Jonas Hellborg
David Toop
David Toop makes finely articulated sound sculptures of a rarely heard
otherliness. This third volume in Caipirinha's Architettura series, follows
two excellent efforts on the Virgin Ambient label, Pink Noir (1996) and
Spirit World (1997). Toop's "music" is too detailed to be ignored as mere
ambient pad noise and yet quite minimal in the musical values department.
Typically his work exhibits tempo-unrelated rhythms and a strange acoustic
palette wherein the listener floats through nets of never-heard-before
textures, the result of serious inquiry into the manipulation of acoustic and
electronic waveforms. Museum of Fruit submits seven tableaus of such
weirdness however it is a positively exquisite weirdness imbued with a
meditational calm. Holographic rumblings and barely audible sizz swim amidst
ultra slow shakuhachi solos played in reverse, for example. Entirely lucid
and unsettling, might this be the sound of Japanese buddhists hallucinating
on amanita muscaria? Or sonic "Poe-on-absynthe" for that rare pair of ears
capable of sitting still for an hour of "Breathing Chaos" and other
tellingly labeled abstractions? Producer Paul Schutze has given this
recording such immaculate depth and titillating clarity, that you may find
yourself laffing occasionally trying to fathom why the odd noise deserves
such fine reproduction. While another fascinating, quality installment by
Toop, it supposedly doubles as an evocation of Itsuko Hasegawa's three
transparent dome buildings located in Yamanashi. This is sonic architecture,
but I'm not sure it pointedly recalls a physical space. This is something
far more elusive and, dare I say it, heretical. - Steve Taylor
Pachora
This emerging group of American musicians seductively blend the free-form looseness of jazz with melodies and rhythms from Eastern Europe, Turkey, Greece and Morocco. Despite their often-energetic playing, the overall sound here is somewhat muted. While the playing is exceptional and often done at breakneck speeds, this is neither a dance album nor one that demands serious listening; it is lively without being brash.
While the group's members play in other Downtown avant-jazz ensembles, they seem to have reserved a special shared sensibility for Pachora. Chris Speed's sinuous clarinet is, at times, reminiscent of klezmer music, while Brad Shepik's playing of the electric saz (a Turkish lute) gives several tunes their Middle Eastern flavor. Percussionist Jim Black's urgent work on the dumbek and trap drums sends the musical compass spinning. And while his is not an upfront instrument, Skuli Sverrisson pulls Pachora's sound together as well as urging it on with his nimble bass.
Giving new life to jazz with their quiet fire, Pachora is one of those rare groups whose sound seems familiar but is simultaneously singular. Eschewing kitsch and concentrating on its elegant musicianship, Pachora gives worldbeat fusion a good name. - Marty Lipp
Yggdrasil
The Four Towers and Heygar og Dreygar were two suites originally recorded in the 80s, composed by pianist Kristian Blak and performed by Yggdrasil. Although strongly programmatic (the first is based on a poem, the second on Faroe Island folklore) the suites are largely instrumental. There's also an occasional use of taped sounds - water, birds, wolves - that add to the overall ambience. (There's a tenor sax-wolf duet that's more energetic and savage than anything you'd hear from Paul Winter.) The music reminds me of nothing so much as bands like Camel: melodic fusion with some folk and jazz elements. The presence of tenor saxist John Tchicai gives some of the music more of a jazz edge, and there are a few avant-garde touches here and there, but most of the melodies are carried by the flute (played by Anders Hagberg) or guitar. Some of the music, especially in Heygar og Dreygar, is a little too episodic, with a lot of style-shifting going on between and within the pieces. But the shifts aren't drastic or jarring, rather they seem mostly intrinsic in the development of the music. And there seems to be a consistent emotional tone throughout, a kind of stateliness even in the wildest passages, that helps to unify the music. Tasty, melodic, and very well done. - Joe Grossman
Giya Kancheli
Kancheli, along with Schnittke and Part, has rewritten the rules of the concert hall symphonic in the last 25 years, proposing that sound unfold continually as if in a tragic ballet. Where measured time no longer exists, and intricately unpatterned, labor intensive, highly ordered scores celebrate the painful, the faulty and all that is sad and wanting about our lot on this planet. Artfully conceived and executed with merciless precision, this is music of cruel beauty for sturdy ears. But these poetic residues of the suffering and gloom felt in some forsaken corners of the world sure do have great sound. - Steve Taylor
Icarus
Philipp Wachsmann (violin, electronics), Roger Curphy (double bass), Mark Wastell (cello), Carol Ann Jackson (voice), Trevor Taylor (percussion, electronics)
Old-fashioned free-improv is what this disk, on one level, is all about. The use of bowed strings has always been a part of free jazz and free improvisation, but it seems to have had something of a resurgence in the last ten years, with musicians seeking to get some of the sustained, complex textures which are available to both composers of orchestral works and those who work exclusively with electronics. The sound on this disk is very much dominated by the trio of bass, cello and violin, and it would be easy to imagine that this is "just another free session" and leave it at that.
Disregarding the wisdom of writing anything off as "just another free session," this disk does rather undermine some of those expectations. This is ensemble music and yes, it's all improvised. It has as many connections with Pierre Boulez as with Albert Ayler and it contains a whole gamut of extended techniques and non-standard timbres. Yet it also does some things which many dates like this don't. It develops its ideas very slowly. Not for Icarus that typically restless approach which tends to pick up ideas and then drop them for fear of appearing to be repeating oneself, with the result that the music runs all over the place expending energy but going nowhere. Icarus prefer to develop textures slowly; the local details may change by the second, but the music has an overall movement, a momentum which carries it forward. This is due in part to the relatively straight playing which the string players engage in here. Wastell, in particular, is known for his textural approach, but here sets it aside to better integrate into the group. Likewise, the electronics are used very sparingly, giving the music light and definition but never obtruding into its progress. Taylor's percussion is understated and effective.
The star of the show is Carol Ann Jackson. She is very much submerged in the ensemble, but the thread which she weaves through it is wholly distinctive and completely captivating. Her voice seems to always be there but it's never obtrusive; a perfect balance of dynamic. It would be nice to hear her working with texts, but her non-verbal vocalizations are fully as musical as any of the other contributions here.
A quiet, unassuming recording. At first listen it might seem a little hard to grasp, but that's because its slow-moving exterior hides a mercurial imagination. - Richard Cochrane
Alfred Schnittke
The Psalms of Repentance will certainly stand in alliance with the other popular "works of suffering" for choir that have come to be associated with the New Series. Such serious material, which issues from neither the concert hall nor the church but from some contemplative site sealed away altogether from daylight and public eye, has to a large extent insured the survival of the classical arm of ECM. Almost single-handedly producer Manfred Eicher has codified this proscribed space of solitaire, this trying cave of intense personal anguish and examination that also includes expensive, high resolution audio equipment. Where the listener eavesdrops on the failings of the New Series composers through music derived from available prayers; offering simultaneously the opportunity of similar work on his/her self? Though quite distinct from Arvo Part's tintinnabular tactics, Schnittke's method here still shares with Part a fierce desire to progress beyond melodiousness, yet eschew any tendency toward the implausibly radical. Or, to at least generate form with only the most organic of processes while maintaining a sense of tonal coherence. But where Part has let the music write itself by virtue of the existing text and unified it using only the triad, the Psalms of Schnittke display much more varied musical structure. At the risk of spoiling the holy psychoacoustic of drone, Schnittke aims more at the head, constructing his music with a diverse spectrum of details. He carefully wove all 12 of the Psalms with an unpredictable yet ultimately logical progression of harmonies, many of which are in minor keys throughout, only to give way to a major chord conclusion. Number 12 is the only Psalm not set to words, using non-lingual utterance as if to suggest that the nature of repentance is beyond language in some unknowable, mystical dimension. - Steve Taylor
Sound of Choice
Hasse Poulsen (guitars, electronics, voice), Lars Juul (percussion, voice), Fredrik Lundin (reeds, electronics), Lars Møller (reeds, voice), Thomas Sandberg (vibes, percussion, voice)
The underpinning of these pieces is a rattling, percussive tachism formed of junk objects and heavily prepared instruments, but the record as a whole has a surprisingly feel-good vibe. What really makes it work is the use of Lundlin and Møller's rather smooth, melodic saxophone playing. They may often take an atonal approach - one can hardly comp a chord progression on brake blocks and arco cymbals, after all - but they're straight out of the Sonny Rollins school, using motifs to develop ideas horizontally in a really quite unexpected manner.
Once you get past the alarm-clock opening, you could even drift off to sleep to this disk. Which would be a shame, because you'd miss some fascinating music. At their best, Sound of Choice are beautifully understated, and even on tracks like "dynamics 9," a skronk-fest for the two reedmen accompanied by staccato noises, there is a static feel to the music which seems to suspend time rather than making it rush forward. Poulsen is a fine and flexible player, sounding like a cross between Derek Bailey and Larry Coryell on acoustic guitar while passing seamlessly from Keith Rowe-style abstraction to keening Frippian linearity on electric.
When the group goes for a percussion-based onslaught, the result can sound like someone sorting through a big box of spoons, which is rather hard going. When they get this feel right, though, some listeners might be pleasantly reminded of John Stevens' hectic, scattergun textures. These pieces are very much in the minority, in any case, and the overall meditative, thoughtful approach yields music in which every detail matters. Essential for fans of AMM; recommended for just about everyone else, too. - Richard Cochrane
Ned Bouhalassa
Bouhalassa is something of a bright young thing in Canada's electroacoustic scene. And, as befits such a position, he shies away from the academic pigeonhole in favor of something more eclectic and more modern-sounding. The bio says he's influenced by Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Public Enemy. I can hear you cringing already; these obvious names conjure an image of an ivory-tower academic trying to get with-it, like your teachers dancing at the school disco. In fact, such influences are very much submerged in a well-developed musical imagination.
The first track, "Jets," will serve as an example of his approach. It's very much object-oriented; self-contained events move around, develop, overlap and re-appear in an open field. Very effective it is too, and completely abstract, although there are moments which have a more conventional musical texture. The composer astutely identifies these as "nostalgic," perhaps giving some insight into his relationship with those influences from popular music -- and, in a coup of meta-meta-humour, one can even catch a sample of rhythmic, 70s-style robotic speech halfway through "Attraction" which strongly echoes the Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic," itself a tribute to the age of Space Invaders and Old Skool Hip Hop. Whether this specific reference is intentional or not, this complex, textured, unromantic use of recognizable elements from other music is typical of the rest of the disk.
Bouhalassa says something revealing in his comments on another track, "Move 1," when he refers to the "exchange or contrast between the recognizable (stable) and the unknown (unstable)." Thinking of movement in terms of a series of exchanges between stability and instability, a balancing act of a dynamic equilibrium, is helpful when applied to all kinds of music, but most explicitly to music like this. To think of these sounds as objects is also helpful; they are objects which can explode, collapse, propagate, dissipate, emerge anywhere, combine with one another and produce weird hybrids. Bouhalassa seems most fascinated by the idea of sonic movement, the concept that a sound can become an object which moves in a conceptual space (we are not talking here about the stereo field, of course). It's an interest which produces difficult music, certainly, and not stuff which follows the conventional musical lines of development. Without conceding that this is "ideal chill-out music" -- it's too surprising, it buffets you and comes at you from strange angles, shouting "boo" -- it's certainly absorbing. - Richard Cochrane
Tin Hat Trio
Jacques Tremblay
Given that "Oaristys" is Tremblay's tender ballad, no wonder tracks describing "the unconscious, prowling and searching for a way to enter the fissured wall of memory" or "the cruelties that man has committed in the name of God" are a long way from blissed-out ambience. While the musical content of these pieces is in itself enjoyable enough, the concrete sounds (including spoken words, water, footsteps; the usual things) create a considerably more all-encompassing atmosphere of nastiness. It's as well that Tremblay puts enough musicality into what he does that you feel you want to keep listening. It's something like watching a horror movie with your eyes shut.
The last two tracks are less conceptually scary, but just as edgy. "Rictus Nocturne" is the composer's tribute to jazz, and oddly enough it's the world of mushy standards which gets the treatment. Still, apart from the odd, obvious sample, what Tremblay is doing here is using the notion of the "jam session", the informal, after-hours playing where much experimentation often goes on. Combining a variety of electronic techniques under no particular theoretical rubric, Tremblay creates a altogether abstract work of music with very little to do with jazz; though it's a lot of fun. "Jeu d'Ondes" is a short piece sampling sounds from a yacht (both the boat and the water) and completely re-frying them to produce another abstract composition.
Tremblay's relationship to his sources is ambiguous, transforming some beyond recognition while leaving others untouched. Often, as on the first and final tracks, the results are extremely dramatic; in "Oaristys" they are strangely beautiful. - Richard Cochrane
Steven Anderson
Swedish producer, arranger and composer Steve Anderson and his Gipsy Power Band make melodic instrumental rock music that would have been favorably termed "progressive" in the 70s. Missa Magica is an homage to Nature but only briefly does it warrant head banging. The standard prog rock vernacular is accounted for in the multiple-part compositions, programmatic suites, and electric guitars serving both power chords and solo lines of classical intricacy. Drums, bass, organ, and synths round out the bandstand, subliminally supported with didgeridoo, rainsticks, bullroarer, jews harp and hand percussion. The spotlight however belongs to Anderson's guitar which moves from the simple 5-piece setting with the earthly trimmings to solo flights amid flute and string arrangements at the conclusion of the 5-part title track. Anderson favors minor keys and the melismatic syntax of southern Europe which in part masks the fact that he's from Sweden. Does he have long flowing blond hair? You know it. With a name like the Gipsy Power Band one might be inclined to relate them to Jimi Hendrix. Think instead a less severe Yngwe Malmsteen doing an orderly metal ballet. Despite its accomplished air, Missa Magica might be a little too organized for fans of the better known 90s Swedish prog acts such as Anglagard or Anecdoten. Clocks in at 46 minutes and comes in a mock-ECM wrapper circa 1977. Carefully rendered and cleanly recorded, this is for those who sit down to their rock music. "Gibson please, hold the vocals." - Steve Taylor
Sam Newsome & Global Unity
Nice to hear a soprano sax player who's not playing "light" jazz. Sam Newsome's CD is firmly in the style of Leon Parker's recent releases (who guests on the CD and with whom Newsome has worked). Soprano sax, wordless female vocal (done nicely by Elizabeth Kontomanou, who has a kind of Nina Simone/Jeanne Lee huskiness that blends well with Newsome's clear-toned sax), occasional bass, restrained percussion, and oud on a few tracks. No chordal instruments to set up harmony, so a modal feeling permeates the cd, even on tunes whose chord changes are familiar, such as Duke Ellington's "Caravan" and Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue". The oud adds its characteristic North African flavor in a couple of ostinato-based tunes, and is featured on the CD's most overtly African tune, "A Swedish Massage In A Turkish Bath". (Some other great titles on the CD include "I Be Hooked on Ebonics" and "Birdies from Bayside"). Sometimes the lack of dynamics in the arrangements gets a little monotonous, and the intensity level is mostly pretty low overall. But the music is refreshing in its unpretentiousness, and if you've enjoyed Leon Parker's last couple of CDs (as this writer has) then you'll like this one as well. - Joe Grossman
Denmark's Intuitive Music Conference 1997
Claus Bech-Nielsen (Accordion), Carl Bergstøm-Nielsen (French horn, voice), Frank Heisler (percussion), Helene Jerg (cello), René Morgenseen (saxophones), Nisima Marie Munk-Madsen (flute), Gerhard Pischinger (flute), Henrik Rasmussen (penny whistle), Robert Cole Rizzi (guitar), Johan Toft (marimba), Ivan Vinzce (viola), Kumi Wakoo (swanee whistle, voice)
Three tracks: "First Tutti Improvisation", "Second Tutti Improvisation" and, between them, "Pause". "Pause": oh dear, you think, looking at the timings. Nearly four minutes - of what? Silence? What's the points? Is it some kind of Cagean joke? Well yes, it is, actually, but not the one you were expecting.
This disk documents the music made at the opening of DIMC '97 by a dozen delegates, most of whom had never played together before. Assuming there was no conductor (none is credited) and no pre-arranged sequence of events, the result is pretty astonishing.
Twelve strangers improvising together is a recipe for disaster. What usually happens is this. The music begins tentatively, unstructured, with no-one wishing to tread on toes. Slowly, pressure builds up as egos are forces to submit to the rather boring music which is going nowhere. Something gives, someone plays up and then it's open season. Eventually everyone is exhausted from trying to play louder than everyone else and the sound peters out.
The DIMC delegate have avoided this chain of events so completely that one might suspect they're really a regular band and the whole thing is a hoax. The music is spacious, layered and sophisticated. The dominance of non-reed woodwinds (flutes and whistles) creates a nice effect in the first piece because, instead of competing, the musicians play as a section. Their shifting bed of sounds, often augmented by some of the other instruments, forms a perfect foil to the percussive and very responsive work elsewhere in the group. Special mention here must go to Rizzi, who plays what in this group constitutes a solo - a few seconds of slightly more prominent music, always interacting with the group and not a noodle in sight. A lovely contribution.
Then comes that pause. In fact, this is literally the unedited gap between the two pieces. Members of the group chat, laugh, check their tuning, make unidentifiable noises. The joke is that the group end up making a very rarefied, ambient sort of music in this gap, a music which the curators of the CD have chosen not to delete. Nothing like as focussed as the "real" improvisations, this is a diffuse, rather charming slice of life and it was the right choice to leave it in.
Also, the second piece grows quite naturally out of this candid sketching and scuffling; although it has a distinct start, the music makes more sense for hearing what came immediately before. The second performance is much more restless and much longer (over half an hour), but the group manage to sustain it. It feels as if each player has decided that instead of trying to hold the spotlight on themselves, as musicians are wont to do in such situations, they thought it would be much more interesting to keep it moving. Whenever the focus falls on one player, they do something with it and pass it on. It makes the piece a more abrasive experience, but it's an exhilarating one too. Highly recommended. - Richard Cochrane
IST
Rhodri Davies (harp), Mark Wastell (cello), Simon H Fell (bass)
The Improvising String Trio's third album has at least one thing in its favor before the wrapper's even off: the CD format. Their music is extremely detailed, and previous releases on LP and cassette have captured only a percentage of what they do. Here, at last, is a full-blooded recording of their very full-blooded music.
This set combines what the trio is best known for with performances of specially-written compositions. These latter have been in their live repertoire for some time now, and it's good to hear them committed to disk at last. They are all "compositions for improvisers", and skeptics about that genre are invited to start here; while IST never sound like anything but IST, these compositions provide just enough material to give each piece a certain identity.
Simon H Fell is apparently incapable of producing anything less than top-quality music these days, and his two contributions here are thoughtful, well-played vehicles for improvisation which are no longer even in the same hemisphere as the themes-and-solos model. Meanwhile, Phil Durrant continues his rather ascetic exploration of sine tones, noise and glitches with a new version of "Sowari." This writer played in an ensemble version of this piece during a workshop run by Durrant once, and while his explanation of the concept sounded slim the results were rather pleasant. In the hands of IST, "Sowari" sounds like a weird fusion of free improv and electronica. Fascinating stuff.
Elsewhere, Wastell contributes a piece focussing solely on percussive sounds. Stace Constantinou's "Empedocles" unites the two extremes of post-serial modernism, stochasticism and aleatorics, while Guto Puw's "X-Ist" is a mainly graphic score which inspires some beautiful playing from all three performers. Listening to this piece, one is particularly aware that despite their avant garde heritage, they rarely play extremely abrasive music for long. While many free improv groups saw away at their instruments striving to be "difficult", IST seem to be genuinely trying to make their extremely intricate music communicate clearly. The last composition is Bergstom-Nielsen's "Fire Music", a score which fits on the back of a matchbox but yields two and a half minutes of arresting music and could have provided quite a bit more.
The completely "free" improvisations are all spontaneous, sparky affairs full of fluid movements and plenty of cross-talk between these regular collaborators. Fell has been an important figure in British free jazz/experimental music for a while now, and Davies and Wastell look to be inexorably rising to meet him. The trio they form is unique and uncompromising. - Richard Cochrane
FJQ
Ntshuks Bonga (alto sax), Alfredo Genovesi (guitar), Jerry Bird (bass), Robin Musgrove (drums)
FJQ play a wholly modern-sounding take on high-energy free jazz. Eschewing any sort of '60s revivalism, they sound nothing but completely contemporary. Don't be fooled by the conventional-looking lineup: far from being a standard reeds-and-rhythm session, this is something very special.
Musgrave powers the group along with a drum sound derived as much from rock as from jazz; his vocabulary seems to be a genuine fusion of bebop and prog, all precision and crisp articulation. Every gesture is carefully placed, perfectly timed, clearly stated. He plays in close co-operation with Bird, an articulate bassist who has more than just jazz in his repertoire, and together the two produce a souped-up, ametrical funk and sustain a high energy level without falling back on tired old patterns. With these two in the rhythms section, nothing can go wrong.
Genovesi's interaction with them is a revelation -- he's a distinctive and imaginative player, again making frequent references to rock as well as jazz, particularly in his use of synthesized effects. He's a tasteful, yet challenging player. Not content to comp chords (this isn't changes-playing anyway), he interjects his own ideas and keeps the musical flow active and alive. He is perhaps most comparable with Giancarlo Nicolai. While he doesn't have the same depth of jazz affiliation as Nicolai, it's more than made up for by his sense of what goes where.
Likewise Ntshuks Bonga. Utterly immersed in free jazz, he somehow manages to avoid those near-inevitable avatars, Coltrane and Ayler. He's capable of thematic development, but not tied to it, comfortably switching to textural effects or compressed, surprising gestures as the music requires. Bonga doesn't dominate this date the way that the instrumentation might suggest, but he makes an indispensable contribution.
Individually, each of the players is fantastically good, and each one is rather undervalued. Collectively, they cook up a storm; one gets the feeling that this is the group that each one of its members has wanted to play in all his life. - Richard Cochrane
Nils Petter Molvaer
With Khmer, the techno sound of samples and loops arrives at the front door of ECM, who years into the most recent revival of jazz fusion, have finally embraced the realm of improv married to the spine throttling, ear-damaging, gaudy cool of breakbeats.
Khmer has earned the Norwegian equivalent of the jazz Grammy and drawn similar honors in the German jazz press. That has no doubt issued in part from the high fidelity achieved here, compared with the many techno/ambient records that lack smooth extended bandwidth and general audio polish; that, and the seven-man team that played and assembled this detailed picture of colliding universes. Headed by expedition-leader Molvaer, the work is topped with trumpets in the style of another emergent frontier, the unnamable ethnicity of post-jazz micro-tones.
Khmer has the impact of instrumental triphop or avant garde rock or even a distant stepchild of Miles Davis' free acid funk period. Molvaer works with dozens of effects and approaches, exploiting the extreme lows and highs of his instrument over a youthful throb. However, the dancehall selections are valuably contrasted with quieter works more clearly enhanced with an electronically manipulated backdrop of less beat-driven 'sampledelics'. In between the beats and the trumpet, one finds understated synth work, electric guitar stunts, low-frequency pulses, electronic echoes, and an opaque suite of abstract samples, including a few credited to Bill Laswell. The dynamics of rhythm, volume and tonal density are tastefully varied throughout, climaxing a few times in high torque junctions of dub-like tension and release.
While the simpler tracks offer breathing space, others are raucous palimpsests - sandwiches of jarringly unrelated layers of timbre and attack. The transparent collage is underneath more than a couple of the cuts here such as "Song of Sand" which is presented twice, the second take rethinking the basic contextual material of the first by applying a different solo. True to the current vogue of remix there is also an EP-length version of Khmer worked further by third parties for your dancing pleasure and accompanies the initial domestic issue in limited quantities.
The album's beauty is attributable mainly to the sophisticated playing of Molvaer who colors with stealth-like economy and continental range. The lull of elegiac contemplation, cryptic moaning, peeling rage and arabesque squall are all as emotionally telling as they are indicative of research into semi-tonal and extended vocabulary. While most contemporary recordings in the psycho-acoustic vanguard come up being mostly effects, Khmer actually contains real music, and it is Molvaer who provides the recognizably melodic motifs and gestures, the stock of many diverse years in Scandinavian rock and jazz. - Steve Taylor
John Fahey
This is one of the most dangerous sounding acoustic guitar recordings you are likely to encounter this year. Womblife delves way back, to the perinatal period of vertebrate life itself and the sound of it is cold, dark and hellish. In a word, otherly.
With titles like "Sharks", "Eels" and "Coelecanths", Fahey seems to be intrigued these days by a "paleontology" of sound. His strangely tuned acoustic guitars, offer rambling, drunken meat amongst a dense onslaught of feedback and other aggressively loud and cryptic slabs of noise.
Fahey incorporates some outsourced material in the assemblage of some pieces, such as the faraway rhythms and timbres of southeast Asian ritual music on "Planaria". His dingy, bent chords drift here over a backdrop of quietly persistent bamboo gamelan.
What he and producer/recordist Jim O'Rourke have wrought together is a fiercely experimental but totally confident world of broken time and menacing murk. Occasionally the insidious rumble that constantly tests your nervous system yields briefly to reveal only Fahey's blind strummings, both solo and in odd harmonic pairs. These, along with the plinks and plonks and mad glissandi wander out into the deep water of the pre-musical.
Womblife reminded me of the irrational blues avant garde brilliance of Captain Beefheart taken to a new level of weirdness without words. The experience is raw and unpleasantly intoxicating.
Then all of sudden it is just Fahey on the 12-minute closer "Juana", reminding all that the basis of his whole trip is a simple guitar and a rigorously novel way with it. "Juana" is a gorgeous and humane tonic, resembling most of what he has been doing all these years on the strictly real-time acoustic front.
Overall, Womblife touches Fahey's twin penchant for new folk guitar music and tonesmithing of the truly far-out. Jim O'Rourkes rugged production garners in your face sonics of a kind that at times will make you think your speakers drivers are going to bust. Fresh and stomach churning and yet all underpinned with an unamplified six-string. Moveover Harry Partch. - Steve Taylor
David Murray
Ulisses Rocha
One of the charming aspects of this CD is its simplicity. Guitarist Rocha has written some good tunes (and borrowed a few more) and plays them with the support of a bassist and percussionist. He's a versatile guitarist, not stuck in the classic Brazilian/jazz mold, but adding bits of blues and folk to the mix as well. In some ways his playing might be comparable to that of Ralph Towner's, although Rocha seems to have a less aggressive attack and his harmonies are more conventional. There's a variety of moods here as well, from the quiet reflectivity of "Nos e as Horas" to the rhythmically compelling "Nossa Gente". Sometimes his playing is deceptively simple--"Certain Things" sounds like it could have come off a James Taylor album. And special thanks go to Mr. Rocha (who also produced the CD) for having the courage to present his music unadorned and unsweetened; just guitar, bass, and percussion, with the guitar handling most of the melodies and solos. A well-conceived and executed album by a guitarist with the taste and chops to carry it off. - Joe Grossman
Robert Rich
Though absolute professionalism and craft are evident throughout, this one could use a few moments when the membrane of controlled flow is unabashedly pierced. Without such rupturing drama this should be filed under fine ambient entertainment/excellent pad music. The production is virtually faultless, with deeply layered images, diamond-cut clarity and articulation, and loads of presence, easily qualifying it as an audiophile edition. By the way consumers, this CD is brazenly blurbed on the back as "a must for any world or ambient aficionado". Anybody out there buying that? Shame on you Robert Rich. Tell the HOS marketing people to shut up and let your art do the selling. - Steve Taylor
Robert M Lepage and Martin Tetreault
Here's the deal: take a world-famous opera diva. Give her recordings to an iconoclastic turntable artiste. Introduce him to a brown-toned clarinettist and leave the two alone together for a while. The result? An unexpectedly lyrical, flowing album of improvisations packed with melodic invention, and nary a camp postmodernist joke to be found. It most assuredly is a funny old world.
There are one or two gags, of course -- there could hardly not have been. The first thing you hear is Callas warming up. Shortly afterwards, Tetreault puts on a teach-yourself-Italian disk full of opera house cliches and leaves Lepage to play an uncharacteristically lumpy solo over the top. Nothing lasts for very long (shortest track: 28 seconds), and Tetreault shows perecious little respect for the compositions Callas was originally performing. At one point, he even mimics the soprano perfoming a descending scale by slowing the turntable down with his finger. It all sounds like a recipe for knockabout cultural reference humour but, astonishingly, such impulses seem merely to be registered in order to keep them in check.
Instead, Tetreault and Lepage seem intent on making a record of beautiful music. Of course, Callas' voice is a fantastic sound-source, and rendered atonal, quavering and unpredictable as it is here it is a musical instrument up to the task of interacting with Lepage. The latter plays with a scrupulously clean classical tone throughout, enunciating his ostinati and curlicues of scales with careful precision. At this disk's finest moments, Lepage seems to curl his clarinet around Callas' voice, the two locked in an impossible, or at least implausible, counterpoint.
This also brings Tetreault's acheivement to the fore. He seems to have given over considerable time to the preparation of this disk -- perhaps he did not, but if not then his work here is all the more remarkable. What he manages to do is to take apart Callas' voice, to use the different elements of it in different pieces, yet to do so without it becoming a gimmick. Most of the pieces here have real musical interest, not just novelty value. Part of the credit for that goes to Lepage, because without an attentive and sensitive duo partner this would have been unlistenable. Part, however, must go to Tetreault for having the imagination and musicality to carry it off. Or then again, perhaps this conventional musicality is all part of another kind of joke, a sort of meta-joke about making a record of opera diva cutups with a straight face. This is a geniune ambiguity for a lot of this disk, the confusion between irony and sincerity, and that too is something of a strength in comparison with all those earnestly wry referential works which tend to dissolve into kitsch. - Richard Cochrane
Jean Derome
Original music by Montreal composer Jean Derome for the Overtigo Dance Troupe
production choreographed by Ginette Laurin includes sixteen selections,
clocking in at just under 71 minutes, performed brilliantly by nine musicians
on assorted percussion, woodwinds, brass, accordion, guitar, piano. In
addition, the animalistic voicings of Joane Hétu are woven throughout. Along
with the angular minor-key melodies for woodwinds and brass, the music here
issues mainly from secondary rhythmatists playing over more identifiably
metrical leads which together produce effects of persistent ‘accidental’
syncopation. With a name like The Beast Within one would have expected a
violent, paganistic statement, however the sound is at times surprisingly
tame; suggesting that perhaps the dancing is more violent than the music(?)
...Too, this constantly changing landscape of sound pocked occasionally with
pulseless ambience does admittedly seem concerned as much with the sensual and
spiritual aspects of human violence. A few surreal waltzes and the many
strange vocal noises streak the mostly dark spaces with odd color. Fans of
the minimalist post-Art Zoyd fringe, or better still, Meredith Monk’s earlier
work will find this an agreeable experience. - Steve Taylor
Tetsu Inoue
John Zorn calls Tetsu Inoue “one of Japan’s most eccentric electronic
geniuses” and he doesn’t disappoint us with that hyperbolic tag on this
fascinating entry into the New Japan ranks of the Tzadik label. Inoue composes
miniature worlds of sound using computers and does so seemingly under the
prime directive that no conventional music result, i.e. nothing that exhibits
mathematically definable rhythm, harmony, or melody. Instead he comes up with
intricate ways to eventuate a typical five minute piece using process
software, mapping bits and bites and excruciatingly fine shades of never-
heard-before color. This is an invisible land of bandwidth-spanning blips,
bleeps, pops, ticks, stuttering, ripping, zizzing glitches and other ultra-
brief data separated by tiny, always differing, amounts of silence and layered
with bewildering logic. What’s remarkable is that Inoue imbues his minutiae
with a strange beauty where others might be content to just throw nervous
system-fatiguing noise at you. There is an unidentified but very real
tonality and unmistakable sense of craftsmanship here. Also notable is Inoue’s
sense of soundstaging: dividing sound between channels, volume attack and
decay, must be painstakingly considered before hitting the execute button. The
last cut adds “brilliant electronic percussionist” Ikue Mori and the result is
as close to something that sounds like toe-tapping stuff as you get on this
exquisite record of research into quasi-aleatoric(?) sound sculpture.
Wonderful, “out-of-the-box” sonics approaching the accuracy of an audiophile
edition will tickle your mind also. - Steve Taylor
John Cage: Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier with Terry Riley
Paul Hillier is known most widely for his expertise in ancient vocal music
transcription and performance. This recording would thus seem to be an
eccentric deviation from his “normal” predilection for the chant arts. But on
listening to this sonically flattering production Hillier brings a hushed
reverence to Cage’s music, particularly the 25-minute centerpiece Litany For
The Whale, suggesting a vocal style that is monastic and zen-like in its slow-
tolling sparseness. For Cage-ophiles, there are 8 other selections here
including "Solo For Voice 52 with sound effects and weather"; ":Five" (1988);
"The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs" (1942) for voice, three pitches and
closed piano; "Experiences No. 2" (1948); "Solo For Voice 22" (1970), "36 Mesostics
re and not re Marcel Duchamp" (1970) and "Aria" (1958) all for voices and
electronics; and" The Year Begins to Be Ripe" for voice and closed piano (1970).
The complete program however is a real test for one sitting because Hillier
asks the listener to hop on Cage’s random roller coaster of mood, style and
sentiment. However, though one never knows what’s up next the themes of
silence and slowness do preside throughout. Terry Riley graces only two
selections, on the "36 Mesostics" as the reader of Cage’s wise, absurdist
poetry, and as one of seven voices on "Aria." All told, this is the work of a
holy fool where Hillier certainly gets the holy part right and to his credit
bravely goes along with Cage’s proposal (by virtue of the varied set here)
that if music should imitate life there should be a lot of surprises and
humor. - Steve Taylor
Alfred Schnittke: The Complete String Quartets
This double CD includes new commissioned recordings of the Schnittke quartets
Nos. 1, 2 & 4 and the "Canon in Memory of Igor Stravinsky," in addition to the
previously released "String Quartet No. 3" (from 1988’s Winter Was Hard) and
"Collected Songs Where Every Verse Is Filled with Grief" (from 1997’s Early
Music). Schnittke and Kronos are a propitious pairing. Where Schnittke has
articulated abstract, often frantic, machinations resulting from immersion in
unconscripted suffering and its evasion through the transcendent, the Kronos
Quartet eagerly, feistily bear down hard on the task of reading them with the
requisite neurotic intensity. Contrast-riddled tensions abound in Schnittke’s
works for string quartet, from eerie calm to ghastly eruption, prolonged
torture to momentary grace, touching on the forlorn, the confused and the mad.
Meaning, you’re in for a wrenching ride of morbid alertness. However, in
Schnittke’s pieces there is an acute emotive quality, a cleaning by fire, the
healing outcome of which is rarely apparent in the score itself. The capable
Kronos Quartet take the listener to the very edge of this frequently perilous
music. - Steve Taylor
Arild Andersen
Hyperborean begins with typical ECM restraint--a short string quartet introduction, a piece for Andersen's bass with string quartet backing, and a variation of the introduction. By the fourth track, however, the paired saxophones and the rest of the rhythm section kick in, and things heat up a little, just enough to keep the album from succumbing to terminal impressionism.
Some of this music is reminiscent of Keith Jarrett's European quartet, with often simple, folklike melodies, and both sax players working in a style greatly influenced by Jan Garbarek. But the variety of instrumental settings and the strong presence of Andersen's bass keep the music from becoming predictable or monotonous. At times it almost seems as if the bass is the main instrument, with saxes, percussion and occasional key-boards and strings serving as accompaniment. And the settings are varied enough and Andersen an inventive enough player that the CD holds your interest. A fine effort by a consistent player. - Joe Grossman
Earlier reviews are archived
Reviews are copyright 1998, 1999 by the authors.
Aram of the Two Rivers: Live in Syria
Bardo (www.hellborg.com)
Jonas Hellborg adds another challenging ethnic jazz project to his resume with a pair of live appearances from 1996 featuring local accompanists who add ney, violin, riqq and derbuka to his acoustic bass. Hellborg commands the steel strings at times with rippling, popping clusters, garnering polite jazz-like applause from the audience, yet does not forget to play softly at other times. His collaborators are clearly his equal though it is they who are adapting to the foreign compositions. The modes and tunings are Middle Eastern, the writing organically episodic, sometimes chaptered by different grooves within the same piece, and everyone improvises. Thus, Hellborg has set the pieces up to speak in a vernacular familiar to Syrian ears. However, in the more traditional sounding first set, his bass is a little too rugged in the space ordinarily reserved for the gentle warmth of oud or saz. Then again his bass does introduce some deep round bottom end and general acoustic punch, usually lacking in Arab classical recitals. In the first half of the recording Hellborg shares instrumental voices with ney flutist Mased Sri al Deen. The "second set" from the other date exchanges the flute for amplified violin by virtuoso Hadi Backdonas, who uses a bag full of effects including wah-wah for a sound that is daringly surreal. It is here that Hellborg's smacking steel strings make more sense as the music moves off the map in a hash oil wisp of sinister next-century portent. Great sound for a live recording; intimate, tactile presentation with quick, pleasing room shadows. This Arab classical music admirer just has to get his head around the percussive attack, spiky timbres and vague bravado. - Steve Taylor
Museum of Fruit
Caipirinha cai2022 (www.caipirinha.com)
Unn
Knitting Factory (www.knittngfactory.com)
The Four Towers & Heygar og Dreygar
Tutl Records (www.tutl.com)
Trauerfarbenes Land
Radio Symphonieorchester Wien
Dennis Russel Davies
ECM New Series (www.ecmrecords.com)
"Land that wears mourning" is one of two orchestral works included on this New Series release, each of one, massive movement, by the Georgian composer who sounds here like a secular Arvo Part doing film music. At just over 37 minutes the title work moves nonetheless in a clockless manner, starved of melody or the nourishing harmonics, offering quiet dissonance alongside, indeed sometimes tightly spliced with, crushing volcanic dissonance. This is grim stuff that speaks of such lonely discord and deprivation, of such monstrous horror that it sometimes makes Part's ardent penitence sound optimistic.
Icarus
FMR
(FMR, 10 Baddow Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 0DG, UK Fax: +44 1245 352490)
Swedish Radio Choir, Tõnu Kaljuste
Psalms of Repentance
ECM New Series (www.ecmrecords.com)
Dynamics
Av-Art (hjem.get2net.dk/avart/hist.htm )
Aerosol
Diffusion i Media (www.cam.org/~dim/)
Memory Is An Elephant
Angel (www.tinhattrio.com)
I always worry when I open a CD to find the performers touted in such superlatives as "daringly experimental." And rest assured, they are not all that experimental. They take their cues from the previous generation in the form of Piazzolla and in the current world of new music from Zorn and Klucevsek. But this band is quietly aggressive, interested in the sound and shape of ideas, and they are far from complacent or mainstream. The trio consists of Rob Burger, a talented accordionist who has a strong ability to improvise as well as play serious jazz; Carla Kihlstedt, a violinist with some seriously offbeat bowing who has also given some time to studying the technique of Piazzolla's string players; Mark Orton, a guitarist with a sound that incorporates the choppy licks of bluegrass with the melodic flow of Django Reinhardt. In an often romantic approach, this café orchestra brings in influences from French musette, Gypsy jazz, edgy hard jazz and all manner of "world music" and yet manages to make it all seem quite at home in their world. There is nothing earth shattering here. In fact, its subtlety could be their downfall; if you don't listen more than once you might miss the brilliance of it all, the careful, often muted colors that are applied with such care that at first glance they seem almost non-existent. Pull up a chair and get close, though, and you will find details that will satisfy the jaded ear and occasionally surprise it, too. - CF
Alibi
empreintes DIGITALes (www.cam.org/~dim/)
Jacques Tremblay's world is a pretty frightening one. Taking his cue from traditional concerns of musique concrete, his music is cinematic, narrative-based and populated by many recognizable sound-sources. Take the lovely "Oaristys", which the composer rather worryingly describes as erotic. It moves programmatically through six stages of a sexual encounter, each one populated by disturbing, disembodied sounds, cavernous echoes and intense dissonance. Maybe this just goes to show subjective any "program" will be, attached to any music, even in this most illustrative genre.
Missa Magica
Atrium (www.warnermusic.se)
Columbia (www.columbiajazz.com)
Av-Art (hjem.get2net.dk/avart)
Ghost Notes
Bruce's Fingers (come.to/bruces.fingers)
RM Records
(RM, 5 Parcy Bilton Court, Skinners Lane, Heston, Middlesex TW5 0QE UK )
Khmer
ECM (ecmrecords.com)
Womblife
Table of the Elements (TotELEMENT@aol.com)
Fo Deuk Revue
Justin Time (www.justin-time.com)
Don't think of this as a David Murray album. I mean, it is, in a sense, he's there, on almost every tune, and playing up to his usual standard. But this CD is much more of a co-operative effort between Murray (with rhythm section plus guests like Hugh Ragin and Craig Harris) and the dozen or so Senegalese musicians appearing on it. It's not easy to tell exactly who is playing on which tunes, but there's a consistency to the sound of the music ; there seems to be a looser vibe here than on some similar productions, probably due to the lack of drum machines. With one exception, the tunes are interesting and don't compromise either their Senegalese roots or the jazz elaboration in making the point. Murray blows some great solos, even if he's not the driving force behind the music. "One World Family" is a good example of how rap and jazz and African music can peacefully co-exist within the confines of a single tune. (On this tune, and a few others, vocalist Tidiane Gaye could be mistaken for Youssou N'Dour.) The exception noted above is "Too Many Hungry People" by keyboardist Robert Irving III, which is a dull vehicle for cliched lyrics that goes nowhere, however worthy the sentiment. Otherwise, this CD is great fun and worth listening to, if not a major entry in Murray's discography. - Joe Grossman
Moleque
Malandro Records (www.worldbop.com/malandro)
Seven Veils
Hearts of Space (www.hos.com)
Robert Rich's eleventh release for HOS is a painstakingly assembled work strongly suggestive of darkly sensuous, Middle Eastern dances. The spooky "Seven Veils" shows Rich moving toward ensemble-like presentations of his ambient ideas and moods. Synthetic colors, sampled textures and hand percussion rhythm tracks backdrop real-time instruments which consistently bend pitches into twisting, gestural smoke. Though most of this is played by Rich himself, he gets help from David Torn, Hans Christian, Forrest Fang, Mark Forry and Andrew McGowan on five of the seven tracks. The three-part "Book of Ecstasy", with its fifteen minutes of unwinding language is the high point of the set. Moments of this release tread on new ground, particularly Rich's use of lap steel guitar, but it all comes in this side of tidy, an aspect that continues to mark his recordings. (The flipside of such an observation of course is that Rich's execution is elegantly restrained.)
Callas: La Diva et Le Vivyle
Ambiances Magnetiques (www.cam.org/~dame_cd/ )
La Bête - The Beast Within
Ambiances Magnetiques (www.cam.org/~dame_cd/)
Psycho-Acoustic
Tzadik (www.tzadik.com)
Litany For The Whale
Harmonia Mundi (www.harmoniamundi.com)
The Kronos Quartet
Nonesuch
Hyperborean
ECM
Hollow Ear copyright 1999 - Cliff Furnald
