Toshimaru Nakamura - Dance Music (Bottrop-boy)

Robert has a more in-depth analysis of this release on his blog, but yes, it's a good one. Two cuts, about 23 and 50 minutes long, the former largely a fine, complex hum, the latter more episodic. I go back and forth as to whether I'd rather have heard more of a steady-state sense; he gets into areas that I'd be happy to linger in for a good while, but his shifts also parse well. If I have a quibble, it's that the sounds themselves are often so gorgeous that I neglect the structure (or wonder how much is there). I still think Toshi's best work is in collaborative mode, but find "Dance Music" to be among the top three or four of his solo projects.


Christian Weber - Walcheturm Solo (Cut)

Weber's an amazing bassist with a wonderfully rich tone and technique to spare. The latter is one reason why this ends up being something of a chore, a 38 minute improv high on the "wow" factor, something that Barry Guy might envy, but far too up front for my tastes. Weber adds an warm element when in a group like that with Korber, Kahn, Muller, Noslang et. al. but this one will likely be appreciated more by avant jazz bass fans (who might well love it).


Arek Gulbenkoglu/Adam Sussmann - (Cdr) (the Rhizome Label)

The disc exists, I have it in my hands, but evidence on the web is only slightly more apparent than for the Wright disc so that's not the cover, though it is a rhizome. 76 minutes of next to nothing, very beautiful. I get the feeling they found Taku's "Live in Australia" too in your face, took the idea and toned it down a few notches. Glimmers of the pair's presence arise like reflections of water on a wall, if that much, though I believe it increases a tad toward the end. Otherwise, it's ambient sound including faint traffic and what I think is a distant foghorn. Really enjoyable, imho. Of course, it raises questions like, "What if all recordings went this way?" Mmm...dunno, what if? I admit to being stuck in, ultimately, wanting some variation, but at the very least, coming across something like this (or Taku's release) is extremely refreshing.

the Rhizome label is carried by erstdist

This isn't quite the cover of Seymour Wright's marvelous new solo recording, but it's pretty close. His website (www.seymourwright.com) appears to have lost its lease and I can't find any other mention of the disc anywhere. The title seems to be "Seymour Wright of Derby", unless that's simply how he's referring to himself these days. Whatever the arcana and obfuscation, it's probably the finest solo saxophone work that's crossed my path since Stephane Rives on Potlatch a few years back.

Four pieces, each described as "after" two or four musicians, "after" being used, I assume, as one normally encounters it in painting where a given work is acknowledged as a direct inspiration to the present one. The first, each with titles punning on Wright/right, cites Steve Lacy at Avignon and Keith Rowe's "For A" (a rare composition of Rowe's that he's recorded two or three times). Indeed, some radio appears, but overall it's a lovely, brief study in breath tones with, as near as I can discern, the breathing controlling snippets of radio conversation. A strong, impressive nugget. "Reed 'n' Wright" (told ya) goes out to Tetuzi Akiyama, Pepper Adams, Ferrin Adna and Ahmed Abdul Malik and is another relatively short (5 minutes) work, still breathy but with a liquid feel as well. Ptui's, clicks and pops almost cohere into a cadence of sorts, though it wavers and reels enough to escape.

The remaining two works are more extended, the first referencing Billy Higgins and Eddie Prevost, an engaging enough combination and an interesting pair for a saxophonist to cite. Only alto is listed on the sleeve although, unless his wizardry with the instrument has reached ungodly levels, I'm guessing other implements are in play, some of which echo Prevost's signature cymbal bowings. There's a wonderfully sustained, low buzz in the piece's first half that serves as a fine bed alongside which various odd and unexpected sounds emerge, all parceled out with a sure, steady hand. The mechanical thrumming reminds me, in fact, of the beating technique Prevost used on "Entelechy". Here, it's a great spine for the 26-minute track, an absorbing journey with the minimum of saxophonic baggage. The final cut, in honor of Trevor Bayliss and Evan Parker is perhaps the toughest sledding, stopping and starting with a range of guttural half buzzes/half belches. Wright deploys the sounds with patience and more than enough variation in duration to maintain interest, gradually stirring in a hollow rush of air. A swatch of radio, a downward swooping buzz tone, a mix of smooth notes and granularity to close it out. Each piece is intense and displays a deep and perceptive intelligence at work, no nonsense.

A wonderful recording, one of the richest things I've heard this year. I believe it will be distributed by erstdist in the near future if it's not there already. Limited edition of 100, so grab it.

I've always loved Victor Hugo as a write, the well-known works yes, but particularly a couple of lesser known novels, "l'Homme Qui Rit" (The Man Who Laughs) and "Quatre-Vingt-Treize" (Ninety-Three). But when I've come across them, I've also been amazed and fascinated by his drawings. Hadn't thought about them for a while before arbogast went and posted the striking ink drawing of a gallows, so I went a-googling.

Delacroix reported told Hugo that had he devoted his career to the visual arts, he would have been one of the century's greatest; maybe so. He combines a kind of gothic romanticism with an amazing degree of abstraction--these are from the 1850s to 1870s. There was a certain amount of tradition, even among academic painters, to be fairly loose and abstract in their studies for finished paintings--there are some by as polished a painter as Bouguereau that would surprise many. But even as you get a sense that they're tempted in that direction, few seemed to really relish and investigate the area for its own virtues as Hugo. I'm sure there are others, but the only roughly contemporary painter I can think of who explored this proto-abstract area seriously (and, again, pretty much only in drawings and watercolor sketches) was Gustave Moreau. I guess you could make a case for Turner as well.

Anyway, here are a few:





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Picked up yesterday:

Morton Feldman - The Viola in My Life (ECM)
(Various) Drums, Chants & Instrumental Music of West Africa (Nonesuch)
(Various) Witchcraft & Ritual Music of East Africa (Nonesuch)
Fela - Zombie


Reading:

Murray Bookchin - The Ecology of Freedom

Olivier Capparos/Lionel Marchetti - Livre des Morts (entr'acte)

I'm not so sure how seriously to take the whole "Book of the Dead" thing, especially when you see the photo of Marchetti on the entr'acte site, but listened through as a series of quasi-cinematic episodes, there's a good amount to enjoy here. There's a bit of bombast--not surprising, given the subject--but much of it works well despite that, pretty solid soundscaping throughout.


David Papapostolou - One and Two (CDR)

Three solo pieces, acoustic guitar (often prepared) on each, soprano sax and cello overlaid on two of them. Quiet, considered, very naturally flowing. Papapostolou retains a reasonable amount of "traditional" sound from each but manages to do so without accreting conceptual baggage. An initial sensation of slightness grows more engrossing on each listen. Nice work indeed. David's blog


Daniel Jones/David Papapostolou - Leaving Room (Adjacent)

The first release on Papapostolou's Adjacent label finds him (mixing desk feedback, computer with pickup) joined by Daniel Jones (turntables, dulcimer, acoustic guitar). Less immediately approachable than the above but maybe even a little more satisfying. Again, excellent restraint; when things bubble to the surface, there seems to be a reason for it. Flutters, hums, clicks and scrapes, all laid out calmly with an ear for textural contrast and a fine sense of sequencing. Really good work, don't let it pass you by.

adjacent

Penrose tiling. Can't get enough of it.

wiki entry

Such a great, strong record, live at NYU 3/22/69. "Broken Shadows" just tumbles out on the listener, the gorgeous dirge repeated by the players acting as a well for the solos that emerge and recede back in more than act as "solos". Stunning, heart-rending. Just as extraordinary, the theme from "Comme il Faut", launched out there, equal parts bravado and melancholy, Haden so probing, Cherry fresh in from his explorations into dozens of musical cultures, feeding them into the harmolodics, Redman so soulful, Ornette floating up...one of his very best. As if that wasn't enough, we get s rousing performance of "Song for Che" to begin Side Two, still one of the loveliest melodic lines I know. The final two pieces, "Space Jungle" and "Trouble in the East" are a bit more frenetic and jumbled, still quite enjoyable with many of Cherry's own eastern influences putting in an appearance. All in all, one of my favorite Ornette recordings, never issued on disc as far as I know. There's a kind of wooliness, a sizzle around the edges of something not quite honed to perfection yet but all the more exciting in its unpolished state.


Not released by Columbia until 1982, "Broken Shadows" consists of recordings from the "Science Fiction" sessions and two outliers with the surprising presence of Jim Hall and Cedar Walton (at that point, only the second time Ornette had recorded with piano, if I'm not mistaken), as well as singer Webster Armstrong. Hit and miss, though the hits, "Broken Shadows" and "Elizabeth", both dirges, are incredible. First appearance of "Happy House", I believe (never a favorite Ornette tune of mine). Those two with Hall et. al. are kinda strange (there's a woodwind section as well), weird amalgams, slightly reminiscent of Art Ensemble forays like "Certain Blacks". Actually, "Is It Forever?" has some general similarities with that odd Abrams piece on "Things to Come from Those Now Gone", "How Are You?"


I've written about this before any number of times, but what the hell.

There I was, 17 years old, in the spring of my senior year in high school (1972), reading an interview with Don Van Vliet in Rolling Stone (back, young 'uns, when Rolling Stone was largely a music-oriented paper not a fashionista rag). During its course, he was asked to name his favorite musician and said, "Ornette Coleman". "Hmmm," says I. Since CB was about my favorite musician at that time, I figured I should take his word seriously. As it happened, Columbia was promoting "Science Fiction" reasonably well, enough so that I had some vague notion of its existence (I think there might have been ads, with pics, in Rolling Stone itself). So I trundled down to Recordland in downtown Poughkeepsie and picked it up, my very first jazz album.

Rather a dive into the deep end of the pool. I liked it immediately, though I daresay it took a year or two before I semi-understood what was going on. I do remember spending a good bit of that summer, while I was washing dishes at the Springhouse on Block Island, humming and whistling "Law Years" (along with much of "Waka Jawaka", but we won't go into that). It's still one of my very favorite jazz recordings. I realize there's an immense amount of nostalgia clinging to my perception of it but, listened to as objectively as I can--dammit, it still kicks monster butt.


Before I forget, I'd love to get any recommendations on Asha Puthli recordings. I've looked around in stores a bit but it's real hard to get any sense from the CD packaging (plus I'm never quite sure if she and Asha Bothle are the same person....you never know with anglicizations of Hindi). I saw her with Henry Threadgill at BAM around 1987--pretty great. Absolutely love her here; there's really nothing else like her two songs (is there?). How horn-like her voice is!

So yeah, my first real taste of jazz. Blackwell killed me. Haden demolished me. The themes from "What Reason Could I Give", "All My Life" and "Law Years" were so moving. Cherry! His solo on "Civilization Day"! Then Ornette comes in for his first isolated playing on the record...Whole worlds opened. The way that piece just cascades right into "Street Woman" with its lovely descending theme (Haden furious on this one). And goddam Cherry again--such clarity. The intense psychedelia of the title track with David Henderson and the crying baby. (OK, I could do without the bible reference...) "Rock the Clock" dates, yes, but c'mon, Haden's wah-wah is still some amount of fun. "All My Life"--ah, just melts me; one of the sexiest vocals I know. And "Law Years", still just about a perfect jazz piece for me. Haden's awesomely deep solo, Ornette soaring and Blackwell...just so cool, so unfussy, so damn rhythmic, so musical. He's just as amazing on the last track, "The Jungle Is a Skyscraper". Set my personal standard for jazz drumming, right here. And Redman's guttural roar...

Still does it for me. Now I realize, objectively, that the odds of my happening on what would generally be considered one of the finest examples of modern jazz on my very first plunge are virtually nil. I've rarely if ever seen "Science Fiction" show up on anyone's "Top X" jazz recordings aside from my own, but tough. It's there, and there it'll likely stay.

While in the gift shop at the Morgan on Saturday, Carol brought to my attention a book of poems. The painting used for the cover was by Albert York, a favorite of hers since being introduced to him long ago by a college art professor. I'd never heard of him though, doing some google searching, there's at least one painting of his, a bucolic scene featuring a nude woman and a skeleton, that I'd seen before somewhere. Apparently he's something of a recluse and, for his work and his habits, has garnered comparisons to Albert Pinkham Ryder. My first reaction on seeing the still life pictured here was that it reminded me of Morandi--something akin in the muted colors and the naive-but-perfect placement of the objects. I like guys like this who, while obviously aware of contemporary trends, remain stubbornly outside that scene, working as honestly as they can.



Some of his pieces remind me of Puvis de Chavannes as well, another under-appreciated painter. Russell Chatham too, the fellow responsible for most of the covers of Jim Harrison novels. York is obscure enough to lack a wiki entry, though he seems to be well represented at several galleries. Interesting work, glad I found him.

Went to see the Philip Guston drawing show at the Morgan Library yesterday. I've never been really taken with his work, either before or after his shift from abstraction to realism though I'd preferred the former and this show cemented that opinion. His line rubs me the wrong way; I was trying to capture it in a phrase and the best I could do was "nervous globularity".



It's too itchy for my taste and maybe too impositional in some sense. But there were several lovely pieces in the room devoted to his work through about 1967, including a few severely "limited" ones (single or double lines, single smudges, etc.) and a striking gouache (I think) of an open book, one of hundreds of that subject, dirty red on dirtier blue.

The second room contained drawings from his later years and, as much trouble as I had with many of the earlier works, that trouble was, as it always has been, greatly compounded with the "realist" ones. Realist in the sense of cartoon-y, I'm afraid. I kept hitting on R Crumb, a fine enough illustrator but, shall we say, not a graphic equivalent of Feldman (one could readily understand the composer's anger at Guston's shift). There were a couple of exceptions, including a poignant "Smoking in Bed" but by and large I found a kind of surrealist banality and really a lack of good drawing. Carol, my gallery companion, wondered if there was some degree of mental deterioration at play and if we weren't seeing documentation of that; perhaps--I don't know his story very well at all.

*******

I hadn't been to the Morgan for many years, certainly not since the large addition to the grounds had been built. There was a wonderful exhibition from their collection of illuminated manuscripts, focusing on hunting and trapping scenes from a southern French volume dating from about 1407. Really beautiful work.


The Morgan also has a small painting collection, my personal favorite being this gorgeous Hans Memling:



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Recent arrivals

Alan Licht/Aki Onda - Everydays (Family Vineyard)
Korber/Moslang/Chulkil/Muller/Yukie/Kahn/Sangtae/Hankil/Joonyang/Miryung - Signal to Noise, vol. 6 (For 4 Ears)
Martin Baumgartner - Shoots Huft (For 4 Ears)
Olivier Capparos/Lionel Marchetti - Livre des morts (entr'acte)

No subject

No image

No taste

No beauty

No message

No talent

No technique

No idea

No intention

No art

No feeling

No black

No white (no and)


--John Cage, 1953

Taumaturgia is a new, anti-copyright label out of Galicia, Spain (not far from where we might be residing in a decade or so), whose first three releases run something of a wide gamut.


Volantè - s/t

Volantè is Miguel Prado (guitar, circular saw), Roberto Mallo (Alto sax), Raúl Garcia (electric violin) and Rafael Mallo (drums, percussion), here serving up some 76 minutes of harsh noise with a free improv tinge, kind of like an extreme Emanem session. A little too scratchy/squealy for my taste (especially the alto, which wears thin) and longer than it needs to be. Gels here and there in a rough, industrial kind of feel, but not often enough, though the last track begins to smoke.


Roberto Mallo - Vribación

Solo drums, six tracks. Not really "avant" in the sense of anything post-1970 or so (for the most part--there are a couple of "lower case" moments), just six solid drum tracks, the emphasis on the toms and lower-pitched sounds. As with something like the Garbarek-y disc from a little while back, I don't really understand the larger point of this kind of exercise, but what Mallo seeks to do, he does very well, very precisely but with nice feeling. Sometimes I was reminded of Don Moye, other times Roy Brooks.


Josetxo Grieta - sonrisas vendo - ¿Dónde nos llevan?

For this occasion, the band consists of Josetxo Anitua and Mattin, playing guitars, electronics and other noise-emitters. I'm probably finding myself in increasingly diminishing company, but dammit, I still get something of a kick from this sort of thing. I found myself thinking, if I were in an adjacent room in a cellar somewhere hearing this clatter and wail, a smile would cross my face; "They're clearly enjoying themselves in there." A mere 16 minutes (probably a good idea) of audience noise, idle guitar strumming, mumbling, screaming, crooning, extreme raucous noise, etc. Fun!

As stated above, this is an anti-copyright organization so, despite the fact that the actual discs in question appear to have been issued in limited editions of 100, you may freely sample the wares for yourself at their site

Jeez, always one of my favorite album covers and this dinky thing is the only image I can find. Apparently, the CD reissue solarized the photograph quite a bit and added (unnecessarily) some typographics, resulting in this:


Loses all the atmospherics of the original, compromises the gravitas.

Anyway, I've been gradually playing through my Ornette vinyl. Nothing to say that hasn't been said thousands of times about most of the early recordings as well as Prime Time and later (I more or less lost interest after the "Naked Lunch" soundtrack, I've been told unfairly) so I'll concentrate on my favorite period which begins with this recording and goes up through about 1971.

re: the Town Hall Concert (1962)--I wonder what contemporary admirers from the avant classical world like La Monte Young made of Coleman's writing for strings. In the context of the time, it was pretty old-fashioned, after all, not too mention somewhat romantic. To me, it's not a very far cry from the essence of his jazz work of the time but I get the impression the latter went down more smoothly than the "classical" writing among the contemporary cognoscenti. But I'm just guessing--I don't recall ever reading any commentary from those quarters. Anyone? In any case, "Sadness", as performed here still stands out as one of Ornette's most stirring works, just beautiful.


I'm in the camp that never had a problem with Denardo Coleman, at least as a prepubescent. Even more so in retrospect, it's a fine idea, something entirely in keeping with other non-professional movements of around the same time (like some portion of the Scratch Orchestra), a notion perhaps also applicable to Ornette's own early trumpet and violin work, each featured here.


(Another dinkified image) I guess this has seen the light of day on disc; I have the Lotus LP that appeared in '80. From February, 1968 in Rome (according to discographies I've see--the album says 1967) with Izenzon, Haden and Blackwell. A good, rather loose set (Lonely Woman, Monsieur le Prince, Forgotten Children, Buddah [sic] Blues)--I enjoy Ornette with two bassists and percussion, though I've always found Izenzon and Haden to be very opposite kind of musicians, mostly with regard to the former's relative "thinness" of sound and the latter's resonant girth; makes for good tension here. Fine trumpet from Ornette on "Forgotten Children" and a rare (?) example of his shenai work on the last track. Did he introduce Redman to that instrument or vice versa?


Love this recording. For me, this is the one where Ornette's music really takes the step into what was my favorite period of his, even more so that the great early work. Redman's a big part of getting to that sound, the perfect, earthy foil for Ornette's spiraling tone. Beautiful, full sound from all, including Denardo.


See, that's what I call an album cover. Didn't realize until just now, looking over a discography, that this (and "New York Is Now!, which I have on CD) was recorded a bit before "Ornette at 12"; I'd always thought it came afterwards. Ornette's one date with Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison and the Coltrane rhythm section meshes just fine. Another muscular recording with a thick, juicy sound. Redman's ferocious on "Airborne", some of his finest vocalized playing on record. Doesn't get talked about enough.

More next time.

I used to talk about the new eating. One time Terry Riley said, "Yeah, even the cooks'll get rebellious. We'll walk into a hamburger stand and order something to eat. In a few minutes the cook'll give us some salt. Just salt. Then one of us will say, 'What? Is this all?' And the cook'll answer, 'Whatsamatter, dontcha like static eating?'"

- La Monte Young,
Tulane Drama Review
Winter 1965

Rhodri Davies/David Lacey/Dennis McNulty - Poor Trade (Cathnor)

Sometimes, there's a divide between sheer beauty of sound and underlying structure and in large part, this release demonstrates that. While not drones per se, the three pieces are each continuous soundscapes generated by harp, percussion and electronics and the colors heard are quite lovely and fascinating. But, perhaps akin to some of the music issued on Four4Ears recently, I don't hear too much in the way of backbone and the sounds aren't "airy" enough not to require it. There's often a pulse and, while at first blush I found that attractive, over the course of (especially) the longest track, it began to wear on me, somehow seeming to have little purpose aside from an unnecessary handrail. This is all very vague, I realize, but I'm trying to describe the swings I had back and forth between enjoyably bathing in the sonics and being frustrated at my inability to find solid conceptual ground. The two shorter (11-12 minute) tracks work better, managing to at least imply some kind of membrane beneath the hums. Not bad by any means but frustrating. It reinforces that, for myself, deep structure is what makes a music memorable, less so attractive sounds. But perhaps I'm missing something....Cathnor


David Lacey/Paul Vogel - The British Isles (homefront)

Coincidentally, on the same day as I received the above, this modestly titled disc also appeared in the mailbox, and it's a beaut. Due to Lacey showing up on both as well as their temporal proximity re: my ears, it's tough not to (unfairly) compare them. It's too simple to differentiate in terms of structure by saying that one's a non-stop stream while the other is segmented in various ways, thus the placement of sounds becomes inherently part of the structure, but....there's something to that. The balance achieved between types of sound (timbre, dynamics, texture, atmospherics) and how they're placed is very convincing, forming a very solid skeleton, though not an obvious one. Rhythms occur, but they don't push and they're rough around the edges. One of the better releases I've heard this year.

If homefront has a page (or if there's an image around for this one) I can't find it but they're available from erstdist

[Hey, here comes a cover image right now....]




Salvatore Dellaria/Adam Sonderberg - Untitled -> Ongoing

Something of an outlier. Dellaria and Sonderberg, both members of the very fine Dropp Ensemble, have put together fifteen "studies" culled from weekly get-togethers spanning 2007 & 2008. Essentially, these are bits of raw material from which they may or may not create "finished" compositions in the future. The styles thus spanned are vast, from the furious poundings of "Pulse" or "Drums" to field recordings to hums to crackles, etc.; brutally raw ("No-input mixing desk") to romantically delicate ("Piano"). It poses as nothing more than a sketchbook and, approached as such, it's a helluva lot of fun; not a weak drawing in the bunch. Best, you can hear for yourselves here

A meme going around (I found it at Caleb Deupree's fine blog):

The top 100 or so books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold the books you have read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

[If blogspot has underlining capability, I don't see it--suffice it to say that some of the below were read for school, maybe five or six. The Iliad, Odyssey and the Aenied stand out to me as things I should really get to.)


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes: A memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood: A true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

New CD player in place today (NAD C515BEE).

Had to initiate it properly, natch. Damn, does this sound great. Hadn't put it on in a while; will likely spoil me for listening to anything else for the next few days.

Sooooo good.

Anthony Patera/David Brown/Sean Baxter - Interference (emd.pl)

Prepared piano, prepared guitar and drums, a nice arrangement of instruments. Very...clatter-y. Almost sounds like a group of mbiras with serious spider-webbing in the resonators, muting the metallic nature of the bars with cottony strands. A little same-y over the long haul (five track, all occupying similar territory), but enjoyable enough getting there. On emd.pl Oh, and nifty packaging:




John Clair/Jed Shahar - Tennis (Fenimore)

Strong set from this local duo, ranging from rough industrial dronage ("car chase") to gossamer thin tones over ambient noise and chatter ("silver leaf linden"), and family arguments ("drop and drag"). On these first three tracks, I enjoyed the sonics very much but found myself wanting to hear a bit more structural rigor (as difficult as that is to define in this area). The last track delivers it--it's again essentially a rough drone, but the depth of field and the intermittent emergences of buzzes and ratchetings outside of the general drone provide the kind of aural scaffolding I was hoping for. Excellent piece, good, solid release. fenimore


Ecstasy Mule - Songs of Love & Redemption (Batterrie)

Not my cuppa, particularly, but if you're into Chadbourne-tinged, folk/blues weirdness with an urban-noise edge, Ecstasy Mule (Len37 and Casey G--Kurt?) will go down smoothly, the banjos, mandolins and drawled/moaned vocals nesting in nicely amidst the subway squalor.


Ecstasy Mule - Contemplates Hunting and Drinking When the Rainbow is Enuf (Batterrie)

Not so dissimilar, except revolving around read newspaper clippings relating to the disc's title, that is hunting accidents, etc., spoken over guitar noise, four mixes of more or less the same piece. The noise is OK; I could do without the recitation.
Both available from SquidCo


Emmanuel Mieville/Eric Cordier - Dispositif: Canal Saint-Martin (Xing Wu)

A sound portrait of the Centre d'Animation Jemmapes in Paris, created by the deployment of some 30 microphones all around the structure (concert hall, dance studios, offices, outside, etc.) then mixed live by Mieville & Cordier with some additional input from them via field recordings and computer. Wonderful stuff with an enormous range of sound (a favorite being something halfway between low brass and a very squeaky door). Great density. There are two shorter remixes, one by each musician (12&14 minutes as opposed to the 37-minute main piece) which, though fine, might be unnecessary as far as the disc as a while goes, but that's a quibble. Beautiful recording!


Jean-Luc Guionnet/Seijiro Murayama - Le Bruit du Toit (Xing Wu)

Guionnet's alto integrates better, for me, with percussion than those examples I've heard with electronics. I see Murayama was on a Fushitsusha album (self-titled, 1990, PSF, but I get those confused), so it's possible I've heard him before, but whatever, he's pretty impressive here, restrained enough, filling up the space with imagination and subtlety. This took a couple of listens to grow on me, but grow it did, especially the first of the two tracks. Xing Wu. Also available, I believe, via erst dist

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Read Branden Joseph's "Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage". Decent read, interesting to me for all the documentation on NYC activity from about 1958-65, how people were dealing with the post-Cage world in music (including Cardew), a tough task and, in cases like the Conrad/Young affair, sadly with careerist, possessive overtones. It did make me want to check out Conrad's early work more closely than I have, including his films (especially 'Flicker', which I've never seen). Pretty good read, a little over-academic in the constant post-modern references.

Steven Hess/Miles Tilmann - Departures (other electricities)

A set of six tracks released on vinyl (relatively brief, about 1/2 hour). The initial impression was of a take on Jon Hassell's Fourth World music and while that tinge remained throughout, the bulk of the music is far more reminiscent of Radian, Hess not quite as supernaturally metronomic as Brandlmayr but in the same ballpark. "Departures" doesn't have the same bit, though. It's lush and easy to sink into, but I wanted to hear more grit, more urgency. The final cut, "six by six" comes the closest. Hear a bit for yourself at the OE site


Esther Venrooy/Heleen Van Haegenborgh - Mock Interiors (entr'acte)

Very smooth hums and drones, verging on the "too smooth" but never quite settling there, always containing an itch here, an uncomfortable squiggle there. Van Haegenborgh contributes piano and harmonium to Venrooy's electronics, keeping things generally tonal and calm. External sounds occasionally intrude, but overall the 11 pieces bubble and flow along, never quite achieving the depth of Venrooy's prior releases on the label, but enjoyable enough. For listeners wanting to get beyond Eno, etc. (btw, my copy came enswathed in black crepe--not sure if this was a packing decision or the intended packaging but, whatever, it was coolly mysterious)



Chamber Music Concerts, vol. 1 (Okura, Sugimoto, Unami) hibarislubloadfactor joint release, 3 discs.

Tom & Jerry (Sugimoto) One is tempted to hear this as a hyper-slowed down cartoon chase and violence scenario befitting its title. Organ (or an approximation thereof) and drum and silence. Fine subtle over- and undertones in the keyboard, good use of space, inevitably recalling kabuki. Oh, and those rising scales appear, a bit truncated. It's the kind of piece I imagine I'd having a tough time sitting through if in the same room, but could enjoy from an adjacent space as one sound-element in a larger situation. Not sure if that's complimentary or not, though I think Taku wouldn't mind.

one, two, three, and many (Okura) A relative plethora of sound with Xavier Charles (clarinet), Sugimoto (acoustic guitar) and Unami (acoustic guitar). As almost everything on this production, it's spacious; here the odd twang (reminds me a bit of Partch's kithara) offsets the occasional soft, reedy cry. It's warmer than the preceding piece and I could see enjoying it live, no problem. Nice work.

4 pieces for violin accompanied with 2 guitars (Unami). Same guitarists as above, this time on electric, along with Hiroki Chiba on violin. Meatier still (while remaining lean), in four shortish sections, the first featuring lovely held tones from the violin over struck and strummed guitar--excellent piece. Next, more agitated bow strokes, a staccato feel while the third is almost playfully pointillist. The final portion dissolves almost completely into small drops and smears. Interesting little suite...

Infold (Okura) for solo harp (Yuko Uesu)
--eh, didn't much for me...bland.

Thirteen Steps (Unami) for koto (Ryuko Mizutani), bass clarinet (Okura), acoustic guitar (Sugimoto) and "contraguitar" (explanation, please) (Unami). Again, despite the coloration, didn't grab me--maybe the pacing was too regular, dunno.

Life with Gravity (Okura) for trumpet (Axel Dorner), alto (Okura), and two electric guitars (the Taku's). More interesting, somehow. The repeated trumpet tones toward the end get quasi-hypnotic and the piece carves out a good space.

D (Sugimoto) for three electric guitars (Tetuzi Akiyama & the Taku's) Quite beautiful, kind of an attenuated version of his music from the "Opposite" period.

Chamber Orchestra I (Sugimoto) A septet including two voices, gradually won me over after a dry start--the repeated (every 30 or so seconds) guitar chords provide a friendly tonal center.

Bass Trombone & Chamber Orchestra (Sugimoto) Kanji Nakao on the low horn + two altos and three guitars. A minute of silence, a deep foghorn bellow, then a series of points and a handful of held tones, over only five minutes. The trombone does get a bit scalar...not to the piece's benefit.

Kinoshita-Kun (Unami) Quintet for violin, alto & three guitars. This one works quite well, nice offsets between long drones on the violin and brief guitar plucks, with the breathy alto acting as glue. Good one.

Uesu-san (Unami) Solo harp. Very beautiful track, its spareness interrupted mid-piece by a disturbing stereotypical harp flourish, clearly achieving the goal of disorientation.

Ezaki-san (Unami) For trumpet (Ezaki), trombone (Nakao) and tuba (Takero Sekijima). OK, but failed to compel real interest, maybe due to the similarity in tones. Interesting, in this extreme context, which structures work (for me) and which don't.

xc (Okura) Solo clarinet (Charles) eh, sounds like a warmed-over Braxton piece from 1977.

Red Scarf, Red Curtain (Okura) For violin and two guitars. Like the title, not the piece so much. A little high-strung and wheedling.

Tres Amigos (Okura) Three electric guitars. Getting a bit tired maybe, but again, didn't find anything special on this track. Reminded me of parts of Crimson's "Moonchild", not a bad thing, but...

California Guitar Trio (Unami) Beautiful work to end the set with, again getting into Partchian tonalities at certain points, dreamy with a tinge of queasiness.

So overall, obviously, a mixed bag but in general, I thought Unami's pieces took the cake. Happy to have as wide-ranging a collection as this one out there and if you're at all interested in the area, pretty much a must-have. Besides, I imagine opinions will vary as to the value of given works.

I believe erstdist is stocking them.

It's fairly rare in this neck of the woods to experience a concert made up of three different performances where each one was strong in its own unique way and where, looking back, you find yourself thinking of each of them almost equally and fondly.

At Issue Project Room this past Saturday, this was the happy situation, at least for myself--I get the feeling most there, while likely enjoying all three sets, were
knocked out by the final one and I can see their point. (Mudd, at I Hate Music, has a fine take of his own.

First up, however, was the duo of Bhob Rainey and Jason Lescalleet who are on schedule for an Erstwhile release sometime within a year or so. Taking best advantage of the long, rectangular space, Rainey situated himself more or less in the middle, Jason toward the rear though still having audience members behind him. Rainey began with a series of extremely controlled, very quiet breath tones, quite beautiful in and of themselves. Jason, I thought for a moment, was engaging in Sugimoto aesthetics, simply sitting behind his devices and listening for several minutes. Unbeknownst to me, he had placed four digital recorders on the music stand in front of Rainey and they were doing their work. Eventually he stood up, gathered in one of them, turned it on back where it had begun recording and placed it on the floor near the rooms entrance. Over the next 15 or so minutes, he did the same with each of the recorders, positioning them at various spots in the room. I thought this worked superbly, a fine example, I guess, of the sort of "process music" that bothers some fans but which I really love. Depending where one sat, I imagine you'd get varying ratios of live Rainey and taped and, for me, the piece lost a bit of focus as it went on but still hit some marvelous points, especially with Rainey interacting and blending with himself and the amplified room noise. Very fine set and sets ones anticipation at a high point for their eventual recorded collaboration

Next up was nmperign (Rainey and Greg Kelley) with Sean Meehan. You sort of know what you're likely to be in for with this particular combination and it's a testament to their deep musicianship that, even when this eventuates, there's more than enough going on that the listener can continue to hear things (s)he hadn't noticed before, pick up patterns previously unperceived. So, yes, it was quiet (I'm told Sean plays loud every so often, but I've never experienced this), the three used the kind of sounds they're known for but still, it worked marvelously, full of small peaks and valleys and never causing this listener's interest or fascination to waver. Plus, crucially, it was of precisely the right length, maybe 20-25 minutes, full to the rim and then cut off.

Graham Lambkin had wowed a few of us with his "Salmon Run", quickly followed up by the very fine "The Breadwinner" with Jason, this being something of a delayed record release event. Lambkin, until the prior evening in western Massachusetts, hadn't performed live in several years and never (I don't think) in this kind of improvising situation. He did rather well. The set had a wonderful form as a whole, even as it was subdivided into several sections; it kind of read as an album, in a way. Describing it all would be nigh impossible, but suffice it to say that Lescalleet was manipulating his noisemakers with both ferocity and sensitivity (none of the floor tape machines, btw, though two smaller ones on his table with correspondingly shorter tape loops employed) and Lambkin's feeds into that maelstrom were pointed and simply beautiful, including a recording of Ave Maria and an incredible choral piece which he later said he didn't know the title or composer of, though it was performed by the Tallis Scholars (If anyone knows, please inform me). The show climaxed--and the word is perfectly appropriate here--with Jason chanting a lyric from, I would be informed later (sorta proud not to have known) from a Kiss song, "You have such great expectations." He did this un-miked and fairly quiet at first, then made himself something of a human tape-loop, iterating the phrase at gradually increased levels of both volume and rage. Not sure if anyone was keeping count, but I'd guess that he was up over 25 times, by which point it had long since become an anguished howl, before things subsided. A little bit intense. One of the many things I love about Jason's music is his willingness to include "dangerously" emotional elements, things one could easily abuse and turn to schmaltz but with which he manages to retain a real rigor and clarity of intent. Powerfully done.

(I know, I know, that's not the proper cover--but I can't locate an image of one more than about an inch square anywhere....)

Toshimaru Nakamura/English (Joe Foster, Bonnie Jones)- One Day (Erstwhile).

Very tough, excellent recording, hard (for me) to fully grasp--don't know that I have, yet--but I like it a lot. I often have this problem with "open-circuit" musicians, probably not for any good reason--it takes a while for things to sink in. Might also have to do with the way this music straddles and hops around the middle ground between extended sounds and isolated ones. Just when you're beginning to appreciate something on a drone-like level (more hum than drone, actually), it breaks off and just when you're beginning to enjoy the placement of small, crackly sounds in space, a hum sets in. You kind of have to aurally "step back" and reconcile the two--or I do, anyway, and that's only one thing going on here. Took me a good four or five listens to do so and I'm happily bathing in the music at this point. Really good, really challenging. After all's said and done, maybe my favorite release this year.

[Ok, here we go--it's a beautiful cover, worthy of reproduction]




I never quite understand how certain items find their way to my mailbox, though I'm generally grateful that they do. This is, by my tastes, an odd example of that phenomenon. Loïc Dequidt's "Nomade" (Kopasetic) is a quartet date with the leader on saxophones, Tommy Smith (I take it something of an ECM veteran) on piano, Mattias Hjorth on bass, and drummer Peter Nilsson. [Edit: Oy, I'm an idiot--see comments below. That's what I get for not reading the credits more closely. My general evaluation stands, however] I guess there are many of these types of musicians around, that is, Jan Garbarek disciples, but it's still a bit shocking to hear what sounds for all the world like a mid-70s Garbarek session. Odder still that, were it the case, it would be a really good one, something maybe short of "Witchi-Tai-To" (though probably at least as good as "Nude Ants"), but not unreasonably so. Now, I don't particularly understand why one would want to replicate the music some 30 years after the fact, but if that's your thing, give Dequidt a try--very strong on its own terms.



A quartet date, recorded in 2003 but just released, with Mike Bullock (bass), James Coleman (theremin), David Gross (alto sax) & Steve Roden (voice, objects, electronics) on (1.8)sec. Solid, quiet (mostly) improv recording with, occasionally, a bit of a ritualistic sound, as in the second cut (an excellent one) where Roden & Bullock (I think?) set up a slow, deep pulse, Coleman and Gross breathing above--very effective. Some of the best work I've heard from those involved.


Inveterate loon (I mean that in a good way) Tom Djll has teamed up with electronicist/turntablist/film maker Tim Perkis in a duo called Kinda Green (recorded three or four years ago), and has issued a self-produced disc that may not be available anywhere other than through the principals (try Tom's MySpace page). While my exposure to Djll's music in the past has been relatively small, what I have heard tended to contain more of a wacky component than I was typically comfortable with. While there's certainly a healthy dollop of wackitude (including some echoes of Sun Ra's goofier synth work) herein, there's also a level of restraint at play, a sense of molding the burbling hysteria, that works pretty well. The highlight is the 23-minute "Sagebrush Drip Kyrie", a cool, low-key rumination with much subtle variation in texture and color that maintains focus and commands attention throughout, with minimal joking. Strong piece.

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Went out to fotofono in Brooklyn for the first time last night, experiencing a reasonably satisfying trio of performances--Will Guthrie, (great to see you again, Will!) solo, constructed an enjoyably rocky and bumptious set making much use of heavy springs strung across inverted cymbals and other amplified objects and dangling wires; he elbowed his way toward a couple of fine coalescences of sound.

Barry Weisblat (electronics) and Andrew Lafkas (string bass) played an unusual set where both stayed, for the duration, in a fairly tonal drone area, Barry playing far more smoothly than I've ever heard him before, Lafkas bowing richly. For the first six or eight minutes, it was absorbing but then something--always fascinating to try, unsuccessfully, to quantify exactly what--went awry and the remainder of the music failed to gel.

Guthrie then returned for a trio with Howard Stelzer (excellent meeting Howie for the first time!) on electronics and cassettes and Newton Armstrong on laptop. As in the opening set, it was deliciously awkward and pothole-filled with some fine music emerging from the inevitable collisions. Very nice mass to the sounds.

Nice, intimate place, Fotofono, too--something of a living room where about 20 can fit with not too much discomfort.

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Just arrived and on now, sounding very good: Esther Venrooy/Heleen Van Haegenborgh - Mock Interiors (entr'acte)

Also listened for the first time to the 3-disc set, "Chamber Music Concerts, vol. 1" on (deep breath) hibarislubloadfactor), featuring compositions by Masahiko Okura, Taku Sugimoto and Taku Unami (details here). Some very beautiful stuff buried in there, generally more "full" than I expected, requiring numerous more listens, though.

“We’re not playing to musicians alone,” Donavon said, “We are playing to the public, you dig, and it’s time for some new music. You say that the Japanese know more about our music than we do? That’s cool–but we made it.”

That was my result, from George Lewis' "A Power Stronger than Itself", when Robert Kirkpatrick, from A Spiral Cage tagged me in this round of the net version of a chain letter, wherein one must:

1) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Find the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences.
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Thus, I'll annoy several blogging friends, forcing them to play along. Hereby tagged guten well are: Richard Harland Smith (contributor to Movie Morlocks), Pete Cherches (Word of Mouth) and Caleb Deupree (Classical Drone).

Have at it gentlemen...don't blame me!

[edit: I'm only into the second chapter of Lewis' tome, but so far it's very engaging. He's balancing academic and street reasonably well, thus far, maybe a bit overboard on the biographical details, but conjuring up a good picture of the Chicago bop and proto-free scene in the 50s and (halfway through Chapter Two) the racial divisions in NYC in the early 60s. Fun factoid: Joseph Jarman, Fred Anderson and John Cage apparently performed in concert around '68.]

There are people who seem to possess an inherent musicality, something in them that causes virtually everything they do to manifest as "musical". In jazz, Monk is often so cited ("He even walks musical"), an assessment with which I agree. For myself, another has always been Don Cherry. It's as though melody is coursing through his
veins. However far he ranged, however blistering or abstract his playing, there was always, at least up to a certain point, a sense of song there. One of my favorite musicians.

I believe I only saw him perform three times. The first was at the old Kitchen, on Wooster and Grand, I guess around '76, in a loose knit band with his wife Moki on tambura (I think) and two or three others I can't quite remember, possibly Frank Lowe among them. Maybe Badal Roy? In fact, if you're still reading here Mark Forman, I think this concert was where we first met, which would place it around October of '76.

Saw Cherry with Ornette in the summer of '77 at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, an amazing "double bill" with the Cherry/Redman/Haden/Blackwell quintet first, then Prime Time.

The last time was not so pleasant, a quartet date at a short-lived club on Houston St. called "Spiral", sometime in the mid 80s. Cherry was apparently in the midst of one of his bouts with heroin and was spaced out to the extreme, seemingly having little idea where he was, what was going on. Bob Stewart was with him on tuba (and was spectacular). There was a guitarist (I don't remember who) and a last-minute, young drummer who was clueless.





Playing through my Cherry vinyl, I begin with the two Mu sessions, two of the few original Actuel LPs I own (I have earlier Cherry, but on on disc). They still stand out for a kind of rawness, a real in-your-face recording quality that's very bracing. Great playing, of course (Blackwell, with Roach, still my favorite jazz drummer), wonderfully wide-ranging. I'm pretty sure these discs were my first exposure to the compositions of Dollar Brand.
















"Eternal Rhythm" remains my favorite recording under Cherry's name and, imho, one of the finest jazz records of the 60s. Wild, absurdly far-reaching from gamelan to the blues, awesome work by Sharrock and Karl Berger, an olio that has no business working but does so beautifully. More thoughts in my AllMusic write up here.


















Side One of "Relativity Suite" is just about as good, a gorgeous mini-suite that features some tremendous Cherry vocals (he's really one of my fave vocalists in jazz) and the sublime "Desireless", surely one of the loveliest melodies in the music. That wonderful rhythm in the 2nd section...The second side's more of a mixed bag but not bad at all, nice Bley piano and rousing Blackwell to finish up. Is this still not available on disc? iirc, Joe McPhee participated in rehearsals for this but couldn't make the recording date, a shame.

I have "Orient" as a double LP on Affinity (can't locate an image--currently available on disc with a cover showing an ant walking around a yellow fruit or lemon drop) though I think it's shown up in various guises. The first disc is a trio date from 1972 with Han Bennink and Moki Cherry. They begin with a version of "Desireless" then go out from there, a bit ragged but much fun. It's kind of a mess but Cherry was responsible for some glorious messes and that musicality and engaging spirit almost always carries the day. The other disc is from a concert with Okay Tamiz and the great Johnny Dyani. Should have been more Cherry/Dyani collaborations, two supremely musical fellows.

I think the album I have titled "Tibet" (on Picc-a-dilly) has also been issued elsewhere under different names--currently available combined with "Eternal Now"--recorded around '74, I think with Don Cherry (piano, percussion); Christer Bothen (piano); Bernt Rosengren (taragot); Agneta Ernstrom (tibetan bell, etc); Bengt Berger (piano, mridangam, etc). Good record, Cherry venturing out into areas even further removed from jazz, not playing trumpet at all, despite the cover photo. "Bass Figure for Ballatune" is a pretty amazing piece for pounded piano a la an especially vociferous Terry Riley.

Mighty big jump, chronologically as well as stylistically, to the next and final Cherry vinyl in the house, 1988's "Art Deco". Pretty widely heralded at the time for dopey reasons--Cherry coming back to the mainstream, showing those young lions a thing or two. It's smooth, accomplished and more than a bit bland. Nice quartet with James Clay on tenor, Haden and Higgins, Cherry's trumpet work is quite pure though lacking the passion of his best playing. Overall, I found the effort disappointing though I imagine, or hope, that the deal with A&M got him a bit of money. Some of his subsequent discs, particularly "Home Boy" & much of "Multikulti" were dreadful.

But overall a unique and wonderful musician. In peak form, probably no one I'd rather hear on trumpet. Thanks, Mr. Cherry.

I set foot on Staten Island for the third time in my life today. Staten Island, for those unaware, is a borough of New York City, one of five, though in virtually every respect--geographically, culturally, architecturally--it's part of New Jersey. There's an old neighborhood, St. George, near where the Staten Island Ferry docks after its trip from lower Manhattan, that retains vestiges of New York. The rest of the island, which is quite sizable, consists largely of private, middle-class houses--large and flimsily built--, many trees, strip malls and the world's most voluminous landfill.

I came here on a group trip when I was about 15, ostensibly to watch a Wagner College football game in the freezing, damp cold, ending up gallivanting around the campus with my friend Mike and two girls from Long Island we met at the field. (Now there's a memory that's remained undredged for many a year!)

About 15 years ago, my friend David and I biked to the ferry from the Upper West Side, took it over to Staten Island and toured the place, a fairly extensive, for me, ride of about 60 miles total. There are parts of it, when you get to the higher hills, where you think you might be in the Catskill Mountains, unpaved roads winding off into the thick woods, dead quiet, etc.

That's not where I was today.

A month or so back, Kurt Gottschalk contacted me, asking if I'd participate in a project, a realization of John Cage's "49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs", written in 1977 and, as near as he could determine, only ever performed once. I knew the event was taking place but didn't for a moment think it appropriate to contribute. However, the score for the work instructs an individual to go to one of 147 designated locations (49 groups of three) and "do something". Kurt thought I could write about what I experienced there, particularly the sounds heard. Well, how could I refuse?

Being a Cage piece, I ra