Four new recordings from Wandelweiser.


Tom Johnson - Counting Keys (Edition Wandelweiser)

My reaction to Tom Johnson's music in the past has visited the extremes of hot and cold. I love "An Hour for Piano", really like most of "Rational Melodies" and am unreasonably fond of "Failing: A Very Difficult Piece for String Bass". On the other hand, on my short list of suggestions for interrogation soundtracks to reduce the most hardened mass murderer to a pile of mush, I'd place "The Chord Catalog". Perhaps this is impressive in and of itself. John McAlpine performs four works here that skirt the boundaries between math experiment and oddly lovely music. "Counting Keys" (1982), in five segments, utilizes fairly clear additive and modulative rules, iterating one kind of approach per segment, watching as the results expand, contract, cascade. The rote aspect never quite transcends its directives, though, and the end product, while attractive, remains somewhat dry. Desirous of writing a piece "consisting more of silence than sound", Johnson created "Organ and Silence for Piano" (2002), which does just that, though some of the sounded parts in the first couple of sections are a bit...pompous, as though defensive of their turf. It quiets down some and the methodology for generating note sequences is less overt throughout, though one still senses it's buried down there somewhere. But the ambiguity imparts a more poetic feel and, indeed, the silences are well used and come to have a real solidity.

As its title suggests, "Tilework for Piano" (2003) makes use of tiling properties, as imagined for musical notation. Now, admittedly, I'm a big fan of tiling and if I would have preferred something with a more Penrose feel, I do think that in this piece, Johnson does manage to transcend the topography of his construction, which involves laying triplets "alongside" each other, five of them in various groupings, repeated as many times as there are combinations. There's a playfulness, almost of a animal nature, to be heard, the notes skipping and prancing in clearly defined groups whose relationship to each other is constantly in flux. Sort of like Penrose tiles...."Block Design for Piano" (2005), my favorite on this recording, has an exceedingly complicated plan involving 330 6-note arpeggios but as McAlpine points out in his liner notes, these blueprints are all but inaudible, the listener instead somewhat enraptured by the haze of those rising figures, the harmonies quite gorgeous for all their rigorous base, a fine blossoming sense reached by irregularly (?) varying the lengths of the arpeggios from four to five to six notes. Quite beautiful.


Michael Pisaro - Hearing Metal 1 (Edition Wandelweiser)

The first Stockhausen I ever heard, back in college, was Microphonie and I've always remained partial to the general family of sounds elicited therein. So it's not surprising, all else aside, that I'm drawn to the music here, derived from the excitation, via bows and strokes of a 60" tam-tam much like that used by Stockhausen, sensitively played by Greg Stuart. The added flavor, as is Pisaro's wont, is the integration of sine tones pitched very close to the range of the tam-tam itself, becoming almost indistinguishable from it insofar as the sine throbs might well be mimicked by bowing action on the metal. One soon ceases to care as the music, infinitely complex when played at volume, envelops the listener. Pisaro describes "Sleeping Muse" as "something like a four-part chorale of bowed sounds" and merely reading about the approach might summon up drone-y, rather flaccid work but this is nothing of the kind. As rich, (relatively) tonal and flowing as the music is, the range of detail, the the endless swirls are entirely absorbing; one guesses that the sine tones are the spinal fluid here, imparting a kind of meaning to the arcing tones.

"The Endless Column" (the three pieces, by the way, are all titled after Brancusi sculptures) slows things done lusciously, a series of strokes (recorded individually, ordered randomly, one after another) swaddling a slowly rising sine tone which, again, is more felt than heard. The deliberateness of this piece is wonderful; one gets something of a prayer bell feeling but with the peals entirely dissembled. The final work, "Sculpture for the Blind", superimposes eight layers of bowing, again interwoven with sine tones, the durations of the bowing increasing over the ten minutes of the piece. The structure thus falls midway between the preceding two, combining the drone of "Sleeping Muse" with the slow pulse of "The Endless Column" as well as containing a fine, subtle grainy character that gives it a different coloration. Again, the focus one hears, on the part of both the composer and performer, keeps the music from drifting into gauze, not even close.

Wonderful recording, one of the best I've heard in recent months.


Antoine Beuger - two.too (for erwin-josef speckmann) (Edition Wandelweiser)

Two discs, the first an almost hour-long duet, "two", with Irene Kurka (soprano) and Jürg Frey (clarinet). The voice and clarinet alternate long, pure tones, Kurka very gradually singing the text: "as the full moon rises/the swan sings/in sleep/on the lake of the mind" (Kenneth Rexroth). The pair kind of seesaw back and forth, very calm and deliberate, reciting the words one at a time but repeating each many, many times, changing pitch with each advance in the poem. Beuger's concern for space is evident; it spools out slowly, like a thread in water. I find myself first rather entranced, then gradually bored, then fascinated again, going back and forth on an even slower pendulum than the performers. Ultimately, I found my attention wandering around the 40 minute mark.

But then there's "too". I had first listened to it without having read Richard's analysis of the piece (with the help of info from the composer). I would have realized after another listen or two, I think, that the underlying body of "too" was precisely the same recording just heard, but I never guessed that the "accompanying" duo of Rhodri Davies (Irish harp) and Ko Ishikawa (sho) had been lifted from a Hibari recording done in 2006 (one I don't own) and transplanted, the 20 minute track laid three times in succession over "two", just overlapping it on each end, tucking it in. Perhaps a closer examination of the recording dates may have hinted as much, but the two performances are so well integrated that the notion may never have crossed my mind. Technical details aside, the addition of Davies and Ishikawa absolutely open up the work. What was once intriguing if a bit arid now just blossoms. The Hibari recording also contained large amounts of space so there's never the slightest sense of overcrowding (indeed there remain, still, many moments when none of the four are creating sound). It may be due in substantial part to the affinity between the four voices, the harp providing a soft percussiveness that lovingly accents the smoother tones from voice, clarinet and mouth organ. There are times when the voice and sho are in almost perfect unison, others when the harp seems to be supplying just the right counterpoint. It's an inspired, not to say unusual choice, and Beuger aced it, an impressive decision. "too" becomes a rapturous experience, well more than the sum of its parts.


Stefan Thut/Manfred Werder - Im Sefinental (Editions Wandelweiser)

What to say about this release? How to possibly offer a qualitative opinion? To all aural appearances, we have two field recordings done in a glacial area of Germany, near rushing water, on the same day, each a bit over a half-hour long. You can hear some small sounds apart from the water: a plane far overhead, birds, perhaps wind rustling long grass, but the water is the backbone. Variations between the two works are minor (the second, by Werder, contains some very high-pitched squeaks that might be avian--there are crow caws at one point--and, I think, more buffeting of the mic by wind); maybe they were recorded at the same time from different vantages, opposite sides of the stream. Have they been enhanced or otherwise worked on? Hard to say; nothing that strikes me as obvious. So, one simply sits back and listens.

What sets them apart from any number of "mood enhancing" environmental recordings done since the 60s? There is a difference, I daresay, perhaps having to do with focus, depth of audio field, sustained concentration. That last probably makes the greatest impression, the willingness not to seek overt change. They each end with alarming abruptness. I enjoyed them. Hard to say exactly why except that, if nothing else, they strike me as honest.

Strong set of releases.

wandelweiser

Available stateside from erstdist

Andrea Neumann/Ivan Palacký - Pappeltalks (Uceroz)

A fine, strong set of duos from 2006-07 with Neumann at the inside piano and Palacký on his amplified knitting machine, I take it a Dopleta 160 model. I've been curious about this the handful of times I'd previously come across his work--I guess this is it:


It does generate a wonderful range of sounds, buzzing to clattering and much between. Of course, that's of less import than the coordination between the two musicians and these talks are marvelously cohesive, sounding as one. You can, on occasion, pick out the resonance of the strummed piano wire but it weaves perfectly amongst the aural skeins of the Dopleta. Calm in pace but aboil with activity, these talks reveal new thematic connections on each listen. Both players give the sense of being very intent, very concentrated, paying great attention to where the music wants to go--harsh when it needs to be, sedate as well--maintaining a spacious but firm kind of control. The disc is also arranged quite well, the final Pappeltalk a kind of summation, a very rich 15 minutes worth of delicious granules, deep thrums and delicate plucked tones; very Roweian. Excellent work, get it.

Oh and I won't mention anything about the cover on the small chance that someone will be as surprised as I was.

palacky


Michiel de Haan/Marc Spruit - Schoonhoven, Hollands Licht (CDR)

Two new releases from the duo who brought us "Radical Improvisations" a couple years back. Schoonhoven, so named in honor of ZERO-movement artist Jan Schoonhoven (see below) comprises six tracks (seven listed on the sleeve, six showing in my player) from 2007-08. Not solely due to the guitar/turntable instrumentation, but the first things that leaps to mind are the Otomo/Tetreault duos from years past, for both the ferocity and the in-your-faceness of the music. It's very "hands-on", more toward the gestural noise end of things than "eai" as such. In many ways, it's a kind of music I've found myself veering away from, but this pair, here, really digs in with all four hands (possibly a couple of feet as well) and the resultant swarm of crashes, blips, whooshes, snatches of LPs, bangs 'n' beeps serves to create a convincingly plastic wall of bric-a-brac. Nicely done and, at about 1/2 hour, perfect length for work of this density.



Its companion release, Hollands Licht, as one might gather, attempts to make sonic reference to the uniquely limpid light of that area that has infused canvasses from Vermeer to Mondrian. A tall order, to be sure, and if there's any way to tell whether or not they succeeded, I'm unaware of it. The music, in many ways, is even harsher than on "Schoonhoven", the cuts more abrupt, the variations in microsecond attacks more severe. To the extent I hear it as pricklier, I'm not as fond of it as the prior disc, but those sharp, painful points, taken on their own, work just fine, though there are loopy moments as well and its 28 tracks in about 40 minutes pushes things a tad inasmuch as one tries to get a handle on the elaborate display. Still ok, though, noiseheads should get quite the kick playing this at volume.

Ordering info at their myspace page



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Addendum: Miraculous apparition of rainbow image on the wall behind my computer, source unknown.

A few minutes ago, Richard mentions in an fb status update that he's whistling, "I Saw Her Again Last Night". Immediately, I'm transported back to my childhood bedroom, listening to WABC on the radio and reading Marvel comics. This has happened countless times.

I'm sure it's been researched (though a quick google on "music induced visual flashbacks" yielded nothing), but it's always striking to me how consistently this occurs, that linkage between a song and, in my case, reading comic books. Just let me hear, or even hear a reference to, a pop song from, say 1966 to '71 ("the Letter", "Hello, Goodbye", "Groovin'"), and what transpires in my head, in addition to a scarily note for note, word for word reproduction of said song, is an image from Hulk, Nick Fury or Doctor Strange. Not necessarily an actual image, but a range of inks, certain colors, even the smell of the comic. (I know olfactory sensations often carry the most powerful nostalgic associations). But the merest suggestion of one of these songs and there I am, lying on my bed, devouring the latest batch of Marvels, hastened back from Sandy's Breyer Patch where me and another fanatic would bedevil him into prematurely opening the stack of new arrivals, beseeching him to let us use his wirecutters to unveil that month's cache.

Guessing, I imagine it has to do with going through puberty, discovering things in the wider world, beginning to differentiate between "stuff" and "art", how important that would have been for someone that age. Jeez, you'd think a pop song might mentally connect me with some girlfriend, but nope, just comics. Geek in training.

Lately, it's been the colors as such, the inks. That period, in Marvel, was one of experimentation in many aspects but one that doesn't get mentioned often (not like I follow discussion on this, but I bet) is the coloring, the ink techniques. I didn't realize at the time that the artists, the Sterankos, Buscemas, Adams, etc. pretty much just did pencil drawings, leaving the inking and coloring to someone else. Little by little, I realized that I enjoyed those comics inked by Joe Sinnott more than others; his thick, sensuous line held far more appeal than the relative scratchiness of his cohorts. But the coloring began to get interesting too. The introduction of black matrices for shading was way cool; I remember it in some Adams-drawn things and the inker/colorist's name I recall is Tom Palmer--not sure if that's right. [Just checked--yep, that was he. Has a whole book on the subject: Tom Palmer: The Art of Inking Neal Adams] In addition to the black or gray-scale shading, there was an increased use of super-saturated colors, rich purples and dark greens that threatened to stain one's fingers. Those were what have been leaping to mind lately when "Hurdy-Gurdy Man", "Love Is Blue" or "Last Train to Clarksville" flits across my consciousness.

Curious how common this is. Gotta be.

'nuff said.

[Heh, just realized I posted on more or less this same subject in August of last year. Just shows to go. Obviously found no further corroboration of this connection in the interim!]

A quintet from entr'acte, the first three on vinyl, the latter two on disc.


Jacques Beloeil - Bidules 1-9 (entr'acte)

Nine pieces for cheap Casio SK1 (LP). Almost despite myself, I found the first half of this album wackily enjoyable. It's like some modern-day, nerdy Keith Emerson trapped in his basement, obsessing over what can be wrung out of this tawdry keyboard, over the top baroque but fun. That's on the side labeled "Agreement". The other side, "Reaction", is a different bowl of tapioca, overtly Glassian in approach, albeit the relatively palatable Glass of "Einstein" and the Dances. With a rhythm track. And really overt. Elsewhere, it resembles early 80s Frith, Skeleton Crew, etc.; indeed, the sounds are almost identical on occasion (I know Frith used a Casio then, perhaps the same model). It's actually put together pretty well and, on one level, pleasurable enough. Necessary though? Hard to give it that.


Ian Middleton - Time Building (entr'acte)

(Not precisely sure that's the cover; think so)

In some ways, not in so different a territory than the Beloeil, though here the device of choice is a Korg analog synth. Also, to its disadvantage, there's not the slightest tinge of humor. Drone-y tracks, almost sitar-like in tone, quavering rapidly, with agitated burblings alongside. Way too woozy for my taste and there's not so much difference between the six tracks, all oozing along perilously close to astral realms. Think Daniel Lentz without the rigor.


Nokalypse - Repeated in an Indefinitely Alternating Series of Thoughts (entr'acte/Absurd)

Themistoklis Pantelopoulos adopting a somewhat annoying nom. Hopefully its not only his Hellenic derivation, but the comparison in a surface sense to Xenakis is hard to pass up. The Xenakis of Kraanerg and Persepolis, at least as evidenced here. The piece is a huge mass of swirling sounds, kind of organ-like in essential nature but I get the feeling they're often synthesized mutations from a large variety of sources, some of which might be natural. They're layered one atop the other, several dozen ply thick it seems, into a huge, messy lasagna of sound. It's not bad at all, actually, if (not surprisingly) lacking Xenakis' structural rigor and having, somewhere beneath it all, a rockish tinge (no rhythms, just a kind of guitar-chordy sound). Not bad, easily the best of the three LP releases here.


Marc Behrens - A Narrow Angle (entr'acte)

(a note: reviewers copies from this label arrive in generic sleeves; I'm never quite sure what, if anything, the actual sleeve design on the commercial release is. Only comes up as an issue here, where I like to have such an image. The one above accompanied an announcement of this disc at blog.cronica; no idea if it has anything to do with the Behrens disc, but I liked it)

Three pieces sourced from three different places: a games parlor, a Tokyo Metro station and a Taoist temple, the sounds altered radically and infused into quite solid constructions. The first is marvelously violent and careening--pachinko-like!--and, when played at volume, feels like being smacked around the room. In a good way. The Metro piece begins with a huge whoosh but soon settles in to an eerie reflection on the two standard tones emitted by the turnstiles, one granting access and a harsher one denying it. These are delicately played with, adapted, layered into a shimmering matrix that's both icy and enchanting. The temple track I found the most compelling, tending toward the quiet, with low booms and high whistles, but erupting once in a while, an unexpected bell peal in the relative silence. Really impressive and a fine release overall.


Simon Whetham - Fractures (entr'acte)

Based on field recordings made in Iceland, this has a very cinematic feel, though Whetham gives equal time to (what sound like) natural phenomena, often having a roaring aspect, and human activity, including snatches of conversation, footfalls and various engines. Much of it is quiet, barely there rustling and, as such, is very pleasant to listen to. However, it makes one appreciate the best work of people like Tsunoda who, somehow, manage to invest more into their mappings of the everyday. Still, 'Fractures' works very nicely and is well worth hearing by fans of the territory.

entr'acte

So, I went over to Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center last evening. A free, outdoor show scheduled to begin at 7PM, the main draw (for me) being a performance of Rhys Chatham's "A Crimson Grail" for 200 electric guitars, 16 basses and sock cymbal. I wasn't expecting anything fantastic; as much as I loved the Guitar Trio box last year--still do--my general take is that when guys like Chatham or Branca expand their palette to a gargantuan degree, muddiness sets in, in concept as much as sound.

The organizers of the event were clueless in several regards. I arrived quite early, around 5PM, armed with a book (Junot Diaz, Oscar Wao, which I had been resisting for a while but succumbed), food and water, scheduled to meet Carol around 6:30 at a designated spot (me, cell-less, having to revert to prehistoric methods of encounter). Of course, they weren't allowing people into the seats, which would have been simple and non-disruptive, so a couple hundred of us clustered around the entrance. At about 6, we were told, "Oh, the line is going to be around the other side of the park." Like they'd never done one of these events before. Not that it ended up mattering, but it's a little annoying being ushered from right at the entrance to about 600th on line. Still, fine, it was amusing though to listen to the bitching and moaning around me, much of it from a prominent local film critic who shall remain nameless....

But we got in and actually secured a couple of seats pretty much in the center of the audience area. The guitar seating was on three sides of the venue, ground level, front, left and right. There were four canopied podia, from which the conductors (David Daniell, Ned Sublette--fun to see him--, Jon King and one other I forget)would control their sections, they themselves taking cues from Chatham who, with the sock cymbal player (essentially a metronome) was on stage.

First up, though, was the Asphalt Orchestra. I was wondering what the deal was as no mics were on-stage, but the 15 or so piece band marched in along one of the side aisles, playing a rousing little number a la Dirty Dozen Brass Band and formed a line in the front. Ground level, with no mics, in front of 1000+ people. So maybe the first two rows could hear them clearly. Again, great planning. They did two pieces, departed and I bet half they crowd barely knew they were there.

OK, the Chatham. As a composition, it was severely clunky, lurching from one section to the next with little sense of any organic whole. It began very nicely with a controlled hum that expanded into a rich drone, the sounds gently flowing back and forth over the space, lovely effect. The next section also began intriguingly, a 16-note pattern that was also meted out to the four sections, I think four notes each but slightly irregularly, so the sequence softly ricocheted from one quarter to another, the initial bare bones "melody" being added to little by little with flourishes and fanfares. That was fine, but it went on way too long, the sock cymbal's relentless beat becoming very wearying and the essential elements of the section not all that fascinating to hold up for that long (20 minutes?)

The cymbal and the parts for the basses were two of the aspects that tended to drag down much of the music that night, lending a concrete-bound quality to music that should have soared. I understand there's a practical reason to have a timekeeping function for an ensemble that large but I don't think that was the answer (maybe, reduce the ensemble? Obviously....but no, can't do that...)

It was in two parts (Chatham said three but I couldn't distinguish the latter) and each ended with a kind of rave-up, the volume and pace increasing. They were the highlights of the set, but: 1) It wasn't anywhere near as loud as it needed to be. I don't know if they were under neighborhood restrictions (though I was told that only amps below a certain power level could be used--the guitarists brought their own) but these portions just begged for increased volume. and 2) This was odd--the first such section bore a striking resemblance to parts of the title track from Branca's "The Ascension". I mean, if I walked in at that point, otherwise unaware, that's what I would've thought was being played. And the finale, otherwise the work's highpoint, sounded as though explicitly derived from the same album's, "The Spectacular Commodity". How strange to have such overt (if subconscious?) references to music done in more or less the same vein almost 30 years ago. I gave Chatham perverse credit, though, for writing a central "melody" that was simply a C-Major scale. [edit: Maybe he's been listening to Taku :-)]

So, all in all, it was an underwhelming experience. As with Branca, in my experience Chatham's music works better the more pared down it is (including his two gong piece). Given overly abundant resources, things tend to billow out into conceptual murkiness and flaccitude (!).

Great conversation and Haitian food with Carol and Rick afterward, though! Made the evening more than worthwhile.

Burkhard Beins - Structural Drift (Edition Künstlerhäuser Worpswede)

Three works conceived during a residency at Künstlerhäuser Worpswede, solo but constructed from more than just percussive sources, including electronics. One of the qualities in Beins' music that I love is a kind of earthiness, a fine grit that has often been a key factor in keeping certain group performances from sliding into blandness as well as having the capability of forming a magnificent edifice on its own (Rowe/Beins). That's not entirely absent here, but I found myself having to accommodate a slightly different Beins, which turns out to be a good thing. The first track is more or less drone-centered (ebow in prominent usage, I assume), with a repeating pulse. I feel a kind of distance here, the sort of thing you pick up sometimes in recordings of installation pieces. A soft rumble underneath keeps matters on a rough enough keel and, after its 15 minutes, I do feel a sense of satisfaction, but I think I'd get vastly more out of it live, able to be more thoroughly enveloped.

The second drift, however, is something of a marvel. At the very beginning, we seem to have simply moved a step or two sideways, the ebow hum replaced by a more pointed organ-synth tone, the rumble by a harsher rattle. That synth sound is the first of two referents that struck me (intended by Beins or otherwise): the analog type of tones generated by Terry Riley in his Poppy Nogood days. I absolutely love that "flickering" effect where the tone shifts sound as though they're produced by some manual operation like flipping open and shut a gate; I could listen to that for hours. Very soon, darker rumblings and loose metal crashes intrude and we find ourselves in an entirely different landscape from the first piece and an extremely unusual and fascinating one. Sirens come and go, fire and rain arrive. Beins reverts briefly to the opening set of sounds before introducing the other element that strikes me as allusive (about 15 minutes into the 20-minute work), a three note, high chimes sequence recalling phrases in music like Feldman's "Why Patterns?". The effect is beautiful and eerie, that original synth tone subtly increasing in stridency, the clicks beneath seeming a bit more desperate. He carries that through to the conclusion, lingering in this lovely, alien field. Wonderful piece.

The final, brief drift is finely concentrated, a propeller sound blending disparate chunks into a lumpy whole before dropping out entirely in favor of high electronic flittings, a succinct bookend.

Well worth hearing. Should be available stateside soon via erstdist More info here


Christian Wolfarth - acoustic solo percussion - vol. 1 (hiddenbell)

As it happens, another solo percussion release graced my quarters around the same time as the Beins, though this is a very different affair. Among other things, it's a 45rpm, 7" (bright red) vinyl offering. The brevity of the two pieces presented (6 1/2 and 4 1/2 minutes) might work against it, I think; I would have preferred to hear each piece at much greater length. But these seem to have been prepared as focused investigations of carefully limned sound worlds, sticking to one area, seeing what can be gleaned. "Skyscraping" appears to be all metal-driven, a shimmering cloud of malleted, rubbed or bowed cymbals and gongs. It's not, generally speaking, an area that hasn't been visited many a time, but Wolfarth approaches it with care and an appreciation for the overall structure of the work that makes things cohere very well. Thinking it over, maybe 6 1/2 minutes is an appropriate time span, not allowing things to billow out of hand, letting the listener grasp the entire shape of the work. This is the kind of piece where it's all too easy to listen once and think, "OK, I've heard this sort of thing before" and miss out on the subtleties, the lovely ebb and flow, the sensuality of the tones. It grew on my each time I played it (especially at volume); good work. "Zirr" is a different animal entirely, rambunctious snares in an off-kilter, quasi-martial state of excitement with ringing cymbals underneath, a frantic, nervous piece. An interesting slice, though one with less inherent appeal to this listener than the previous work. As this release is "vol. 1", we'll presumably be hearing other episodes from Wolfarth's investigations in upcoming months. I'm curious.

Available via metamkine or maybe through Christian himself

June and July paintings

Not working at the same pace as in May (two weeks in Spain and the new pup tend to put a damper on things like this--though I did take a sketchbook on the vacation and did about 20 ink drawings), but messing around a bit more, beginning to feel more comfortable with the medium again. Much like those musicians and labels accused of putting out too many things, I'll post all of 'em, ones I like and ones I don't. Admittedly, the real disasters end up in the trash, but there have been surprisingly few of those, at least in my eyes.

These are close to actual size (when clicked on) and in more or less chronological order. [Edit--some seem to reproduce larger; the t-shirts are 4 x 4 ", for instance; not sure why they appear that way)

Four red t-shirt studies.









Small rock thing--didn't much like it but did take a shine to the blue on burnt sienna at the bottom, so did a quick relatively rare (for me) abstraction.







Self-portrait in the tv screen.



Back to rocks....

Music for the Balinese Shadow Play - Gendèr Wayang from Teges Kanyinan, Pliatan, Bali (Nonesuch)

I'm not sure if this was the first record of Balinese music I heard, but it's one of them. Actually, my first encounter with a piece of gamelan music was via the amazing Nonesuch sampler double LP, my initial exposure to all sorts of music from outside the US/Britain ambit.

This stuff is simply spectacular. Timeless, endlessly beautiful, heartbreaking even. One of my all-time favorite recordings though I'm entirely ill-equipped to say much of anything about it. I'm sure I'd have a gamelan expert saying that this ensemble, a quartet incidentally, was nothing special, a commercial gloss on the real thing. Whatever, do check it out. It's available as part of the ongoing CD-issue of Nonesuch material, with a new cover:



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For some reason, I have that filed under "Gamelan". The names are given for the four members but there's no group name, no implied "leader". I put on the next one just now, The Ganelin Trio's "Ttaango....in Nickelsdorf" (Leo, 1986) and, while it's ok of its kind (an extension of the Taylor/Lyons/Murray trio, I might say) it's the sort of thing I have a tough time revisiting; I'd rather hear Cecil.

Plus, I have those early Garbarek's waiting; been thinking of those for a few days, wondering how they'd sound.....

I can't remember what it was that induced me to buy this album back in '82. I'm sure I hadn't heard it on KCR and don't know, at the time, where I would have read about Ms. Galas--maybe Cadence or Coda? I wasn't then (and still am not) a fan of histrionic vocalization, male or female but Galas, at her best (and this is an example, imho) transcends that. Heh, this is one that really drove Linda nuts when I played it loud. A 12" 45rpm, two side long tracks. The title piece makes superlative use of multi-tracking, Galas sounding like a swarm of Baudelaire-reciting demons; fine tape and electronics work as well.

And then there's "Wild Women with Steak-Knives" ("for solo scream"). Of its kind, I can't think of anything more powerful. Pieces like this have always made it difficult for me to listen to the Shelley Hirsch's of the world. When Galas pins you to the wall and shouts, inches from your nose, "And I'm not talkin' about meatballs, I am talkin' about STEAK!", you hie yourself to the meat market. Holds up extremely well, happy to say.

Galas' brother Dmitri, a playwright, was an early victim of AIDS and she would go on to concentrate on AIDS-related themes, more effectively than anyone I've heard (see below). At the time of this recording, 1981, AIDS wasn't quite recognized as a single phenomenon, but some of the brutally sarcastic lyrics point that way:

I commend myself to a death beyond all hope of redemption
beyond the desire for forgetfulness
beyond the desire to feel things at every moment
But to never forget
to kill for the sake of killing,
and with a pure and most happy heart,
extol and redeem Disease.


Her second record (1984), self-titled, appeared on Metalanguage, the SF-based label that was also early home to Henry Kaiser & ROVA. It's more controlled in many ways and features more electronic processing, splitting of her voice via multiple mics and overlays. Two side-long works, "Panoptikon" and "Tragouthia Apo to Aima Exoun Fonos", the latter her first foray into Greek, I believe. Excellent record, maybe the least known of her good work? The outrage seethes but remains just below eruption level, very tense, the odd spatter of molten lead burning one's cheek.


I somehow missed her third album (Divine Punishment). This one I didn't have a strong memory of--never liked the cover, maybe that's it. She begins with the co-option of that spooky organ music you hear in every other crappy Gothic film (Berlioz, right?). But again, it hold up pretty well. Five pieces, a step towards song-form from the previous efforts, some of her effectively dark pianistics and spat vocals on cuts like 'Artemis'. And "Cris d'Aveugle" ain't bad either--bitter, bitter, bitter, with those lamma lamma sabacthani's, as corny as they sound on one level, still capable of producing a chill. Great mix of crone cries, innocent babe plaints, deep-throated sibyls and, for all I know, norns (look it up). I have to say, this play-through is turning out to be far more rewarding than I expected....


This one, the last vinyl I have of Galas (another 12" 45rpm), has always been a small favorite of mine, if only because of the presence of the single most powerful, most ruthless AIDS-related song I've ever heard, "Let's Not Chat About Despair". Worth quoting the lyrics in full, I think:

You who speak of crowd control, of karma, or the punishment of god.
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you fear the cages they are building in
Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas
While they’re giving ten to forty years to find a cure?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you pray each evening out of horror or of fear
To the savage God whose bloody hand
Commands you now to die alone?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you taste the presence of the living death
While the skeleton beneath your open window
Waits with arms outstretched?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you spend each night in waiting
For the devil’s little angels’ cries
To burn you in your sleep?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you wait for miracles in small hotels
With Seconal and Compazine
Or for a ticket to the house of death in Amsterdam?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you wait in prison for the dreadful day
The office of the butcher comes to carry you away?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you wait for saviors or the paradise to come
In laundry rooms, in toilets or in cadillacs?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Are you crucified beneath the life machines
With a shank inside your neck
And a head which blossoms like a basketball?
Let’s not chat about despair.
Do you tremble at the timid steps
Of crying, smiling faces who, in mourning,
Now have come to pay their last respects?
Let’s not chat about despair.
In Kentucky Harry buys a round of beer
To celebrate the death of Billy Smith, the queer,
Who’s mother still must hide her face in fear.
Let’s not chat about despair.
You who mix the words of torture, suicide, and death
With scotch and soda at the bar,
We’re all real decent people, aren’t we.
But there’s no time left for talk.
Let’s not chat about despair.


She has a band here and her direction is clearly rock-ward. Chilly rendition of "Let My People Go":

O Lord Jesus, do you think I've served my time?
The eight legs of the devil are crawling up my spine.

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

I kept up with Galas for a good while, though the recordings became somewhat less focused. She moved towards blues, which I largely enjoyed but didn't need to hear so often.

I saw her Plague Mass at St John the Divine in 1991, I guess. Quite the event. A full (very large) church, Galas took the stage in a topless evening gown, drenched in stage blood, put microphones to mouth and intoned, "Give me sodomy or give me death!".

Quite the evening.

A year or two ago, I received a rare live review assignment to cover her on the West Side at the Highline Ballroom, a swankish little night club. I wrote it up for Bagatellen (here) "Gloomy Monday" has stayed with me, I must say.

Tough, tough, tough.

There's a kind of monumental quality at play here, the sort of essence you might not ascribe to this area or music too often, or want to, really. "contact" arrives with huge expectations. In terms of "pared-downed-ness", of the relentless stripping away of non-essential information, Rowe has been dealing with that for years, coming at it from one direction (and, too, bouncing back and forth between that notion and a flood of densely packed information) where Sachiko more or less began there and, if she's budged, it's only been a fraction of an inch, necessarily as there didn't seem to be very much more ground available to occupy. So the meeting of the pair, their first as a duo, has something of a mountaintop rendezvous about it resulting in both a stunning breadth of vision and a massive subjugation of ego. Of course, that latter idea gets paid lip service all the time; rarely do you hear it in practice to the degree encountered on "contact". They're not erased entirely--that possibility remains far off, I think--but "contact" comes closer than most.

It's so vast--some two hours of unrelievedly patternless sounds--no real footholds proffered, making it extremely difficult to mentally encompass any of the four tracks, much less the whole thing, that a descriptive analysis seems pointless. I could say that for about half of "square"'s 41 minutes, Sachiko emits one pure sine tone, possibly adjusting the volume level now and then, perhaps not, maybe splitting the tone subtly toward the end of that stretch; it comes and goes after that. It's not so much a "background" for Rowe, more like a needle that pierces his every scrabble. (Who does what here, of course, is often guesswork, though idiosyncratic noises emerge throughout). As has been her practice in recent years, she doesn't move a hair and it's up to her collaborator(s) to fit in. Rowe does so perhaps more beautifully than anyone I've heard by using it as described above, not as a scrim against which to project his images but as a "solid" form on which to hang things, to adhere sounds, to pierce back in return. He's quiet (as is the sine tone) but hardly evanescent, active without being insistent, all scumbling sounds, small clicks, rough like sand but gentle like sand in its fine grainedness. I'm not at all sure the above description is of any value.

If there's one overriding sensation I get from this release, it's of a natural process in action, maybe a geological one. I was reminded several times of Xenakis' great "Concret pH", where the hyper-amplified pockets of air within burning charcoal were captured as they microsonically exploded. Here, the pacing, the dispersal of sounds has something of that beautiful inhuman property, of a process that occurs for reasons other than human sensibility though, of course, that's exactly what it is. I said above that there's an extreme of egolessness here, and I think there is, but there's the contradiction, perhaps, of two clear sensibilities mingling, mindful of each other and their own contributions.

For Rowe, it's almost an opposite attack from what we've heard on "The Room" or the live set from last fall with the classical samples. It's spare but by no means dainty. Graceful, yes, but by its own set of rules, I think taking his cue from Sachiko. Perhaps it stemmed from being in Tokyo (and the issues he dealt with in the live, solo set) but he seems to be almost deferential to Sachiko here, allowing her to set the terms initially, then engaging her rigorously but without any defensiveness. I think maybe it's Sachiko who's more "at home" in this world, Rowe who has to sublimate certain "classical" urges--arc, for instance--even more than usual.

[I pause to note the distance traveled by Rowe in the past decade. To get from, say, "Harsh," to here is remarkable enough. For that journey to have been accomplished by someone in his 60s is...well, one shakes one's head]

Inevitably, I think of visual analogies and, just as inevitably it's Twombly who first surfaces, the flyspeck scatterings slung across white space, the small clusters that form almost by chance (and when they do here, it's rather sublime), the balance wherein you have to mentally encompass a vast area wherein information is thinly distributed but voluminous, keeping it all in mind. Like I said, tough, tough, tough. Like some huge, abstract sumi painting where you can only take in a few square inches at once. As is, repeated listenings offer an endless source of newness, of guessed-at logics, of a language that I'm sure is a step or two beyond my grasp. I can easily imagine "contact" sounding just as imposing, if perhaps a tad more decipherable, ten years from now.

Great, great record.

erstwhile

"Living Time" was probably one of the first ten jazz albums I heard, I guess late '72? It was issued under Bill Evans' name, but even to my uneducated ears it was clear that it was really a George Russell recording. Russell, by then, was making use of rockish rhythms so it wasn't difficult music for me at the time, but it certainly sounded different from anything I'd heard. Within a few years, I'd read a bit about (but not understand) his Lydian Chromatic Theory--whatever, it gave his music a unique tinge.

Pretty quickly, via NMDS, I ordered his epic "Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature" and the "Othello Ballet Suite", the former soon becoming a big favorite of mine, among other things my initial exposure to Jan Garbarek and his circle of musicians, which led to me getting their early ECM output. A bit later I picked up the phenomenal "Live at Beethoven Hall" set with Don Cherry (probably my favorite work of his, all told) and other earlier records.

When I was in Boston in '74-'75 at the Museum School, Russell was teaching at the New England Conservatory so I was able to attend a couple of shows there--I think Stanton Davis was in his band then, probably others whose names I'd recognize today. My memories of the performances are vague but positive.

In all honesty, I didn't care at all for much of the later music of his I heard; I recall being particularly disappointed by "The African Game". But his work through at least the mid-70s is marvelous. Many's the time I've turned on KCR in the middle of a piece and, even if I'd never heard it before, there was no doubt it was George Russell.

Thanks for all the beautiful music, Mr. Russell.

Seth Nehil - Flock & Tumble (Sonoris)

Not too often you come across something that just sounds like little else. I suppose, stretching things, I could make a tenuous connection between Nehil and sometime collaborator Olivia Block insofar as a predilection toward certain hollow, echoey sounds and the general kind of construction in effect, but really, this stands apart. And it's very good. The first rack, "Tew" (so named, I take it, for the vocalized sounds that approximate the title), contains elements that might be kindling wood (or it might be watery in nature, sometimes hard to tell), various percussive tones both tonal and not, scattered irregularly but consistently, and the aforementioned, soft vocalizations, all but hidden. But there is a sense of composition here, of a carefully placed and layered sequence of three sound-zones that don't so much intermix as entwine. The "whuips" of "Whuip" are indeed whuiped like a, um, flock of cranes, arising here and there from another kind of percussion bed, pinned by deep, sizzling thuds and a ringing drone. Here, as in the first piece, the essential pace is very slow (even as some events flit by quickly), a twilight kind of atmosphere with distant rumbles, fireworks, parties. There's some wonderful clatter in other places, sounding like pool cues and wooden balls dropped in a large, resonant space, odd voices often present as though commenting on the delirious activity surrounding them (each piece contains its own nest of ideas, another impressive aspect of the disc). Highlights abound, including the marvelous and unexpected explosion of (all but indecipherable) lyricsal content in "The Sun" and the fantastic, Xenakis-like eruption of percussion in the concluding "Blackhole". If I had to pick, I'd say there are one or two moments when the dronage holds sway a bit long, but overall this is a fine and unique offering, do check it out.

sonoris



Matt Shoemaker - The Sunken Plethora Consumes All (Mystery Sea)

Yes, unfortunate title. And not so exciting music. Shoemaker, like many others in recent times (too many) melds field recordings with ambient, drone-oriented music. In a way, it's a sure-fire combo, like hamburger and ketchup, but too often it's little more than that. Nothing offensive here--isolationist hums, several ply thick, bits of water, birdsong, etc. bleeding through the pores; attractive enough but I don't pick up a strong sense of purpose. There's an over-reliance on eeriness ("Hallucination Pool") that veers dangerously close to the corny in the way that Eno's "Apollo" series did. The title cut, though it begins portentously enough with some mournful tolls, by dispensing the melodic bedding to a great extent, works the best, edging into a bleak area that's convincing.

mystery sea

Puppy duty and our newly installed FIOS being on the blink for a couple of days (phones too) responsible for limited posting. Will attempt to rectify soon...

(contact being spun)

I have only three more "F" LPs, so I wanted to get them out of the way!

Jeff Fuccillo's "Disturbed Strings" is actually a recent one, from 2004, and I previously reviewed it at Bags (here). An unusual recording that includes tape interjections from John Fahey; this was intended to be a duo session and, much to Fucillo's surprise, that turned out to be the extent of Fahey's participation. I pretty much stand by the review and am pleased to report that the record stands the test of five years very well. Apparently (see here) it's sold out but it seems copies are somehow available (? not sure how that works). Well worth it for post-Fahey fans and post-Bailey guitar enthusiasts generally.


Now here's one that I'd entirely anticipate not liking a tenth as much as I did when originally purchased around '87. Have Dossier LPs ever been released on disc? Fulton leads a band with Rachel Sherman (I've no idea what she does here, no instrumental credits are listed), Elliott Sharp, Wayne Horvitz, Bobby Previte and David Hofstra. I think I knew Fulton mostly as a drummer with Sharp and this is certainly a drum-driven album. At times, it has a rawness that still rings true, the kind of primitivism Sharp achieved early on with his first Carbon bands in the early 90s. Other times, it falls prey to the slickness that often infected Horvitz projects from the time, without the redeeming aspect of those occasionally luscious melodies. But overall, no, I'm afraid it doesn't hold up at all. Anyone know what became of Fulton?


Future Shock - "It's Great" (BVHaast)

OK, call me cruel, but I can't help but quote the blurb on the back cover in full:

Future Shock creates a new sound in today's jazz music. This band succeeds in combining the strongest elements of various musical directions:

--the exciting rhythms of funk, latin and jazz
--the down-to-earth sound of a four horns section
--a swinging rhythm-machine, consisting of guitar, bass-guitar and drums
--a fully original repertoire which combines structured form and elaborate arrangements with soloistic performances by outstanding instrumentalists. All compositions are written by bandleader Maarten van Norden en [sic] co-leader Jan Kuiper.

Presently, 'Future Shock' is one of the groups the most in demand and widely acclaimed in Holland. This record shows you why!

Man. As if the LP title wasn't bad enough. So why do I have it? 'Cause it's Maarten van Norden, who was a monster tenor player with Breuker. I think this might have been his first return to record after the van accident he was in (the same one that killed Harry Miller) which, iirc, did serious damage to his jaw. Willem van Manen is on board as well, not that his own side project, Contraband, was ever more than a snooze. btw, not surprisingly, can't locate a cover image--pretty sure this was never discafied--but that's van Norden above; always a good looking fella.

The music? Tightly arranged? Yes. Soloistic? I suppose. Boring? In extremis.

On to the G's!!

Just a brief note as I'm writing it up for Squidco, but this is one of my favorite releases of the year. Stefano Scodanibbio leads and performs five pieces: Concert for Piano and Orchestra, Freeman Etudes n 1-5, Dream (an astonishingly beautiful piece I don't think I'd heard before), Ryoanji and a super strong performance of Radio Music. Check it out.

I've decided to spend much of the last two days listening to the Oren Ambarchi/Keith Rowe recording of four pages from Treatise, performed on February 8, 2009 and released as an LP on the Italian Planam imprint (available from Squidco while supplies last--limited edition of 300 copies)

The pages chosen were 53, 58, 168 & 169, the former pair containing some amount of calligraphic detail, the latter two consisting almost entirely of a the single "spine", though p. 168 has a small gap about a quarter of the way across the page.

One reason for doing so was (is, as I'm writing this early on in the day) to try and tease out some of the differences in Keith's approach, not just when performing Treatise, but generally, with that of other contemporary improvisers. I've recently gotten more than ample tastes of that on the upcoming duo with Sachiko M (next week, Jon? [here now!]) but that's so...extreme, I thought this would be something more comparable to work being done in the fields by others. Comparable, but there's always something, many things, that set Keith's playing apart.

Listening to a duo, I necessarily make some assumptions as to who's playing what, some of which may well be wrong. But I feel reasonably safe in saying that Oren's responsible for much of the underlying, beautifully modulated hum and probably some accompanying washes while Keith contributes the spikier portions.

They begin together, Ambachi generating a hum, Rowe a sustained tone, beginning with an audible pluck. As the first four or so inches of the score consists of the spine and a thinner, slightly elevating line, it seems easy enough to follow along at this point. Keith has said that he thinks each page should take about 6-7 minutes to perform (which would make a complete rendition of the 193 pages clock in around a tidy 24 hours) and the entire record is indeed only about 25 minutes long--this doesn't mean, of course, that the tempo has to be consistent and, indeed, there's an abrupt shift about 40 seconds into this performance, a harsh crunch appearing. The first new shape one encounters in the score is a quarter-circle with three lines parallel to the thin, rising line extending backward and three straight segments connecting the ends of the arc forming an irregular "pie slice". Here--quite early!--I lose track of any obvious relationship between sounds and score. The number "4" appears twice, though I don't pick up a correspondence in the musical activity. Ambarchi seems to be maintaining that hollow drone throughout this opening portion, Rowe scrabbling alongside (the short line segments following the first "4" = the scrabblings?)

I know Keith has read circular forms in Treatise as indications to turn on his radio--there are two semicircles on p. 53 and a few full ones on p. 58, though these latter can also be read as variations on the repeat signs that appear throughout the score. I don't pick up any radio at all here, though it's possible he's tuned in to some between-station static. Assuming two pages per LP side (a possibly wuite unwarranted assumption), I also can't detect the page turning. There's a lot of wonderfully bristling static at the midway point on Side 1; if Ambarchi has done much of anything prior besides the drone (which has very subtle fluctuations and is fantastic on its own), I'm not sure; maybe his "role" has been spinal. Around this point, though, I think he expands his palette, maybe sticking with the darker lines of the score, ceding the lighter ones to Rowe. The play between the deeper tones and the rustly, papery ones (Rowe?) is excellent, really establishing a plastic sense of space between them. There's a decrescendo with a minute or two to go, perhaps the converging lines toward a couple of eighth notes near the end of p/58? But the end of the first side consists of scratchy, crackling sounds (over a soft hum) where the remainder of the score has only a straight line and the number "1". Obviously, I'm entirely lost here. I'm rather sure Keith would be able to notate each section with some precision and that, in retrospect, I'd do a few headslaps, muttering, "Of course!", but it's damned difficult to track otherwise. Also, as he's been performing this piece for some 44 years, there's been more than enough time for layer upon layer of intricacy in reading and understanding the score to have developed. Expecting to be able to easily glean what's going on in his head (and, in fairness, I hear this as more a Rowe-directed performance than a 50/50 collaboration; perhaps unfortunate but maybe unavoidable) is a fool's errand.

As mentioned, pp. 168 & 169 are pretty much just the spine, with a single brief gap. Now, I have no idea, really, if the pages were performed in order or if they were laid out in any way sequentially rather than, say, played as overlays. Whatever, the music on Side 2 is hardly linear. Once again, Ambarchi lays down a bed, here more varied and granular than before, and Rowe injects harsh, rubbed sounds, quite rough, in the manner of many of his recent recordings and performances. One thought--the line in question is hand-drawn, after all and, examined closely enough, is full of small irregularities. Perhaps they're taking a microscopic journey along its truly bumpy path. There's a clear guitar twang a few minutes in--hard not to read that as the empty gap! A furious spray of chittering electronics ensues before things settle in, though not completely--it's calmer but there are five or six things occurring at most times. That's one active line. Dunno, maybe the last two pages take place in the final minute.

But back to my original point. Granted Oren's contributions, Keith's interjections are just so right, so to the point (independent of my not being able to connect them with the score) in terms of timing, texture, dynamics and boldness. That latter, balanced with an innate sense of restraint and reticence, is what really makes it for me. The restraint insofar as not having to do anything, the boldness in feeling no compunction or constraint to hold back when an idea hits, the confidence in knowing one can place it within the ongoing context without its calling undue attention to itself at the expense of what's occurring in the room. If there's one quality in Keith's music that's rare to hear in others, it's that, for me.

Eh, always tough to express. It's a very fine release, in any case, both considered (as we've come to expect from Keith) and exciting. Can't wait for the Cathnor Treatise recording to arrive, complete with annotation....

Tom Chant/Angharad Davies/Benedict Drew/John Edwards - Decentred (another timbre)

An intriguing smorgasbord that hits home a few times and just misses some others. Three of the six pieces are by Michael Pisaro, each a duo (violin/bass, violin/bass clarinet and bass/electronics). They're quite spare, often near unisons of held tones hovering in space. I found the first and second of only moderate interest but the third subtly wonderful, perhaps merely due to the instrumental combination, but it clicked far more forcefully and movingly for me. The two improvisations fare better, "Activation" an engaging mix of ethereal drones and everyday pops 'n' squeaks that remains solid and colorful throughout, "Decentring" a fine mesh of thin tones flitting past, the quartet again finding great variety in a fairly circumscribed area.

I've heard several versions of Cage's late "number" pieces; I don't have nearly a good understanding of them, I'm sure, but I've tended to enjoy them greatly. "Four6", presented here, is no exception. There's just a certain kind of openness in play, an unforced breadth, that makes it a joy to enter, each instrument really penetrating the aural space in a corporeal but delicate manner, like tendrils hanging from an eave. Really good work.

Rhodri Davies/Michel Doneda/Louisa Martin/Phil Minton/Lee Patterson - Midhopestones (another timbre)

Would have guessed, wrongly, that a session with Doneda and Minton present would turn into something more rambunctious. Restraint is the order of the day here, however, and it's an excellent day's work. There are actually only a handful of moments when you can recognize Minton; he blends amazingly well with the harp (e-bowed, pretty much), soprano sax, laptop and amplified objects. Mostly hushed with an great mix of textures, sandpapery to bell-like, sighed to gravelly. Nice, distant foghorn-y effects on the last cut, over whistled saxophone. Solid, mature in the best sense, well worth a listen.

********

Simon has also released four more CDRs in his Byways series, meant to provide snapshots of the British scene, in these cases having been recorded in March and April of 2009.


Léo Dumont/Matt Milton - Scrub

Percussion/violin in quiet, though very active mode. It stays in the area initially circumscribed, investigating intently, scratching away like furious termites for some 20 minutes before an "alarm bell" sound ushers in a second phase of gentle cymbal washes and softly plucked then more harshly sawn violin. This in turn settles into a small bed of muted bells, barely there drones and assorted chatter. I found the performance to get more engaging as it progressed, always a good thing, ending succinctly after about a half hour. I've been listening to these Byways discs a bit differently, trying more to psychically place myself in the live situation as opposed to hearing it as a "release". I can see being quite satisfied after this one.


Paul Abbott/Léo Dumont/Ute Kanngiesser - Loiter Volcano

The excellently titled "Loiter Volcano" was a constant source of somewhat surprising pleasure the first time I listened. "Surprising" because the general attack leans a bit more toward efi (I suppose "post-efi" has been appropriate for a good while) than I normally care for. But this mix of electronics (that's printed here with a line through it--no idea why or how to reproduce it typographically), percussion and cello simply filled the space in a manner that held me rapt throughout. As with the other release featuring Dumont, it's partially about the textures and their creative deployment but, more, it's the structural fabric that emerges during the piece, the tensile strength one hears; there are no weak planks, each passage provides sure, if giddy, footing to the next. Whatever (non) electronics Abbott is wielding, he does so with great tact and Kanngiesser's cello, often residing in a semi-traditional zone, is a perfect foil, not lacking in emotion. Loiter Volcano is my personal pick of this litter.


Matthias Forge/Phil Julian/David Papapostolou - Meshes

I'm not quite as sanguine about this one, one track of which was recorded at the same event as the above. Trombone, electronics (sans disfigurement) and cello, the trio opts for a sparser, more irregular path, with perhaps a higher degree of difficulty. Two cuts, both emerging more or less unscathed, but somehow striking me as overly forced. Actually, it's a tough one for me to call; sometimes it has a searching quality that's very appealing, other times I hear it less as "searching" and more as "casting about". Again, I don't believe these are meant as statements or finished projects, more as snapshots; there's nothing here that would dissuade me from hoping to hear more from this trio by any means. I just wanted more rigor this time around.


Jamie Coleman/Grundik Kasyansky/Seymour Wright - Control and Its Opposites

Eighty minutes of trumpet/electronics and alto sax. Here, the length works in its favor. An advantage, oddly, to listening at home (and reading the back of the sleeve): You know it's 80 minutes long so you "read" it as such, as it's happening, sitting back a bit, seeking a wider focus. Wright gets nicely strident here and there, Coleman generally staying with breath tones early on, getting more vociferous later, Kasyansky hither and yon (some well modulated radio), doing a fine job integrating and coloring. There's a break almost an hour in and one wouldn't have been surprised or disappointed had it ended there, but happily it does not, the ensuing 20 or so minutes taking on a kind of AMMish quality (replete with brief Sheryl Crow and "Blue Moon" captures), all subdued tension. Rather rare, that, after a relatively lengthy set. Good job.

A quality set of releases; nice to get the documentation of the scene.

another timbre

....now if only that long-awaited Tilbury disc would finally see the light of day...