaker, less submerged tonality, more arid, the dangerous hints beginning to be glimpsed beneath the translucent surface of drone. I should mention that, although no specific instrumentation is listed, the sounds appear to have been generated almost entirely via electronics and site recordings, with the odd voice; save for perhaps that bit in the third track, I couldn't detect any of Lambkin's sampling or, for that matter Lescalleet's tape loops, at least overtly. I could, of course, be entirely wrong about this.

"Air Supply" is oddly unsettling, gripping without offering much in the way of handholds. Lambkin and Lescalleet manage to find an absorbing space between hitherto unnoticed cracks. Glad they found it.

erstwhile

Stephen Flato/Vanessa Rossetto - Hwaet (Abrash/Music Appreciation)

"hwaet"* (an Old English term that literally means "what" but more generally was used as "Listen!" or "Hear me!") was compiled by this pair over a period of a few years and, as such, it's tempting to hear the disc as a suite of sorts, with an overarching structure. It begins with hardscrabble, dirty electronics, not so different from that heard in, for example, the area frequented by Bonnie Jones or Joe Foster, rapid-fire popping and harsh static. But the music opens doors after that, lets in air, expands. Rossetto's viola surfaces now and then, a welcome and oddly warm element. There's a lovely ebb and flow, a really fine balance of dynamics and textures, up to what strikes me as the disc's climax, the sixth (of seven) cut, "miwoyn". It's a small masterpiece of site recordings, sine waves, low drones and who knows what else, all gorgeously spaced and layered, creating an exceptionally vital and rich sound world. It closes with something of a return to the territory explored on the first track though expanded, airier, more confident. A fine recording, get it.

*I think "Hwaet" might be the name the duo goes by in addition to the album title, for accuracy's sake.


Vanessa Rossetto - Mineral Orange (Kye)

Rossetto's new solo LP is even better. I'm afraid any description won't sufficiently get across the goings on here, but I'll say that the potential shown in her works from a couple of years back, like "whoreson in the wilderness" has been fully realized. The viola has become one element of many (though a crucial one), embedded in a breathing, detail-filled sound world wherein each episode is both surprising and, in retrospect, absolutely appropriate. The opening low engine sounds bleed into an outdoor environment with soft chatter, the viola, a string orchestra tuning up (? I think?), more traffic, hisses, an ice cream truck (?), etc. all at great density combined with lucid clarity. It's like an unusually cohesive dream. Things always shift, though, sidling over to adjacent or distant areas, the ensuing track more electronics-oriented at first, giving way to masses of birds over a gentle, metallic hum and nearby clatter. At the end, a very simple, heartfelt melody on piano is heard, only just briefly, a glimpse through a window while biking by.

That orchestra (multi-tracked viola?) pops up again on the third cut, embedded in watery sounds, hums, zippers being zippered, clinks--so much more. But I do the music a disservice in only delineating the sequence of elements--everything hangs together wonderfully, filling the sonic page and then some, billowing outward. I've listened to it some 15 times as of this writing and I continue to hear new relationships, continue to be surprised, loving it more and more. Marvelous work.

One of my favorite releases of the year. Have turntable, get this record.

abrash
music appreciation

both available from erstdist

I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of the releases that come my way contain field recordings to one extent or another, sometimes just as one element among many, often processed, sometimes pure and making up the entire sound world. As I've said before, it seems extra tough to quantify these things except to use a kind of photographic aesthetic, including that of the snapshot. Why do Eggleston or Winogrand stand out, for instance (why indeed?). In any case, here are two fine disc, one which uses said recordings as an element among many, the other just awash in them, each quite different, each quite good.



Fergus Kelly - Long Range (Room Temperature)

Kelly (who I believe is a bassist at heart) uses a kind of kitchen sunk approach while constructing dense, grimy sonic episodes. One track, for instance, lists "bone, alarm bell, bowed spring, rubber mallets, frame drum, cymbal, coffee whisk, inside piano, bowed telephone bell, bass, processing). At its best, as on the first and last tracks here, there's a very strong cinematic feel, a kind of implied narrative for which the listener can easily supply his/her own story details, Kelly's growling construction rolling through streets clogged with children and worried mommies. He generally utilizes a very wide range of pitches and densities, creating a space that's full, dark and somber while retaining a crispness and airiness that's very enticing. Really well done work, give a listen.

room temperature


Eric La Casa - W2 (Herbal International)

I am, unfortunately, only minimally familiar with La Casa's previous work, so I have little direct idea how this set fits in though given that the recordings selected here were apparently amassed over some period of time, I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't more or less representative. Whatever the case, they're marvelous and present, at least in part, the other extreme, where the field recordings are all that is the case, however much they've been processed, layered, etc. (which I'm assuming is often the case here, though I could be wrong).

Two discs, one of water sounds, one of wind. Why they sound so fantastic is, as I said above, rather like figuring out why an Eggleston snapshot is similarly so. The choices made, obviously--picking this set of sounds as opposed to that one, the sculpting involved, the ability to focus the observer on one or several foci (the amazing, metallic resonances in "Les pierres de seuil, part 5" on the water disc, for example). The sheer drama of the moment (or contrived moment), what La Cassa, in his notes, refers to as the "sound story". The wind disc immediately offers sounds that seem more wind-caused than purely aeolian. But so, so full and...windy. And, I must say, an awful lot of drama. The arc and tension of these pieces may betray the compositional actions taken but they're so finely limned, one doesn't care. Describing them seems fruitless--something about the wind tracks is very special, maybe their sheer presence and seemingly endless variation within the form. Difficult to say; they seem to sum up the gist of an entire slice of the world, maybe the way Eggleston's teenage employee pushing a shopping cart manages to sum up his.

Among the best of this area that I've heard.

herbal international

Asmus Tietchens - Abraum (1000 Füssler)

The subject of these field recordings is a subway tunnel under construction in Hamburg, nearby the harbor. As Tiechens points out, many of the sounds he expected to encounter by virtue of the proximity to water didn't manifest, at least not directly. Instead, he was confronted with metallic jangling, tapping and rustling, creating it's own erose flow. Whatever the case, the resultant captures make for wonderful and absorbing listening here, with no small amount of mystery and tension. There's a general similarity to the four tracks but, of course, adjusting one's aural focus reveals all sorts of differences and grains. Tsunoda is still my touchstone in this area but if Tietchens' work doesn't quite attain that plateau, it's richer than most and worth checking out.


Costa Gröhn - 2+1 (1000 Füssler)

A 3", 15 minute disc from Gröhn, who I don't believe I've previously heard. I note in his bio that he's "pastor at the St. Johannis Church in Hamburg", I daresay a position unique in this area of music? He uses processed field recording with, at least on the last of three cuts here, vinyl samples attached. The first is fairly standard, interspersing crickets and the like with feedback-y hums and the odd disembodied voice, well realized, with perhaps more than a nod toward Ferrari. The second is easily the highlight, a mysterious brew of rumbles, empty vinyl, fire and sonar-like blips, rich, unexpected and evocative. Unfortunately, the last piece uses a (intentionally?) banal drum track over those blips with a recording that sounds like a restaurant interior, all to no particular effect.

1000 Füssler


Skarabee - Tlön (fbox records)

Skarabee (and Tusk below) is Stuart Chalmers, an English musician hitherto unknown to me, a situation happily remedied with these two discs. Each have a homemade quality that's very appealing--one imagines a fellow sitting around, following his muse without so much regard for the external world. As Skarabee, Chalmers uses electronics, contact mics, object and karimba [sic] (I've always known the instrument as "kalimba" and, in fact, prefer "mbira" but see that karimba is also used). I'm a sucker for the karimba and love how it sounds integrated with more abstract fare as on the first track here. Elsewhere, Chalmers tend to use rhythmic elements, often rapid or looped, varying from scratchy to smoother. The pieces have something of a jewel-like quality and can come close to being over-precious, but there's enough grit and friction to keep them interesting. Still, would like to hear him in conjunction with others, to force things outward somewhat. A good recording, though, worth hearing.

Tusk - Bug (CDR)

As Tusk, all the sounds derive from a Bugbrand Weevil, described as a "small 2 oscillator device with touch pads". As heard here, its output ranges from tiny squeaks to harsh blats, always with something of a "bleat" abiding below. The ten tracks here have more or less geologic titles and often provide a rough match to the sounds heard--"volcanic" is loud and explosive while "dust" is hardly there. I'm not quite convinced that the Weevil has sufficient range to bear an entire release on its shoulders--there's something same-y about its sound as heard here--though perhaps if Chalmers gave it more breathing room, it might fare better. Apart from a couple of tracks, the activity level here is fairly intense and comes across as frenetic rather than thoughtful. When he pulls in the reins a bit, as on "sand", detail emerges and fascination accrues. As with "Tlön", I'd be interested in hearing this manifestation of Chalmers in concert with others.

fbox records

Man, did I feel like an idiot.

I'd first seen, and loved, the work of film projection artists Sandra Gibson and Luis Recorder in the untitled release on SOS Editions with music by Olivia Block a couple of years ago, then again at Experimental Intermedia this past February. Through both these experiences, as well as last night until informed otherwise after the event, I'd assumed that somewhere buried deep beneath the abstract, phantasmal black and white imagery, there lurked film, film of objects and/or actions that was being somehow manipulated well past the point of recognizability. On the disc, I thought the source might be footage shot through the windshield of a car driving at night through heavy rain, for example.

Watching the performance at the International House in Philadelphia last evening, I again suspected something of the sort and, actually was on occasion a little closer to the truth. The screen was dark for the first several minutes, Olivia's rich, somber drone filling the space. One gradually came to perceive a border within the screen's frame, slightly to the left of center, a darker portion with a sharp, vertical edge. "Behind" this corner, ectoplasmic shapes began to form, ghostly images for which one could easily supply anthropomorphic interpretations, especially when an tentacular "hand" slipped around that corner. Gibson and Recoder have often (at least in what work I've seen), made use of interior frames which the viewer initially accepts as the working area, only to have that exploded later on. Here, the images gradually strengthened and enlarged, bending, shifting, illuminating, shading, pulsating, lapping onto the surrounding walls either directly or via light reflection.

Over the course of 45-50 minutes, the general "type" of image shifted three or four times, occasionally giving the impression of scanning electron microscope footage of, perhaps, lung fibers or other bodily elements. Olivia's music (electronics and inside piano) shifted as well, by and large retaining an ongoing throb but breaking off into harsher moments as well. The collaboration is a work-in-progress and one could perceive both elements of great beauty (and potential for much, much more) as well as the odd misfire or meandering. As it happened, the set-up didn't allow for a great amount of direct knowledge on the part of the participants to the immediate contributions of each other; Olivia had to glance up at the screen (making her own manipulations more difficult) while, in the booth, Gibson and Recoder couldn't clearly hear the music, picking up mostly the bass vibrations. One imagines this issue could be remedied in the future, venue details permitting. This begged the question though--how, if indeed they were, were Recoder and Gibson interacting in real time if they were simply projecting a film?

There was a Q&A after the event and, eventually, as it were, I saw the light and felt like a dolt. For the most part, the videographers were not, in fact, projecting film, but filtering the actual projector light through various glass objects (and, I think, their hands; there were moments when the projected, amorphous forms made motions which I had, in fact, thought reminiscent of hand and wrist movements). That this was entirely invisible to me either says something about the dearth of my perceptual sense or their immense craft, or both! Olivia told me later that it wasn't until the XI event that she realized that this is what they were doing, so I felt a little better, but not much; I should have cottoned onto this myself. This, of course, went a long way toward explaining the couple's contributions of an improvisatory nature as, obviously, they could and did adapt to Olivia's music (to the extent they could hear it) as well as she to their images. It also seemed to offer a clear way of improvising, not so much different from the routine musician-to-musician method, an even more orthodox or organic form than that practiced by Nakamura/Roisz or Rowe/Bjørgeengen where digital information is passed directly between devices. Of course, it would run into the same type of decisions/problems that beset any improviser, including to what degree, if at all, to echo (directly or obliquely) what one has seen/heard, taking into account the space, the use of silence (not yet an issue, so far in what I've experienced with this trio), etc. (I pause to note that, at least quasi-similar to post-Cageian listening to silence, looking at a "blank" wall or projection screen reveals a ceaseless display of activity, of the motion of air between one's eye and the surface, of the infinitely subtle play of light on that surface, and so on).

Of course, this knowledge caused me to go back, in my head, and reinterpret what had just transpired. I'd love to see/hear it again armed with this awareness, but going from memory, I'd still say there were moments that jelled quite beautifully and others that lagged, which is probably as it should be for a collaboration at this stage. On the whole, it was fascinating and invigorating both for what has been achieved thus far and, more, for the doors it opened with regard to future work along this line.

Ingar Zach - M.O.S. (Sofa)

Maybe it's the influence of Jason Kahn, but I seem to be hearing more improvised percussion discs that deal explicitly with rhythm, notably Jon Mueller's recent "The Whole". Zach has always had this propensity and, on the fine "M.O.S." he unleashes it without reservation. Using a gran cassa, a large, horizontally oriented bass drum, as a resonator along with his tried and true sruti box and drone commander (an electronic device, I take it), he establishes a rapid, consistent tempo, fading in an out of dronier passages. Though the beat is steady, the nature of the percussion used makes the actually sounds cloudier and more indeterminate, providing a really attractive balance between the regular and the hazy. Over 37 minutes, Zach effortlessly maintains interest, deftly varying texture and pitch while keeping the general tenor of things in a sonically juicy area. Very enjoyable.


Xavier Charles - Invisible (Sofa)

Solo clarinet, three tracks. The first ("Rouge") is an exercise in breath and guttural technique, nothing so unusual on that front but Charles handles it well, keeping a forward propulsion, gradually getting more and more garrulous before abrupting ceasing; good, tough piece. "Jaune" begins with birds and park sounds--faint voices, water maybe, calm traffic, softly rumbling engines. About seven minutes in (out of 23), it's as though we hear the clunking sounds of Charles setting up (perhaps we do) and are then treated to a fine section of held, subdued multiphonics, well integrated into the environment; fine work. "Orange", also recorded with ambient sounds in evidence, is more stop-start and frenetic, recalling early Braxton experiments along similar lines. Still, Charles manages to wring something new out of the "tradition", exposing some lovely facets.

Both of these discs contain solid work and are worth hearing, perhaps more for the adventurous free jazz fan than the eai aficionado.

Sofa

Jason Kahn/Z'ev - Intervals (Monotype)

In 1982, I attended a performance of Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 2 at St. Mark's Church in the East Village, which concert was eventually released as the the official recording. At the time (I wish still), Branca was largely using home-made guitars, banks of 2 x 4's strung with guitar wire, arranged in a semi-circle. In the middle of the performing space was an enormous bass drum, positioned almost horizontally, at about a ten degree tilt. As the Lights dimmed, out strode an imposing, shaven-head figure clad in tight, black pants, heavy black boots, no shirt but two thick, leather straps crossing his chest, carrying what could only be described as clubs. Z'ev. He proceeded to pound the drum ritualistically, intensely, for several minutes before the rest of the ensemble entered. Later, he returned with heavy chains attached to gauntlets on his wrists. At the opposite end of the chains were affixed various large pieces of metal: basins, pots, sheets. He whirled them about in an amazing display of sheer stamina, resulting in a hellish and absorbing clamor.

I guess he's mellowed since then...In the company of Jason Kahn (two live performances from 2009), he still, to the extent one can differentiate his contributions (difficult) confronts metallic objects but in a much more considered fashion, clearly caring about the interaction with his compadre. Kahn, for his part, once again (as in the earlier reviewed disc with Muller and Wolfarth on Mikroton) happily subverts expectations. Here and there one hears his trademarked, rapid fire, precise hand percussion but generally, the pair work in looser territory, eliciting a wonderful array of pitches and textures, implying rhythm but never quite getting there. Z'ev engages in quite a bit of rubbing, the rough moans effectively offsetting Kahn's quick, bell-like strokes. The second cut contains more kernels of intense activity but still embedded in kind of stasis, the short, low rhythmic figures toward the end summoning forth a ritual feeling that took me back to that Branca show...

Good recording, well worth hearing for fans of either musician.


Michael Vorfeld - Flugangst (Monotype)

I was amused when I discovered that the title of this recording translates, in English, to "Fear of Flying". Something about that concept resonated with the array of bowed metals on display here as though Vorfeld, playing solo, had perilously taken to the air. The music is bustling, the details rich enough, the attacks varied; it's all fine but I find the requisite amount of drive to be lacking. It's simply too much akin to any number of quasi-similar efforts and Vorfeld doesn't possess, to these ears, the degree of rigor that, say, is evident in an Eddie Prevost or Sean Meehan. Not bad but not essential.


Neurobot - Pętla Bohumína (Monotype)

Neurobot is Jacob Staniszewski (home computer, Korg Polysix), Artur Loxdrowski (laptop, Tascam 4-track) and Dominik Kowalczyk (laptop), augmented by Maciek Siwnkiewicz (turntables) on one cut. This recording is from 2001 and I suppose a reasonable comparison would be to the work of Voice Crack from around the same period. Very dense, burbling electronics with a rough, homemade feel, generally a pulse of sorts in play, the odd radio capture bleeding through. The good thing is that the music as just as raucously enjoyable as Voice Crack could be, maybe even more so. This is a case where the underlying tonal and rhythmic elements, which subtly refer to rock forms, actually enhance the abstract noise, providing the kind of glue that doesn't feel like a concession but as a natural outgrowth (or, more accurately, root system). There are missteps (the flying saucer dialogue in "What Do We Need to Know?" is rather hokey, for instance and the sample grunts, taunts, etc. in the final cut are, while humorous--"Get the fuck outta my foyer!"--a little much) but overall this is an enjoyable effort, a rough and tumble joyride worth taking.

Wonder what they're up to these days?

Jakub Mikolajczyk, Monotype's head honcho, was also kind enough to send along a label sampler consisting of 18 tracks, among them very fine ones from Lasse Marhaug/Mark Wastell, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Gauguet/Hautzinger/Lehn, Komora A, Mirt, Michel Doneda and Hot Club (which I believe includes our own Dan Warburton)

Monotype

Syndromes - Temporary Perspectives (Organized Music from Thessaloniki)

Syndromes is Kostis Kilymis, wielding field recordings, mics, computers, lloopp, guitars, etc., on four tough, thorny and generally quite absorbing tracks compiled between 2006 and 2009. There's a ton of stuff going on at many points; if anything the perception is more of musique concrete than eai or field recordings as such. "Less Surface Noise" might be technically true to its title but there's a lot of fine noise occurring, giving the general feel of being inside a large, tiled room with much indeterminate but vaguely threatening activity taking place: wet sliding, dull clangs, groaning metals. "Part 2 (My Voice)" is far sparser and harsher--contact mic crackles, sines, wind; not quite as successful as its predecessor but, in the context of the disc serving well as a textural change and bridge to "Much Remains to be Broken", a rich layering of adjacent sine tones segueing into some fine, clothy wind buffeting. "Improvised After the Fact" closes the recording with something of a return to the more open, mysterious world of the opening cut, outdoors now however, with hisses, keening, nearby rumbles and distant engines, very tantalizing. A good job, solid and well-realized.

organized music from Thessaloniki


Off-cells - 60/40 (l'Innomable)

What an odd recording. Richard posted a lengthy and fine review of this a month ago, noting many things that would have passed me by, like the ratio of the track times, which certainly lends credence to the possible highly-post performance structuring that may have taken place. I'll just concern myself with the music as heard which is...odd and enjoyable. The personnel is Takahiro Kawaguchi (objects), Utah Kawasaki (analog synth), Taku Unami (guitar) and Seijiro Murayama (percussion). The whole thing carries something of an Unami "feel" to it, the soft disjunctures, the subtle sense of play, the isolate, clear sounds. As Richard points out, there's little impression of intentional interplay here and one wouldn't be surprised to learn there was a score involved (though I've no reason to think so). Events occur in the same space, abut or slide past each other, dissipate. It's fairly quiet, though not too, reasonably active, though never remotely crowded, more or less calm though not without nervous energy. There's a certain alien mechanicalness as well--many of the sounds are iterated with an unhurried, insectile aspect. Just as one gets used to it, something happens like Murayama exploding into a free jazzish "solo" or Unami picking out clear, Jim Hall-like tones; it's somewhat disquieting.

I don't know quite what to make of it all. If you sit back and just let it wash over you, it's fine and gently prickly. As soon as you try to decipher what's going on, it evanesces a bit and loses form. Frustrating, but I bet it's one I come back to and find that it yields more over the years. People should hear it.

l'Innomable

Hammeriver - Hammeriver (Mikroton)

You know those classic Coltrane (John or Alice), Sanders, etc. albums where some wonderful modal tune often led off with a billowy, colorful introduction, tempo-less and wandering, all bells and flutes and ululations? The tension would build and, eventually, there'd be a great bass line, the drums would kick in and then Trane or Pharoah would erupt? Well, Hammeriver,a septet made up of Clare Cooper (harp), Chris Abrahams (piano), Christof Kurzmann (lloopp), Tobias Delius (clarinet, tenor sax), Clayton Thomas (bass), Werner Dafeldecker (bass) and Tony Buck (drums), seems to have chosen to concentrate on just that first part, a series of intros, if you will. Indeed the first cut, "Second Stabbing", is subtitled "Ohnedaruth", Coltrane's "mystical" name (unfortunately no reference is made to the great Art Ensemble work by the same name) and the presence of harpist Cooper almost automatically invokes Alice Coltrane. This makes for an odd listening experience--pretty enjoyable on the one hand, unsatisfying on the other. If the listener wishes to sit back and simply let the music wash over him, the bath is warm and comfortable. If one seeks deeper challenges, it's better to look elsewhere.


Jason Kahn/Gunter Muller/Christian Wolfarth - Limmat (Mikroton)

As much as one tries not to, it's virtually impossible, often, to read the names of the participants on a given release and not have any preconceptions about the likely contents. Happily, one's expectations are occasionally confounded. Here, there's far less of the, for lack of a better term, rhythmic burble I was anticipating, the kind of smooth-edged improv that's poured out of the Swiss scene for several years. The music is far sparser, raspier and...gaseous than I anticipated. There's a bit of a rhythmic undercurrent in parts, some soft drones, but in general, it's an interesting, prickly soundscape where many of the elements are high-pitched and tingly, flitting about rather than flowing gently downriver. Good recording.

Mikroton


Tomas Korber/Gert-Jan Prins - RI 1.5442 (Cavity)

Speaking of expectations, one might be forgiven for anticipating an aural sandpapering when Korber and Prins are involved but, again happily, one's preconceptions are undermined. We hear, instead, an intense but relatively low level and subtle fabric of static, bumps and hisses, flitting by with great rapidity, over periodic, faraway moans, like a lathe being operated in the next building. The venting of pressure are less like explosions than exhalations, quite controlled. Within this restraint, what keeps the listener's interest is the sheer amount of varying detail throughout. Without anything like a grab bag feeling, the pair manages to move from one texture to another, usually with several plies in place at a given time, always enticing. The last 20-odd minutes of the 74-minute disc settle into a steady state of quiet ratcheting, soft crickets, before fading to a very extended period of silence. Not earthshaking, but an impressive document.

All three discs available via erstdist

4 LP releases


Joe Colley - Disasters of Self (CIP)

A handsomely produced 3-LP box set with photo inserts. My experience with Colley's music is relatively minimal though I've tended to enjoy what I've heard both live and on disc. So perhaps, had I known more, I wouldn't have been so surprised at the fairly controlled and subdued nature of much of the music contained herein. Each piece feels self-contained, circumscribing a given area while allowing for transgressions of same. Field recordings emerge from rough (though quiet) electronics (as on Side 1), with a naturalness that's rather moving. Some tracks are crackly, some brooding (the opener of Side 3 is especially fine in that regard); there are locked grooves, something I've never quite understood the attraction of. And yet, overall, I find the work here only moderately satisfying; nothing uninteresting at some level, but not so much that really makes a strong impression, apart from that healthy commitment to single ideas in a given track. I get the idea that maybe seeing it live, at increased volume (or, more accurately, in the midst of the sound) would make a difference. As is, it's fine, moderately enjoyable, but that's all.

CIP


Ubeboet - Archival (Moving Furniture)

Ubeboet (M.A. Tolosa out of Madrid) offers three gentle, drone-backed works incorporating field recordings, not an uncommon territory these days but handled here with grace and subtlety, establishing a fine, dark mood. Side 1, "orange", is restrained and subterranean sounding, like taking a walk through an old water/sewer system, dull metallic echoes, watery reflections on dank, mossy walls. "melm" is fa spacier, probably to its disadvantage as its airiness doesn't quite find purchase and meanders into Eno-esque climes. The LP closes with "northern rain", in which a lovely, somewhat mournful and simple six-note melody (source unknown, sounds a little like altered strings) is embedded in, yes, rain and other sounds. Here, Ubeboet outdoes Eno at his own game, very lovely.

con-v


Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Cinq Bruissements (No Fun Productions)

From 2006, in which our stalwart hero continues his assault on that most abused of instruments, the accordion. I would have guessed that the title had something to do with bruising, but in fact "bruissement" means "rustling", a modest enough term for what transpires here. The essential accordion-nature is never too far from the surface actually, even if it's being bowed, struck or otherwise manhandled. As in many of his past releases, Costa Monteiro's basic, deep musicality permeates the material no matter how brutal it may seem. It's harsh, unrelenting, tough and very good. Even with all the extended technique, perhaps the most successful track is the most straightforward, the final one, where deep drones abut, tangle and lie atop one another, this one smooth, that one guttural, this steady, that wavering. A wonderful piece, again brimming with the sheer musicality that makes Costa Monteiro on eof the most engaging musicians around. A fine recording.

No Fun


Jon Mueller - The Whole (Type)

You gotta give Mueller credit. Faced with the dilemma of what to do these days with a solo percussion project, he plunges straight into the rhythm, never looking back, bringing in all manner of influences, succeeding in making the music his own. The album is bracketed by two short pieces for hammered dulcimer, lovely, almost stately works with, in addition, a threatening rumble beneath. The remainder of side one is occupied by "Hearts", with a non-stop, propulsive drum rhythm interwoven with Mueller's processed voice (chanting, long tones, sounding to me as referring to Native American song, though I could be wrong) and jangly, tambura-like lines. One might compare it to some of Jason Kahn's work, though there's an earthiness at play, a visceral joy in the chant that one doesn't usually hear in Kahn. "Hands" leaps directly and forthrightly into a martial rhythm, the kind one might associate with marching bands, leavened with a repeated two-note dulcimer figure and talking drum (?). This then explodes into an even larger sequence of bass drum and splattering cymbals, evoking some triumphal cavalcade, pompous and fun at the same time. On this track, Mueller might just overstep a wee bit. But the dulcimer/drum cut that ends things is a joy.

If you're lucky, along with the vinyl you may find a CD containing Olivia Block's remix of "The Whole". Noe, inveterate readers well know my admiration for Block's work but, I have to say, her re-translation of Mueller's piece outdoes the original. She retains the essential rhythmic impetus and shards of the dulcimer (though the notes have been rearranged and separated in space) but truly concocts a piece of her own and a gorgeous one. Fantastic as the drums and dulcimer well in the final few minutes. You can see a video of a wonderful in-store performance of Block doing another remix version (less overt percussion) here

Type

As I've written before, the music of Michael Pisaro has been my single favorite "discovery" (late though it was) of the last few years. So I think it's interesting, good even, that each of these three recent releases of his work causes me problems of one sort or another. We don't need complacency!


"ricefall (2)" is one of two recordings inaugurating the Gravity Wave label which will be dedicated to Pisaro's work. It's an elaboration on and an expansion of "ricefall (1)", which was scored for 16 musicians with an 18 minutes duration (16 one-minute events bracketed by single minutes of silence). Percussionist Greg Stuart asked for, and received, a quadrupling of the score--64 events over the course of 72 minutes (with a minute of silence before and after each 16-minute section). The score is fairly transparent, indicating the surface upon which to drop the rice grains and the approximate intensity/volume to be used. Stepping back, there's an overall arc that rises then eventually evens out.

Upon simply hearing the title of the work, I was expecting a very quiet piece; part of me was doubtless recalling seeing Sean Meehan dropping individual grains of rice on his snare some years back. I was unprepared for the sheer intensity of the attack in the very first section, a deluge of sharp, tinging strikes, as though a violent, if small-grained, hailstorm suddenly began pelting my window. More often than not, the minute to minute transitions are subtle but detectable. Indeed, it's a great deal of fun to sit and watch the CD timer change and attempt to pick out what combination of surfaces and intensity was now being heard. While the general soundscape remains self-similar, there's a helluva lot of other stuff happening. Sometimes, as in minute 13, I swear I heard pianos somewhere back beyond the curtain of falling rice. I might guess that the grains were, in that minute, falling on some especially resonant metal, but I'm not at all sure. I also have to commend Stuart for maintaining an astonishing evenness in each subsection; you know he's taking handfuls of grain and dropping or hurling them downward but, even in the densest portions, there's a remarkable consistency of texture (within which, of course, there's much variation).

That being said, all these fascinating attributes aside, I have some trouble wrapping my ears around "rainfall (2)" as a whole. Unlike, say, a late Feldman work where one can simultaneously appreciate the beauty of adjacent chords, recollect more distant neighbors and, almost by osmosis, come to sense and appreciate the large scale structure, here I could never get beyond the immediacy of the attacks and the transitions from one to another, hearing it as four sets of sixteen distinct, if slightly overlapping events. I found myself enjoying it as acoustic phenomena but wanting to hear more of an integration into the whole than I was able to perceive. That extra dimension present in so much of Pisaro's work was imperceptible to me. I entirely allow that this could be just me and that, some time from now, I'll smack myself in the forehead and exclaim, "Of course, you idiot!"

Whatever, the case, it's entirely worth hearing.


With "july mountain (three versions)", my problem is more subtle, perhaps even trivial. The original release, issued several months ago on Jez riley French's Engraved Glass label, is my favorite disc of the year thus far, an extraordinarily beautiful piece of music. That same recording leads things off here and it hasn't lost a bit of its power and beauty. Incidentally, that extra dimension I mentioned above is present, for me, in spades on this piece; the whole thing has a marvelous trajectory, something that, after it's over, you can sit back an really grasp the enormity of. The second track is something of a revelation--it's simply the percussion portion of the original, sans the field recordings. The revelatory aspect of it, to me and I daresay to many, is how much of "july mountain" is percussion. I know that I, to the extent I analyzed it, thought that far more of the sounds were generated in the field, by wind, faraway engines, water, what-have-you. It's a testament to Greg Stuart's immense ability on all things percussive that he was able to blend so seamlessly, so chameleon-like. It's also a pleasure just to listen to on its own, very fascinating, many rubbed surfaces, deep hums from some unknown source, tons more.

The third track is a realization using a mix of field recordings by Pisaro, Stuart, French, Greg Headley and Travis Weller. It's lovely, somewhat different than the first rendition--more birds, dog barks, maybe more insistent engines--but totally in sync with the idea and a joy to hear.

So what's my problem? Only this: The Engraved Glass edition had, for me, a special, stand-alone, jewel-like quality to it. It was a perfect little gem, really flawless and something I liked to think of "in isolation". Combined with two other tracks, as fine as those are, I feel that something ineffable has been lost, or at least that the luster of the piece grows dimmer. It's a quibble, no matter really. Everyone in hearing distance should get this disc (and the previous one) to further experience Pisaro's unique and wonderful sound world. I'm very anxious to hear more from Gravity Wave and am very enthused that the label exists.

Gravity Wave
Distributed by erst dist


My experience, by and large, with Pisaro's music has led me to expect a certain clarity and pristine quality. It also seems to me that it feels more natural with acoustic instruments or very "pure" electric ones like sine waves or, at most, e-bowed guitar. Such preconceptions, of course, are nonsense and, given his growing popularity (at least in this small corner of the world) one can expect musicians to have at his compositions from many an angle. Miguel Prado, out of A Caruña in Galicia, Spain, takes on a piece previously known as "within (3)" and indeed makes it his own. enough so that Pisaro now refers to two separate but related works, "within"'s 3.1 and 3.2. The original was written for classical guitar and consisted of lightly struck single tones that were held for 10 seconds, repeated a varying number of times. I haven't heard that work (I don't think?) but can pretty clearly imagine it.

Prado uses held tones but imbues them with a healthy dose of fuzz, eschewing tidiness for a certain amount of grit 'n' grease. I realize I make this comparison all too often, but there's something of Fripp from the period circa "Evening Star" in the sound. As the electric guitar allows for much longer periods of aural decay, it was decided to layer the tones rather than letting one dissipate before initiating the next. Between these two elements--the fuzzy guitar and the lack of silences (or near-silences; there are extended silent breaks between sections) the work, to my ears, loses some essential Pisaro-ness. It's fine, and enjoyable to hear, with plenty of luscious moments, but lacks the kind of specialness I've come to expect. One listens to the tones fluctuate and interact with one another and derives some pleasure from that, but the subtle sense of structure one expects isn't quite perceivable--you get the sense of pleasant meandering as opposed to ecstatic rigor. Now, to be sure, I may well be over-pigeonholing Pisaro's music and he may have welcomed this expansion into a more drone-like sphere. But one of the qualities I've come most to enjoy in Pisaro's work is a kind of edge-of-one's-seat suspense in an odd sense: each moment is often so beautiful, you are almost afraid to hear the next one, fretting that the spell might be broken. That it's often not is to the credit of both composer and interpreter and it's quite thrilling to experience. That rare sense is missing, for me, here.

Limited edition of 100 and, caveats aside,decidedly worth hearing for admirers of Pisaro's work

Heresy