Before his current blurred visions of grace, Andrew Chalk had already intuited that unrefined yet enthralling forms of beauty lie in the cross-pollination of noisy structures and latent tranquillities. First, Second And Third Drop was a firm gesture towards the non-believer, the invitation to a feast of bowed metal, wooden flutes, hissing steam and shifting drones that finds many points in common with that other legendary lone wolf named David Jackman, not coincidentally a subsequent collaborator. The five tracks of this strong album - originally recorded in 1986 and only now out of the archives - seem to symbolize the stages of an initiation.
A short introductive assault on the ears comes from the initial “Procession”, the prosecution of the harsh ritual of ringing clangour visible in “The Flying Fish” (here the Organum association is almost inevitable). After the acrid baptism, things start to change quite noticeably, “Advent” being the turning point of the disc: the noise is inescapable despite a discernible harmony at work beneath the shrieks, an unreal cavernous chorale of energies that would like to stretch while being pushed back by a petrifying stare from the gods of inexplicable racket. Still, they’re flirting with sensual numbness, the intangibility of what all this means at the basis of a state of disheartenment.
The cycle gets its completion with the two final segments: “It’s Past” is a mist of brittle harmonics generated by some sort of celestial body drifting around perplexity, while “The Sky Collapsed” seals the pact between useless questioning and acceptation of unawareness, a healing caress of droning resonance and singing birds on the head of the poor beings who were convinced of their personal advancement, but will always remain mere casualties of anachronism.
Siren Records
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
ANTHONY BRAXTON / JOE MORRIS - Four Improvisations (Duo) 2007
The current picture of the world of improvisation shows multitudes of different perspectives, several stimulating currents, an abundant batch of cardsharpers in the foreground and those who inevitably get classified among the holy cows, although not always due to effective artistic merits. Yet Anthony Braxton - either a name that puts in awe due to his mercurial mind and forward-looking musical thought, or a “too difficult” musician to be “avoided at any cost” - manages to escape expectations, except one: everything he does unloads in fact a burden of consequence on the audience’s shoulders, like it (aesthetically) or not. This can’t possibly be denied, if not by utter ignorance.
When Braxton decided to publish the entire session that he and guitarist Joe Morris recorded on July 30 and 31st in the Crowell Auditorium of the Wesleyan University, both artists were positively conscious of the historic importance of this issue. The saxophonist has expressed a wish for utilizing this music “as a way of talking about composition in time and mutable space” to his students in the future. That says a lot of this duo’s character, its main feature evidently being a stunning stability, a blend of liberated opinion and structured development of concepts that the discerning listener can unmistakably compare to fresh water springing from under a mountain rock bottled in beautiful crystal profiles. This is purity of intents, also known as “creativity at the uppermost level”, allowing unpredictable events to be instantly digested, reshaped and exposed without the gloss of a formula, or the ennui born from typical “jazz progressions”.
Morris himself ranks among the guitarists – let’s just say “players”, mental and corporeal boundaries extending well over the sheer mechanics of the six strings – destined to puzzle many addressees, principally those used to standard reckoning (pun intended). In those hands the instrument becomes the proverbial means to an end, not necessarily a method to portray virtuosity (which, in this context, would be all the more futile despite the obviously superior technical expertise of the participants). There are parts of the improvisations in which we seem to hear Braxton’s now graceful, then raucous flurries accompanied by African mbira patterns rather than guitar arpeggios; elsewhere, clustered chords and scarcely malleable phrases are bound to the sense of frustration that a number of non-sympathetic listeners will surely experience (“What’s that? No diminished 7th? Where’s the augmented 5th?”). The man, supposedly, doesn’t care a iota. No need to refurbish chops and licks when all’s needed is chainless imagination and a correct brain architecture.
The reciprocal respect between the principals is palpable, regardless of a noticeable dissimilarity: Braxton utilizes seven saxophones (for the archivists: Eb sopranino, Bb soprano, alto, C melody, baritone, bass and contrabass) versus Morris’ solitary axe. The former’s insightful cleverness and, for want of a better word, culture is manifestly perceptible from the manner in which he wraps, cuddles and caresses the latter’s lexicon, the existent difference in terms of dynamics notwithstanding; a bass sax is enough to make a living room’s silverware jingle quite a bit, you know. But this is not a one-way transaction of course: both suggest and listen to the echoing modification of their very proposition, mutual skill and responsiveness intertwined in a prolonged conversation whose fecundity is treasured from the first note to the last. Four hours streaming without problems, many highlights to relish all over the four discs: as a hypothetical symbol, the quiet dialogue starting around minute 15 of the second could be perfect. “Lyrically inquisitive” is probably an appropriate description. Don’t think for a minute that it’s all flowers, though: when the going gets tough, roses morph into corrosive thistles. Still gorgeous, acutely stinging, ever treacherous for the uninformed, ballad-only “late-coming aficionado”.
Maybe the most pertinent observation – especially when thinking of personal communication being at an all-time low nowadays, in the face of myriads of instruments helpful to the contrary – came from my wife, who synthesized the whole with the following words: “these guys are definitely talking”. Indeed they are, yet detecting the substance of what’s being expressed falls exclusively on us.
Clean Feed
When Braxton decided to publish the entire session that he and guitarist Joe Morris recorded on July 30 and 31st in the Crowell Auditorium of the Wesleyan University, both artists were positively conscious of the historic importance of this issue. The saxophonist has expressed a wish for utilizing this music “as a way of talking about composition in time and mutable space” to his students in the future. That says a lot of this duo’s character, its main feature evidently being a stunning stability, a blend of liberated opinion and structured development of concepts that the discerning listener can unmistakably compare to fresh water springing from under a mountain rock bottled in beautiful crystal profiles. This is purity of intents, also known as “creativity at the uppermost level”, allowing unpredictable events to be instantly digested, reshaped and exposed without the gloss of a formula, or the ennui born from typical “jazz progressions”.
Morris himself ranks among the guitarists – let’s just say “players”, mental and corporeal boundaries extending well over the sheer mechanics of the six strings – destined to puzzle many addressees, principally those used to standard reckoning (pun intended). In those hands the instrument becomes the proverbial means to an end, not necessarily a method to portray virtuosity (which, in this context, would be all the more futile despite the obviously superior technical expertise of the participants). There are parts of the improvisations in which we seem to hear Braxton’s now graceful, then raucous flurries accompanied by African mbira patterns rather than guitar arpeggios; elsewhere, clustered chords and scarcely malleable phrases are bound to the sense of frustration that a number of non-sympathetic listeners will surely experience (“What’s that? No diminished 7th? Where’s the augmented 5th?”). The man, supposedly, doesn’t care a iota. No need to refurbish chops and licks when all’s needed is chainless imagination and a correct brain architecture.
The reciprocal respect between the principals is palpable, regardless of a noticeable dissimilarity: Braxton utilizes seven saxophones (for the archivists: Eb sopranino, Bb soprano, alto, C melody, baritone, bass and contrabass) versus Morris’ solitary axe. The former’s insightful cleverness and, for want of a better word, culture is manifestly perceptible from the manner in which he wraps, cuddles and caresses the latter’s lexicon, the existent difference in terms of dynamics notwithstanding; a bass sax is enough to make a living room’s silverware jingle quite a bit, you know. But this is not a one-way transaction of course: both suggest and listen to the echoing modification of their very proposition, mutual skill and responsiveness intertwined in a prolonged conversation whose fecundity is treasured from the first note to the last. Four hours streaming without problems, many highlights to relish all over the four discs: as a hypothetical symbol, the quiet dialogue starting around minute 15 of the second could be perfect. “Lyrically inquisitive” is probably an appropriate description. Don’t think for a minute that it’s all flowers, though: when the going gets tough, roses morph into corrosive thistles. Still gorgeous, acutely stinging, ever treacherous for the uninformed, ballad-only “late-coming aficionado”.
Maybe the most pertinent observation – especially when thinking of personal communication being at an all-time low nowadays, in the face of myriads of instruments helpful to the contrary – came from my wife, who synthesized the whole with the following words: “these guys are definitely talking”. Indeed they are, yet detecting the substance of what’s being expressed falls exclusively on us.
Clean Feed
Friday, 15 August 2008
JIM O’ROURKE - Long Night
One of the most unfathomable works by Jim O’Rourke, Long Night was conceived in 1990, the bright young man nearing a degree in composition at Chicago’s DePaul University. Like other opuses of his early career, it has remained desolately weeping in the archives until Streamline’s chief Christoph Heemann decided to render the life of considerate beings a little better, for two hours and a half at least.
The dilemma, now. I intimately know - ever since the very first listen - that this is a superb effort, deserving to be mentioned on a par with determinate chapters in the curriculum of Eliane Radigue, Charlemagne Palestine and, in a fractional way, David Behrman (to which the score is dedicated, yet the slightest hint to this composer’s oeuvre can only be sensed in the final section of disc one, where the electronic waves start travelling around quite a bit following over a hour of steadily shifting motionlessness). What worries is my utter failure in explaining why the music is that good, four consecutive listens already in the bag. After all, this ought to be a “traditional” drone piece - the inner resonance, the superimposition of harmonics, the illusion of events that aren’t actually happening, and so forth. I mean, we might try to use the stuff as environmental incidence - and get slapped in the face by our silliness. There’s something in here that comes right out of the speakers: “No, son. You must pay attention. You can’t read a magazine while this is going on”.
Consequently, the concentration does get put in but the sounds elude your ability of categorization. They budge, morph, change gradations, communicating movement yet remaining stationary. On top of everything, they work subliminally, and not in a New Age sense of “relax”: these substances crawl into the nerves and under the skin, benign worms causing valuable inspiration. Let’s not even deepen the breakdown of that extraordinary fragment where at one point - a good chunk of part two already elapsed – an overlapping accumulation of non-existent string and keyboard instruments seemingly materializes in Riley-esque ecstasy, genuinely inciting to watch the firmament and lose ourselves in bewilderment once and for all, pushing the whole towards the purest kind of minimalist energy. No chance of actually defining what the hell is happening, though. Oscillators could be used as a mechanism for interior development, I’m left thinking, although many derelict scientists of the psyche believe that the human machine has a preference for Mozart and the likes. Not anybody’s fault of course: we’re not going to stop, go back and deal with those who are impeded by their own limits. It’s just not possible anymore. Evolution claims its victims, and Jim O. was there aged 21, if you get my point.
If some reader feels that this “magna cum laude” judgment is vaguely unbalanced, they’ll have to bear in mind that this writer is a junkie for albums such as Remove The Need, Tamper and Disengage - episodes to which this CD should be paralleled, together with Mizu No Nai Umi. In essence, material fairly hated by its composer, at least according to what was declared in past interviews. Not a problem for me: a private inside niche has already been found for Long Night, which still refuses of dwelling in it. But I’m repeatedly taking pleasure in its unapologetic majestic sluggishness. Every minute of it enriches the blessed listener.
Streamline (distributed by Drag City)
The dilemma, now. I intimately know - ever since the very first listen - that this is a superb effort, deserving to be mentioned on a par with determinate chapters in the curriculum of Eliane Radigue, Charlemagne Palestine and, in a fractional way, David Behrman (to which the score is dedicated, yet the slightest hint to this composer’s oeuvre can only be sensed in the final section of disc one, where the electronic waves start travelling around quite a bit following over a hour of steadily shifting motionlessness). What worries is my utter failure in explaining why the music is that good, four consecutive listens already in the bag. After all, this ought to be a “traditional” drone piece - the inner resonance, the superimposition of harmonics, the illusion of events that aren’t actually happening, and so forth. I mean, we might try to use the stuff as environmental incidence - and get slapped in the face by our silliness. There’s something in here that comes right out of the speakers: “No, son. You must pay attention. You can’t read a magazine while this is going on”.
Consequently, the concentration does get put in but the sounds elude your ability of categorization. They budge, morph, change gradations, communicating movement yet remaining stationary. On top of everything, they work subliminally, and not in a New Age sense of “relax”: these substances crawl into the nerves and under the skin, benign worms causing valuable inspiration. Let’s not even deepen the breakdown of that extraordinary fragment where at one point - a good chunk of part two already elapsed – an overlapping accumulation of non-existent string and keyboard instruments seemingly materializes in Riley-esque ecstasy, genuinely inciting to watch the firmament and lose ourselves in bewilderment once and for all, pushing the whole towards the purest kind of minimalist energy. No chance of actually defining what the hell is happening, though. Oscillators could be used as a mechanism for interior development, I’m left thinking, although many derelict scientists of the psyche believe that the human machine has a preference for Mozart and the likes. Not anybody’s fault of course: we’re not going to stop, go back and deal with those who are impeded by their own limits. It’s just not possible anymore. Evolution claims its victims, and Jim O. was there aged 21, if you get my point.
If some reader feels that this “magna cum laude” judgment is vaguely unbalanced, they’ll have to bear in mind that this writer is a junkie for albums such as Remove The Need, Tamper and Disengage - episodes to which this CD should be paralleled, together with Mizu No Nai Umi. In essence, material fairly hated by its composer, at least according to what was declared in past interviews. Not a problem for me: a private inside niche has already been found for Long Night, which still refuses of dwelling in it. But I’m repeatedly taking pleasure in its unapologetic majestic sluggishness. Every minute of it enriches the blessed listener.
Streamline (distributed by Drag City)
Sunday, 10 August 2008
RYOJI IKEDA - 1000 Fragments (reissue) + Test Pattern
Formerly released in 1995 on Ikeda’s own label CCI, 1000 Fragments is by all means an influential album and, to this day, an attractive one independently from personal inclinations and evolving taste. Divided into three core compositions, this document encompasses something for just anybody concerned with the overlapping territories of computer music, ambient and plunderphonics, the Japanese researcher maintaining the dissertation’s level in the “interesting-to-brilliant” range. My preferred slice is the final one “Luxus”, built upon an awe-inspiring alternance of vaguely choir-ish chords from outer space, underscored by a pulsating drone that lingers on for minutes, new elements gradually introduced as the music flows in a masterful “neoclassic minimalist” structural design ending with purring low frequencies. Gorgeous stuff without a doubt. “Channel X” is a baffling initiation to the mental dislodgment generated by a swift string of different sonic events, which include test tones, communications between astronauts and ground control, media snippets, electronic sounds and much more. A very well conceived track that, despite its fragmentary character, leaves a bit of room for our reflexes to individuate the sources and situate them in the zone of immediate recollection that, as a whole, is the engine alimenting the positive reception of such an endeavour. “Zones” is a sophisticated illustration of pulse-based ambient, a stylish assertion overcoming the “by now acknowledged” status through impeccable timing and logic of sound assignment. One of those releases that win the fight against the passage of time, containing at least a potently riveting segment.
Interested in the “invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world” and the “relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception”, Ryoji Ikeda has been working on a multimedia venture called “Datamatics”, of which this is the second chapter after Dataplex, on this very label. By digitally converting all kinds of information (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcode patterns and binary 0 & 1 sequences, the composer gives life to a whole host of micro-sonic streams whose fundamental temperament is based on a prominent rhythmic component, noticeably perceivable even in the apparently more restrained sections. We’re warned not to overextend the volume boundaries, as the alternatively stinging and rumbling discharges of these vibrational configurations might hurt both the speakers and the eardrums. 67 minutes of this concentrate can be a veritable test for your broad-mindedness, as there’s actually no real variant in the overall scheme of things; this CD works efficiently as a brain stimulator though, its impulses having a definite say amidst a state of alertness and unquiet responsiveness that are missed when the program is over, proof of a subliminal functionality in regard to the corporeal systems. A stimulating experiment for which the word “music” appears quite limited, either destined to the well versed in this sonic quarter or the ones allowing themselves a modicum of frostiness and impassiveness every once in a while. Unquestionably not appropriate for those inclined to idealism at all costs.
Raster-Noton
Interested in the “invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world” and the “relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception”, Ryoji Ikeda has been working on a multimedia venture called “Datamatics”, of which this is the second chapter after Dataplex, on this very label. By digitally converting all kinds of information (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcode patterns and binary 0 & 1 sequences, the composer gives life to a whole host of micro-sonic streams whose fundamental temperament is based on a prominent rhythmic component, noticeably perceivable even in the apparently more restrained sections. We’re warned not to overextend the volume boundaries, as the alternatively stinging and rumbling discharges of these vibrational configurations might hurt both the speakers and the eardrums. 67 minutes of this concentrate can be a veritable test for your broad-mindedness, as there’s actually no real variant in the overall scheme of things; this CD works efficiently as a brain stimulator though, its impulses having a definite say amidst a state of alertness and unquiet responsiveness that are missed when the program is over, proof of a subliminal functionality in regard to the corporeal systems. A stimulating experiment for which the word “music” appears quite limited, either destined to the well versed in this sonic quarter or the ones allowing themselves a modicum of frostiness and impassiveness every once in a while. Unquestionably not appropriate for those inclined to idealism at all costs.
Raster-Noton
Thursday, 7 August 2008
DANIEL MENCHE - Body Melt
The superb artwork by Emily Hyde illustrates the sleeve of a white-vinyl LP, which the reviewer puts on the turntable, who knows why (what a liar, I do know why), with great expectations. The instrumentation promises a lot, too: Hammond organ and native American drums. Oooh, it makes me wonder: “Will DM mitigate his manners a tiny bit?” No way. Facilitated by the type of recording (in the “analog domain”) the impression is instantly one of typical Menche ferocity, albeit of a vaguely regulated kind.
The first side sounds like the representation of a turbulent day by a symphonic orchestra stuck on a single chord, as in a mental loop that made all the players forget everything they had learnt to that moment. Avalanches of roar and hiss rotate around the static harmony, only the bass line gradually shifting to situate the observation point elsewhere. The moments in which the definition of this murderous mantra is more evident are somewhat arousing, though ingurgitated again by the distorted mass until the end, the sound of pure electricity closing the section.
Face B throws us in the deep waters right away, the percussive factor highlighted in the mix, rapid fusillades reminding of a helicopter coming closer and closer amidst metallic clangors and dramatic background shifts. Because of those phenomena of aural misapprehension emblematic of the best entrancing music, we seem to pick out a human choir hidden somewhere in the surroundings. The second half embosses another classic Menche moment in our memory, indistinct organ notes exiting the stereo frame and beginning to bounce from a wall to the other, violently cuddling, caressingly devastating.
I tried to resist the hype, once more uselessly. You just have to love this man’s work. Body Melt is a must.
Important Records
The first side sounds like the representation of a turbulent day by a symphonic orchestra stuck on a single chord, as in a mental loop that made all the players forget everything they had learnt to that moment. Avalanches of roar and hiss rotate around the static harmony, only the bass line gradually shifting to situate the observation point elsewhere. The moments in which the definition of this murderous mantra is more evident are somewhat arousing, though ingurgitated again by the distorted mass until the end, the sound of pure electricity closing the section.
Face B throws us in the deep waters right away, the percussive factor highlighted in the mix, rapid fusillades reminding of a helicopter coming closer and closer amidst metallic clangors and dramatic background shifts. Because of those phenomena of aural misapprehension emblematic of the best entrancing music, we seem to pick out a human choir hidden somewhere in the surroundings. The second half embosses another classic Menche moment in our memory, indistinct organ notes exiting the stereo frame and beginning to bounce from a wall to the other, violently cuddling, caressingly devastating.
I tried to resist the hype, once more uselessly. You just have to love this man’s work. Body Melt is a must.
Important Records
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
"Is this a lateral escape from Touching Extremes?"
Yes and no.
Certain recordings do deserve a special attention. Sometimes I might even retrieve old favourites from the archive of memory, but there's no actual rule here.
Essentially, this is just another outlet for writing about meaningful music. Mind you, though: Touching Extremes remains alive and kicking.
And so the old fart succumbed to the blog hydra. But I swear that I'll never, ever have a MySpace page.
Yours,
Massimo
Certain recordings do deserve a special attention. Sometimes I might even retrieve old favourites from the archive of memory, but there's no actual rule here.
Essentially, this is just another outlet for writing about meaningful music. Mind you, though: Touching Extremes remains alive and kicking.
And so the old fart succumbed to the blog hydra. But I swear that I'll never, ever have a MySpace page.
Yours,
Massimo
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