Sumer
is icumen in, as the song goes, and you probably don't have much free
time to sit about reading new music magazines like this. Well, maybe
you do, but unfortunately I don't have much time in the next couple
of months to sit about writing new music magazines like this. Not
content with nearly getting shot in a TGV train, detained for alcohol
trafficking at Beauvais Airport, arrested for smoking just about everywhere
in Sweden, beaten up in an after gig brawl in Geneva (all of which
you can read about by clicking
right here), I'm off on the road again with Aki Onda and Jac Berrocal.
In case you're interested – hey, why shouldn't I use the magazine
for gratuitous self-promotion? – that trio will be appearing
in Marseille (Montevideo) on June 1st, Montreuil (Instants Chavirés)
on June 2nd, the Kraak Festival in Ghent on the 9th (hey, I finally
get to meet Nurse With Wound! I'm psyched!) and Amsterdam's STEIM
on June 21st. Plus the Return Of The New Thing quartet with Jean-Luc
Guionnet, Edward Perraud and François Fuchs will be playing
Alchemia in Cracow, Poland on the 16th, and Rats (the indefatigable
Perraud and myself) appearing at Aspro Impro in Besancon on the 27th.
Come along if you're in the area. Anyway, if you're worried about
your PT fix, be warned that this year there'll be a Special Summer
Issue which will hit cyberspace on or shortly after the 14th of July
– Bastille Day, thought that was appropriate – and then
nothing until September 1st. I'm actually thinking of taking a holiday,
would you believe.
But in the meantime there's a whole backlog of things to get through,
starting with this month's long-awaited (by me, at least)
interview with Tom Johnson. Don't forget to do your homework and
visit his site before (or after) you read it. Thanks also go out to
the usual suspects for their contributions, and to the many people
who continue to send material in for review. Plenty of good stuff
lined up for the summer issue, fear not. Meanwhile, bonne lecture.-DW
Bruce
Russell
THE BOOK OF GILDED SPLINTERS
Euskubalauron Press / Spirit of Orr (Book + CD)
 Gilded
Splinters is a collection of Bruce Russell's tape works created
between 1995 and 2005, originally intended for Selektion but eventually
released on Spirit of Orr, and here reissued along with an all-too-brief
selection of Russell's writings: The Real 'Driver UFO', an
extended version of a review that originally appeared in The Wire
of Douglas Lilburn's Complete Electro-Acoustic Works,
Time Under The Rule Of The Commodity (subtitled "Towards
an epistemology of tape music"), To Think Is To Speculate
With Images (subtitled "Rosicrucian linguistics revisited
as semiological discourse") and some detailed notes to accompany
the five pieces of music on the CD, of which more later. Scattered
throughout the slim volume are Russell's own photographs of London
and Bangkok, accompanied by choice quotations from Guy Debord's Comments
of the Society of the Spectacle (Verso, 1998).
While it's wonderful to hear Russell's tape works, it would perhaps
have been nice to have a few representative samples of Lilburn's as
well. As New Zealand's foremost pioneer of electronic music, it's
clear he was a powerful influence over not only Russell but his fellow
cohorts in the Dead C. Their first "vinyl side-long epic",
1991's Driver UFO, was actually recorded on top of
Lilburn's Poem in Time of War (though the only person who
noticed it at the time was another New Zealand alt.rock pioneer, Clinton
"Omit" Williams).
Time Under The Rule Of The Commodity is a terse manifesto
of sorts dating from February this year, full of juicy aphorisms but
best read perhaps in conjunction with To Think Is To Speculate
With Images, a more extended investigation of Russell's ongoing
fascination with late 17th century thinking and its possible connections
with analogue recording. Summarising briefly but cogently the differences
between Aristotelian and Platonic thought on the relationship between
res et verba, words and things ("for Aristotle there
was no inherent relationship between the two, merely an accepted convention
that gave meaning to essentially arbitrary associations", while
in the Platonic conception, "words participated essentially in
the nature of the objects they described [..] Thus by knowing the
right name of a thing, one could have power over it – to manipulate
words was to manipulate reality itself"), Russell touches on
"the quintessential Rosicrucian", Robert Fludd, Giordano
Bruno (hence the quotation pinched for the article's title) and his
beloved Kaballah, finally steering us to the mission statement: "Music
constructed according to the rules of academic tradition – for
all that it evokes a complex of Aristotelian instrumentalities (that
is: conventionally accepted meanings) – runs the risk of putting
too much premeditation and intellectual mediation between musician
and listener. These are impediments to a direct, one-to-one human
communication, happening in real time and space. [..] It is only once
this dead weight of tradition and artifice has been set aside that
human subjects can communicate directly."
Russell is far too smart a thinker to go along with Walter Charleton's
call in 1650 to "quit the dark Lanthorne of Reason and wholly
throw [himself] upon the implicit conduct of faith" without expressing
some reservations ("of course the ultimately tautological nature
of 'Rosicrucian' philosophy betrays its methodologically unsound extension
of analogy into identity"), but the notion that the kind of free
music the New Zealander has devoted himself to over the past couple
of decades can somehow cut through all our preconceptions about music
as both "language" and cultural commodity and communicate
directly at some deep and inexplicable level is seductive indeed.
I've long been aware of the total inadequacy of much of the theory
and history I spent nearly 20 years studying to explain what's going
on in the music of artists as diverse as Keith Rowe and Borbetomagus
(to name but two). How does this music work? Why do hairs stand up
on the back of the neck on listening to some albums but not others?
What is the basis of any value judgement regarding music that has
quite wilfully stepped outside the existing boundaries of conventional
technique, form and music history?
 The
five works included on the CD don't necessarily provide any answers
to these questions, but are welcome additions to the Russell discography,
revealing him to be a composer (he may not like the word, but too
bad) with a nose for a good concept and an ear to match. Like Toshiya
Tsunoda, he's fond of providing the listener with serious background
information about the compositional process. So we learn that Sonatas
for Toy Fire Engine and Tape Delay (2000) was recorded on quarter-inch
mono analogue tape and played back over both play and recording heads
of Russell's machine at lower speed. For Laurie Penney (2005)
uses as its source sound an archive recording of a lieutenant in the
New Zealand army singing a Japanese folk song, and was originally
an hour-long piece created for Resonance FM in 2002. Poi$on+Lie$=Money+Death[Version]
(2004) began life as a recording of guitar feedback made in a laundry
in Philadelphia, originally on a mini-cassette Dictaphone, slowed
down and released as a 7" on Marc Masters' Crank Automotive label
in 1995. For this "version" – Russell's love for vintage
dub is never far away – he recorded the vinyl onto a digital
video camera inside a cupboard, with the camera mic "recording
both the acoustic sound from the needle on the vinyl and the amplified
sound from the stereo monitor speakers on the roof of the cupboard."
Canterbury Vignettes #2: From Space (2003) was sourced in
a live improvisation in 2000 for electric guitar and electric toothbrushes
recorded in the McDougall Art Gallery in Christchurch ("the fantastic
reverb of that building can clearly be heard"), which was reversed
and played back over both heads of the tape machine while Russell
improvised on top. And finally Tunnel Radio [Detour Autours]
was commissioned in 2001 by ORF Kunstradio and RNZ's RPM, and was
recorded in various cars driving through the Lyttelton Road Tunnel
with their radios tuned to RNZ (675KHz AM). The noise that interferes
with the reception is recorded ("every car is different",
notes Russell) and mixed with studio-recorded backing tracks, themselves
sourced in tunnel recordings, and edited once more on quarter-inch
analogue tape.
So many verba about the res, all these words might
seem to be "impediments to a direct, one-to-one human communication"
whose virtues Russell seems to be extolling. Aspiring to "an
instant communication of human reality by means of free music"
surely means, to use the old cliché, "letting the music
speak for itself" instead of encumbering it with baggage describing
when, where, how and why it came into being. As is my wont, I took
this music out on the road to listen to on the way to and from work
before sitting down to read Russell's copious notes, and I'm not sure
I didn't enjoy it more for being ignorant of the circumstances surrounding
its creation. I'd don't think I'd ever have been able to guess how
Tunnel Radio [Detour Autours] was recorded if Russell hadn't
told me. If "to think is to speculate with images", there's
nothing better than words to conjure them up. Now I hear Poi$on+Lie$=Money+Death[Version]
as strangely claustrophobic (after reading all that stuff about
laundromats and wardrobes) instead of evanescent and mysterious.
So, do we need to know all this? I suppose you can argue it both ways.
Without the explanatory texts and accompanying manifestos, the music
can perhaps attain Russell's goal, instant communication of human
reality. But if that communication is one-to-one, it seems perfectly
possible that reactions to the music will vary enormously depending
on the person listening. Anyone not versed in the kind of sounds Bruce
Russell makes might well find Gilded Splinters, with its tunnels and
caverns of gritty drone and hiss, a pretty depressing experience.
So the description of the concept and the working method is also a
key for listeners to unlock the music with. In any case, as Lieutenant
Laurie Penney says, as he steps up to the mic, "put cotton wool
in your ears and close all the doors, because here it comes."–DW
Various
Artists
FREEDOM OF THE CITY 2006
Emanem
 Previous
years have seen the release of at least one, often two Emanem double
CDs documenting the annual Freedom Of The City festival in London,
but the 2006 edition has (so far) yielded just one single disc, Martin
Davidson preferring this time round to concentrate on three of the
somewhat lesser known groups who appeared at the Red Rose on April
30th and May 1st last year. Though it's always refreshing to hear
some new talent – soprano saxophonist Chefa Alonso and percussionist
Javier Carmona are new names to me, though I did have the pleasure
of meeting the third member of their trio bassist David Leahy in Brussels
last year – the 26-minute slab of music that kicks off this
disc, "Chácara" isn't likely to have any improv nut
falling off their barstool in surprise. Not that it isn't good at
what it does, running the gamut from high-speed splatter to more pointillist
textures via various permutations of solos and duos, but you do get
the distinct feeling that if you were to drop in for a pint at the
Red Rose in May 2016 you might hear something remarkably like it.
It's about time we forgot about all that "non-idiomatic"
nonsense and started calling it Improvised Music. With capital letters,
too, because we know Martin D has never been all that taken with lowercase.
"Stipple" features four musicians Davidson (rather unflatteringly?)
describes as "veterans" of the London scene (never cared
much for the V word to be honest, half-imagining wheelchair-bound
napalm-scarred Americans singing "We Don't Want Your Fucking
War"): tenor saxophonist Garry Todd, violinist Nigel Coombes,
bassist Nick Stephens and drummer Tony Marsh. It's a thorny but rewarding
32 minutes of music I've listened to about half a dozen times already
without completely figuring out what Coombes is up to, though it's
great to see him playing again, after keeping what Davidson punningly
describes as a "low profile" since his SME days. It's certainly
not jazz, even if Stephens gives a few tantalising hints of the terrific
free swing he's capable of, and Todd's meaty tenor is not totally
Rollins-free.
To my ears the most rewarding track on the disc is its centrepiece,
the awkwardly-titled "Okgnig I", featuring a quartet of
visiting Belgians. Guy Strale on clarinet, piano and percussion, Jan
Huib Nas on guitar, Adelheid Sieuw on flute and Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
on voice. Readers of these pages and subscribers to the French magazine
Improjazz will know Van Schouwburg as a writer of note (his recent
career survey of John Stevens' Spontaneous Music Ensemble is the best
thing ever written on the group, full stop, and if you don't believe
me learn to speak French and read the damn thing), but he's also a
versatile vocalist, even if his deep throated growls and gurgles inevitably
recall Phil Minton. There's a lot of room for manoeuvre in the Belgians'
music, and some splendid open-minded interplay between Nas and Sieuw
– not surprisingly perhaps given the fact they're married. Here's
to Freedom Of The City 2016, then.–DW
John
Russell
ANALEKTA
Emanem
 Guitarist
John Russell has been running the admirable Mopomoso ("MOdernism,
POstMOdernism, SO what?") improv series at London's Red Rose
since 1988, which is the kind of longevity that most new music organizers
can only dream of. The programs usually offer three short sets by
various ensembles, the last being a duet with Russell. Hence this
CD, which brings together three such Mopomoso duos, recorded in 2004
and 2006, and adds (for a change of pace) a large-group improv from
last year's Freedom of the City festival. Russell's debt to the instrumental
vocabulary of Derek Bailey is clear throughout, especially in his
attraction to wide intervals, his resolutely segmented, percussive
attack, and his systematic variation of timbre and means of production
(open string, fretted, harmonic, behind-the-bridge pling); it's in
subtler matters of pacing and mood that his individuality comes through.
He tends to dwell pensively, almost circularly, on chords or motivic
cells that Bailey would have brusquely disposed of, and has a very
different approach to group playing, preferring to merge into the
larger ensemble sound (whatever the size of the group), and play with
rather than against or aslant his musical partners.
"The Bite" reunites the guitarist with the craggily eloquent
tenor saxophonist Garry Todd, with whom he recorded Teatime
for Incus back in 1975, and the result is rather like a Parker/Bailey
duo in the process of backwards-mutating into something like jazz
again. Trumpeter Henry Lowther remains one of the UK's best jazz trumpeters,
though his discography consists mostly of sideman appearances (if
you can stand pub-gig din, hunt out his superb quartet CDR Fungii
Mama with guitarist Jim Mullen), but as "Blart" shows,
he's also adept at free playing, weaving Milesian rhetoric in and
out of the rich sustains of Russell's chording and enticing the guitarist
into passages suggesting modal jazz or droney folk-minimalism. "Chamarileros",
Russell's duet with the Spanish soprano saxophonist/percussionist
Chefa Alonso, shows his ability to find the exact counterpart
to any texture – disappearing whole into the pell-mell percussion
textures while fielding snappy ripostes to the sax's polymorphous
gabbling. "So It Goes" (the title suggests a post-facto
tribute to Kurt Vonnegut) pulls together nine players – including
Phil Wachsmann, Steve Beresford and Ashley Wales – for one of
the large-group projects Russell likes to call "Quaqua"
(Latin for "whithersoever" – remember Lucky stumbling
endlessly over the word in Waiting for Godot?). As you'd
expect from this veteran of the LIO and Chris Burn's Ensemble, it's
tightly organized and texturally varied, and admirably free of directionless
everyone-for-himself playing. "Analekta", incidentally,
is a Greek term meaning "a collection of the finest works";
evidence of Russell's self-deprecating sense of humour, for sure,
but nonetheless a fitting title for this excellent CD.–ND
Terry
Day
2006 DUOS
Emanem
 Recorded
at London's Red Rose at various improv events (Freedom Of The City,
Free Radicals, Mopomoso, a benefit for Lol Coxhill..) between April
and September last year, 2006 Duos is a rare opportunity
to hear one of British improv's most distinctive performers, Terry
Day (People Band, Four Pullovers, Alterations) in five extended duos
with, respectively, Charlotte Hug (viola and voice), Rhodri Davies
(harp and preparations), Phil Minton (voice), Hannah Marshall (cello)
and John Russell (guitar). Rare because ill health has curtailed Day's
activities over recent years, but you'd be hard pressed to spot any
trace of it here. Back in the glory days of Alterations, his anarchic
quartet with Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack and David Toop, Day was,
like everyone else in the band, a multi-instrumentalist, playing everything
from drums to balloons, and often performing his own outlandish free
punk poetry to boot. On Duos he concentrates on three different
sets of self-made bamboo pipes (as well as toy amplifier and plastic
water bottle in places). In case you think that sounds like something
you might hear in a hip New Age Zen sushi restaurant , think again:
the bamboo pipe sounds more like a medieval crumhorn (if that means
anything to you), a rich, reedy sound somewhere between a bassoon
and a kazoo. And in case you think that sounds awful, and awfully
limited, it doesn't, because Day conjures a huge variety of sounds
out of it. As is usually the case with Emanem, the disc is jampacked
full of music, and this time I'm not sure the inclusion of the duos
with Minton and Russell adds that much, especially considering both
men have just had their own Emanem outings in this same batch (see
elsewhere). The most surprising and varied playing is on the tracks
with Marshall (vicious!), Davies (some of the harshest Rhodri on record)
and Hug, whose use of different bows and a whole range of special
effects (showcased beautifully elsewhere on her Neuland,
one of Emanem's strongest releases of the century so far) turns the
duo into a veritable micro-orchestra. My one reservation about this
track is the inclusion of Day's vocals towards the end, which seems
to push Hug into "accompaniment" mode, as if in any combination
of words and music music had to take second place. The nice thing
about Day's songs with Alterations was that his three chums quite
simply rode roughshod over them, as they did with just about the entire
history of world music. But that was then and this is now –
and on the strength of Duos 2006 it's clear we should be
hearing much more from Terry Day.–DW
Lol
Coxhill
MORE TOGETHER THAN ALONE
Emanem
 Lol
Coxhill’s More Together Than Alone collects assorted
duet recordings from 2001 to 2005, all recorded at London’s
longstanding free-jazz oasis the Red Rose, but the standout performance
is a solo soprano sax piece recorded at the Vortex in 2000. It’s
a typically charged, fat-free 20-minute improvisation, a few surprising
Ornette touches popping up in the middle, and offers a fine demonstration
of Coxhill’s ability to attack an idea from multiple directions,
undercutting arrogant assertion with wobbly uncertainty or split-tone
abstraction and occasionally seizing on a note as if to wring its
neck. This may be "free" music, but it has an implied, distended
swing that will still set the foot tapping if you let it, and this
is just as evident in the duet with Henry Lowther, which beautifully
pits the trumpeter’s pristine Wheelerian runs against Coxhill’s
prolapsed melodies. The other pieces find the saxophonist in his thorniest
form, worrying at tiny, high-pitched crumbs of sound like a hen pecking
at seeds. An encounter with Pat Thomas is particularly successful
(indeed, it’s better than the pair's previous album together,
One Night in Glasgow on the late lamented Scatter label).
Thomas’s contributions on keyboard and sampler are admirably
understated – gentle nudges and sputterings darkening into gathering-stormcloud
static, and snippets of radio and TV voices reduced to circling insect
buzzes – but the track eventually develops real gravitas, with
Coxhill resorting to an extraordinary, racked lyricism. A track with
guitarist John Russell is nearly as good, and the only disappointment is the brief duet
with the late Hugh Davies (playing his homemade electroacoustic instruments), which starts out well but ultimately
seems a bit underachieved.–ND
Aidan
Baker
DANCE OF LONELY MOLECULES
Blade
BROKEN & REMADE
Volubilis
THOUGHTSPAN
Tosom
 All
the sounds in the "spontaneously composed" Dance Of
Lonely Molecules were generated by Aidan Baker's electric guitar,
of which the Canadian is nowadays one of the most imitated manipulators.
The CD is mastered in such a way that a three-part continuous suite
is (criminally) abruptly interrupted at the birth of each track, breaking
the music's flow. Horreurs! "Sarabande" is conceived
like an arc: it begins with subsonic drones, evolves into psychedelic
industrial mayhem replete with distorted dissonance and ends with
ionospheric superimpositions of suspended harmonies and loops that
lull us back into the land of Catatonia. "Trotto" is a slow
seesaw between two neighbouring chords, dark oneirism of the finest
blend enhanced by extracurricular scrapes, twinkling and plucking
adding a touch of implosive movement to an otherwise overwhelming
rumble. "Saltarello" starts with beguiling siren chants
where different strata morph into each other, creating a perturbed
function in which circular movement and expansion of consciousness
coincide, at least until the definitive return to a basic pattern
that mixes deep breathing, jet explosion and metallic resonance. Chaos
finally prevails.
 Broken
& Remade is an atypical release for Baker, digitally constructed
with 4-to-8-second samples of analogue instruments (including guitar,
bass, flute, voice, drums, trumpet and violin) played by Baker, Richard
and Lucas Baker and Sarah Gleadow. All the tracks take their name
from anagrams of the CD's title: "Ab Mad Kern One Te" sounds
like Dif Juz cut into subtle shreds that get entwined in garlands
of Pink Floydian reflections, drums and bass appearing in short outbursts
of reverse-tape serendipity amidst peculiar scalar accelerandos that
leave you puzzled (to say the least). "Anna Broke De Dr Me"
is a postmodern Pygmy song mixing Jon Hassell and the drunken local
band in your favourite exotic holiday. Both "Bard Dna Reek Omen"
and "Radar Been Mend Ok" mix rock and trance elements in
about 12 minutes each, but the result isn't up to Baker's usual standard.
The repetition undoubtedly overstays its welcome. It's nice to hear
the guitarist attempting something new, but I'd be lying if I told
you that Broken & Remade ranks among his best releases.
An EP would probably have been enough.
 Comprising
three "songs" performed by Baker with contributions from
Sarah Gleadow, Lucas Baker and Jonathan Demers, Thoughtspan is
a different proposition altogether. "Speed Of Thought",
despite its title, is a scarcely dynamic yet texturally rich piece
that moves along the most contorted meanders of the psyche through
disarticulated chords, detuned enchantments and obliquely zinging
strings. "Thought Climate" presents even more impenetrable
abstractions, beginning with high shrills, percussive titillations
and swaying lines that, in their simplicity, give us several uneasy
moments. This track's lo-fi vibe recalls Baker's self-produced first
album Element, with heavier rhythmic presence and an overall
sense of haziness throughout. Baker’s whispery voice sings the
title track, immediately paralleled by rolling drums and immaterial
"Aidantronics" pulse. Remarkably, it's the drumming that
assumes command, establishing a continuous flux of beat'n'hit ritualism
that waters its most arcane seeds into a fully-flourished plant whose
different colours constitute a potentially intriguing facet of Baker's
future experiments. The final minutes bring us back to the Kingdom
of Loopscape, the kind of standstill the man from Toronto specializes
in.–MR
Noah
Howard
THE BLACK ARK
Bo'Weavil
 No
disrespect to my wife Marie (I'm still only halfway through that giant
bottle of Roger & Gallet Vetyver Eau de Cologne), but the best
birthday present I got last year was from my good buddy and crazy
record collector (scratch the "collector" and insert "addict"
instead) Didier Kowalski, who "just happened" to find a
third copy of Noah Howard's Black Ark hidden away
in his vast collection. Anyone in the vicinity of 47 rue Richer on
the afternoon of June 26th 2006 will have fond memories (well, I hope
so) of "Domiabra" played seven times in a row at earwax
melting volume. Didier knew I'd been after an original Freedom copy
of Black Ark for some time, in fact for over six years, ever
since I discovered the joys of Arthur Doyle's tenor playing when Jérôme
Génin of Fractal Records invited me to write liners for Doyle's
duo outing with Sunny Murray, Dawn Of A New Vibration. I'd
heard of but never heard Doyle until Jérôme
introduced me to the delights of Alabama Feeling. From the
howl of rage that kicks off the opening "November 8th or 9th
- I Can't Remember When" I was hooked. A frantic exchange of
emails with pals across the pond followed, and Scott Hreha came up
trumps with CDR burns of both Black Ark and Bäbi,
Doyle's 1976 monster blowout with Hugh Glover and [leader for that
session] Milford Graves (before you ask, I still haven't got my paws
on an original IPS vinyl copy of Bäbi, but if you happen
to come across an extra copy in your attic, my birthday's coming soon).
Wait a minute, what's all this Arthur Doyle business? Isn't The
Black Ark supposed to be a Noah Howard album? Indeed it is, but
the chaotic fury of Doyle's soloing throughout, most notably on "Domiabra",
the opening cut, is probably the single most important reason why
Black Ark has long been a Holy Grail for devotees of Fire
Music. That's most definitely not meant to imply that Howard's alto
playing isn't absolutely awesome – his excursions into the stratosphere
are just as thrilling as anything he does on At Judson Hall
(ESP, 1966), and, in my opinion, more so than 1972's Live at the
Village Vanguard (which, despite some heroic blowing from Frank
Lowe has always suffered in my opinion from an overdose of sleigh
bells). The Black Ark rhythm section is a killer too, with
bassist Norris Jones (later known as Sirone), drummer Mohammed Ali
and conga masta blasta Juma (Sultan) kicking up a real shitstorm behind
the horn front line, which in addition to Howard and Doyle features
the scorching trumpet of Earl Cross. And we shouldn't forget the one
and only appearance on disc of Leslie Waldron, keeping the modal flames
burning with some splendid piano (check out that "Queen Anne").
But Doyle is the reason why I keep coming back to The Black Ark,
in the same way that Sonny Sharrock is the reason why I keep coming
back to Herbie Mann's Memphis Underground (no disrespect
to Messrs Mann, Ayers, Coryell, Vitous et al.). Indeed, the parallels
between Doyle's "incoherent rage" (thanks Mal Dean, always
loved those original liners, nice to see them reproduced here) on
"Domiabra" and the spiky terror of Sharrock's solo on "Hold
On, I'm Comin'" are striking. In both cases it's their sheer
incongruity that sets them apart, the fact that the other musicians
in the band can't (won't, daren't) stray too far away from the brightly-lit
highway of the changes in case that wild man wailing in the undergrowth
at the side of the road drags them in and butchers them in the bushes.
Put it this way, when you're riding the subway in the same compartment
as a guy who suddenly starts screaming and doing a Leonard Bernstein
impression with a switchblade for a baton, the last thing you want
to do is jump up and start providing backing vocals. Man, I'd have
loved to have been a fly on the wall at those Black Ark recording
sessions in Bell Sound Studios in 1969.
The difference, I guess, between Doyle and Sharrock is that the latter
ended up with some serious jazz street cred by playing later with
Miles (even if Teo Macero did his best to paint over the blood stains
on Jack Johnson) and Last Exit, whereas Doyle has remained
resolutely underground. So has The Black Ark, sadly. If you
have no qualms about selling your family into prostitution or slavery,
original vinyl copies still pop up from time to time on eBay (beware
though: some of the editions of this album contain only three tracks
instead of four – if you don't see "Domiabra", "Ole
Negro", "Mount Fuji" and "Queen Anne", steer
clear!), but the Japanese CD reissue a while back came and went, and
it's a fair bet this Bo'Weavil edition – beautifully produced
and packaged, a real treat – will disappear faster than you
think. So don't miss it.–DW
Sun
Ra
HIROSHIMA
Art Yard
 Originally
released on El Saturn, Hiroshima has long been a sought-after
Ra-rity a) because it features Mister Ra playing pipe organ (is it
the only Ra pipe organ solo in his discography?) and b) it also contains
"Stars That Shine Darkly", a live recording from Montreux
in November 1983 by the Sun Ra All Stars, starring (wait for it) John
Gilmore, Marshall Allen, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Philly
Joe Jones, Richard Davis, Clifford Jarvis and Don Moye (more from
the same concert appeared on Outer Reach Intensity-Energy
in 1985). If that's your idea of a wet dream, just remember Band Aid:
just putting ten outstanding musicians together on the same bandstand
doesn't mean you get something ten times as good as what they could
do individually. It's a pretty dreary jam, with Ra stubbornly banging
away at a two-chord riff throughout, maybe deliberately to piss off
Archie Shepp, who apparently was prone to a bit of showboating during
the event, as reported by Hartmut Geerken in his notes. Geerken can't
resist showing off either, informing us that he has no fewer than
four copies of the original El Saturn, each with different covers
or something. God knows why you'd need four copies of anything, unless
you're planning on topping up your state pension one day by some strategic
hawking on eBay. And who in their right mind would shell out big bucks
for a dodgy Saturn pressing with hand-glued informationless cover
when you can have one of Art Yard's superbly produced and impeccably
packaged reissues, complete with apocalyptic cover art courtesy John
Martin (1853)? Play "Hiroshima" and you might wonder why
you need a copy at all. OK, you know by now pipe organ isn't my favourite
instrument, but we're not even talking Notre Dame de Paris here, more
like theatre in downtown Atlanta Georgia. The occasional blasts of
added percussion (castanets, tambourines, drums..) only make it all
sound more like the soundtrack to a silent movie than a commemoration
of / meditation on the events of August 6th 1945. But maybe Hiroshima
was a silent movie of sorts after all. Anyway, Ra completists probably
have their copies already, and by the time you read this the limited
edition will have sold out. So I'm saving my copy – mint condition,
only played five times – for later. See y'all on eBay in 2028.–DW
Jason
Ajemian
FROM BEYOND
www.sundmagi.com
 It
didn't take long for pop musicians to discover the joys of tape manipulation
and its potential for hidden messages (more of this, plus all the
silly Satanist "Stairway to Heaven" stuff over at http://www.triplo.com/ev/reversal
– a jolly good read, go for it). In From Beyond, Jason
and Lucas Ajemian have taken the idea one step further, by actually
transcribing and orchestrating a reversed pop song, recording (and
filming) it and then playing it all backwards. The result is also
presented as an installation featuring the score and the film of the
performance, played, of course, both forwards and backwards. The song
in question is Black Sabbath's "Into The Void", a cheery
little ditty from 1971's Master Of Reality ("Leave the
earth to Satan and his slaves / Leave them to their future in their
graves".. you get the idea). Appropriately enough Ajemian's Chicago-based
ensemble – heavy on strings, which sound better played backwards
than horns and reeds – recorded it all in a church. It's a cute
idea, gently poking fun at rock's obsession with backwards guitar
solos and vocals, or, if you want to take it all more seriously (this
from the website of the Danish Art Gallery that first put on the installation):
it "describes a movement out in space away from the earth, which
is marked by physical and mental decay to a new and better world where
freedom rules. The journey into the void anonymizes and detaches the
traveller from any connection with the surroundings. When Ajemian
sings the song backwards he emphasizes the detachment from the context
and a loss of language." Wonder what Ozzy would make of all that.
Or this little 10" vinyl, not credited to any label as such but
available (Jason informs me) at www.sundmagi.com.–DW
Emil
Beaulieau / Jason Lescalleet
ROCK N ROLL / TOYS IN THE ATTIC
Absurd
 Ever
seen Le Ballon Rouge, Albert Lamorisse's beautiful 1956 court
métrage about a red balloon that follows a little boy
around the streets of Ménilmontant? It won the Palme d'Or in
Cannes that year and an Oscar in 1957. Lovely. Go to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048980/.
Quite what it's doing as the cover art of this evil little split 7"
shared between Emil Beaulieau, aka RRRon Lessard, the self-styled
"America's Greatest Living Noise Artist (though there's some
healthy competition out there for him these days) and Jason Lescalleet
I don't know. But if the kid in Le Ballon Rouge had had this
belting out his ghettoblaster the other nasty little buggers who beat
him up and burst the balloon would have run the other way mighty fast.
At least the Beaulieau side, that is. Lescalleet's offering is more,
shall we say, sedate. To thicken the plot, it's entitled "Toys
In The Attic", and Beaulieau's side "Rock'n'Roll Pts.1&2".
I'm guessing the former is a nod to (finger to, more like) Aerosmith
(though I see it was also the title of a 1963 film with Dean Martin),
and the latter a stoopid shot out to Gary "to my knowledge I
have not had sex with anyone under 18" Glitter, the man that
put the bang in the gang. But if you can find any trace of those 70s
chestnuts in the music on offer here, you're doing better than I am.
Edition of 333 ("half the devil, twice the punch..", as
the Absurd website puts it), happy listening kiddies.–DW
Frank
Gratkowski / Misha Mengelberg
vis-à-vis
Leo
 As
you know, I'm as big a fan of New Dutch Swing as the next man, but
it makes a welcome change to hear Misha Mengelberg go the distance
with a horn player from outside his circle of ICP footsoldiers. Not
that Frank Gratkowski lacks that peculiarly wacky sense of humour
that jazz in the Netherlands seems to demand, but he's less likely
to be drawn into Misha's ironic Monk(ey)ing about than, say, Ab Baars.
The result is one of Mengelberg's (and Gratkowski's) strongest albums
to date. Misha is very good at pretending not to be able to play –
those frantic hit and miss clusters and deliberate wrong notes are
as much part and parcel of the Mengelberg schtick as the funny hats
and the cup of coffee (and the cigarette that used to be before he
kicked the habit ten years ago) – but vis-à-vis
(seems that should be lowercase, even if the music isn't) reveals
that he's still got the technique to match his ear. Gratkowski is
typically superb – I'm hard pressed to think of another saxophonist
/ clarinettist on the scene today, with the possible exception of
Baars, who has mastered his instruments so thoroughly. He's also a
little less "jazz" than Misha's usual playing partners,
which pushes the pianist gently into the free improv territory that
he all too often seems happy to wander out of. Each of these six tracks
is a pure joy to listen to. A consommer sans aucune modération.–DW
Tigersmilk
ANDROID LOVE CRY
Family Vineyard
 After
the titular half-nod to Sun Ra in "Cosmic Tones for Sleep Walking
Lovers" on the recent We Are All From Somewhere Else
debut outing by the Exploding Star Orchestra, you might think that
the title Android Love Cry is a similar shot out from Rob
Mazurek to Albert Ayler, but in fact it refers to a novel by Helder
Velasquez Smith, an 82-year-old Brazilian novelist of Mazurek's acquaintance
who's been working on the project since 1964. Not being able
to find out any more information about it, we'd better concentrate
on the music instead. And it needs concentrating on. This is the third
outing on Family Vineyard from Tigersmilk, a geographically-challenged
trio featuring Chicago's Jason Roebke (acoustic and electric bass),
Vancouver-based Dylan van der Schyff (percussion) and Mazurek (cornet,
laptop, synthesizer, banjo), who normally hangs out on the banks of
the Amazon in Brazil, when he finds time to go home. You can imagine
they don't get together all that often, but, man, when they do they
really cook. Mazurek has been broadening his electronic palette for
several years now, incorporating recordings of his beloved Brazilian
electric eels along the way, and Android Love Cry is even
more texturally diverse than its predecessor, 2005's From The
Bottle. I remember Rob thrilling to a Masayumi Takayanagi track
when I blindtested him for The Wire last year, digging "that
inner slipping and sliding", and he's very good at doing it himself,
on both this and the new Chicago Underground Trio disc (review to
follow..). But digging Mazurek's music means digging everything from
Blue Note to Mego, and if you're not prepared to approach it with
an open mind, you won't get much out of it. Purists who like their
jazz/improv unadorned and uncut may find some of the studio trickery
irritating, while free rocksters and new weirdsters who might have
drifted into Tigersmilk's secret garden while exploring the Family
Vineyard could find it all a bit too jazzy. For Mazurek's impeccable
bop pedigree is never far away – the ghosts of Art Farmer and
Miles Davis appear from time to time ("Falling Signals Rising",
"Spirit Spore Flash"), and there's plenty here that indicate
that those chops are still as impressive as they were when he started
out strutting his stuff on the Hep label. But like Miles (and Bill
Dixon, who also comes to mind on listening), he's not afraid to take
full advantage of technology, using effects pedals and laptop to devastating
effect – check out "Before A Blinded Spirit Light Planet".
But there are as many acoustic as electric surprises on offer: what's
that banjo doing in "Minimal Distress Code"? Van der Schyff,
in addition to providing typically colourful cross-genre percussion
(if Chad Taylor in the Chicago Underground Trio is more "jazz",
Dylan is a tad more "improv", but having written that I
have no intention of removing those inverted commas), is also responsible
for the superb mixing and mastering, and teams up with Roebke to form
one of the most flexible and dynamic rhythm teams in business today.
It all adds to up to a monster of an album. Check it out.–DW
eRikm
/ (Luc Ferrari) / Thomas Lehn
LES PROTORYTHMIQUES
Room40
 One
of the odd things about the music of Luc Ferrari is how much the man
himself emerges from it, increasingly so as he neared the end of his
life. Whereas the field recordings in the seminal Presque Rien
No.1 were edited together seamlessly to create a landscape so
beautiful and realistic that the composer simply wandered into it
and disappeared, to quote the old Zen tale, it's striking how, with
the passage of time, Ferrari felt the need to play a starring role
in his works, particularly the autobiographical Cycle des Souvenirs,
the USA travelogue / hörspiel Far West News and the
final collaborations with electronician eRikm, Archives Sauvées
Des Eaux. "I can still hear that laugh," David Grubbs
wrote in a touching obituary published soon after Ferrari's death.
So can I when I see that Ferrari is actually credited as appearing
on this album, albeit in brackets (Zeppo: "Do you want the body
in brackets?" Groucho: "No, it'll never get there in brackets.
Put it in a box."). He was supposed to have been there onstage
at the Musique Action festival in May 2005, but was indisposed due
to ill health (and died in Italy a few months after this was recorded).
And yet his presence is keenly felt in the field recordings eRikm
uses for his instant composition (as opposed to "improvisation"
– eRikm's live appearances have always struck me as very composed
affairs), so much so that analogue synth virtuoso Thomas Lehn, called
in at the last minute to replace Ferrari, seems curiously relegated
to providing background noises, albeit jolly good ones. It seems a
wasted opportunity for an exciting performer who usually stamps his impression on whatever group he performs with. This is
an entertaining half hour of music, but not an essential addition
to the discographies of the musicians concerned, living or dead, present
or absent.–DW
Ov
NOCTILUCENT VALLEYS
Soft Abuse
 Much
of the free-form psychedelic folk music that's appeared in the past
few years in what's become known as New Weird America (I do hope David
Keenan copyrighted that after his Wire feature on the subject
in August 2003, because he should have received several handsome royalty
cheques by now) is so intimate you almost feel embarrassed to be listening
in. Even if Loren Chasse and Christine Boepple weren't married, you
could probably guess they know each other very well from the ten delicate
conversations they've released together on Noctilucent Valleys.
The music isn't surprising, nor does it set out to be, but it's touching,
even haunting (and the disc gets better towards the end, so don't
give up after track two). Not all that weird though – much of
it is unashamedly tonal, or at least modal – and only really
new because it was released this year; if someone told you it had
been recorded 5, 10, 20 or even 40 years ago you might not be all
that surprised. Mark and Daria could quite easily have frolicked in
the dust of Zabriskie Point to Loren and Christine instead
of Papa Garcia. And if Dick Latvala were still alive he'd probably
be collecting Chasse recordings. There are certainly plenty to collect,
after all, and here's another good one.–DW
Bruce
Eisenbeil Sextet
INNER CONSTELLATION VOLUME ONE
Nemu
 Though
released as a follow-up to the intense Carnival Skin, guitarist
Bruce Eisenbeil’s Inner Constellation was actually
recorded the previous year. Some familiar names to contemporary improvisation
are featured here: the stellar freebop percussionist Nasheet Waits
(who's worked with Andrew Hill, Jason Moran and Peter Brötzmann,
to name a few), bassist Tom Abbs (formerly of Triptych Myth), and
trumpeter Nate Wooley (of Jeff Arnal’s Transit, among other
projects). The sextet is filled out by altoist Aaron Ali Shaikh, a
newcomer to these ears, and violinist wunderkind Jean Cook. Eisenbeil
leads this group like a torch-carrier to jazz-rock days of yore, wielding
his Fender Stratocaster as muscularly as Ray Russell or a young John
McLaughlin and cutting through the densest areas of group improvisation
with a brassy ring. Most of the disc consists of the forty-five minute
title suite, which is subdivided into 27 tracks that flow together
not unlike a Don Cherry medley; despite numerous thematic segues and
areas of varying density and tonal stratification, the results are
extremely unified. Each subsection is given a different subtitle,
demarcating subtle, organic shifts in mood – shattered trumpet
smears, muted string interplay, or hard-charging swing. Cook’s
lilting-but-dervish-like violin works elegantly in concert with Wooley
on "Dream Breath" and counterbalances the massive engine
of Abbs and Waits with a mournful duskiness. The rhythm section indeed
holds down the proceedings, as guitar and violin dance around one
another in delicate counterpoint, alto and trumpet slashing and diving
in. The disc closes with three trio tracks featuring Eisenbeil on
acoustic and electric guitars in very Bailey-like fashion, supported
by Abbs and Waits. Whereas the guitarist creates fragmented rhythms
on "Rain in the Face," the tug-of-war between bass and percussion
push Eisenbeil to his limits on "Cues to the Vagabond."
Inner Constellation gives a clear picture of Eisenbeil as
a composer, bandleader and instrumentalist. It’ll be interesting
to hear what he comes up with for Volume Two.–CA
Antoine
Chessex
LOST IN DESTRUCTION
Absurd
 Last
time I looked, Berlin-based saxophonist Antoine Chessex's releases
were in the "Improv" bin in my local rekkid store (particularly
his SwiftMachine on Creative Sources with Gilles Aubry and
Torsten Papenheim), but it might make more sense to file Lost
in Destruction under "Noise". After all he has been
taking to the stage with Dave Phillips recently, and DP certainly
ain't jazz. But the fact though that "all sounds [are] produced
by a tenor saxophone through guitar amplifiers and some shitty effects
pedals" just about justifies its inclusion in this magazine's
"Jazz / Improv" section. Like Borbetomagus, the closest
point of reference to what Chessex is doing. Couldn't really put the
Borbetos in "Contemporary [Classical]" could you? And chucking
a pair of mics down the bell of your horn doesn't exactly automatically
make it "Electronica" either. Enough, already. You know
as well as I do that these categories don't mean as much as they used
to. The six tracks on Lost In Destruction (another oblique
nod to the Seventh Art, perhaps, though I doubt Sofia Coppola could
have used this as her soundtrack material) were recorded last year,
two of them chez Chessex and the others live in Berlin (Audio Cue
Tonlabor, Stralau 68), and The Hague (De Garage). Behind the walls
of screaming feedback you can hear people clearly having a good time
– face it, there's often more fun to be had listening to noisy
shit than you-can-hear-a-pin-drop-just-for-Chrissakes-make-sure-you-don't-fart
EAI – though whether Chessex is in control of what's going on,
or whether he even needs or wants to be, remains tantalisingly open
to question.–DW
Kahl
Monticone
SOLO NYLON STRING ACOUSTIC GUITAR
Self-released CDR
 There's
a practicality to the title of this record that understates its worth
and measure. Kahl Monticone, a long serving member of the Brisbane
rock underground, has developed a language on guitar loaded with skilfully
deployed actions that drift from technical accuracy to spatial compositional
excellence. Recorded to bring out much of the character of the instrument,
including a richly detailed audio image of the strings (as much as
the tones that follow their strumming), Solo Nylon String Acoustic
Guitar assumes a pensive quality over the course of its ten pieces,
each of which enquires into the melodic possibilities of the instrument.
Most impressive are "four", which leaves a series of open
chords to waver amid clusters of pitches, and "eight", a
more picturesque sound tale, generous in movement and scaling a variety
of playing styles. The rustling of Monticone's clothing emerges from
time to time, adding a sense of the "person" to the musical
space. Effortless, handsome and ultimately charming.–LE
Matt
Bauder / Zach Wallace / Aaron Siegel
MEMORIZE THE SKY
482 Music
 After
three three-inchers and a collaboration with Anthony Braxton (2+2
Compositions), here's the first full length release by Memorize
The Sky (that's the name of the group as well as the album), Matt
Bauder (tenor sax, clarinets and percussion), Zach Wallace (bass,
vibes, percussion) and Aaron Siegel (percussion). They've been working
together as a trio since the end of the 90s, and it shows in the subtle
interplay and concentrated listening on these eight pieces. It's all
very organic stuff, from the track titles ("Etch of Wood",
"House of Wind", "Path of Spider" etc) to the
instrumentation, which, though evidently influenced by the laminal
improv of post-AMM EAI, revels in its wood and metal. With the possible
exception of "Etch In Wood", on which all three musicians
reveal a sensitivity to melody and harmony on a par with their timbral
sophistication, each of the tracks maps out and then stays within
the confines of a small plot of land defined by a small number of
specific techniques, from the taps and high multiphonics of the opening
"Raft of Stone" to the rich low drone of the closing "Path
of Spider". Along the way there are luminous bowed vibraphone
clusters ("Lake of Light") and all manner of impressive
but never showy extended techniques ("Field of Ice" is particularly
striking) in what is an attractive if a little introvert set.–DW
Michel
Doneda / Giuseppe Ielasi / Ingar Zach
FLORE DE CATACLYSMO
Sedimental
 A
quick Google informs me that Michel Doneda's soprano and sopranino
saxophones first met Giuseppe Ielasi's guitar and electronics and
Ingar Zach's percussion back in February 2003 at a concert in the
Instants Chavirés I recall attending. This album was recorded
in the studios of CCAM in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy in January 2004,
eleven months and a few gigs down the road, and features three leisurely
– 17'02", 16'45" and 11'58" – accomplished
explorations of space and sonority. Doneda, whose flutters and chirps
can seem dry and tense in the company of Jack Wright, sounds more
relaxed here, maybe because he has more branches to flit in and out
of in Ielasi's verdant electronic jungle of clicks and clangs. Zach's
percussion is equally colourful, cymbals fizzing and button gongs
clanging merrily on the central "One Wing Of Matter". It's
an enjoyable listen – anyone who says post-redux improv is cold
and unfriendly stuff should think again – but one that leaves
me wondering where these three gents might take it from here. Ielasi
has always come across as a highly pitch sensitive performer –
parts of "Run Fingers Over Turquoise" are positively Feldmanesque
– while for Doneda avoiding most recognisable pitches altogether
seems be something of a point of honour. It falls to Zach then to
provide rhythmic and harmonic links, which he does very well but not
without leaving the impression that we're listening to three great
musicians playing together rather than a trio.–DW
Hanna
Hartman
AILANTHUS
Komplott
 Born
in Sweden but now resident in Germany, sound artist and composer Hanna
Hartman has released some impressive work over the past few years,
and Ailanthus continues along the same road as 2005's Longitude
/ Cratere (Komplott) and 2002's Färjesänger
(Elektron), crafting subtle, superbly recorded musique concrète
that makes little attempt to disguise either its source sounds (birds,
insects, wind, water and various instruments and voices are all clearly
identifiable) or the treatments they undergo (backwards soundfiles,
loops), without ever sacrificing ambiguity, surprise and formal complexity.
It's closer in spirit to Ferrari than Henry, accessible without being
naïve. Att fälla grova träd är förkippat
med risker ("felling trees is fraught with risks"),
which was awarded the prestigious Karl Sczuka Prize in 2005, is a
ravishing piece of cinema for the ear, creaks and twangs alternating
with blasts of radio, cries, coughs and crunches. On Wespen Vesper,
tiny shuddering consonants are juxtaposed with buzzing insects, twittering
birds and smatterings of wickedly funky claves. Plätmäs
features disturbing metallic scrapes, looped seagulls and what sounds
like someone merrily crunching apples. Musik För Dansstycket
Jag Glömmer Bort is more rhythmically regular (perhaps due
to the fact that it was commissioned by a ballet company) and harmonically
coherent, the pitches of its percussive rattles cunningly mirrored
by the clucking of hens and piano and string samples. Hartman never
overloads her textures – there's plenty of silence to frame
the exquisitely precise samples – but curiously enough this
only serves to highlight the complexity of the isolated sounds themselves,
and the music seems to last longer than it actually does. The longest
of the four works on the disc lasts just over nine minutes, and the
album as a whole clocks in at just 28'21". But what glorious,
action-packed minutes they are.–DW
Iannis
Xenakis
IANNIS XENAKIS 1922 - 2001
BVHaast
 The
liner notes were written in 1975, the performances were recorded in
1977 and 1986, and the six pieces date from between 1960 (Herma)
and 1979 (Palimpsest), but they still pack a mighty punch.
Hi-fi purists might moan about the muddy recording quality of the
1977 session, which features the two solo piano works Herma
and Evryali (1973) and the perennial thriller Eonta
(1963) for piano and brass quintet, but pianist Geoffrey Douglas Madge's
heroic performances are still well worth a listen, even if clearer
and cleaner recordings of the works have appeared more recently (notably
Aki Takahashi's 1999 set on Mode). The 1986 session, featuring
Dmaathen (1976) for oboe and percussion, Epeï (1976)
for oboe, clarinets, trumpet, two trombones and double bass and Palimpsest,
for 11-piece ensemble, is better recorded, and features some splendidly
raw brass playing, notably on Epeï. Xenakis completists
probably won't want to be without it, but there is something to be
said for the 24-bit definition on the recent Modes. Depends how you
like you Xenakis, really.. a punch in the gut or an icepick in the
forehead. Either way, it hurts.–DW
Jean-François
Laporte
SOUNDMATTERS
23five
 Unless
I'm mistaken this is only the second disc to appear featuring the
music of Jean-François Laporte, after a mini-CD entitled Mantra
in Metamkine's Cinéma pour l'Oreille series a while back. That's
now out-of-print, it would seem, but fear not: the full-length version
of the piece, all 26 minutes of it (five too long for the 3"
CD format) is one of five pieces on offer on Soundmatters.
Electro-Prana (1998) is composed exclusively of the sounds
of wind during the ice storm that hit Montreal in January 1998, recorded
through cracks of doors and windowpanes. On Boule qui roule (1997)
Laporte takes the sound of machinery (unspecified, and it makes no
difference anyway as the raw source recording is transformed beyond
all recognition) and passes it literally hundreds of times through
bandpass filters to create a cloud of slowly shifting glissandi, as
rigorous and uncompromising as Xenakis, yet as sensual and slowmoving
as Radigue. Dans le ventre du dragon (1997) was recorded
in the empty hull of a boat moored in the port of Montreal, and the
real star of the piece is the space itself, with its extraordinary
15-second reverb, as the rich overtones of Laporte's instruments (not
sure what they are, and more information would have been welcome)
resonate throughout the vast space. Epic stuff. Mantra (1997)
is a 26-minute long recording of a cooling compressor for an ice rink,
whose overtone-rich power hum is subtly filtered live by the use of
PVC tubes and metal plates. Think Gen Ken Montgomery meets Phill Niblock.
The most recent piece on offer, 2005's Plénitude du vide,
scored for saxophone quartet and self-designed instruments, including
the sax-trunk, siren organ and circular-breathed Tu-Yos ("tuyau"
is French for pipe, if that gives you a clue), is the hardest to access
but the most rewarding work on offer. This is a superb disc that should
appeal as much to devotees of contemporary composition, both instrumental
and electronic, as to fans of 23five artists such as Michel Gendreau,
John Duncan, CM von Hausswolf and Francisco López.–DW
Lubomyr
Melnyk
KMH
Unseen Worlds
 Minimalist
pianist-composer Lubomyr Melnyk’s debut recording, originally
issued in 1979 on Music Gallery Editions (home of the CCMC and Nihilist
Spasm Band, among others), falls somewhere between Charlemagne Palestine’s
Strumming Music and Cecil Taylor’s Indent
(a broad range, indeed). KMH is subtitled "piano music
in the continuous mode"; as in Palestine’s piano music,
the pedals are kept down throughout so as to maintain a continuous
sonic overlap, phrases melting together in a field of constant motion
and production. Melnyk’s music works in two different areas:
in the first, the pianist plays a series of rising and descending
notes in melodic arpeggiated fashion, while a second area is more
energetic, involving repeated clusters.
Like his forebears Taylor and Palestine (we could throw Anthony Davis’s
Wayang series in there too), Melnyk is heavily influenced
by dance – indeed, the reissue’s liner notes reference
choreographer Carolyn Carlson as an inspiration. KMH seems
lighter on its feet than Strumming Music, its transitions
more fluid despite using some of the same methods (yes, Clyfford Still
and Mark Rothko both use paint, but…). Melnyk certainly differentiates
himself from the big names in minimal music, though, by the greater
affinity to Romantic piano music evident in the sections of overlapping
arpeggios. If there is a tension between arpeggiated flow and the
stark repetition of clusters, the overlap created by pedal depression
manages to resolve it somewhat. KMH is never exactly static,
but when it's over you don't feel to have moved significantly from
where you began. Rather, you're more aware of where you are –
and, perhaps, the beauty of that place. This is how Melnyk taps into
a rich vein of humanity.–CA
Philip
Bimstein
LARKIN GIFFORD'S HARMONICA
Starkland
 I
remain convinced that Steve Reich took a wrong turning with Different
Trains, when he started using samples of human speech to generate
melodic material. Of course, nobody dared say anything against the
piece (perhaps afraid that taking a stand against a work that itself
took a stand against the Nazi Death Camps might be interpreted, in
some perverse way, as condoning the latter), but very few people followed
Steve down the path he opened up with Different Trains, The Cave
and subsequent works. One composer who apparently did is Philip Bimstein,
a graduate of the Chicago Conservatory and UCLA, former lead singer
of Phil 'n' the Blanks (for anyone who remembers them, I don't) and
sometime Mayor of Springdale, Utah, at the southwest entrance to Zion
National Park (those familiar with Luc Ferrari's Far West News
Episodes 2 & 3 might recall that Bimstein was one of the
people Luc and Brunhild Ferrari stopped off to see on their way to
LA). The Bushy Wushy Rag features recordings of Robert "Bushy
Wushy" Logan selling beer at a St Louis Cardinals game, Casino
the voice of Las Vegas "philosophizing dice-caller" Tom
Martinet, and the title track the reminiscences of Springdale resident
Larkin Gifford (b.1906). If Bimstein had left it at that and let these
people just tell their stories, Ferrari-style, with some discreet
and well-edited field recordings, it might have been OK, but he insists
on writing his own mawkish instrumental music around it all. Fabulous
field recordings of canyon tree frogs at Checkerboard Mesa are relegated
to the status of cute backdrop to a sugary post-minimalist piece of
kitsch oboe music, and the amazing soundscape of a Vegas casino, already
wonderfully documented elsewhere by the likes of Bernhard Gal and
Jonathan Coleclough, is reduced to a few slot machine bleeps and gurgles
that would sound more at home in Toy Story 2 than in Carnegie
Hall, where Bimstein's music has been performed, apparently to considerable
acclaim. The fact that he's received substantial support for his work
in the form of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and
the White House Millennium Council certainly raises questions about
where serious contemporary music is heading in the United States.
Jesse Helms kicked up one hell of a fuss about Robert Mapplethorpe
and Andres Serrano. I bet he'd love Larkin Gifford's Harmonica.–DW
Ilios
LOVE IS MY MOTOR
Antifrost
 The
eight track titles for this album have been swiped from the second
verse of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", immortalised by Frankie
Valli in 1967, but if that's a photo of Frankie on the cover I can
only say he isn't looking all that good these days. There's no other
connection with Frankie Valli as far as I know. Why, what were you
expecting, samples? Ilios, aka Dimitris Kariofilis, currently residing
in Santander, Spain, I believe, is about as far as you could hope
to get from fun lovin' plunderphonics and smash'n'grab dancefloor-friendly
DSP (hey, whatever happened to Kid 606?); Ilios albums aren't just
serious, they're goddamn scary. Ever heard Old Testament?
Perfect soundtrack for apocalyptic floods and folks slaughtering each
other with asses' jawbones. Love Is My Motor is equally austere,
but more varied. In fact, it's my favourite Ilios album to date (though
talking about a "favourite" Ilios album is like choosing
a "favourite" poisonous plant or "favourite" serial
killer). From the eerie whistling glissandi of the opening (maybe
it's just because he's Greek but I'm sure I felt the chilly breath
of the ghost of Xenakis as it passed through the wall) to the woofer-fucking
thrills of "But if you feel like I feel", via "The
sight of you leaves me weak", which apparently features the cello
of my pal Nikos Veliotis, though I'd never have guessed, this is gripping
stuff. It finally explodes with some terrifying blasts of white noise
halfway through "Please let me know that it's real" (if
track five buggered your woofers, this should put paid to the tweeters),
after which "You're just too good to be true" sounds like
a field recording from a railway station in the outer circles of Hell,
and the final track is 18'47" of sheer desolation. Terrific stuff.–DW
KK
Null
FERTILE
Touch
 The
increasingly psychedelic works of KK Null suggest his "cosmic"
fascinations show no signs of abating. Tapped into some alternate
wavelength, each of his most recent recordings has been a galactic
frenzy of intense sonic detritus, but sonically not what might be
classed as "noise". If anything, Null's work is courting
a more fractured sonic relationship – one in which sound sources
are brought to the fore through exhaustive but overwhelmingly chaotic
processing and sonic maximisation. Synthetic pulse, warbling rhythms
and piercing electronics on works like "three" take on an
almost post-techno vibe – the evidence of the kick drum replaced
or subsumed into a wall of pulsing slabs laid down across the stereo
field. The results are disorienting but not without direction; as
one element is introduced, another slips from the audio scape in a
perpetual cycle of replacement and transformation. "Five"
is decidedly darker, the rhythms again permeating through a rich forest
of dense audio foliage that gives way to screeching bird calls that
dominate much of the work. There's a conflict going on in many of
these pieces, a push and pull as various elements collide, erupt and
eventually combine into a gloriously frenetic and overwhelming sound
experience. With intermittent field recordings, including a perfectly
suited flock of Little Corella that shriek with an intensely disturbing
quality, this album marks a refinement of Null's practice over the
past three years. His post-Metal dabbling of the 1990s seems a long
way off – in its place comes a new, brutal sonic assault, one
involving full frequency walls of sound. Fertile indeed.–LE
Jazkamer
BALLS THE SIZE OF TEXAS LIVER THE SIZE OF BRAZIL
Purplesoil
 If
you ever wondered what localised but severe narrowing of the left
feral artery of a 48-year-old man sounds like, "God Damn This
Ugly Sound", the opening track on this album, is for all you
and your fellow budding heart surgeons. Dreadfully sorry Carlos Giffoni,
but Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre, aka Jazkamer (somewhere along the
way they lost a "z" and an "m" in the name) have
always been fun to listen to, and Balls The Size Of Texas
Liver The Size Of Brazil (a fun name if ever there was one) on
the new Czech Purplesoil imprint is one of their most bewilderingly
multidirectional and entertaining outings to date. Though there are
one or two moments that might induce cardiac troubles substantially
more serious than a systolic murmur, notably on "Not Half Bad
To The Bone", it's also further proof that the worlds of brain
melting noise and slowmo EAI are moving inexorably closer together,
and this time it's the noiseniks who are slowing down and spacing
out instead of the EAI people speeding up and getting down and dirty.
Hegre recently released a charmingly intimate if diffuse collection
of "ballads" with Maja Ratkje, and I'm looking forward to
hearing the results of an encounter between Marhaug and the quiet
man of London improv, Mark Wastell. Meanwhile, here are seven slabs
of Norwegian sound art at its finest, from the scuzzy well-worn run-out
grooves of "A Bucked Of Mayo" to the epic spaciousness of
"Tentacles of Broken Teeth" and the closing title track,
more Rypdal than Ratkje. At this rate these lads might even end up
with an album on ECM, but any collaboration with the Hilliard Ensemble
still seems to be some way off.–DW
Anla
Courtis / Ralf Wehowsky
RETURN OF THE STONE SPIRITS
Beta-Lactam Ring Black Series
 One
can only hope that the Wehowsky residence in the quiet Black Forest
town of Eggenstein has double glazing, or that Ralf's recording studio
is as impenetrable as David Fincher's Panic Room, because on November
5th 2005 (don't suppose either of these hombres knew anything
about Guy Fawkes, but it's rather appropriate for the explosive stuff
they cooked up that day), he and visiting ex-Reynols poncho honcho
Anla (or Alan) Courtis went into meltdown using a variety of instruments
including guitars, Argentinian and Cambodian violins, cappuccino shaker
(?), coils and "stuff in a plastic bag" (Courtis, of course).
Wehowsky, with his customary post-prod perfectionism then went through
the debris and built another towering edifice of, well, post-everything
electronic composition. I'm rather proud of the fact that they also
incorporated, in the final track, "...Mit Ihren Weidenringen
Die Steingeister Zu Fangen", samples of a remix I talked RLW
into doing a few years ago of George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique
(for a semi-aborted Antheil remix album that may yet see the light
of day, but don't hold your breath), though if you're an Antheil nut
who's drifted over to PT from our sister Antheil site, I guarantee
you won't be able to ID the original source material. It's a ghostly
postscript to the rest of the album, with its soaring howls of guitar
noise and blocks of savage feedback, all the more powerful for being
carefully filtered and bottled in the Wehowsky distillery, as opposed
to being left raw and bloody. It certainly packs a mean punch, I can
tell you. Only 100 of these black beauties, and mine's numbered 90,
so you'd better get your skates on.–DW
Tim
Catlin
RADIO GHOSTS
23 Five
 Audio
stasis is a wonderful condition, especially when it can be created
through the use of ever so slight variation and tonal phasing. Here,
Melbourne guitar improviser Tim Catlin delivers a series of measured
drone works that resolve many of the issues he's investigated in his
recent live performances. Split effectively into three sections –
works involving acoustic guitar, electric guitar and also, interestingly,
cymbal – Catlin tends his instruments with a smoothness, ensuring
their vibration is, for the most part, kept at a suitable level. Without
question, it's the tentative stasis on Radio Ghosts that
is the album's supreme asset, a sense of uncertainty resulting from
Catlin's tendency to alternate between withdrawing from and developing
his ideas, refocusing the sound palette and ensuring that at no one
point does the listener become complacent. Nowhere is this stealthy
transformation more apparent than on "Everything Must Go",
which finds Catlin exploring a series of ill-fated high ringing tones
that eventually deconstruct to reveal the slowly modulating E-Bow
underbelly. "Mirage", with its constantly emerging bowed
tones and motors gently pounding the surface of the cymbal, is a fine
closing thought for the record, a summary of sorts, crystallising
these six exercises in tonal variation and gradual transformation.–LE
Jonathan
Coleclough / Andrew Liles
TORCH SONGS
Die Stadt
 The
highly anticipated pairing of Coleclough and Liles, two among the
most bright-minded dispensers of unusual sounds from England, had
already caused my mental bells to ring out joyously in advance. Geoff
Sawers' poem "I dreamt I was a river" is painted on the
white cover of a double LP that, in its special 250-copy limited edition,
also contains a CD EP featuring about 25 minutes of Coleclough's original
set at Preston's Intergration 3, where the two protagonists first
met in 2004. Liles (a prolific musician if ever there was one, with
an average of an album per month these days, not including his collaborations
with the likes of Nurse With Wound and Darren Tate) took the recording
of Coleclough's performance home and proceeded to "add, subtract,
multiply and divide" additional source sounds provided by his
latest collaborator. Each of the eight soundscapes on Torch Songs
finds the perfect spot for every sound to exist and be accepted
in that grey area where uneven energies try to work our knowledge
into forgetting conventional codes and meanings. Elements of pulse
are not totally absent in the manipulation of sound objects, location
recordings and drones, each "torch song" analyzing them
exhaustively, combining manifestations of real activity (including
the wonderful voices of Nature) with a cathartic, profane consciousness
of something that no religion or philosophy will ever be able to explain.
The overall sense is one of solitary awareness, and it feels great.
Torch Songs is a minor classic, and I look forward to a swift
CD reissue (it often happens with Die Stadt) to save us from having
to get up and change sides, and dispense with occasional distortions
that appear during the most charged surges.–MR
Christoph
Heemann / Andreas Martin
UNTITLED
Dom Bartwuchs
 This
21-minute CDR by the Heemann brothers, long-time collaborators in
HNAS, Mirror and other projects, is pretty perplexing to these ears,
maybe because I have so much respect for their craft and never expect
anything under average from them (indeed, this dates from 1993 and
was originally intended as a special item for the Brainwaves Festival)
. These guitar-based tracks, built upon predictable chordal strumming
and obstinately repetitive arpeggios, complete with psychedelic electric
solos at times, are largely inferior to the deeply touching experiences
these artists usually offer. After listening to Mirror, In Camera
and Heemann's solo milestones, or to Seclusion's Yukigafuru,
for that matter, I have a hard time accepting something that, for
the large part, sounds like a mix of avant folk and - heaven forbid
- Franco Battiato circa Fetus (not a compliment in my book,
but Heemann apparently likes him very much, so who am I to judge?).
Is this some sort of homage, then? A divertissement? Why
deciding to release 14-year old material after all the great past
work, since Heemann himself defines them as "sketches"?
I really have no idea, but know there a few moments I really appreciated,
and most of them were in the final track. No hard feelings, then:
it's just the reaction to a love delusion. You can't always get what
you want.–MR
John
Watermann
CALCUTTA GAS CHAMBER
Die Stadt
 Already
reissued in CD by Cold Spring last year, Calcutta Gas Chamber
is now released for the third time by Die Stadt on a splendid picture
disc in 444 copies, a project John Watermann had started to work on
shortly before his death in 2002. He had originally published the
album after a 1990 visit to Calcutta which somehow traumatized him
into conceiving a sonic experience that might describe the various
phases of death by machines through the organization and deployment
of field recordings (made not in Calcutta but in a deserted power
station in Brisbane, Australia) into 57 minutes of harsh hiss, glacial
clatter, distant vocal malaise, and looped noise. It's like being
locked in some kind of lightless, airless antechamber with no hope
of being liberated any time soon, intuiting that something bad is
happening to others in the same condition. Truth be told, it's not
a "pleasing" listen, and probably not meant to be; consider
it instead an aural documentary about psychological oppression, and
remember to situate it in the right temporal frame: the early 90s,
when this kind of Industrial-connected music was all the rage. Nowadays
Calcutta Gas Chamber makes sense more as a collector's item
than a groundbreaking opus. Not a record I'll be revisiting often,
though far from shallow.–MR
Daniel
Menche
ANIMALITY
Emd.Pl
 I
still have to figure out how in the world the graphic designer of
the Polish label Emd could conceive the sleeve containing Animality,
as the disc can only be taken out while dangling from a surprise box-like
cover that opens like a cutout design book for kids. Gorgeous! And
the music's even better: a refined version of the percussive approach
of Menche's recent three-incher For The Beasts (P Tapes),
with a more relaxed (kind of), entrancing vibe favoured by the attention
he devotes to the choice of timbres, here heavily conditioned by the
different tensions of the drum skins. As a matter of fact, the large
part of the album sounds like an army of refugees from Reich's Drumming
(here we go again) who decided to dedicate themselves to homemade
rituals by superimposing odd-metred patterns in irregular geometries.
Different stages alternate over the course of about 51 minutes, interlocked
without the extreme ferocity of other similar outings – absurd
as it may sound, some of this wouldn't be out of place on a Rapoon
album – and affirming that Menche should now be considered a
"minimalist" in the purest sense: a few sources –
maybe even only one – and repetition are all he needs to generate
his musical therapy. And goodness knows how our nerves need it in
today's times.–MR
Copyright 2004 by Paris Transatlantic
|
|