Signal to Noise #49 - spring 2008

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF IMPROVISED, EXPERIMENTAL & UNUSUAL MUSIC

diamanda galás the new noise underground: carlos giffoni, mouthus, prurient, yellow swans, wolf eyes & more musicWitness® baby dee radio massacre international slow six paul metzger atlas sound edmund welles

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 1

issue #49 ✹ $4.95 us / $5.95 canada ✹ spring 2008

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SIGNAL TO NOISE #49

16. BABY DEE 24. DIAMANDA GALÁS 28. MUSICWITNESS ® 36. RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL 40. THE NEW NOISE UNDERGROUND 8. ATLAS SOUND 10. PAUL METZGER 12. EDMUND WELLES 14. SLOW SIX 48. LIVE REVIEWS 54. MIXED MEDIA 56. BOOK REVIEWS 60. CD / DVD / LP / MP3 REVIEWS

Dominick Fernow, Carlos Giffoni and Brian Sullivan in Brooklyn, January 2008

by Shawn Brackbill 4 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 5

SIGNAL TO NOISE

CONTRIBUTORS A one-time FM radio jazz DJ, engineer and producer for a dozenodd years in the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Tucson, Laurence Donohoe-Greene has since moved on to print media by co-founding New York's only homegrown jazz gazette, AllAboutJazz-New York (available online at: allaboutjazz.com/ newyork), of which he has been Managing Editor since its inception in 2002. His liner notes appear in releases by such labels as Rykodisc, Highnote and CIMP for artists ranging from Meade Lux Lewis to Teddy Edwards to Marshall Allen.

THE JOURNAL OF IMPROVISED, EXPERIMENTAL & UNUSUAL MUSIC ISSUE #49 : SPRING 2008 MAILING ADDRESS 1128 Waverly Street, Houston Texas 77008 PUBLISHER pete gershon CONTRIBUTORS bill barton ✹ caroline bell ✹ darren bergstein ✹ jason bivins ✹ marcus boon ✹ shawn brackbill ✹ stuart broomer ✹ pat buzby ✹ joel calahan ✹ christian carey ✹ john chacona ✹ mike chamberlain ✹ cindy chen ✹ andrew choate ✹ jay collins ✹ dennis cook ✹ larry cosentino ✹ david cotner ✹ ethan covey ✹ michael crumsho ✹ raymond cummings ✹ jonathan dale ✹ christopher delaurenti ✹ tom djll ✹ nate dorward ✹ lawrence english ✹ gerard futrick ✹ andrew gaerig ✹ michael galinsky ✹ david greenberger ✹ kurt gottschalk ✹ spencer grady ✹ jason gross ✹ kory grow ✹ jennifer hale ✹ carl hanni ✹ ed hazell ✹ andrey henkin ✹ nate hogan ✹ jesse jarnow ✹ mark keresman ✹ steve kobak ✹ robert loerzel ✹ howard mandel ✹ marc masters ✹ libby mclinn ✹ marc medwin ✹ bill meyer ✹ sean molnar ✹ richard moule ✹ larry nai ✹ kyle oddson ✹ chris pacifico ✹ chad radford ✹ casey rae-hunter ✹ gino robair ✹ michael rosenstein ✹ elise ryerson ✹ ron schepper ✹ steve smith ✹ thomas stanley ✹ john szwed ✹ nathan turk ✹ dan warburton ✹ alan waters ✹ ben watson ✹ seth watter ✹ charlie wilmoth

The founder, publisher and editor of the formerly paper-based i/e and e/i Magazines, Darren Bergstein has been a passionate writer, historian, archivist, and collector of electronic and outsider musics for well over three decades. In addition to maintaining e/i’s digital cousin at www.ei-mag.com, he is also a regular contributor to online magazines Perfect Sound Forever and The Squid’s Ear, recently profiled Cluster for Portland’s Willamette Week, and hosted/DJ’ed a weekly show on electronic music for WRNU-FM. He can be contacted at eimag@optonline.net Marc Masters has been writing about music for almost two decades, since the days of his early 90's fanzine Crank. His words have soiled the pages of The Bob, Rockpool, Opprobrium, the Village Voice, and the New York Sun. He currently contributes to the Wire, Pitchfork, Paper Thin Walls and the Baltimore City Paper. During the day, he edits TV shows for History Channel, National Geographic, and Court TV, as well as the films of director Jeff Krulik (Heavy Metal Parking Lot). His first book, No Wave, on the history of the radical music and film movement in late 1970s New York, was published in February by UK imprint Black Dog.

COPY EDITOR nate dorward

Kurt Gottschalk is most interested in what Anthony Braxton brilliantly termed the “post Ayler/Cage continuum.” His writings about music have appeared in All About Jazz, Signal to Noise, The Wire and Time Out-New York, among other publications, and his syndicated column “New York is Now” appears in Coda (Canada), ImproJazz (France), Jazz. pt (Portugal) and Jazz.ru (Russia). With the avant blues band Ecstasy Mule he has self-released two CDs, and he is currently collaborating on a collection of John Cage recordings to be released by Mode in 2008.

He's also an occasional presence on WFMU and WKCR.

ADVERTISING operations@signaltonoisemagazine.org e-mail for rates & information DISTRIBUTION Our circulation is 10,000 copies. SIGNAL to NOISE is distributed by Ingram Periodicals, Source Interlink, Ubiquity Distribution and Small Changes. We are available in most Borders and Barnes & Nobles outlets, and we sell directly to Other Music (NYC), Downtown Music Gallery (NYC), End of an Ear (Austin), Sound Exchange + Domy Books (Houston), Newbury Comics (Boston area), Jackpot Records (Portland, OR), Bulldog Records (Seattle, WA), Jazz Record Mart (Chicago), Dusty Groove America (Chicago), Lunchbox Records (Charlotte, NC), Squidco (NYC), Bop Shop (Rochester, NY), Aquarius Records (San Francisco), Amoeba Music (Hollywood / San Francisco) and Volcanic Tongue (Scotland). We encourage you to support your local, independently-owned retailers! If you’d like to carry us in your store, please contact one of our distributors, or if you’d prefer to order direct from us (min. order 10 copies / no returns), drop us a line.

ATTENTION SUBSCRIBERS! STN is mailed at the 4th class bulk rate. This keeps subscription costs down, but if you move, the USPS won’t forward your magazine ... they just throw it out. Please apprise us of any address changes to avoid the inconvenience and extra expense of lost issues! Send your new information as far in advance as possible to: operations@signaltonoisemagazine.org MORE FINE PRINT The publisher accepts no responsibility for any opinions expressed by the writers or subjects of SIGNAL to NOISE. All contents are © 2008 STN Publishing LLC and/or its individual contributors. No portion of this document may be reproduced by any means without the written consent of SIGNAL to NOISE. 6 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Robert Loerzel, a freelance writer and photographer in Chicago, is working on his second nonfiction book about crime at the turn of the last century, following up his 2003 book Alchemy of Bones. A regular contributor to Chicago magazine and Playbill, he also writes about music and posts concert photos at his blog, www.undergroundbee.com.

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SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 7

ATLAS SOUND Deerhunter’s controversial frontman Bradford Cox steps out on his own with a droneful, haunting solo project called Atlas Sound. By Chad Radford

Entering the home of Bradford Cox is a disquieting affair. A pale and flickering fluorescent lamp over the kitchen stove doesn’t illuminate much. In the living room a frail male form is sprawled across a couch with bare feet hanging over the edge. It’s not Bradford, but a roommate who sits up long enough to point upstairs. As I grope the walls of the blackened stairway, a slow and muffled war drum wafts through the darkness, emanating from somewhere overhead. A light under a door at the top reveals vague signs of life. Repeated knocks bring no response and the doorknob beckons. Inside, Cox is perched on the floor like a bird, hovering over a laptop. His left hand delicately pushes levels and changes sound effects on the screen. With his right hand softly and methodically raps on a drum.

He is lost in headphone bliss but jumps to life, startled, but not entirely lifted from his trance: “Oh man, I wasn’t expecting you yet... What time is it?”

So begins a visit with Bradford Cox, the wiry and outspoken frontman for Atlanta’s viscerally intense art/noise/drone punk ensemble Deerhunter. His stage antics and striking presence (he suffers from Marfan syndrome, a condition affecting the body’s connective tissue), and his brash espousals of opinion have made him the subject of many a column in The New York Times, Fader and Pitchforkmedia.com.

Following an international media blitzkrieg supporting Deerhunter's second album, Cryptograms, Cox has reemerged with a measured solo album under the alias Atlas Sound, titled Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel for Kranky Records.

The album is a labyrinth of emotional sounds and textures, a collage that highlights various states of anxiety, bliss, euphoria and depression, all pushed and pulled through alternating short pop songs and bouts of long, droning ambiance. Songs, such as “Ativan” slow an acoustic guitar strummed with a '60s garage rock jitter to a morphine pace. “Winter Vacation” is a beat-oriented drifter and the 8 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

title track is a glowing drone serving as an epilogue to the opening “A Ghost Story” with its disembodied child-voice.

Let the Blind Lead… is a haunting record, and those who seek to tap into the pleasure centers of the brain with the same cathartic punch as Cryptograms should look elsewhere.

This is one personality exorcising a lifetime of demons without the editorial pros and cons offered by a full band. However, for live performances Cox has assembled a new band, dubbed the Atlas Sound Music group that features Kranky publicist Brian Foote, Stephanie Macksey, Honey Owens of Valet and Adam Forkner of White Rainbow all performing various duties on guitar, drum, bass and electronics, giving Cox’s bedroom construct a powerful stage presence.

The album itself is a collection of songs that Cox describes as “therapeutic” in its angelic tones and abstract conceptual elements upon which he refuses to elaborate. “If you look at the artwork and listen to the songs it’s obvious what the record is about,” he explains.

This prompts an lively discussion about the nature of art, interpretation and his reluctance to articulate a heavy-handed mission statement for the record. “It’s better to let listeners take what they want from it,” he offers. “When people hear this record whatever they’re experiencing at the time is what they’re going to associate with it. Be it breaking up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, or getting fired from their job, or their parents passing away… or maybe they got a new job or a new girlfriend… all of these things that mark different times in your life when you hear the record are way more important than the artist’s intention.”

Cox’s bedroom is a clutter of guitars stacked atop one another. A 4-Track draped with dirty socks, miles of cables, pedals, empty shoe boxes and ruffled clothing strewn about. In the middle of it all he has cleared a nest with his computer. The song he is recording is a cover of Björk’s “Headphones”—one

that he says will be posted at www.deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com.

Covering others' songs has become a regular practice for Cox as of late. His rendition of Grizzly Bear’s “Knife” appears on the group’s Friend EP, and Deerhunter’s blog is littered with covers by everyone from Jay Reatard to the Righteous Brothers. The impetus is several layers deep. “First and foremost, when I cover songs it’s an educational activity,” Cox says.

“I’m secretly conniving how to adopt someone else’s technique to use for Deerhunter or Atlas Sound. But also, I like being able to give people songs when they ask for them,” he continues. “I remember being at a Stereolab show when I was younger and when I yelled out songs they shrugged and played them! I remember that feeling of smiling through the whole song. Even though there were thousands of people there it felt like they played it just for me.”

Cox perks up at the mention of Stereolab and his previously smooth demeanor morphs into child-like enthusiasm. “If you look on Youtube someone has made several videos called The Origins of Stereolab,” he blurts. "They juxtapose clips of Stereolab songs with the artists they're ripping off: Canned Heat, Faust and Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn”. They’re straight up playing it, but that doesn’t bother me. In the information age this is the closest thing to folk tradition. I would have never found Steve Reich, Faust, John Cage or any of these things if I hadn’t learned about them through Stereolab. They have so much finesse in how they do it, and I am way more interested in finesse than originality.”

As Cox elaborates the degree to which he admires spirit over originality and handing down the traditions of others to craft his own soundtrack for the blind, standing on the shoulders of giants is made less a spectator’s sport and more of a cultural responsibility.

And in illuminating the process Let the Blind Lead… is no less visionary in its singular beauty. ✹

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 9

St. Paul’s hermit string-bender delivers the banjo from bondage.

By Bill Meyer

PAUL METZGER When Paul Metzger gets on stage, the first things that catch your eye are his instruments. The 49-year-old St. Paul, Minnesotan’s banjo has a twelve-string guitar headstock and a stegosaurus spine’s worth of tuning pegs clustered between one and three o’clock on the instrument’s body, which give it a full complement of 24 strings. His guitar sports a cymbal stuck onto one end; extra strings fan out from a second bridge, and perched above the sound hole are the naked innards of a couple music boxes. But once he sits down and starts to play, sounds trump appearances. Maybe he’ll coax a slender tendril of sound from his rounded axe with an e-bow, drag sarangi-like cries from it with a real bow, or pluck a sunrise melody from it, each note bright and present for a moment, then gone. He could tug an impossibly low note from his guitar and sculpt it into waves that you’d expect to wash from the shores of the Ganges, not the Mississippi, or loft a barbed, higher pitch through a lattice of randomly evolving music box tones. His dizzying improvisations can sound as splintered as a Derek Bailey standard demolition, as heavy as a punk rock rave-up, and hypnotic as a Hindustani raga, but he’s more interested in seeing where his ideas and instruments take him than he is in evoking any particular influence.

In fact, Metzger’s acoustic music is the product of decades of solitary exploration.

“I developed my style on my own in my little hermit world.” Sitting in a Chinese restaurant before a recent gig in Chicago, he explained its evolution. “My first guitar playing was acoustic. I started as a finger-style player, listening mostly to Duck Baker and also Django records, and had my influences, North Indian music, jazz standards and the 10 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

experimental thing. I was never interested in rock and roll music. This would be like mid 70s, you know? I was a very isolated guy and didn’t know all the stuff that people who know about music knew about at that time period, like the Sex Pistols, but I didn’t know anything about that. But then I saw the Replacements on local TV, right after their first album, and I just adored it. So I had a short period of emulation with the electric guitar, and that grew into getting back to what I had to say musically.”

TVBC, the now-disbanded rock group he originally formed with a brother and a cousin in 1979, gigged sporadically in Minnesota for over two decades. The trio’s penchant for extended improvisation attracted some passionate admirers, but also ensured that they never fit into the Twin Cities’ rock scene.

Metzger simply assumed that his solo efforts would be even less popular. “I worked on my acoustic music at the same time, but kept it as an at-home thing as it became more and more experimental. I always assumed that no one would want to hear my acoustic playing.” So he didn’t bring it into the public eye until 2002, when he played the first DeStijl festival, and didn’t make his first acoustic records until 2004.

Those two albums, a solo guitar effort entitled Paul Metzger [Mutant Music] and Three Improvisations on Modified Banjo [Chairkicker’s Union], introduced both the essential format and the dominant discourses in Metzger’s music. Their winding pieces build up the same kinetic frenzy as a raga, but don’t adhere to raga form. “That’s what it kind of sounds like,” Metzger admits, “but I’m not in any way trying to emulate that scene.” Rather than follow a prescribed path, Metzger treats his open-ended compositions

as vehicles to get lost. “To stretch things out and have a chance to make some mistakes, that is important to me. And to take a lot of chances, to not stay in a comfort zone. Within improvisation, you kind of know where to go, but I’ve always strived to find something else besides what I’m comfortable with.”

While Metzger generally brings both the guitar and banjo to his gigs, his choice to keep them fairly separate on record reflects the to and fro process by which he develops his music on each. “I approach it like being a painter and having a couple canvases that I’m working on. I take the one that I’m less satisfied with and work on that, and then the other one becomes less satisfactory.”

He’s set to record two guitar records in the months ahead, but 2007 was a banjo year that yielded two splendid new LPs. Gedanken Splitter [Roaratorio] is ferocious, frantic, yet entirely on-course—easily Metzger’s most aggressive waxing yet.

The title track to Deliverance [Locust], on the other hand, may be his most eloquent and ambitious performance. It earns its halfhour length with a series of dark ruminations upon an exceedingly durable melody. The name nods, of course, toward the movie that introduced the world to “Dueling Banjos,” but also attests to Metzger’s missionary zeal for his round axe. “In my opinion the banjo is really in servitude, shackled down by very traditional art forms. A lot of them I really like, but I love the sound of the banjo so much, and it’s so limited in its application. It’s a bit of a shame, you know? I mean a guitar, that’s all over the place. It doesn’t need any help. The banjo needs a lot of stinking help.

It’s locked in tight.” ✹

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 11

Cornelius Boots leads a bass clarinet quartet playing “Heavy Chamber Music” that challenges listeners' very conceptions of the instrument.

By Andrey Henkin

EDMUND WELLES It was in 1960 that Eric Dolphy brought the bass clarinet into the forefront of the music world with his debut LP Outward Bound. Since then, it seems like everyone has a bass clarinet and is not afraid to use it. Dolphy is still held up as the model because, frankly, no one since has achieved anything close to his level of expression and sonic possibility. That is, until one hears Edmund Welles.

Edmund Welles is not a person but an Oakland-based quartet featuring four bass clarinetists, led by composer Cornelius Boots and also featuring Jeff Anderle, Aaron Novik and Jonathan Russell. The group has just released its second album, Tooth & Claw, after a critically-acclaimed debut recorded under the auspices of a Chamber Music America grant in 2005.

Though the bass clarinet may now be instrumenta grata and the proliferation of many-of-the-same-instrument ensembles old hat, there is too much free squawking with the former and not enough advantageous composing in the latter. Edmund Welles solves both problems for an instrument that has been waiting patiently.

“Things that use the bass clarinet to just freak out, that’s not my cup of tea,” says Boots. “…It’s just a matter of taste, it’s not right or wrong but I found nothing available where it was just a solid-sounding composed piece for a big bass clarinet sound.” Originally a clarinetist and baritone saxist, Boots undertook this challenge while studying at Indiana University in the mid 1990s, making his first attempts at composing as well as arranging and then

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four-tracking old boogie-woogie and gospel songs and music by Radiohead, Primus and The Pixies. This project included researching much of the available bass clarinet music though Boots admits to liking very little of it.

The music on their two albums is striking for anyone who is an aficionado of the bass clarinet and mystifying for those unfamiliar with it; at times, you would swear you are listening to organs or accordions from some bizarre alien carnival. Some of Boots’ initial difficulty was finding players for the quartet, not so much because of their tone but because of the need to understand and implement the concept of the group. Boots explains that in Edmund Welles, each bass clarinet takes on more roles than just reed instrument. His model is less chamber music than rock band, with players having to be the drummer or bassist, guitarist or vocalist. It is a hard notion to get across, “making the leap of the imagination that you can pretend you’re playing something else, fulfilling the role; a stride piano bassline or Tony Iommi riff,” he says.

The group’s first album, Agrippa’s 3 Books, was a sprawling six-part suite equal parts black metal and ambient, with cover arrangements of tunes by Black Sabbath, Sepultura and Spinal Tap. Tooth & Claw is less a follow-up than a prequel, as Boots says it “should have been first in many ways, in terms of many of the songs were written longer ago; it is the seminal sound for those who aren’t ready to listen to a suite.” The look is sparser and there

are not the extensive liner notes—which doubled as the explanatory statement for the grant committee—of the first album.

But the marvelous composing is there for 12 discrete pieces as is a recording quality unmatched in any other document of the instrument. Boots has a degree in audio recording, which he says has been extremely useful for these albums; his experience has been that many people who have never mic’d a bass clarinet have no idea how to do it. A companion disc to Tooth & Claw illuminates concepts both technical and compositional; there are over 60 pages of scores for the music; drum machine accompaniment tracks; and even instructional videos on flat-tonguing to get a percussive attack, throat harmonics for multiple notes and circular breathing, all crucial components of the music of Edmund Welles.

Though Boots has mastered the instrument, he is still figuring out how to make the band's now-stable lineup a “profitable” venture. Tours are near impossible and the band’s uncategorizability puts them at a disadvantage. What Boots would like is to break into the chamber music world where funding is more readily available; the group will make what is sure to be an interesting appearance at this year’s International Clarinet Association Conference in Kansas City this July. But his main goal remains that “the people who could get into it, to find it… it’s not for everybody but the people that like it really like it if they’re ready.” ✹

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 13

SLOW SIX This electro-acoustic chamber group plies contemporary composition with a human warmth.

By Ron Schepper

Katya Pronin

Slow Six, left to right: Stephen Griesgraber (guitar), Christopher Tignor (musical direction, violin, software), Ben Lively (violin), Theo Metz (drums), Rob Collins (Fender Rhodes, piano)

How many artists can claim to have prepared dinners and picked up the laundry for La Monte Young? Christopher Tignor must be alone in that regard, but the Slow Six leader is a singular talent in other respects as well.

For starters, his Brooklyn-based “classical” ensemble occupies a unique place in today’s musical landscape: largely eschewing the systems-based style associated with Glass and Reich, Slow Six might best be described as an electro-acoustic chamber group whose exquisite sound is realized through the interaction of strings, guitars, Fender Rhodes, piano, and digital processing and whose emotive pieces merge the elegance of classical music with innovative production methods.

Tignor’s “instrument” is the computer, and its real-time contribution to the music requires some clarification. “I build software programs you play like musical instruments and whose sound comes from processing the other musicians’ sounds,” he explains. “Using a keyboard or other midi controllers, I take in and transform their material in various ways.

For example, I might use a midi keyboard to capture samples from a guitar pattern with my left hand and then play them back in different rhythmic combinations with the other, while simultaneously filtering the sound with a pedal.

“One reason why the computer often feels so subliminal,” he continues, “is because its sound is made directly from the sounds around it; even abstracted it can blend in well.

The software instrument I used for “Evening Without Atonement” was called Chameleon for that reason. The Rhodes patterns in that piece blend in polyrhythmically with the computer sequences which are themselves made of Rhodes notes sampled earlier in the work, and one violin harmonic. Another reason the 14 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

computer parts have a quiet presence has to do with my own reaction against what I felt was going on with “Computer Music” at the time. It seemed to me that the music became all about what the computer was doing and the process of how the music was being made, as if to justify what often felt like otherwise arbitrary musical results.”

Tignor also has an explanation for why Slow Six eludes easy categorization. “The varying genre-labels signify the music industry’s clunky way of recognizing that we’re into something unprecedented,” he says. “There are many rock bands that use classical instruments and no shortage of composers that tout their popular influences but our music is uniquely color-blind to that whole thing. When we started doing this, bringing our music stands, video projectors, string instruments, and desktop computer into NYC clubs, people had never seen anything like it.”

First issued on Tignor’s own imprint If.Then.

Else in 2004, Private Times In Public Places was recently re-issued on Western Vinyl following the release of Nor’easter on New Albion. The two recordings are dramatically different: the debut’s three pieces sustain serenading moods for twenty- to thirty-minute durations, with violinist Maxim Moston weaving sinuous lines across slowly shifting terrain; on the ambitious follow-up, the lyrical dimension is augmented by agitated, uptempo passages; in addition, the string writing is more layered and intricate, and the guitar more prominent.

Asked to account for the debut’s elegiac tone, Tignor says, “At the time, there was the internet boom, everybody had too much money, Moby was on all the billboards, and the whole thing couldn’t have seemed more

isolating and insincere to me. So I decided I wouldn’t pull any punches when I felt depressed or ecstatic, and just go all the way with the aesthetic, and that included the titles which have a personal meaning I felt spoke to the music. At the time, one of my jobs was making La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s dinners and picking up their laundry and other servile tasks and I discovered he had these fantastic and ridiculously long titles about the dreams of step-down power transformers and other things.” (Slow Six perpetuates the tradition with titles like “The Lines We Walked When We Walked Once Together” and “The Pulse Of This Skyline With Lightning Like Nerves.”) What might we expect from the group’s next recording? “We’re most of the way through creating the music for the third record and hopefully will record it sometime this summer. Think improbable, odd-time polyrhythms, heart-breaking melodies, broken breakbeats, and even the return of AM radio banter.”

Tignor deliberately composes the group’s music so that musicians can enter and create, choose phrasing, interpret dynamics, and, in his words, “do everything else needed to instill those black dots with human warmth.

My goal in creating scores is to provide a map for players to find their own character in a landscape I’ve imagined. David Lang and I were talking and he said something like, ‘As a composer, sometimes you want the world to look directly at you and sometimes more obliquely.’ My style has always been the latter, for the composer to be as absent as possible once the music’s living on-stage and to get out of the way to allow that magic ritual between performer and audience to happen.” ✹

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 15

UNUSUAL SUSPECTS Cleveland’s Baby Dee is a pianist and harpist, a former street musician and sideshow performer whose musical tales range from the saucy to the sublime. Just don't call her a singer-songwriter.

Story and portrait by Robert Loerzel.

Baby Dee talks about the old German folk tale of the Erlkönig as if it really happened to her—back when she was still a boy, growing up in Cleveland.

The Erlkönig, a king with a beard and a flowing cloak, appears to people who are about to die. In one of his most famous poems, Goethe described a father carrying his son on a nighttime journey. The boy sees the Erlkönig chasing after them, but the father sees nothing but a wisp of fog. The boy hears the Erlkönig seductively whispering, “You dear child, come along with me! Such lovely games I'll play with you.” The father reassures his son that the voice is just leaves rustling in the wind. And then, when the man reaches a farmhouse, the child in his arms is dead.

As a boy taking piano lessons, Baby Dee played the Schubert song based on Goethe’s poem. His father liked the tune. And now, the story has surfaced again, in a song called “The Earlie King” on Baby Dee’s album Safe Inside the Day. In Baby Dee’s version, the Earlie King lures his victim by promising “all the bacon that a boy can eat.”

What does that medieval North European myth have to do with this 53-year-old singer, pianist, harpist and former circus performer, who went through a gender change when she was in her thirties? Baby Dee is reluctant to reveal the whole story. In an interview, she is frank and open about her life at one moment, guarded the next.

“Some of these stories get a little bit personal,” she says, “but in my family, there was an encounter with the Earlie King, before I was born. And my father was acquainted with this whole scenario. And so the song for me is about that whole idea of this imaginary thing that has very real, very terrible consequences.”

Whatever happened—and whether it was real, imaginary or metaphorical—Baby Dee felt a personal connection to that folk tale about 16 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

a father who’s oblivious to a deadly apparition stalking his child. And now those childhood memories are the foundation of Baby Dee’s vivid lyrics.

Bring me a whisky, get me a beer. / What’s that song I like to hear? / 'The dreamy child, the father proud and strong.' / I kind of like that song, the one about the Earlie King. / Daddy, I can see him, his coat so shiny bright, / Behind us in the night, I can see the Earlie King.

Last November, Baby Dee previewed songs from Safe Inside the Day at the Hideout in Chicago, an old drinking hole for factory workers that has become a hip, but still scruffy, music venue. Baby Dee sat down at the Hideout’s weathered upright; the piano’s front face had been removed for the occasion, revealing an array of strings not unlike those on the harp sitting nearby. A tall, imposing figure with a shock of curly orange hair, Baby Dee wore a turquoise blouse, plaid slacks and work boots, with a leopard-pattern scarf draped around her neck.

A Virgin Mary T-shirt occasionally peeked out from beneath the partially buttoned blouse.

As Baby Dee sang in a tremulous falsetto, her head shook a little and her hair flopped around. Moving from the piano to the harp and back, she also switched abruptly between intimate songs such as “The Earlie King” and more ribald cabaret tunes.

“I know what to do next,” Baby Dee said at one point. “The song about the bee. Are there any albinos in the house? No? Good. It’s probably just as well.”

And then she proceeded to sing “Big Titty Bee Girl (From Dino Town).” The title probably refers to the fact that Baby Dee used to wear a bee costume (as well as cat and bear outfits) during her career as a street musician and sideshow performer. But the song, which sounds like a rousing drinking-hall tune, is mostly about

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 17

18 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Previous spread and following: Baby Dee in Chicago, November 2007 Opposite: At Venn Festival, Bristol UK, June 2007 by Adam Faraday

albinos. According to the lyrics, “You just can’t keep a good albino down”—even if you torment, beat, molest the albino, make fun of his eyes, or “tie a sausage to his dick and sic your dog on him.”

The audience sputtered with disbelieving laughter. “I don’t like to brag,” Baby Dee remarked, “but wasn’t that the stupidest song you ever heard?”

The room fell into stunned silence as Baby Dee performed some of her most heartwrenching and wounded songs. And then there were more gasps as she played a series of ditties designed to offend people of various religions. One song was about a bear that likes to eat Mormon underwear. Presbyterians, Hindus and Methodists were also at the receiving end of some crude jokes. “God’s got a plan for you,” Baby Dee proclaimed at one point. “He’s going to fry your fat ass in hell.”

It’s not unusual for Baby Dee to shock audiences. “I always remember Dee telling a very explicit sexual story once at a show in London,” her longtime friend and collaborator, David Tibet of Current 93, says via e-mail. “I was with Marc Almond, himself no stranger to the demimonde, and he slunk back in his chair, blushing whilst saying, ‘How can she say that? It is so outrageous.’ Then she slipped straight into the most angelic song, whilst a businessman and his lady escort slipped out of the room with jaws hanging open in shock. I laughed a lot, but not as much as Dee did.”

Safe Inside the Day, Baby Dee’s first recording for Drag City, will undoubtedly bring her more attention than any of her previous projects. As a harpist, she’s bound to draw comparisons to Joanna Newsom, though her music is a different animal altogether. At times, her falsetto is reminiscent of Dee’s friend, Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons. But Baby Dee also sounds at times like a transgender Tom Waits or Groucho Marx.

“It’s not just aesthetic for her. It’s her way of being in the world,” Hegarty says. “She lives a very mythical life.”

Her life does indeed sound mythical. A selftaught expert on Gregorian chants, Baby Dee has also been the musical director of a Catholic church, a professional tree climber, and a harpplaying bear in Central Park.

Baby Dee recoils at being called a singersongwriter, not liking the connotations that label carries in today’s music scene. “You can call me a crabby, phony hermaphrodite,” she says. “You can call me anything you want, but don’t call me a singer-songwriter.”

She picked up her name when she was working as a topless dancer at the Pyramid in New York, which she calls a “tranny titty bar.” The nightclub’s promoter started calling her Dee. “Some neighbor of hers had had a demented child named Baby Dee, and I reminded her of the demented child,” Dee says, laughing. “How could that be?”

Asked about her actual name, Dee says,

“My legal name is Dee Norris, but everybody knows me as Baby Dee. My birth name is nobody’s fucking business. There are places that I’m entitled not to go.” (Like everything else Dee says, even profanity-laced remarks that look harsh in print sound good-natured coming out of her mouth.)

Baby Dee’s earliest memory is painting her toenails with her mother’s nail polish. She remembers other children pointing at her red toenails when she went to a swimming pool.

Baby Dee appeared to be a boy to the outside world, but she knew that, inside of herself, she was female. “All trannies know it when they’re very little,” she says. “I knew it. Absolutely for a certain fact.”

But for thirty years, Dee would hide this fact.

“If I came out as a tranny, when I was in high school, that would have been real bad. I’ve known people who went that route, and very few of them survived. And the ones that did, they went through some rough times.”

Dee’s mother was one of her biggest musical influences. “She just sang constantly,” Dee says. “She knew thousands of songs. It seems as if any song she ever heard, she knew it—wonderful, obscure songs nobody had ever heard of.”

Baby Dee says neighbors weren’t all that friendly in the mixed-ethnic Cleveland area where she grew up, on West 39th Street near Gunnison. “All the kids were afraid of everybody’s father,” Dee recalls. “Fathers were like the crabby little dictators of our world.” The neighborhood did come together for one peculiar moment of impromptu destruction and celebration, however. Dee recalls the incident in her song “Dance of Diminishing Possibilities”: Bobby Slot and Freddy Weiss were not so nice, / But I liked their names a lot, / So I’ll say ‘em twice. / Bobby Slot and Freddy Weiss achieved a modest renown / When they took an ax and went to town / On an old upright. / And it was love, it was love, it was love at first sight. / There’s a harp in that piano, / And there’s a girl inside that boy, / And my daddy’s crowbars are his pride and joy.

“They were a couple of bums who lived across the street from us,” Dee says. “They had a piano, right? And they wanted to not have a piano. They dragged the piano out of their house, and dragged it out to the curb. The garbage man came up, and they said, ‘We’ll help you put it in the truck.’

“The guy said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. I’m not taking anything that doesn’t fit in a garbage can.’ And so they just started demolishing the piano on the spot. They just started bashing it in. Everybody came ... It was like a block party.

They were using sledgehammers, axes.

“My father really did have a crowbar collection," she continues. "At one point, he worked for the railroad. I think he must have ripped

them off from the railroad yard or something.

They were like huge, about five or six feet long.

He would just admire them. He had them in the corner...

“So they started demolishing the piano and my father brought his, like, Nine Iron. He had to pick just the right one.”

In the 1960s, Baby Dee listened to the same rock music as the teens around her, but it didn’t have the same impact. “I like Hendrix. I like the Doors. I like the Who,” she says. “I liked all these things, but it didn’t stick. By the time I got out of high school, I never listened to that stuff.

I liked playing the piano ... but I didn’t listen to music a lot. I was never into that. I feel a little two-faced about being in the business of selling records, because I don’t buy them. I don’t have a CD player in my house.”

Dee began writing music at a young age, but stopped when she found it hard to notate on paper. She didn’t think a career in classical music was possible because performance standards were so high. “A person who does music because they really love music—that’s someone you should look down your nose at,” she says. “Where does this attitude come from? It’s really, really fucked up.”

After high school, Dee moved to New York in 1972, hoping to become a portrait painter.

“I wanted to be like John Singer Sargent, make everybody look like Queen Victoria, you know?” she says. But she soon found herself playing the piano more than she was painting.

A costume shop in Queens was going out of business, so she picked up a bear costume.

She also bought a harp, an instrument she had never played before, and began performing every day in Central Park.

“I wanted to change species,” she says.

“People are very nice to bears, especially if the bear can play the harp.”

Later, while earning a living as a cab driver, Dee became obsessed with Gregorian chants, singing the sacred tunes to herself inside her home. The simplicity of the music appealed to her, and she discovered that the pieces seemed to come alive if she concentrated hard enough on singing them. “To me, that was completely miraculous,” she says.

She was singing the chants phonetically, not understanding the Latin lyrics. But at the same time, she had become interested in the writings of Ovid and began studying Latin. One day, it all clicked. Dee remembers the specific place where she was walking—turning left onto 96th Street from Broadway—when she suddenly realized the meanings of all of those words in the Gregorian chant.

Baby Dee led an informal choir to perform music by the Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni da Palestrina, whom she calls “the greatest, greatest composer who ever lived.”

Dee also studied conducting at a city college, but her teacher became frustrated with her lack of interest in any music written after 1600.

“He couldn’t deal with it anymore,” Dee SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 19

“Music is something you do.You don’t listen to it.

You do it. It’s the difference between the thing being outside of you and the thing being inside of you.”

remembers. “So he said, ‘Look, if all you want to do is that shit, why don’t you just learn how to play the organ and get a job at a church?’”

She decided that was good advice, and Dee soon had a job as the music director at a Catholic church in the South Bronx. Church music was a good fit for her philosophy that music should be participatory. “It’s a fucking revolutionary idea,” she says. “Music is something you do. You don’t listen to it. You do it ... It’s the difference between the thing being outside of you and the thing being inside of you.”

Dee isn’t a practicing Christian, but she made many friends at the church and looks back fondly on her years there. Dee’s lyrics in songs such as “Fresh Out of Candles” make it clear that religion and spirituality are important subjects for her.

Now, Saint Christopher got big and strong / From luggin’ babies all day long, / Keeping Jesus from gettin’ wet. / And I guess that’s just the thanks you get, / Now he’s off the wagon and out of luck, / Gotten drunk and wrecked the truck, / And all the little cherubim are singing, “Why’d you have to pick on him?”

She left her job at the church when she became Baby Dee. “I finally faced reason,” she says. “I changed gender. And it was obvious. I could see the writing on the wall. ... There was just no way I could show up one day and say, ‘Well, I’m a girl now.’”

And so Baby Dee went back to working as a street performer, riding around New York and Europe on a high-rise tricycle, playing music for any couples she spotted who appeared to be in love. She also had stints with the Coney Island Circus Sideshow and the Kamikaze Freak Show. Sometimes she was “The Bilateral Hermaphrodite”—half-woman, half-man, split right down the middle, with a black suit on one side and a red dress on the other.

In the mid-1990s, Antony Hegarty met Dee for the first time. “She was go-go dancing on the bar at the Pyramid, topless and playing the accordion,” Hegarty says. “Later I would see her around town on her tricycle in a cat outfit, singing for people in cafes and on the street.”

But Baby Dee left New York and returned to the house where she had grown up in Cleveland. She spent the coming years caring for her ailing parents, both of whom have since died. Dee also began writing songs, at first just for herself. She finally came to the decision that her music should be more than a private act.

“All of a sudden,” she says, “it wasn’t enough for it to just exist within myself. I thought, ‘Well, come on. People ought to hear it. This is stupid.’”

Dee mailed cassettes of her songs to Hegarty. “I was so moved by the depth of the poetry, and the intimacy of it all,” Hegarty says.

“The music was obviously very personal, and at the same time iconic and universal.”

Hegarty passed along the tapes to David 20 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Tibet, and in 2000, Tibet released the first Baby Dee album, Little Window, on his Durtro label.

Baby Dee also played that year on the Durtro debut by Antony and the Johnsons, and she began playing with Tibet’s band, Current 93.

In 2002, Durtro released Baby Dee’s second album, Love’s Small Song. (Last year, Durtro/ Jnana reissued Baby Dee’s first two albums and an EP as the two-CD collection The Robin’s Tiny Throat.)

And then Baby Dee stopped writing songs.

As she explains in her self-penned press bio, “I thought I had said everything I had to say and there was nothing left to say so I simply stopped.”

To make a living, she started a tree-trimming business. “I started my own [company] because nobody’s going to hire a 50-year-old hermaphrodite and teach him how to climb trees,” she says. “That ain’t gonna happen.

Believe me.”

Of all things, why go into tree climbing?

“That’s a good question,” Dee says. “The only thing all my jobs have in common is that I was always up high. Even in church in the choir loft, I was way the fuck up there.”

The business was not without its mishaps.

“Nobody died. We did have a couple of dismemberments, though. Not for me,” Dee says, laughing. “I had some very close calls, but I didn’t die. Those things are fun—something really dreadful happens and you’re still alive.

You’re like, ‘Yee hah! This is great! I love this!’

That’s kind of crazy, but that’s what it’s like.”

Memories of her childhood eventually drew her back into songwriting. Will Oldham, a.k.a.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Matt Sweeney, who were touring to support their 2005 album Superwolf, asked Baby Dee to open for them at a Cleveland gig. “This was a godsend to me,” Dee says, “because some months earlier I had dropped a tree on a house ... and that put me out of business and into debt and deep shit so I needed to find a new way to make a living.”

That night was the first time Baby Dee had ever sung while playing harp. The microphones were placed poorly, and Baby Dee’s set was barely audible. “But eventually,” Sweeney says, “the crowd hushed up and listened. At the end of the night, I remember saying goodbye to Dee and feeling like something great went down that night.”

That experience led Oldham and Sweeney to produce Safe Inside the Day at Rare Book Room in Brooklyn last August. Originally, Baby Dee wanted to record new versions of some songs she had released earlier on a limitededition CD and book called A Book of Songs for Anne Marie. She thought her new songs based on those childhood memories were too dark and personal to record. But Oldham encouraged her to be brave, writing to her: “I feel like part of the point of recording, of making records, is to put in us what we don't have in us to do!”

Oldham says, “I think she was worried about

the negativity implicit in some of this newer set, but drawing the songs out into the light—safe inside the day, as it were—in the company of friends and loved ones would show the possible positive qualities of the songs.”

In addition to Oldham and Sweeney, the record features Andrew WK on bass, Bill Breeze of Psychic TV on viola, John Contreras of Current 93 on cello, and string arrangements

by Max Moston of Antony and the Johnsons.

Oldham wanted to give Baby Dee’s songs all the attention and care they deserved. “Too many times I hear records and wish that I could have been a fly on the wall at the session,” he says. “A very big fly with a loud voice and huge hands—to stop them from doing the stupid things that they do because no one cares.”

One of the songs Baby Dee was the most reluctant to record, “Fresh Out of Candles,” became her favorite. “I really hated that song,” she says. “I didn’t want to do that song. To me, it’s the darkest thing I’ve ever written. It’s so extremely dark that it becomes like a cartoon. It just takes the darkness to such an absurd level.

I needed somebody to tell me it was OK to do that. Will was the only person who could do that for me.”

In the studio, the band created a groove for the song, with an echo of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch,” and that groove gave Baby Dee a way to perform the song she hadn’t seen before. “They created this place, this way to do the song,” Dee says.

In one of the photos in the CD booklet for Safe Inside the Day, an ax rests on the piano in Baby Dee’s home. Another photo shows the house at night. A harp can be viewed through a bay window, brightly illuminated for all to see.

That’s how the house actually looks to passersby on almost any given night. Baby Dee said she wanted to make a statement different from her neighbors, many of whom hang American flags in front of their houses.

“I want people to know that having a beautiful interior is lot more important than having a fucking flag outside,” Baby Dee says. “Instead of being out there waving your fucking flag, it would be better to have something beautiful going on on the inside, you know?”

So Baby Dee finds herself back in the same neighborhood where Bobby Slot and Freddy Weiss once smashed a piano to bits. She’s back in the same place where she used to play a Schubert song for her father, who didn’t understand what the story of “The Earlie King” meant to that child at the piano.

Daddy, can you hear me? / It’s got so hard to speak, / I’ll kiss your bristly cheek, / And go with the Earlie King, / Up from the table, / My brother’s tiny soul / All gone, swallowed whole, / Taken by the Earlie King. ✹ Chicago's Robert Loerzel is a freelance journalist blogging at undergroundbee.com. He wrote about Chicago drone bands in STN#47.

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 21

22 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

HEART OF DARKNESS

Singer and pianist Diamanda Galás is a performing artist sui generis, a larger than life persona known for bloody stage shows and her banshee scream, who's confronted in her music the AIDS epidemic, the Armenian genocide, mental illness and violence against women. She's also a canny interpreter of music as diverse as Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker and Diana Ross.

Story by Kurt Gottschalk. Photos by Libby McLinn.

Makeup and Styling by Kristofer Buckle.

Diamanda Galás is standing in front of a large photograph of a hyena in a gallery in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, clearly enthralled with the tooth-baring canine pictured in front of her. “The way they hold their tongues and their teeth is exactly the way singers are taught to hold their mouths.

I’m not a scavenger, by the way,” she laughs.

“I’m a predator of the highest order.”

The singer, at least as well known for her goth appearance and her epic, sometimes bloody, stage shows about viral and governmental genocides as she is for her music itself, cuts a very different figure offstage. She’s dressed all in black, of course, with black fingernail polish, but this is New York; here Galás is incognito, East Village casual. Without the severe makeup she wears onstage, she’s virtually unrecognizable. But it’s not just that—the woman who reacts to requests during concerts by hissing “Do you see a fucking tip jar?” is upbeat, enthusiastic—one might even say... bubbly?

“I’ve always been interested in hyenas,” she says, quickly crossing the small gallery, examining the pictures. “They’re horrible— they wait for the other animals to do the kill.

They’re like little devils—it’s something to admire.”

The exhibit at the Yossi Milo Gallery, a solo exhibition by South African photographer Pieter Hugo, depicts a Nigerian traveling roadshow, a group of men who travel from village to village with hyenas, pythons and baboons, putting them on parade for tips.

The hyena handlers believe that the dancers in the troupe are capable of transforming themselves into animals. “This I can relate to,” Galás says. “I don’t know why, but I can.”

Then, admiring the thick woven muzzle and heavy chain leash one of the handlers has on his beast, she announces, “That is some macho shit, dude—having a hyena as a pet.”

Diamanda Galás can own a room. There are singers, there are pianists, there are composers, and then there are people with “presence”— that ethereal quality that makes a musician bigger than their music.

And if offstage she doesn’t exude the same starpower, she can still possess a place. She’s an emotive speaker, animated, reliving a fight one moment, laughing about her comeback the next, none of it delivered in language one might reserve for polite company. She’s an intelligent, quick-witted pottymouth, and she’s nicer than she might want you to know.

We leave the gallery and walk down 9th Avenue to find a café, Galás talking about the changing neighborhood—once rehearsal studios, then galleries, now starting to show signs of boutique invasion—as I run through questions in my mind. It’s hard to know what to expect from an interview with Diamanda Galás: Does she hate journalists? Will the wrong question make her get up and walk?

We wander into a typical Westside spot— slightly funky, thriftstore antiques. Diana Ross is playing on the radio—a good omen. I resolve to put to her the one question I didn’t know if I had the nerve to ask. But before I can say anything, her eyes dart toward the speaker: “Something about her is fucking me up.”

Few musicians careers can be as neatly bifurcated as that of Galás. She’s well known for her harrowing one-woman shows, with multiple microphones and hundreds of candles, tackling such weighty and controversial subSIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 23

Diamanda Galás in New York City, January 2008

jects as the AIDS crisis, mental illness, political torture and genocide. But she’s become just as identified with her interpretations of other musicians’ songs, which manage to cross jazz classicism with ironic rock cover versions.

And she manages to keep pushing on both sides of the equation. 2004’s Defixiones, Will and Testament, Orders from the Dead (Mute), was eight years in the making, an 80-minute commemoration of the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian victims of the Turkish genocides from 1914-1923. It was also, no doubt, an stark examination of her own identity. Her father was Turkish-Armenian, her mother was Armenian and Syrian, she herself identifies as Greek. But while she was working on that, she released two albums of songs: Malediction and Prayer (1998, Asphodel) and La Serpenta Canta (2003, Mute).

Both contained versions of the Diana Ross song “My World is Empty Without You,” a staple of her girl-at-her-piano shows (she freely uses the term “cover version”). It’s hard not to laugh when the song comes up in her concert: the music of Ross, as significant a figure in the breaking down of racial boundaries in popular music as she is a queen of schmaltz, being sung by a woman whose tinsel and glitter is the stuff of mortuary fantasy. Collecting my nerve, I ask the question: Do you think there’s humor in your music?

She laughs. Cackles, even. “Oh sure, fuck yeah, absolutely. It’s fucking hilarious,” and then, just as abruptly, turns serious. “Many things can coexist. But it’s a song in its own way that tells a story.” She recalls starting the song at a concert in Richmond, VA, and turns again, this time to chatty conversationalist.

“There were all these queens in the audience—I had to stop ’cause they were giggling so much,” she says. “It’s inescapable how funny it is. It should have been interpreted by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Can you imagine?”

The song, for her, goes back to the ’80s. “I was coming off of a lot of speed,” she says. “I can’t remember what was worse, coming off the speed or coming off the person who gave me the drugs.” Her explanation adds another level of meaning to her interpretation of the song. It is fucking hilarious, in theory. It’s also harrowing. When she sings: From this old world / I try to hide my face / From this loneliness / There's no hiding place / Inside this cold and empty house I dwell / In darkness with memories / I know so well it isn’t funny anymore. It’s real. She brings out the isolation and downplays the rhyme scheme. And, Motown via her native San Diego perhaps, it’s autobiographical.

“Diana Ross, when she was in the Supremes, she was really singing well,” she says. “And I’m a big fan of Whitney. I can’t wait for her new record. I love her voice, I love her performances. She’s like a hyena. She 24 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

sings these mainstream songs like she’s having a seizure. She’s never flat—even on crack, she knows the changes.”

Whitney Houston? She insists she’s not joking. I pray we’re not playing fuck-withthe-reporter. Doris Day, she insists, is another favorite.

Another Malediction song, “The Thrill is Gone,” also turns listener expectations upside-down. It juxtaposes image and genre, and brings out the blues in her playing.

“That song is a masterpiece,” she says.

“The first time I heard it I was ending a relationship and I didn’t want to hear the words because I knew the words would tell me the truth. I hear something and I have to do it. I have to. The melody and the changes— it’s such a gift to feel that way about cover versions.”

As much as she puts herself into other people’s songs—and her new record, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, is another disc of covers—they don’t necessarily come easily for her.

“The scary part is word memorization,” she says. “I’ve met tons of excons who, man, they can sing, and they know all of the words, more than I’ll ever remember.”

When she does covers in concert, she doesn’t use sheet music. She’s been playing piano since she was a child. The music is the easy part. Instead, she uses has lyrics propped up on the piano. She remembers, laughing again, a concert where she found herself onstage with two copies of the first half of the lyrics of Johnny Cash’s “25 Minutes to Go” (also on Malediction and Prayer). The song is essentially a countdown, but she had to quit, chastising the laughing audience.

“Sister Golden Hair,” one of the most despicable songs in pop history, comes on the radio. Galás is unfamiliar (“‘America’ is the band?”) so I explain that it’s about a guy who is such a free spirit that he stands his fiancée up at the altar, but that he believes the sometimes “a woman sure can be a friend of mine.” La Diamanda is appalled.

“You know what?” she says. “I’m gonna ask her to turn it off.”

She rises and goes to ask the server to kill the radio. Rebuffed, she asks “How low can you turn it?” The volume is slightly reduced, and she returns, espousing again before she hits her chair about the value of cover versions.

“Those songs are so sophisticated, and you know what the song is about before the lyrics even start,” she says. “The people who wrote those songs, those chord changes, are very sophisticated. A lot of those chord changes come right out of East European music. They all studied Liszt and Chopin. A lot of East European Jews came over and wrote songs that were then covered by people like The Supremes. It was good. It was slick. And The Beatles show up—ugh, I’m sorry. So fucking bubblegum. I just didn’t get it. Fucking

overproduction, jumping up and down – when too many people in a room are having a good time, I get really depressed.”

“Guilty,” released by Mute in March, treads once more down those historic paths. She covers Cash again, with “Long Black Veil,” but reaches back deeper into the well with Ralph Stanley’s “O Death.” She finds the sophistication of the pop tradition with Joseph Kosma and Jacques Prévert’s “Autumn Leaves” (originally titled “Les feuilles mortes,” or “dead leaves,” a title that might have been more appropriate for Galás), as she did on Malediction’s “Gloomy Sunday.” Those styles —blues- and gospel-based music, jazz and country—have been with Galás her entire life.

By the age of 10 she was playing military bases in her father’s jazz band and gospel choir, but singing wasn’t allowed for the young girl who would grow up to have a four-octave range. The only women who sing, her father would tell her, are whores. But she learned the elements of blues, jazz and stride piano that still feature prominently in her work.

“I’ve always had a strong left hand,” she said. “Look at these hands. These are man’s hands. I grew up playing in my father’s gospel choir, and we’d do these four-hour sets without a fake book. He said ‘You either have ears or you don’t have ears.’”

By 14, she’d performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 as a soloist with the San Diego Symphony. Later she’d study music performance at the University of San Diego, receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees while beginning to turn her attention towards avant-garde music and the visual performing arts. In her 20s she played piano around San Diego, continuing to hone her chops while backing visiting free jazz musicians like David Murray, Butch Morris and Bobby Bradford.

By the mid ’70s she was living in New York and playing psychiatric institutions through a city-funded program she heard about from two friends at the Living Theater. “There were really sad, awful illnesses,” she recalls. “It’s nice when people come to you. If someone comes to play music for you, it’s probably neat, I guess. But there’s nothing worse than being in a place with no family, no visitors, left alone, that will kill you. A lot of my work is about that.”

She was also studying the Italian bel canto operatic style, and when Slovenian avantgarde composer Vinko Globokar heard a tape of her singing, he invited her to perform the lead role in his opera “Un Jour Comme Un Autre,” based on Amnesty International’s documentation of the arrest and torture of a Turkish woman for alleged treason, culminating in a now-legendary performance at the 1979 Festival d’Avignon in France that introduced her to a worldwide audience.

She toured Europe in the early ‘80s, both as a solo act and performing with ensembles

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 25

the music of composers Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis. She introduced her early works “Wild Women With Steak Knives” about battered women and “Tragouthia Apo to Aima Exoun Fonos (Song From The Blood of those Murdered)” concerning the victims of the 1967 coup in Greece. These pieces would form the backbone of her first two releases, a 12" LP single issued in 1982 on Y Records and the self-titled full-length released two years later by Metalanguage. Her career as a major global artist was well underway.

She would go on to personify people with mental illness in her 1993 album Vena Cava, but before that she would make herself known with a major work about another disease. Her epic, evolving Plague Mass premiered in 1988 and made it to CD in 1991.

AIDS at that time was at the height of its fear threshold. People were searching for any glimmer of hope. There was no cure in sight and the three drugs that had made it to the market were doing little to relieve the symptoms and illnesses related to infection. The blaming of gay men was resulting in increased levels of hate crimes, bashings and murders. In that context, Galás’s repeatedly screaming the line “there are no more tickets to the funeral” was downright horrifying. She announced what so many people were scared to think.

Although earlier records had included songs, and her large-scale theatrical pieces had included fragments of gospel numbers, Diamanda-as-cover-artist first came to the fore on 1992's The Singer. It was here that she first took blues, gospel and spiritual songs and cast them into the context of her earlier work.

Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” and Willie Dixon’s “Insane Asylum” were set alongside such traditional tunes as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Let My People Go” and “See That My Grave is Kept Clean,” along with a handful of Galás’s own songs, all featuring her alone at the piano.

And while the sweeping range and operatic training of her voice might not have been apparent to all in the banshee screams of her previous albums, The Singer put her talent and her expressiveness on the table. She didn’t aim for anything pretty—as ever, it wasn’t the soft side of femininity that interested her. Recording “Gloomy Sunday” for the record, she turned not to the classic Billie Holliday version but to Paul Robeson’s, another singer with forceful expressiveness and a broad range.

The Singer may have surprised her fans, but it did little to prepare them for her next record of songs. In 1994, she released The Sporting Life, an album recorded with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones producing and playing bass and Pete Thomas (formerly of Elvis Costello’s backup band The Attractions) on drums. It is arguably Galás’s only rock record, and perhaps her most toss-away work, but good fun throughout. Galás plays organ as well as piano, and the disc thumps with rock riffs, swings like an organ trio and, at times, goes delusional, with Galás raving in Greek as if she were speaking in tongues.

Along with a cover of “Dark End of the Street” (an old Muscle Shoals song that has been recorded by Aretha Franklin, Linda Ronstadt, and Richard and Linda Thompson, and which Thomas had previously recorded with Costello), the album introduces her song “Baby’s Insane,” a compelling, catchy tune that would remain in her live set for years after.

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With its sing-song chorus and Tin Pan Alley piano, it typifies her dark humor: Baby’s insane, baby’s insane / Baby’s on a trip to the moon again / Baby’s insane, baby’s insane / Hide all the knives, because baby’s insane While Galás had met Jones before recording The Sporting Life, she says she had only a passing familiarity with Led Zeppelin, and didn’t know that Jones’s former bandmates, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, had just convened a new project, Four Sticks, without him.

“When I met him I said ‘I hope it’s OK … I really don’t want to have a guitar in this band’ and he was just laughing,” she said. “I had no idea.”

Back at the café, the radio is playing Seals and Crofts’s “Summer Breeze,” and Galás is talking about the making of her new record.

The stride and blues influences have never been heard as clearly as on Guilty. Compared to her other song records, the piano leaps out.

“I made it a point, we needed to hear as much piano as possible,” she says. “Mute gave me the money to really work with the engineer. You can hear all the parts. In the past, on my records, you couldn’t hear the piano. I can’t even listen to them.”

The piano isn’t just more present in the mix.

Galas’s playing sounds freer than ever.

“One thing about this record, I change the time up a lot, which John Lee Hooker did, which the real blues musicians did,” she explains. “They wouldn’t sit and play one time signature the whole time. That’s a recent thing. Howlin’ Wolf constantly changed up the songs. You don’t need to play the beat for seven bars if you don’t want to, ’cause when you come back, if you got it, people will know you got it.”

To say that this woman, who speaks five languages and sings in thirteen, is steeped in Americana would be to sell the artist short.

She speaks with enthusiasm about the American masters (“When people talk about Art Tatum, they’re talking about someone who played classical, gospel, jazz. Oscar Peterson, too. He had a reputation of being a very sweet person and played the shit out of the piano. And Ornette—he’s a blues musician.

His sound is fantastic, his timing is immaculate, but that doesn’t come from nowhere.”), but it’s not as simple as that.

“Don’t leave Islam out of the blues,” she proclaims. “It’s not West African, it’s that Islamic tradition that came down the coast.

All these things interface in a very American way. We have this notion that there’s white and black and that’s absurd and it was made to be seen as absurd on Sept. 11, that horror.

America seems only to pay attention to things that scare it to death—it opened the world to alien cultures. This country has got to recognize that these cultures exist, and not just as dead cultures. People say to me ‘Oh, you people had Socrates and Plato, didn’t you?’”

In other words, the songs may be recognizably American, but Galás isn’t going to leave it at that. Even while she’s playing songs from the rural south, her singing can be informed

by East European scales. Her version of “O Death,” for example, interpolates a Greek amanes, a song style emulating the cry of a soldier on the battlefield (the word being

“If I were to spend time explaining to imbeciles why my music isn’t blasphemous, I wouldn’t have time to make more blasphemous music.” rooted in mana, or “mother”). “I call it a God invented by despair.”

Which is what ties it all together, what makes the Plague Mass and a Diana Ross song parts of the same big picture. The psychiatric institution, the AIDS ward, the POW camp—those are all physical manifestations, the extremes, the microcosms of the isolation of earthly existence.

Her first major works were about the AIDS crisis. Her brother—playwright and activist Philip-Dimitri Galás—was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and died the same year, during production of the first part of Plague Mass.

Her social circle was filled with gay men and injecting drug users, people with or at risk of contracting HIV. Her work may have moved on to other concerns in the years since, but it remains a political aesthetic that defines her work, and her knuckles still carry the “We Are All HIV+” tattoo, a lifelong reminder of a terrible epidemic.

“Protease inhibitors have helped a lot of people, but then there are people in their 60s who are just starting to get AIDS,” she says.

“You’ve got these bug chasers—if you’re in a place without public health insurance, I shouldn’t think that’s a club you want to be

a part of. It’s as if there’s a timeline for this virus—15-20 years and then it ended. That’s absurd. The HIV viruses that have survived are very powerful and people who think they can get past that shit are either stupid or ignorant —they actually believe that it’s over. “ The focus of her work started to broaden after she was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, another potentially deadly virus, in the early ’90s.

“I had to go through years of chemotherapy to get rid of the virus,” she says. “I got rid of it, but it was a very painful time. That took my mind off the HIV because I had my own thing, and there was no cure for it at the time. What most people don’t know is a lot of people with HIV also have hep B or C, or both of them. And you can’t take treatments for both at the same time.”

Since her first recording (the 12” single, “The Litanies of Satan” backed with “Wild Women with Steak Knives” in 1982), Diamanda Galás has, intentionally or not, courted controversy. She has sung about things most people don’t want to talk about. She performed at St. John the Divine in Manhattan nearly nude and covered in blood. Even her use of language has been criticized. After a concert in Melbourne, critics panned her

for singing in Greek. The next night she joked with the audience, saying in Greek “In New York, in Melbourne, we have these masturbators who all think we’re furniture salesmen.”

Half the room laughed, proving it’s not a dead or irrelevant language.

But the anti-Christian charge may be the most serious (and the most apt) criticism hurled at her. After a performance of The Plague Mass in Rome, the Italian government accused her of being “more blasphemous than Madonna,” suggestive of too many associations to even fathom. It also—as such criticisms often do—ignores the deep humanism in her work, as if Jesus would have opposed giving voice to the sick and dispossessed. But such attacks are of little consequence to Galas.

“I just say, ‘Go with God,’” she exclaims, laughing. “If I were to spend time explaining to imbeciles why my music isn’t blasphemous, I wouldn’t have time to make more blasphemous music.” ✹ Kurt Gottschalk writes regularly for Signal to Noise and All About Jazz. He wrote about Tom Verlaine in STN#41 SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 27

The verb “depict” has its origins in late Middle English, from the Latin verb “depingere,” from “de-,” “completely” and “pingere,” “to paint.”

“Yes. Depict. To Paint Completely. That’s it. That is what this musicWitness® is trying to do.” A mission in words easier said than done, but artist Jeff Schlanger has successfully created an altogether unique form of personal expression, what he appropriately has labeled the musicWitness® Project. The musicWitness® ceaselessly pays tribute to many of New York’s and the world’s greatest music improvisers, as it has done regularly since the mid-‘70s. In essence, and in Schlanger’s own words, it’s “a form of applause done with both hands. I’m not making any noise, but basically applauding as hard as I can, or as delicately as I can in all varieties of touch in between, throughout the entire performance in color.”

For years, Schlanger has been omnipresent at New York’s improvisational high watermark events, including every one of the twelve annual Vision Festivals thus far, as well as international affairs such as Interplay!Berlin (Germany), the Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada) and five years running at the Tampere Jazz Happening (Finland). And his output has been diligently prolific: in Tampere, between a dozen and 15 paintings in three days; at the Vision Festival, which appropriately strives to bring all the arts together, closer to 30 over 5 days. One year he created more than 50 when the Vision Festival was a 13 day affair.

His two primary mediums over the decades have been ceramics and paint. Of the former, his involvement with the medium goes back to 1953. His first national exhibition took place while he was at the Music & Art High School in New York as a ceramics major. He studied with the great Maija Grotell at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit, a life-altering meeting and apprenticeship that served as his vocation realization. He since has dedicated himself as a full-time artist. “The medium of high temperature glazed ceramics is my primary belief system,” he says, “a universal timeless communications medium. That includes the timelessness of the intense colors that it’s capable of projecting.”

Schlanger speaks of these intense colors, specifically the “Blues,” referring directly to something he began to learn when he first became involved with Grotell, “a great master of the Blues,” touts Schlanger. “I have been learning over these last years to work with my glazes and mineral pigments while the clay is wet, to keep the spontaneity, which is a very challenging way to do this… The Blues in ceramics come primarily from mineral oxides of cobalt and copper… I’ve been working and studying and experimenting with them like a scientist along with everything else for a long time.”

He considers one of his greatest ceramic achievements to be “JOE 1,” which served as a welcoming statue (67" in height, and over 300 lbs.) at Schlanger’s highly celebrated gallery showing at the CUE Art Foundation in New York in 2005. It also graces the cover of the SPIRITWORLD DVD which documents the exhibition, and the music that was performed in conjunction with it.

“As you can see in this sculpture, these hot mineral browns, and oranges and rust colors from iron oxides are developed, at the same time as cooler colors from cobalt and copper to set up deep, indelible color polarity feel28 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

THE OTHER DIMENSION OF SOUND Visual artist Jeff Schlanger documents ecstatic contemporary jazz through his musicWitness® project. Story by Laurence Donohoe-Greene

“Prana” (detail) (William Parker Solo) 27.5 x 40" live at studio Spirale recording “Lifting the Sanctions” CD 29 November 2007.

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“JOE 1” ( Joe McPhee) Thrown & glazed ceramic stoneware Guardian figure 67 x 24 x 21" fired out of Maija PEACE Shrine 2005.

ings that I absorb from the music all the time,” explains Schlanger. The sculpture was fired in January 2005, during which time he worked with the music of saxophonist/trumpeter Joe McPhee accompanying him every step of the way: “It was his musical vibration in the studio space, and in the pictures of his performances on the walls, but mainly I was paying attention to the way the clay wanted to be in this surrounding that I had to build in order to concentrate this spirit while I was involved in this project.” Schlanger is quick to point out that it’s not McPhee's physical features that he's attempted to depict; rather the sculpture (one in a long line of such tributes) is an attempt to make a sculpture of his musical spirit. “Often photographers make portraits of individual musicians, which show the essence of their characters in a moment, but I try to express a longer time frame.”

Born in New York City in 1937 and raised on East 96th Street, Schlanger began to sketch jazz musicians like Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis and John Coltrane during performances at Philadelphia clubs such as Pep's and the Showboat as far back as 1957.

“My commitment to depict an extended series of whole performances began at Studio Infinity,” he remembers, “a musician’s loft over the Tin Palace in New York in July 1975. Musicians at that first jam session included Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, David Murray, Hamiet Bluiett, Arthur Blythe, Henry Threadgill, Leo Smith, Fred Hopkins, Phillip Wilson. This effort continued through loft movement events at Studio Rivbea, the Ladies’ Fort and the Brook, where the focus was on live, creative music and dance. Often there were no photographers, sound-recorders, videographers or chairs for the audience. But what was happening was truly fresh and important so somebody had to try to get it down. I used my hands, first with two pencils, later augmenting the arsenal of marking instruments.”

Schlanger just recently came upon his first written statement of purpose in an early notebook. “Music Witness 1976-1980,” he reads, “The cutting edge of art in this country is still powered by music stemming from the jazz tradition. As an artist, I draw from the music as a way of learning to listen. Listening, in gratitude, I receive news of life right now and courage to go on. Drawings are the documents of this process, hand-dancing at the edge of time.”

Bassist William Parker recently offered this comment to me: “Jeff is very passionate about life and all of its branches. Art, music, color, shape, movement, sound and texture…

He is showing us the other dimension of sound, he is looking inside the souls of the musicians, perhaps giving us a view of soul, the colors of the sound as guided by a spontaneous improvisation with ink and paper.”

Schlanger has been close to Parker since the mid-‘70s, and he regards him as “a master organizer of people and sound.” Parker helped bring all the musicians together for the music portion of the CUE Art concert which included McPhee, vocalist Lisa Sokolov and bass clarinetist/multi-instrumentalist Oluyemi Thomas. “Four people (who) had never played together,” Schlanger recollects. “But William’s infinite flexibility in going with the possibilities… I’m more amazed with each viewing (of the SPIRITWORLD DVD) how William in addition to his playing is operating

as a musical director in the most generous and subtle way of passing this musical energy around among all these people in the space, in this populated environment with sculpture and pictures.”

Another of Schlanger’s inspirations and early musicWitness® champions and subjects was the great reedman, composer, and World Saxophone Quartet co-founder, Julius Hemphill. To Schlanger and others, Hemphill was “another visionary artist who saw—who perceived—all the arts as being totally connected and capable of doing things together that were beyond what any one of them could do alone. He saw things that way on a daily basis.” Hemphill’s deep connection to Schlanger’s work is unquestionable and on the mark when he himself once said that mW®’s five covers for his recordings represent the music’s “appropriate visual component”. With CUE showing approximately 60 paintings and near a dozen sculptures in addition to the musical aspect and subsequent SPIRITWORLD document (not to mention the pieces made during those very performances), we see that Hemphill was indeed not far off.

“This gets into a deep subject about the visual art and its whole history and how it operates,” said Schlanger. “Music has been a subject for visual artists since the beginning of human time. This particular project is my take on that, now, in my lifetime... You can also look at each of these pictures as an abstract composition of colors, and lines and rhythms, which corresponds to the basic language of music.” With a grounding in abstract art, Schlanger feels a connection both to the Western tradition and to Asian ink painting, in which spontaneity and not altering the results of an inspired action are prerequisites.

Of course the chemistry of ceramic colors is quite different than that of paints. In the pictures Schlanger creates, he primarily uses acrylics, often organic pigments mixed with an organic plastic base that dries fast enough for him to be able to get it out of the concert space before the venue’s doors are closed and locked up for the night. His unique position at the Vision Festival allows him to hang each piece up between sets, creating an intriguing continuum and connection from one to the next, which indeed is in line with mW®’s ultimate ongoing mission: “From the beginning, the mW® vision is that all the individual performance pictures are conceived as connected sections of a continuous scroll, a long-term annotated seismographic record of live, improvised creative musical energy.”

To that end, it is interesting to note that two of the image pairings selected for this feature (“Listen” and “Baba Fred” ) were painted within days of one another at the most recent Vision Festival in June 2007.

“Prana” partially recreates William Parker’s second self-produced solo recording (Lifting the Sanctions, No More Records), an especially personal experience for Schlanger as it was recorded in his studio. Schlanger created five separate pictures corresponding to compositions Parker played that fall day in 1997, all of which were displayed at CUE. “Prana” was the cover image and final component to that series—the other four make up the liner notes within the CD’s insert.

“Like the sculpture of Joe McPhee,” says Schlanger, “this is a picture of the spirit of William Parker in the midst of the music… it was just him and his bass and the music, and that’s SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 31

above: “Listen” Jason Kao Hwang & Sang Won Park live @ Vision-12, New York 21 June 2007. left: Jeff Schlanger photographed by Jack Vortoogian / Front Row Photos below: “Prana” juxtaposed with “Listen”

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what you see there—how he stands with his bass and how the music unfolds out of that stance.”

“Listen” portrays violinist Jason Kao Hwang with Korean musician Sang Won Park (who plays the kayagum and ajeng, which are traditional Korean string instruments resembling the zither) at last year’s Vision Festival in what was reported by many to be one of the festival highlights. “It was extraordinary… sometimes a performance just becomes—for want of a better word—perfect,” recalls Schlanger fondly. “I was conscious of this quality while it was going on because every mark on this paper is directly connected to a musical event, a sequence of sounds… And as soon as it was over, I had this feeling that there was nothing superfluous, and no mistakes were made. By ‘mistakes’ I mean clumsiness in terms of response to the sound.”

Reproduced here is the negative color version (black instead of white background), a technology Schlanger has been working with since the mid ‘80s, to great effect. His exploration of printing from the transparencies he was making to document paintings (instead of from the negatives), and working with reverse colors, using film technology, opened up a whole other realm of possibilities. Juxtaposed with the positive white background of “Prana,” it suggests a single intended work. Additionally, the continuity through the lines moving from the center to left of “Prana” compliment the similar lengthy strokes jutting out from the center to the right and left of “Listen.”

One common aspect of every mW® document is the energy generated by Schlanger’s textural two-handed approach of paints and pens that cover a rainbow of possibilities.

Indeed, Schlanger admits, “There is a velocity with which the sounds seem to fly off the high strings of the violin, which is not like anything else,” referring to the felt movement of “Listen”. And one can sense the heat source coming from Park in the sun-bright yellows and oranges. Yet another of surely countless significant threads between these two pieces is that Schlanger had first heard and met Hwang when the violinist was a member of Parker’s first group called Commitment.

Without hesitation, Schlanger affirms of the two images, which when facing one another seem to participate in the same musical and spiritual conversation, “It’s one picture. For the purposes of presenting an initial view of my graphic work…this is a way of saying something through visual art about the resonance of the coordinated streaming power of music. It’s deep in time, and it’s deep in space, and it’s deep in connectedness over decades.”

“Ayler Unity” documents a November 2006 performance by the Albert Ayler repertoire group Spiritual Unity, comprising (from L to R): bassist Henry Grimes (who celebrated his 71st birthday that evening and of course is a veteran of Ayler's groups), drummer Chad Taylor, trumpeter Roy Campbell and guitarist and nominal leader Marc Ribot. This piece captures them on a special evening at the Tampere Jazz Happening in Finland, during a tour where they were playing practically a different country every night.. They performed in a beautiful old brick-walled Customs House building in the center of the city, and these very large bricks (twice the size of bricks we’re accustomed to here in America)

are prominently utilized to border the work.

Since Finland was where Schlanger’s ceramics teacher came from, his frame selection was an obvious choice—“This is deep with me, so I needed to have those bricks visible.”

And of Campbell’s performance in particular, Schlanger vividly remembers him “reaching an extraordinary place. I’ve been listening to him since back in the late 1970s, (and) that particular evening he was carrying the spirit of Albert Ayler into Finland and beyond with tremendous courage and tremendous strength.”

Reciprocating Schlanger's appreciation, Campbell recently commented to me, “Every one of his paintings is unique to the concerts he attends... He has his own well-defined style, just like certain greats of the music.

Jeff captures the moment, he is attuned and sensitive, and is very spiritually attuned to the music and the musicians.” In essence, Schlanger is like an added contributor to the ensemble he witnesses and documents in the moment, equally as much an improviser as anyone on stage.

Of “Ayler Unity,” he points out that, “The rhythm is through the whole piece.” And he’s obviously not just referring to Taylor behind the kit, but also to the sounds jumping forth at their own pace from Campbell’s brass multiextensions that reach beyond his bell, Grimes’ stormy bass and Ribot’s jagged guitar, all elements communicated through the mW®’s ambidextrous approach.

“Fred’s DCs” similarly comes with a border, though this time it's a thick black one. Pianist Eri Yamamoto, trumpeter Lewis Flip Barnes, saxophonist Daniel Carter, bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake played two consecutive sets one night at John Zorn’s small space on the Lower East Side in New York known as The Stone. The mW® was there for both sets, a rare opportunity to “just dig in and explore,” as Schlanger puts it, “one long performance with a short break.” I don’t think I’ve heard a more accurate description of The Stone’s nightly listening experiences than Schlanger’s recollection from this evening in particular: “You can just feel a vacuum as the ears of the audience suck the sound out of the musicians’ instruments!”

“Fred,” right in the middle of the picture, is the name of Parker’s bass. And “Fred’s DCs” refers to the several significant DC’s Parker and his bass have worked with over the years: trumpeter/leader Don Cherry, saxophonist/ trumpeter Daniel Carter and drummer Denis Charles—the three DCs to whom this night’s performance was dedicated.

In addition to the aesthetically mirroring thick borders to each, Schlanger also comments on the obvious musical connection: “William and Roy Campbell are musical brothers from the Bronx. They represent something vital. They both travel the world now, but they also represent the heart and soul of New York, the real New York, not the high rise New York, not the high-end condominium New York —but the New York of the people, working people, who are making the city function and who I grew up with on the East Side at a time when working people could find an apartment in Manhattan…. So, the connection between Roy Campbell and William Parker is so deep and so multi-faceted in both the cosmic, the spiritual, and intensely practical and physical terms. And they have shared so much, and they are so close—that this is all one statement.”

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 33

“Ayler Unity” Roy Campbell with Henry Grimes, Chad Taylor, Marc Ribot 30 x 45” live at Tampere, Finland Jazz Happening 3 November 2006.

“Fred’s DCs” William Parker with Eri Yamamoto, Lewis “Flip” Barnes, Rob Brown & Hamid Drake live at the Stone, New York 24 January 2006.

“I’m not making any noise, but basically I'm applauding as hard as I can, “Move with the Years” represents one of many mW® documents of pianist/composer/ leader Muhal Richard Abrams and the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). Done at the Community Church of New York in late 2005, it, like “Fred’s DCs,” spans the course of two sets, the first part of the evening being a solo performance, the following one a premiere of a series of compositions with an orchestra of fine New York-based players. From reedmen Marty Ehrlich and Howard Johnson, brass men Eddie Allen and Alfred Patterson, to vibist Bryan Carrott and drummer Andrew Cyrille (drums), amongst many others—though “their specific physiognomy isn’t there,” as Schlanger puts it, “the sound of the orchestra is.” Schlanger’s visual message of music has always placed the sound as paramount, and 34 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

here is no exception.

Muhal Richard Abrams and Schlanger share a mutual admiration and level of respect for one another. “(He) is someone who, like Julius Hemphill and William Parker, sees all the arts as one,” Schlanger says of Muhal. “He is tremendously, vitally connected to the visual arts and can see their connection to music…

I never expected any response from a viewer of my work to be as complete and communicative as many times Muhal has offered… he can see the whole thing and experiences its connection to what he’s trying to do. This tremendous arsenal of expressive means he has encourages me to keep going.”

“Baba Fred” came into being last June at the Vision Festival in New York at the Orensanz Foundation. It features (from L to R) three Chicagoans—Fred Anderson, drummer/per-

cussionist Hamid Drake and bassist Harrison Bankhead. Schlanger shared this thought on the significance of this very special set tributed through this work: “This picture to me is a demonstration of the kind of cohesion and unified energy that is possible when three creative people are really coordinated.” Anderson was a recipient of the Lifetime Recognition Award at the 2005 Vision, and Schlanger concedes, “I’m not the one who can explain in words what Fred Anderson means as soon as he stands up there with his tenor horn.”

You can certainly get a good idea, though, by having a look at what excitement in sound Mr. Anderson created onstage via the dotted rainbow curvature that flows to and from Drake with no distinct beginning or end.

Schlanger's admiration for the drummer is also enormous: “There is no way that

“Move with the Years” Muhal Richard Abrams & Orchestra 27.5 x 40" live at Community Church, New York 11 November 2005.

“Baba Fred” Fred Anderson, Hamid Drake, Harrison Bankhead 30 x 45" live at Vision-12, New York 22 June 2007.

or as delicately as I can, throughout the entire performance, in color.” anybody can say in words what Hamid Drake does with the drums, the life he brings to any situation… this large man is someone who is put on this earth to make everybody feel good… Everybody loves Hamid!” Drake was actually responsible for naming this piece. His first comments to Schlanger after the music from the trio’s set ended, “Wow! Baba Fred, the teacher—our teacher!”

The subtitle to this piece (which you will notice written along the bottom portion) is “All Creation = Open Space”, a fundamental enough concept that came directly out of that set in those words. “Because that’s what it is,” states Schlanger. “If you open up a place in which people can enter with their best spirit, it’s amazing what can happen. But you see and I see the tremendous struggle, over literal physical open space, in

which people can meet and do this thing. It’s brutal in New York, and it’s brutal in so many places.”

Of the immediate and obvious shared geography of “Move with the Years” and “Baba Fred,” Schlanger explains, “To me, this double picture represents the sustained creative contribution of this magnificent group of musicians that have connected Chicago and New York in the most vital creative way.”

Put succinctly, Schlanger’s musicWitness® project makes visible a hidden dimension of the live musical experience. He has frequently said, “I see these pictures first as abstract transcriptions of music; they are maps of listening to me.” His ability to translate that which cannot be spoken but only experienced is a miraculous achievement in itself.

Describing his pieces individually or on the whole is no easy task, but Schlanger philosophically correlates their collective function as “a vast spectrum of human communication. We need to help each other be aware of this rainbow of ways. We [should] encourage especially our young people to learn to use whichever aspects of this rainbow of expressive media that feel natural to them in order to communicate how they feel, and to express the kind of world they believe we can live in together.” ✹ Lauence Donohoe-Greene is the editor of All About Jazz New York. This is his first feature for SIGNAL to NOISE

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 35

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Light years past tangerine dreaming, British trio Radio Massacre International’s celestial mechanics have forged a near perfect union of sequencer electronics, Floydian trippery, and kosmische psychedelia.

Story by Darren Bergstein.

Photos by Dustin Fenstermacher.

THE STARS MY DESTINATION Fade in: November, 2007, winter’s cusp, an evening’s air revealing the barest tincture of seasonal frost. A church on a Philadelphia campus, straddling the city’s razor’s edge, anchoring the college’s expansive landscape to the ballast of nearby housing projects. Within the cathedral’s scalloped walls, isolated from the grim urban confines surrounding it, there escapes an array of sounds determinedly incongruous to the avenues of concrete and monolithic dormitories rising outside. On a makeshift stage near the cathedral’s central dais, two figures stand seemingly motionless, contained by an oasis of illuminated boxes, rectangular white keyboards and a spider’s web of cables, knobs, connectors.

Emanating out of a black tower at stage rear is a steady stream of light pulses, dancing about architecture. A third figure sits behind another keyboard, a guitar dangling from his neck. The speakers flanking the stage might well be resurrected Van de Graafs; the sonic torrents they exeunt mime bolts of electricity arcing between poles, igniting the air, shaking the pew’s foundations, rattling cochlea. Inside the churches’ centuries-old vessel stirs an altogether different vessel, one shoring up the necessary propulsive thrust to depart its terran moorings, but the destination isn’t quite the heavens—beyond any corporeal metaphors, point of arrival transcends the Magellanic Clouds, into the blackest ever black of space.

Faces, styles, genres, even: such signposts become hazy, indistinct, losing whatever caché they’d gained because of the musicians’ sensate approach, but immersion into any of British trio Radio Massacre International’s sprawling recordings emphasize greater schema, broader strategic imperatives. Meeting at university in the Northeast of England at the end of the '70s, RMI (as they are often nicked)—Steve Dinsdale, Duncan Goddard and Gary Houghton—sit atop the mantle of a long-vibrant underground “scene” (neé, association) whose impetus stems from a 70s Berlin iconography orbiting around avatars

named Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze.

However, unlike many of their brethren, some notorious (and well-regarded) in their own right—Wavestar, Mark Shreeve, AirSculpture, Redshift, Andy Pickford—RMI’s pedigree doesn’t collapse under its own weight precisely because they eclipse the sum of their influences. The band has raised on-the-fly composition to a fine art, bringing to bear, on both their back catalog and live performances, a near two-decades worth of intuitive synergy the likes of which have not been seen since, well, the force majeure of a previously aforementioned trio. It would be foolish to deny that TD’s sequenced mini-fugues don’t cast a familiar glow on RMI’s surface, yet the opulence on display is neither pallid homage nor celebrity rip-off.

Looking in the mirror, the reflection bounces back brutal but clean—perhaps this is why the group christened their label Northern Echo (their geographical lineage actually has something to do with it). Like many Krautrock aficionados, Dinsdale had his mind blown away by the complexity of 70s prog and the storied epic synth constructs shored up by his idols. In person, his passionate exuberance for those musics comes out with obvious brio, an integral component that informs his, as well as mates’, playing. As we chat informally before the evening’s performance—Dinsdale eagerly assuming the role of group “spokesman,” Houghton interjecting when he can get a word in edgewise, while Goddard is away on stage prepping their equipment—it’s clear that RMI share one important TD maxim.

“We’re more about sound exploration rather than straight-on composition. I always went for the extended idea in music. I remember looking at Tangerine Dream’s Zeit when I was a kid, checking out the cover, looking at the track titles, being fascinated by them, getting immersed in the mystery of the whole package and knowing that I had to hear it. We undoubtedly carry on that tradition.”

Dinsdale, in fact, isn’t shy to admit the

elemental physics of their m.o., most of which arises from their own history as a performing unit. Predating RMI, he had been a drummer for five years, gigging with various bands around London. Fame and fortune were not forthcoming, so when he met Goddard and Houghton, the idea was finalized to stick to their own guns, make their own destiny.

“From 1980-1987, we recorded approximately 12 albums on cassettes, all of which was a precursor to RMI as it is now known, all of which allowed us to hone our collective skills together. The reason the band developed was purely because we wanted to create something we could enjoy doing and listening to ourselves.”

Electronics certainly are the be-all/end-all when it comes to RMI’s stock-in-trade, yet attendance in the Berlin School doesn’t take up all the hours in their day. You want stylistic transcendence (in more ways than one)?

Look no further than their latest opus, Rain Falls In Grey (Cuneiform), wherein the group say hasta la vista to the late Syd Barrett, as much a formulative influence on their postadolescence, their compositional dogma and continuing evolution, as the sequencer brigade. Here’s where RMI’s space rock tendencies nova in all their Floydian glory, silver machines embarking on interstellar overdrive in their quest for the Rubycon. The album not only works wonders, it sardonically references a title from the band’s venerable back catalog: people would really like space rock if they would only give it a try.

“It's been a natural development to introduce “rockier” elements into our sound,” Dinsdale explains. “We also function as a guitar/bass/drums trio, which is our collective history. Thanks to some recent great collaborations with Damo Suzuki, Ian Boddy, Martin Archer and Cyndee Lee Rule (who plays violin on Rain Falls in Grey, and accompanied the band on their recent Northeastern U.S. minitour), we’ve expanded our style considerably.

We’ve been active nearly 15 years—we have SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 37

38 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

opposite and previous: Radio Massacre International in Philadelphia, November 2007. left to right: Duncan Goddard, Gary Houghton, Steve Dinsdale.

to take things elsewhere. The new album illustrates this well. We are aware that there is more of an audience for progressive rock than purely synth-based music and we're happy to attract that audience. After all, no one wants to play for 10 people when you could play for 300, but our motivation remains purely musical.”

Hardly a space rock novice myself (a complete catalog of Pink Floyd, Ozric Tentacles, and Hawkwind attests to that), I had brought some expectations, and no small measure of trepidation, with me into the church on that crisp November night. Halfway in to the first half of RMI’s gargantuan set, any prior worries evaporated into the late autumnal air.

Sans any MIDI set-up, and the conspicuous absence of laptops or computers of any kind, guitarist Houghton, mellotronist/keyboardist Dinsdale and master knob-twiddler/electronics whiz Goddard blasted away on all nacelles, creating a tableaux of synthesized galactic anomalies that became a palpable force of nature. It reaffirmed to me how stunning electronic music can be in the flesh when done properly—barring few exceptions across the categorical divide (Taylor Deupree and Steve Roach, each occupying quite opposite poles, come to mind)—RMI fairly brought down the tabernacle.

Such latent power is even implicit in the group’s name. Originally a duo known anagrammatically as DAS (Duncan and Steve), the moniker dates back to the early 80s and those unsung epic cassette marathons, the two, prior to Houghton's involvement, largely jettisoning traditional and hackneyed methods of composition. Interestingly enough, RMI’s recording ethos conforms to the kind of aesthetic that improv jazz musicians often ascribe to. The group does, in fact, consider themselves totally freeform musicians. “Oh, very much so,” says Dinsdale. “I like the comparison, being a jazz-head myself. I love the fact that jazz records were made in a day, yet created to last forever. We’re actually at our best when we are totally free, when we lose any harmonic constraints and explore abstract/dissonant sound. We don't have the astounding 'chops' and harmonic understanding of the great jazz improvisers, but we do have an idea of how to use space and texture.

Though there is some reliance on traditional scales, the improvisational magic comes out when we create that freeform ease of flow.”

So what defines a typical RMI recording session? Therein lies the rub, and that innate magic, that is so characteristic of the group on disc. Dinsdale reveals that “typically we will get together with a blank canvas, start to play informally, do some impromptu jamming. We record everything as things do occasionally take an unexpected direction. It's all pretty much a collective effort with no one really in charge—the core idea is the process of

music making itself. Sometimes we will arrive with the odd composition and expand on it. 'Better Days', from Rain Falls In Grey, is a good example of this. That track started life as one of Gary's chord sequences.” Houghton does indeed sparkle on the piece, his lines rippling the fabric of spacetime, recalling both the graceful fluidity of David Gilmour and the axlegrease of Hawkwind’s Dave Brock, whom the guitarist cites to be as profound an influence on RMI as the Berlin-school alumni.

Considering the forces that pull at the trio’s collective muse, their formidable back catalog speaks volumes about the dichotomy between styles. RMI’s early albums on the UK Centaur label are hopelessly out of print (usually fetching a king’s ransom when they crop up on eBay), but they remain well-documented on their own Northern Echo imprint, alternating studio-bound excursions with equally fiery live events. Cuneiform’s involvement with the group (beginning with the ometimes astounding Emissaries, then the Rain Falls follow-up), in addition to their presence at several notable progressive rock festivals here in the US, has solidified their standing in the EM “community” and made for a reputation approaching legendary proportions. Dinsdale elaborates that “the main rule in making albums is there are no rules. That includes instrumentation. We create really with no master plan—the structure is imposed after the fact. We spend a lot of time editing. I am very keen on getting the track running order and flow of an album correct, and I like to spend time making a piece sound cohesive rather than just a collection of performances.”

Pluck out any Northern Echo recording—the variety of tonal colors, the vivacity of a given sequence, the juxtaposition of contexts in the overall mix, is nothing short of riveting, precisely the kind of imaginative sweep and ideastic fervor that gave Tangerine Dream’s Virgin recordings their unique stamp.

Progressive (in both the literal and genredefined sense) they might be, but TD’s legacy is still a tough nut to crack—that outfit’s history, the pervasive forensics of its influence on all manners of contemporary electronica, cannot exist out of RMI’s innate dream theory.

Which begs the question: where to take the template? With the Berlin school curriculum so pertinent to the group’s fundamental design, are they capable of fomenting a widening dynamic within such clearly-defined contexts? Does such an operative mode feel like an albatross, or is it simply the syntax within which the band functions? Artists always need to ask such difficult questions: are there limitations?

“I think you're spot on when you say it's a syntax,” Dinsdale concedes, with a wry tone in his voice. “I don't think true progression is really relevant or possible, but it's enough for us to just sound like Radio Massacre Interna-

tional. That context is an established musical form, but I think we bring a freshness and authority to it. Free jazz could only have been invented once and yet I really love seeing the established free improvisers just doing it because each night it's an in-the-moment experience, pure unadulterated, unmediated music. We're not concerned with progression so much as the continued exploration of a language. When you come and see us play, you can see that we're striving for something important. As long as there's a sense of occasion and a feeling that the music is unfolding in the present, then we're doing our jobs. We truly haven't thought about Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze for years. I remember Schulze once saying that music is only a matter of quantity, not quality, which pretty much sums him up. We're really not that impressed with what these artists achieved on the whole.”

Uh-oh: anyone hear the sound of a slowly opening can of worms? Dinsdale’s inference seems to be simply that working in an understood, established context is fine, but where is the barometer? Is it necessary to maintain a vitality of ideas, or is it enough to achieve a vibrancy of sound and sense of cumulative energy rather than hoping to innovate record to record? “We keep our music vital and fresh by continually changing the technical set-up we use,” Dinsdale says, “so we always have to think a bit about what we're doing. I listen to our old recordings when duty calls and am frequently baffled as to how we did certain things and what certain sounds ended up like.

The aim is to serve the music in any way we can by being there to play it whenever the chance presents itself.”

Robert Fripp has long embraced similar perspectives in attempting to describe how and when the muse beckons—and when the time is right to access it. Dinsdale: “We're all agreed that Rain Falls In Grey is a milestone for us; our out-of-print Borrowed Atoms recording has a scale and cohesion we're very proud of. Zabriskie Point is also a band favorite as it was a bold decision at the time to eliminate sequencers and go for an arrhythmic, textural approach.” Of course, taking in to account RMI’s considerable oeuvre, context really does become key. In that regard, ingratiating oneself in the band’s consistently excellent recordings can only be complimented by sharing in that penultimate live experience; such a connection is absolutely necessary to exalt in the trio’s molten power.

Nevertheless, whether in the sanctity of your domicile or the hallowed atmosphere of the cathedral makes for an arresting time spent in front of Dinsdale’s, Goddard’s and Houghton’s stroboscopic boxes. Just dive in, man, and let the silicon chips fall where they may. ✹ Darren Bergstein was the founder and editor of e|i magazine. This is his first feature for STN. SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 39

In 2004, Brooklyn musician Carlos Giffoni organized the first No Fun Fest, gathering noise artists from around the globe for what's become an annual international noise summit. As No Fun enters its fifth year, Marc Masters talks to some of the music's key figures about how the scene has grown and changed.

Photos by Shawn Brackbill. opposite: Dominick Fernow, Carlos Giffoni and Brian Sullivan in Brooklyn, January 2008

NOISY NEIGHBORS “It’s not a matter of it being underground or mainstream,” asserts LA-based noise musician John Weise about the concept and effect of the annual No Fun Festival. “It’s a matter of the context in which it’s presented, and the effort put into it. It’s clearly very DIY, but it’s done in more established venues. It shows these things are totally possible.”

“When I first started No Fun, I thought it was possible to present the music I like in a larger venue,” adds Carlos Giffoni, founder of New York's annual noise festival which will hold its fifth installment in May. “I thought there was an audience that would come and see it.”

Wiese and Giffoni are standing outside of the Velvet Lounge in Washington D.C., discussing the current state of noise while waiting to perform in a trio with C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core. Neither musician would claim that No Fun has been responsible the recent rise in popularity of international noise, but it's certainly helped fuel that upswing–and vice versa. “What made No Fun possible and successful is that there had already been all these noise bands who made an effort to go on tour and make things happen,” explains Giffoni. “Without that there would be no way I could put this together.”

Noise music has long boasted an immeasurable amount of practitioners and aficionados around the globe. But in the last decade, the scene has grown noticeably bigger and wider. It may still live underground, but it’s a lot closer to the surface.

In America in particular, the volume and variety is staggering, from concentrated local scenes—in L.A. with acts like Wiese and the Cherry Point; in the Bay Area, Axolotl and 40 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Skaters; in Michigan, Wolf Eyes and Hive Mind; in Portland, Yellow Swans and Daniel Menche; in New York, Mouthus and Double Leopards—to hundreds of individual artists crafting challenging sounds in bedrooms and basements, and disseminating them on tapes and CD-R’s.

This groundswell of activity has spurred an exponential increase in interest, meaning noise is no longer solely the domain of those who make it. “When I was first becoming involved in noise, almost every single person that I knew who was listening to it was also involved in it, whether they ran a label or had a project or did distribution,” says Dominick Fernow, who records and performs as Prurient. “That has totally changed. There is an actual audience for noise at this point.” As a result, obstacles have begun to disappear.

“Clubs know more about this kind of music and aren’t as threatened by it,” says Gabe Mindel-Saloman of Yellow Swans. “Before, you’d show up, and immediately the sound person wanted to shut you off, the person who owned the club wanted to kick you out, people in the audience wanted to fight you.

Now, when we show up with a table full of gear and say, ‘Turn it up as loud as you can,’ they don’t balk or laugh.” “Every city we go to, if there’s not a successful local noise band there, there are at least people there prepared to understand what you’re doing,” adds Saloman’s bandmate Pete Swanson.

“Which is not was happening even two or three years ago.”

All of these developments can be seen clearly at No Fun Fest. An overwhelming hit since it began in 2004, the festival has brought noise to venues where most of the participating musicians could not perform on

their own. It has also represented the scene without pigeonholing it: at No Fun, any rules about what constitutes noise are vague, perhaps even non-existent. Tables filled with pedals and mixers are prevalent, but there are also unruly rock bands, contemplative laptop pushers, jazzy improv groups, and costumed conceptualists. The only thing the acts have in common is that they have rarely encountered so many eager onlookers. “These are mostly people who never, ever expected to play in front of hundreds of people, and that certainly influences the way they approach their work,” admits Wiese. “If you’re in your bedroom and you make a cassette that you intend to give to your closest friends, that’s a lot different than playing in front of hundreds of people.”

Despite the large crowds, No Fun Fest is less an event than a party, reflecting a scene whose connections are often quite personal even when spanning thousands of miles.

“Everyone knows each other, and there’s a feeling of intimacy that’s a big part of it,” says Giffoni. “Even though there are 500 people in the audience, you still are with friends who have known you for years, and have toured with you or played with you. That balance is always very important for me.”

“It’s like a family reunion,” says John Olson, a member of Wolf Eyes and Dead Machines. “I don’t really think of it as a gig, just a family picnic. Its a great time to re-up with mugs you ain’t seen in a minute.” The atmosphere has its downsides: sometimes No Fun feels like a frat house, replete with moshers and fist-pumpers. But it’s a refreshing contrast to staid gallery shows, and watching kids bang their heads to music with no simple beats or mind-numbing hooks is

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 41

Opposite: Carlos Giffoni in Brooklyn, January 2008

oddly encouraging. More importantly, the camaraderie between the acts is contagious.

At the first edition of the fest at Brooklyn’s North Six, when Miami’s Laundry Room Squelchers circled the room, members of other bands happily joined in. “It’s really good to hang out for a weekend with all your friends, from all across the country and all across the world,” concurs Brian Sullivan of Mouthus. “Carlos is bringing a lot of people together, and making ripples that go throughout the whole scene.”

“The first No Fun Fest really blew my mind,” says Fernow, finishing another day at Hospital Productions, the record store he owns in Manhattan’s East Village. “I couldn’t believe that there were 500 people in a room listening to this music. That was the evidence I needed to realize that my dream of making Hospital happen here was possible.” Fernow’s East Third Street shop is quite literally underground: one must enter its basement space via a ladder in the back of Jammyland Music, a reggae store. But the tiny room, filled with noise and metal releases of all stripes, is no longer his secret lair. “Every week that the store has been operating, I have seen new faces,” claims Fernow. “At first I thought it was just going to be all my friends, but it’s pretty much been the opposite. I have high-school kids here asking me for Incapacitants records.”

Fernow himself was a teenager when he first started making noise. Growing up in Wisconsin, he was “completely ignorant to anything that would be referred to as noise.

I was into underground metal, and I had a craving for noisier and more abstract forms.”

Reading about industrial music, he imagined that it “literally meant the sound of machines.” But his disappointment in the actual product led him to try recreating the sound he had heard in his head. “I was completely oblivious to all the names you would expect me to be indoctrinated with,” Fernow admits. “I was really working in the dark, trying to capture this certain kind of emotion that I couldn’t seem to find anywhere in Madison.”

Fernow’s introduction to the noise community came in 2000, when he moved to Rhode Island and spotted someone posting a flyer for a To Live and Shave in L.A. show.

It turned out to be Ben McOsker of Load Records, a label that has become central in modern noise, releasing records by Yellow Swans, Mouthus, Sightings, and more. “I went up to him and I said, ‘Do you do noise?’

And he said, ‘No, but I have a label.’ And I said, ‘I do too!’” recalls Fernow. “Of course, I had no idea what I was talking about; I had only put out a few tapes. But that was my introduction to the Providence scene, literally 42 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

just by walking out the door. And that show was a huge thing for me. I had never been to anything like that in my life.”

Migrating to New York with the express purpose of opening Hospital, Fernow continued to develop his work as Prurient, releasing numerous recordings alone and with collaborators. He also built a uniquely compelling live act. Starting each set over a table full of pedals with his back to the audience, Fernow generates a maelstrom of noise, then howls into his mic like a heavy metal hero in front of a packed stadium. That intensity comes across best on the 2006 Load album Pleasure Ground, especially during the stunning closer “Apple Tree Victim,” which unites noise, metal, and dark drama in one hypnotic rush. As Pete Swanson of Yellow Swans puts it, “It’s cool to see Dominick really push himself and realize all these different ideas that he’s put out there.”

In doing so, Fernow has found an audience willing to follow him wherever he chooses to go. He credits this to efforts by himself and other noise artists to get out and tour, regardless of who might show up.

“On the first tours that I did, the verdict was not yet in,” says Fernow. “The groundwork had been laid, but not everybody had come through every town quite yet. So it was a really potent time, and there was still a sense of adventure. The shows were tiny, but they had an impact, and the whole thing just started to snowball. Now there is so much more interest that it allows people like myself to actually have a ‘career.’ Within the last few years, I have traveled literally all over the world, to places I never would’ve dreamed of visiting.” But Fernow admits that the conditions that led to these opportunities has created challenges too. “I think that noise has started to become an actual genre, and to me that is a problem,” he says. “Because the essence of noise is the freedom to pursue personal obsessions, outside of audience and outside of genre. Some of it has become very predictable, and I think that’s due to people attaching themselves to a sound, instead of understanding why the sound was originally used. I would encourage people to worry less about noise and more about themselves—to be utterly selfish. Because without that sense of identity, it becomes like any other genre of music, and that is inherently anti-noise.”

Many of Fernow’s colleagues agree that resistance to definition is noise’s defining characteristic. “I feel like ultimately the thing that unifies noise is the sense that it’s based on an intuitive desire to express oneself rather than codified generic qualities,” says

Yellow Swans' Saloman, standing outside the Velvet Lounge after a gig with Mouthus.

“There are always people who are using their intuition to expand on what is already known in our unconscious, and creating a conscious revelation. And I think that when it’s strong, contemporary noise music reminds us of that.” Brian Sullivan of Mouthus concurs: “I feel like we’re working with these very basic concepts—rhythm and sound. And I think the more you approach it that way, the more freedom you have. So me picking up an acoustic guitar is not very different from me plugging a keyboard hooked up to 90 pedals. It’s still just rhythm and sound of some sort, and it’s all in the manipulation of it.”

This disinterest in definition isn’t a simple contrarianism, but a genuine openness to possibility. As a result, most of today’s best noise acts change their sonic approach from album to album, show to show, even moment to moment. “I think in this kind of improvisation there’s more openness to being able to do almost anything,” says Giffoni.

Saloman agrees: “I always feel like if I’m not slightly nervous or scared about something I’m doing, then I’m not really pushing any envelopes. I’m not challenging myself.” “It’s easy to rest on your laurels, but it’s also very dangerous too, because it’s a place where you lose your perspective,” posits Sullivan.

“We’ve seen bands repeat themselves, and paint themselves into this musical corner.

And suddenly it’s eight years later, and they’re thinking, ‘We need to do something different’—but they don’t know how.”

The peril of such openness is a tendency toward gluts of activity. A favorite refrain of noise detractors is that the endless stream of artists and releases is self-indulgent and unwieldy, and often it does seem as if everyone involved in noise releases everything they have recorded. “I have a hard time even following it myself. There’s so much new stuff coming out that is utterly foreign to me,” says Fernow, whose store bulges with CD-r’s and limited vinyl editions. Most noise artists run their own labels as well: Giffoni's No Fun Productions, Fernow's Hospital, Yellow Swans' JYRK, Wiese's Helicopter, Sullivan's Our Mouth, and Olson's American Tapes.

All this prolific production has led what Saloman politely terms “a ubiquity problem.

People think, ‘I don’t have to follow any rules, I just have to be willing to try something.’ Which is great, but that’s led to a kind of entropic state.” Fernow is more blunt: “There’s a proliferation of crap. That is not to say that there wasn’t always crap. I don’t have this view of the glory days before the internet–there was just as much garbage then, by percentage. But in terms of volume,

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 43

Top: Dominick Fernow. Bottom: Brian Sullivan.

there is so much more now.” Still, oversaturation is nowhere near the problem that lack of freedom and opportunity would be. As Wiese puts it, “It’s really important to be able to record and make mistakes, and not play in a slick way where everything is already determined and there’s no chance and there’s no exploration. Those things are inherent in experimentation.”

One band that has made a virtue out of being prolific is Yellow Swans. Formed in Portland in 2001, the duo of Swanson and Saloman has generated upwards of 50 releases in the past six years. Capable of everything from power electronics to throbbing beats to ambient drones, the pair invests each effort with clear thought and energy, from their studio albums for Load and Narnack down to their most privately-made CD-r’s. Their latest record, At All Ends, might be their best yet, with five epic tracks of dense sound exploration. It peaks with an absolute stunner called “Mass Mirage,” whose shimmering guitar chords dissolve and rebuild with aching beauty. Their diversity of sound has given Yellow Swans a following outside of the noise scene, and their approach has a communal vibe that seems to transcend categorization.

That vibe has also made Yellow Swans big fans of collaboration, and many of their best releases were made with like-minded groups such as Skaters and Australia’s Grey Daturas. When Swanson and Saloman lived in Oakland a few years ago, they frequently played with neighbors like Axolotl, Gerritt, and Tom Carter of Charalambides. “There was definitely a lot of camaraderie between us, and we were really pulling for each other,” Swanson insists. “Any success a band like us has make it easier for us, and any success we have makes it easier for other bands. I really like pretty much everyone I’ve met in the scene. Everybody’s got their own deal, and I’m really into that. I think American noise is at a high point right now, and a lot of it is about wanting to succeed on your own terms.” “We listen to a lot of different music, and we find our inspiration in people who have developed their craft,” says Saloman.

“It’s a friendly competition. When you see someone challenging themselves and pushing themselves, it makes you feel like it’s your turn to step up.”

Such artistic partnerships are common across the noise scene, and while not every team-up succeeds, the frequent collaboration at least ensures diversity. “You have to take every collaboration as its own entity, with its own set of rules,” says Sullivan, whose current projects include Basalt Fingers, a trio with Six Organs of Admittance’s 44 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Ben Chasny and Magik Markers’ Elisa Ambrogio. “Collaboration hopefully opens up a unique smashed-up sound not found in the individual's canon,” adds John Olson, whose playing partners range from Wiese to Black Dice to Anthony Braxton. “A lot of it just has to do with the momentum of a particular situation. You just let the chemistry guide the noise.” Fernow, whose recent collaborators include Sutcliffe Jugend and Kevin Drumm, agrees: “I think that good collaboration is where something is reached that neither of you can reach on your own. Playing with all these other people has taught me more about sound than anything else.”

Using collaboration as a way to push one’s own work forward seems to be the primary goal. As Wiese puts it, “There is just an inherent exchange when you play with other people that informs your next steps as you proceed. I find that exceedingly interesting.” This sentiment gets quick agreement from Giffoni, perhaps the scene’s most active collaborator, who has played with nearly every significant noise figure who’s set foot in New York. His openness to partnership is especially impressive given how precise and controlled his own solo music can be. On albums like 2005’s Welcome Home and 2007’s Arrogance, his dense sonic constructions, while often chaotic, are the product of careful thought. “When I play with other people, I don’t have that full, one hundred percent control,” Giffoni admits. “I’m listening and reacting to what someone else is doing, so that automatically makes my strategy and what I’m making completely different.”

Many of Giffoni’s best collaborations have come at his No Fun Fest, where he’s played with British noise hound Dylan Carlson, Russian sound artist Zbigniew Karkowski, and his own groups Death Unit (which also includes Sullivan) and Monotract. The Fest itself is notable for its array of artists from around the world and across genres. “I think it’s fair to say that no event brings that many noiseheads together at one time,” says Fernow.

“To go from William Hooker to Nautical Almanac in the same night, and to have an actual audience for that—that to me is the real triumph of what Carlos has done. It is not a free jazz festival, it is not a harsh noise festival, it is not a power electronics festival.

That’s what separates No Fun for me.”

Just as foreign acts have graced the No Fun stage, many American noise artists have found welcoming audiences outside of the States. This could be a simple result of the internet shrinking the planet, but Saloman sees a deeper meaning. “I think we recognize ourselves easier when we take

ourselves out of the context of America,” he explains. “America has such an abundance of culture that we can take it for granted that we are compartmentalized. In Europe, they clearly see what’s happening as part of a larger art scene. And I think in America it’s easy to overlook how unified it is. I feel really connected with people doing this work all over the world, whether it’s Neil Campbell in Leeds, or Grey Daturas in Australia, or Campbell Kneale in New Zealand. There is a sense that we’re communicating with each other.

The fact that it’s international sustains it much more than if it were purely localized.”

Even more impressive is the current scene’s sense of history. Every genre owes something to past purveyors, but today’s noise artists seem especially reverent towards their influences. Giffoni puts great effort into bringing older acts to No Fun, with legends like Merzbow, Borbetomagus, and Macronympha performing for people half their age. Beyond his simple desire to support his own artistic heroes, Giffoni’s intent is for those attendees to connect generational dots. “These kids might not know who Smegma is, and I think No Fun is educational in that way,” explains Sullivan. “If some kid comes to see Hair Police, and sees Smegma, hopefully he or she puts the pieces together.” Fernow concurs: “Noise is older than rock’n’roll. People act like it’s something new, but it isn’t. Something that I’ve tried to do with Hospital is bridge that gap between established iconic figures and newer, more obscure figures. And it has never been about one or the other—it’s simply to show that there are more links here than might be inherently obvious.”

This year’s edition of No Fun–the first to be held in Manhattan, at the Knitting Factory—will continue this pattern, welcoming veterans like Astro (Hiroshi Hasegawa of Japanese legends C.C.C.C.) and Californian conceptualists the Haters, and reaching all the way back to the 70’s with German pioneers Cluster. Though it’s hard to say how long the current surge of international noise will last, this sense of history could be, paradoxically, an insurance policy for the future.

“Hopefully the Fest will inspire boiling-brain kids to start their own version of genredestroying sound,” Olson insists. “If there are six new bands [formed] after each No Fun, then the numbers say there will something dangerous in the future.” ✹ Marc Masters writes for The Wire, Pitchfork, Paper Thin Walls, The Village Voice and elsewhere. His first book, No Wave, is out now on Black Dog Press.

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 45

LIVE REVIEWS

Robert Loerzel

Caught in the act, significant concerts from around the globe.

Blowin' In from Chicago: top, the Fiery Furnaces. Bottom: Nicole Mitchell 46 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Thrill Jockey 15th Anniversary Party

Logan Square Auditoreum, Chicago 12/14&15/2007 As Thrill Jockey Records celebrated its 15th anniversary with two nights of live rock and jazz at Chicago's Logan Square Auditorium, the room was rarely more than half-full. Where were all of the normally faithful fans who turn out for hip musical events in the windy city? Some were over at the Hideout, where Shellac was playing a run of six shows. Others surely stayed home because it was the middle of December and several inches of snow were piling up on the streets and sidewalks. A couple hundred people showed up for sets by the best-known bands, Tortoise and the Fiery Furnaces, but by the end of each night, the crowds had dwindled to only a few dozen hardy souls. Unlike the previous year’s 20th anniversary festival for another revered Chicago label, Touch & Go, this one did not offer any blockbuster reunions, but it was still a remarkable showcase for a visionary record company with an eccentrically eclectic roster.

Recently departed from Rough Trade, the willfully strange Fiery Furnaces feel more at home on Thrill Jockey. Their performances was a highlight of the first night, Dec. 14, an improvement over a show they had played in the same venue on Halloween. The song selection, drawing heavily on the recent Widow City album, was not all that different, but the sonic mix was sharper this time and keyboardist/ resident musical genius Matt Friedberger spent less time noodling around on long runs of indistinguishable organ notes. The songs were lean and taut, thanks in part to the rhythm section of bassist Jason Loewenstein (also a member of Sebadoh) and drummer Bob D’Amico. Without any guitar in the lineup, Loewenstein played his bass like a lead instrument. At first, singer Eleanor Friedberger seemed distracted by monitor problems, but it may just have been her usual robotic stage presence. She doesn’t emote much, but the blankness of her expression and delivery is oddly af-

fecting, as she coolly unreels complicated strands of lyrics like child’s play.

Thrill Jockey’s diversity was clear in the contrast between the Fiery Furnaces and the performer who immediately preceded them, veteran Chicago saxophonist Fred Anderson. Without Hamid Drake, the percussionist who teamed up with Anderson on the superb 2007 record From the River to the Ocean, the music had less of an African accent, but the performance was a testament to Anderson’s still-vital improvisational abilities. After playing one frantic solo for more than 20 minutes, Anderson seemed to be finished, but after receiving one of the weekend’s most enthusiastic ovations, he returned for a more contemplative encore. Even in this mellower moment, Anderson built on his melody with peculiar runs of notes outside the standard scales.

The first night also featured Brokeback’s evocative spaghetti-Western-meets-minimalism instrumentals and Arbouretum’s gritty, somewhat murky roots-rock. Archer Prewitt and the Sea and Cake (which includes Prewitt on guitar) both played jazz-tinged pop with impressive force and momentum, even if they’re not the most energetic-looking performers. Thalia Zedek debuted a set of new songs, at one point declaring, “There are no half measures” in her hoarse voice over a stomping beat.

Zedek also played the Freakwater song “Flat Hand,” one of 20 cover tunes collected on the Plum box set of seven-inch vinyl singles that Thrill Jockey issued to celebrate its anniversary.

David Brewis of Field Music performed songs from his new solo project, School of Language, still showing as much love for XTC-style rhythms and melodies as he does with his other band, though the School of Language material leans more toward soul music. Some of the subtle loops of School of Language’s debut studio recording, Sea From Shore, didn’t come across in the live performance with a pickup band (Chicagoans Ryan Rapsys of Euphone on drums and Nick Macri of The Zincs on bass). They did an admirable job of learning the songs in a day, though, and the music sounded breezily pleasant.

Bobby Conn and his big, crazily attired ensemble closed out the first night after he remarked on how impressive the Fiery Furnaces had been: “All the changes.

They do with four people what we do with ten.” Conn’s glam party rock was fun, but it would have been even more fun if more of

the crowd had stuck around.

Tortoise was the nominal “surprise guest” on the second night, but someone must have let the cat out of the bag, since the group’s appearance at the beginning of the concert drew one of the weekend's biggest turnouts. In typical Tortoise fashion, the musicians spent the set swapping instruments and shifting across genres.

Whenever the percussion-heavy compositions seemed on the verge of spiraling out of control, they coalesced into accessible melodies.

Tortoise bassist Doug McCombs (who had also played the night before in Brokeback) was back minutes later with yet another one of his bands, Eleventh Dream Day. Rick Rizzo pushed and pulled on the neck of his guitar like a man trying to force his instrument to make unwilling sounds, while McCombs and drummer Janet Bean propelled the songs forward with a strong pulse. Another Thrill Jockey artist, Sue Garner, joined Eleventh Dream Day for a few songs, including two of her own, and then they all played a cover of the Mekons’ “Hard to Be Human,” with Rizzo remarking, “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for a little band called the Mekons.”

As snow continued to fall outside, the audience began to disappear. “We might have to sleep here tonight because it’s snowing outside,” said Tim Rutili of Califone, adding, “I don’t want to be touched.” Califone was one of the night’s high points, as the band transformed rustic dirges into beautiful art rock.

Frequency’s improvised duets between Nicole Mitchell’s flute and Edward Wilkerson’s sax and clarinet sounded at times like birds competing in a contest of mating calls. When ADULT. took the stage, the lights went down and the fog rolled in, with singer Nicola Kuperus sounding like a woman in captivity trying to escape the aggressive electronic noises she and Adam Lee Miller were creating. Other performers included Pit er Pat and the Zincs. Like Bobby Conn the night before, Trans Am played a finale that would have benefited from a bigger crowd. The trio never went off track as it navigated tricky tempo changes, rocking hard throughout its set.

Many performers over the weekend praised Bettina Richards, Thrill Jockey’s founder and owner, who was standing out in the audience, smiling and bobbing her head to the beats. And if a lot of other Chicago music fans missed out, well, it was their loss. Robert Loerzel SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 47

The Sound and the Fury: 24 musicians on 24 of Harry Partch's original instruments.

Delusion of the Fury

Chris Waltman

Japan Society, NYC 12/7/2007

If people recognize the name of the visionary American composer and theorist Harry Partch (1901-1974) at all, they usually think of his microtonal compositions or the beautifully crafted instruments he invented. What's less well-known about Partch is that many of his compositions were ambitious music theater pieces, the grandest of which is “Delusion of the Fury,” a stunning gesamtkunstwerk he composed over a period of years in the 1960s.

For four nights this past December, the extraordinary piece was performed at the Japan Society in New York. The composer and multi-instrumentalist Dean Drummond, who took part in Fury’s only other live production—its debut at UCLA in 1969—led his group Newband. John Jesurun, best known for his serial play, “Chang in a Void Moon,” directed the actor/singers, while Dawn Akemi Saito was responsible for the choreography.

On the night I attended, Newband’s focused performance was stunning. Jesurun’s fluid direction was relatively close to the original (a 1969 version is available on DVD) and Saito’s choreography displayed great energy and humor.

“Delusion of the Fury” presents two related narratives: the first act draws from two Noh plays, Atsumori by Zeami and Ikuta

by Zembo Motoyasu; and the second act is based on an Ethiopian folktale. Both stories 48 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

focus on overcoming anger, an emotion to which Partch, who dealt with an overabundance of rejection in his life, was no stranger.

The piece is incredibly dense and strikingly structured, and it’s a world onto itself.

Fury opens with “Exordium,” a lengthy instrumental that introduces the main musical theme and finds the “string” section and the percussionists exchanging passages. The instruments, in addition to serving their musical purposes, can also be appreciated for their wonderful, otherworldly sculptural qualities.

(Partch gave them names like “Cloud Chamber Bowls” and “Spoils of War.”) In the first act, a warrior does penance by returning to the place he killed a prince. The slain man’s son also returns to the spot in hopes of seeing his father’s face. The warrior and the slain prince reenact their battle, but this time the prince becomes reconciled with the warrior and sings, “Pray for me” at the end of the section. Influenced by Noh and Kabuki theater, the action is highly stylized, and something as simple as an actor taking a single step can be gripping.

“Sanctus,” a long instrumental interlude, serves as both an epilogue and a prelude. It’s as if the ritualistic actions that have just taken place and those that are about to transpire are being anointed.

Echoing Partch’s own experiences as a rambling man, the second act opens with a deaf hobo having a quiet meal by himself. A woman looking for her kid goat approaches him but he can’t understand her; he just wants to be left alone. The woman returns, happy to have found the goat she now lovingly cradles in her arms, but the hobo is annoyed by her presence and an argument flares up. A group of dancers appear and

bring the pair to a deaf and badly near-sighted judge. The judge misunderstands the situation—he thinks the kid is a human child and that the pair is a married couple—and orders them to quit fighting. Again the act ends with the sung words, “Pray for me.” A final instrumental section concludes “Delusion of the Fury.”

The piece is tied together by recurring musical themes and dramatic elements. For instance, both acts feature tour-de-force dance passages that nicely break up the narrative, and when the hobo uses sticks to kindle a fire, the action echoes the warriors wielding poles when they engage in battle.

Influenced by the ancient Greeks, Partch believed in integrating drama, music, and dance, which this production successfully does. At certain points, it was as if the narrative was delightfully relayed from one medium to another: a sung line felt like it continued in the form of a bodily gesture which in turn was taken up by the music.

And, like other composers who lived in California—Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, John Cage—Partch was also influenced

by Asian music, culture, and philosophy.

Listening to “Fury,” it was hard not to think of Indonesian gamelans, Japanese music (the instrumentation includes koto), and the Chinese music Partch heard in the American southwest as a child.

The event was an exhilarating experience. After it was over, I felt incredibly happy, slightly disoriented and quietly transformed.

Since Partch’s work can only be played on his own unusual instruments and by people who have knowledge of his work, performances are rare. If one comes near you, don’t miss it.

Fred Cisterna

Elliott Carter's What Next Miller Theatre, Columbia University, NewYork City 12/11/2007

As Elliott Carter celebrated his 99th birthday, Miller Theatre feted the composer with four concerts on and around the date, featuring the New York premiere of his only opera, a one act production appropriately titled “What Next?”. The concert also featured chamber music from 1985-2002, played by some of NYC's finest performers of contemporary concert fare.

The opener was an energetic traversal of “Fantasy” and “Remembering Roger,” two movements from the 1999 work “Four Lauds,” by David Fulmer, a Juilliard-trained violinist who is fast becoming the 'go-to' artist for music of fearsome complexity—he shines in scores by Babbitt and Ferneyhough.

While the “Lauds” provided ample technical challenges, they also gave Fulmer a chance to explore nuanced expressive arcs, from angular outbursts to tender, ruminative elegies. Given the interplay that was to come in both instrumental and operatic ensembles, this wideranging solo work seemed an appropriate place to wade into Carter's dramatic oeuvre.

2002's “Au Quai” was the most entertaining piece on the program. Colorful writing for an unlikely pair of protagonists—bassoon and viola—was rendered with flair, and not a little bit of humor by Justin Brown and Nadia Sirota. “Luimen,” a fetching work for oddly scored sextet (trumpet, trombone, vibes, guitar, mandolin, and harp), ended the first half with sparkling ebullience.

Carter waited until 1998 to compose his first opera, collaborating with librettist Paul Griffiths on an enigmatic tale of six characters who, in the aftermath of an auto crash, search for their identities. It isn't entirely clear whether their amnesia is due to collective post-traumatic stress or if they are departed souls lingering at the site of their demise. The confused atmosphere eschews traditional, linear narrative, but it serves Carter's creative proclivities admirably. His compositions frequently deal with complexly polyphonic strands of activity and intricate rhythmic relationships. Both of these musical attributes are ideally suited to a libretto which deals with multiple threads of reality, ambiguities of time, and shifting perspectives.

The opera poses significant challenges, both musical and dramatic, for its cast.

Christopher Alden's production made use of an economic but mostly effective aesthetic approach. Despite a deliberately ambiguous dramatic environment, amidst frequently overlapping dialogues, most of the singers acquitted themselves admirably, particularly sopranos Susan Narucki and Amanda Squitieri and baritone Morgan Smith. Conductor Jeffrey Milarsky and the Axiom ensemble did a tremendous job supporting the singers.

At the end of the concert, the composer was greeted with thunderous applause and a chorus of “Happy Birthday.” Entering his centennial year, Carter seems determined to answer the question What Next? with still more music. Christian Carey SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 49

Organized Front: Ola Kvernberg, Dave Rempis, Dave Mullen, and Frank Rosaly with bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Right: Cor Fuhler at the Chicago Cultural Center

Umbrella Festival

Angeline Evans

Various Venues, Chicago 11/1-5/2007 From a distance, Chicago’s improvised music scene appears to be one of the best on earth. Close up, it still looks pretty good, but you can see the cracks in the veneer. In 2005 half the venues that regularly hosted the music faced eviction or downsizing; the possibility that the scene would be swallowed up seemed quite real, so a small group of fans, musicians, and professional presenters convened Umbrella Music to establish a more cooperative, and organized front. Aware that art, like a shark, starts to sink if it stops moving, they endeavored to pick up where the Empty Bottle’s Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music and the Hungry Brain’s Phrenology Fest left off. This year’s second festival invited scrutiny not only on account of its ambitious booking —six separate events on five days featuring nineteen acts from here and abroad—but as a chance to take the scene's temperature. The results suggest that the patient is in robust health after a couple years of Umbrella shelter, but that complacency is bit unwarranted.

The first night offered fantastic music to a crowd of humbling size. Elastic, a multiuse arts space located above a Chinese restaurant, doesn’t hold that many people, and even so it wasn’t full. But the music was uniformly marvelous. New York-based trumpeter Peter Evans kicked things off with a spectacular solo set. Using circular breathing, he sustained a continuous sound stream with an irregular but palpable pulse and an incred50 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

ible array of sounds that not only challenged notions of what one can do with his instrument, but established his identify separate from its other radicals. Like Axel Dörner, Franz Hautzinger, and Mazen Kerbaj, he uses extended techniques and an expanded notion of what’s acceptable, but he also reached back to the roots. Even when he was emitting a stream of glottal gasps or stringing together wounded-animal whimpers, he did so with an extroverted presence—and volume—that made me think of Louis Armstrong.

The keyboard duo of Cor Fuhler and Jim Baker followed with a set that explored the limits of inner and outer space. Inner, as in the inside of a grand piano—Fuhler spent much of the set plumbing the instrument’s guts for all manner of exquisite sonorities—and outer as in the spacey emissions of Jim Baker’s ARP synth. While totally improvised, their set was no less shapely, compelling, and lovely for having been spontaneously crafted.

The local quartet Frequency closed the night. Although their music made much more room for conventional techniques— they swung, they played tunes, they kicked up more than a little dust—they evoked the most ephemeral zone. Nicole Mitchell, Edward Wilkerson, Avreeayl Ra, and Harrison Bankhead are all strongly identified with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and their music gives form to dreams. The AACM’s dream of musicians controlling their environments and destinies informs Umbrella’s striving for the same, and the group’s collective dreaming of a spiritual connection to Africa, balanced the rest of the evening’s displays of instrumental brawn and geeky, experimental braininess with a kind of mysticism that drew sustenance from both sides of the masculine/feminine and African/

European dualities.

Friday the festivities moved to the relocated Velvet Lounge, whose near-demise was one of the events that instigated Umbrella Music’s mobilization. The night’s first act was a first-time meeting between Dutch cornet player Eric Boeren (most notably of Available Jelly), North side bassist and staunch Ken Vandermark associate Kent Kessler, and AACM multi-instrumentalist Mwata Bowden. They were certainly not a natural team-up, and for a while there set seemed less like a trio than a tag-team duo, with Kessler as the mediator while Boren tested different rhythmic ideas and Bowden fell back on the blues. But the two horn players ultimately established a yinyang balance of lyricism and coarseness, jazz melody and third world ceremony, with everchanging rhythms whose flux became the main source of motion; the struggle they went through to find their common tongue made it sound sweeter once they found it.

Violist Mat Maneri and drummer Randy Peterson, by contrast, seemed so secure with their established language that the burden was on the audience to come to them. Maneri filled the spaces between broadly distant intervals with slurred phrases that dragged Jimi Hendrix’s blurriest electric textures into the acoustic realm. Peterson’s sense of swing was so intact that his fractured responses easily bridged empty spaces that would have left a lesser musician lost. Like soup warming to boil, their music built from placid, nearly still states to roiling expressions of tension.

Last up was Loose Assembly, a local quintet led by one of the festival’s organizers, drummer Mike Reed. While the novel colors yielded by the group’s line-up of alto sax, cello, vibes, bass, and drums invited one’s attention, it was their sure and vigorous

extrapolations from Reed’s improvisational framework that rewarded it. The music was patterned after the surrounding neighborhood’s (Chicago’s South Loop) rate of change.

They moved in and out of time and through a series of tunes, going faster and harder, building to whirlwind crescendos and breakaway sprints more thrilling than anything on their already satisfying debut album.

Saturday night yielded the first packed crowd, and also the one of the festival’s rare glitches—half the opening act was on the runway at O’Hare when they were supposed to be on stage. One breakneck ride later, bass clarinetist Rudi Mahall and drummer Uli Jennessen walked in the Hideout’s front door and went straight to work with local trombonist Jeb Bishop and bassist Nate McBride. If they were travel-weary, it sure didn’t show.

McBride and Jennessen lifted off with an omni-directional sound surge whose certitude belied each man’s first-time acquaintance with half of the front line. Knock-kneed, red-faced, and razor-sideburned, the gangly Mahall provided a visual as well as musical center.

He jitterbugged like a cross between Elvis Presley and a giant praying mantis; his playing locked in with Bishop’s so well that the relative rarity of bass clarinet-trombone teams at once seemed silly. This crew’s definition of free jazz meant the freedom to do anything, from straight-faced comedic swing to soulful unison melodies to clatter suspended in air and time.

The Chi-NYC summit of tenor saxophonist Daniel Carter, alto saxophonist Sabir Mateen, and drummer Michael Zerang, on the other hand, was both over the top and a bit unsatisfying. The twinned horns’ immaculate interlock betrayed their many years of work together in Test and other ensembles; no matter what each man played, it fit with the other’s playing, even when both were blowing so flat-out that you wouldn’t expect them to be able to hear each other, let alone respond.

But it wasn’t always evident that they were listening to Zerang, who seemed to spend a lot of the set trying to find some way to complement a show that might have gone the same whether or not he was on stage.

Last up was Ingrebrigt Håker-Flaten’s Quintet. The Norwegian bassist, known for his work with The Thing, School Days, and Scorch Trio, moved to Chicago a year ago, so most of the band was from in town—Dave Rempis on saxophones, Frank Rosaly on drums, and Dave Mullen on electric guitar. Ola Kvernberg, a young Norwegian violinist whose own music mixes folk fiddling with modal jazz, filled out the line-up. After an aggressive chamber interlude, the music lurched into good old-fashioned fusion territory with frantic Mahavishnustyle guitar and violin unisons and mammoth sax screams goring massive walls of wah-wah noise. Håker-Flaten’s compositions favored broad intervallic leaps and convoluted passages that suggested he’d spent as much time listening to Hot Rats as Out To Lunch.

Music like this works best as a springboard for virtuosic showboating, and the players embraced it with an unfeigned gusto that earned plenty of audience appreciation. The quintet delivered good energy, good solos, and some bracing electronic noise from everyone but Rempis, but tunes turned from tricky to tiresome well before the night was through.

Sunday brought another wave of Europeans from farther south. For an afternoon concert at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Pres-

ton Bradley Hall, local reed player Ari Brown, bassist Junius Paul, and drummer Tim Daisy met up with trombonist Gianluca Petrella and bassist Paolino Dalla Porta. Petrella’s Indigo 4 is an impressive blend of studio electronics and lean, sprinting post-bop, but this was more of an old-time jam session with the horns in front, the rhythm section keeping things afloat, and some Ellington-derived licks and swinging grooves to supply a lingua franca. The hall, which is capped by an echo-enhancing dome, turned the bassists’ dialogue into an indistinct blur, but Daisy’s Blackwellian cowbell cut straight through.

Brown tends to favor straight-ahead settings these days, but he let off some exhilarating roars here, and Petrella responded with showboating confidence. Later that night at the Hungry Brain, the rest of Petrella’s quartet— reed player Francesco Bearzatti and drummer Fabio Accardi—met up with local cornetist Josh Berman and Berliner bassist Jan Roder.

The music was totally free, but hewed to jazz verities. The Italians’ mix of old and new jazz gambits was positively Dutch in its defiance of temporal boundaries; in Berman, they found a kindred spirit. The horn players waxed fast and lyrical, while Accardi kept things kinetic and unpredictable. Roder, on the other hand, was so self-effacing and task-oriented that he almost didn’t register.

Axel Dörner, Kevin Drumm, and Fred Lonberg-Holm contrasted drastically not only with the preceding quartet’s music, but with anything anyone in the trio had played together before. Although all three men have played in duo combinations and as part of the Territory Band, this was their first trio set.

They laid on thick waves of curiously diffident electrical noise; for much of the set it was impossible to tell whether any particular sound issued from the pedals plugged into Lonberg-Holm’s cello, Dörner’s trumpet and mixing board, or Drumm’s jumble of effects boxes, and origin really was beside the point.

It was the total effect that mattered. Beyond hypnotic, their dense, compacted onslaught was quite paralyzing. No one should have to follow such a set, especially not Klang. The local quartet includes clarinetist James Falzone, vibes player Jason Adasiewicz, bassist Jason Roebke, and Tim Daisy; their sound, with its nods to pre-Free Fall Jimmy Giuffre, made about as much sense in this time slot as planning a leisurely neighborhood stroll for the hour just after you wake up from brain surgery.

The Festival finished up with a Europeanthemed and consulate-sponsored extravaganza spread around three different rooms at the Chicago Cultural Center with an overlapping schedule that made it impossible for any person to catch every minute of music. Not that you needed to; Austrian pianist Wolfgang Seligo, performing with a Chicago rhythm section, delivered a performance so mildly funky and blandly pretty that it should have been booked into a steakhouse on Valentine’s day. Czech singer and violinist Iva Bittova’s blend of performance art, Eastern European folk music, and extended vocal techniques was entertainingly quirky, but her sound and practice seemed very out of place at a festival of jazz and improvised music, and she didn’t seem to be reaching towards the other players in any meaningful way. Far more rewarding was The News Quartet, which combined visitors Eric Boeren and Cor Fuhler with locals Mike Reed and Nate McBride. Their

first piece flowed easily yet dramatically from boppish melody to a sunny Caribbean theme to Cage-ian prepared-piano sonorities. Some of their stylistic contrasts indulged a familiarly lowlander sense of humor, but they balanced it with some serious sound exploration that pleads for further research. Somebody book this band some gigs and a recording date, please!

Anyone expecting the Gianluca Petrella Quartet to reproduce their album’s audacious use of sampling and sound manipulation was probably disappointed by their Chicago debut. Accardi avoided the disc’s drum ‘n’ bass-inspired grooves, and only Petrella used electronics for anything more than amplification; at one point he processed his horn into a big, complex wash at one point, at another into a stream of outer-space blips. Once he even set his ‘bone down to play a distorted version of himself out of a little black box. But most of the time the rest of the band seemed to be arguing the case against their boss’s experiments and in favor of purely acoustic music that melded Tony Williams-inspired rhythmic instability, Monkish melody, and a bit of free blowing. Still, it was an interesting contest, and although they didn’t sound like the record, they did sound pretty good. Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer’s solo set was even better. Bold and highly articulate, she took her instrument’s entire sound and history as a given and played it at a very high level. Everything from grand classical statements to stride rhythms to mallets-on-strings coloration came into play, but nothing seemed gratuitous. It was music to get lost in, the inside view best because you could savor the elegance of her structures as much as the vibrancy of her tone.

After five nights of music, even the occasional attenders looked a bit ragged, never mind those who’ve been around for the whole festival. Die Enttäuschung’s North American debut was just the thing to close on a note of high spirits, high musical achievement, and hijinks. The quartet of Axel Dörner, Rudi Mahall, Jan Roder, and Uli Jennessen has participated in one of the most celebrated jazz projects of recent years—Monk’s Casino with Alexander von Schlippenbach — and, in Dörner, has one of the music’s most radical instrumentalists.

But part of what makes the band so wonderful is their unlikely blend of talents, and the music to which they apply them. A casual listen places them as the answer to a fifty year-old question—what if Eric Dolphy had taken over Ornette Coleman’s band at the Five Spot?

Closer scrutiny yields some suitably Monkish tension between the rhythm section’s implacable swing and the front line’s intricate, oddly spaced interjections. And the concentration over their material—tunes rarely run much longer than four minutes, solos are short, and the outside moments are often confined to sparing seasoning rather than main dish—has few precedents. But listen really close and you’ll find a damned fine bebop band, one that knows the worth of a tune and loves to take it full-tilt. The depth and range of their historical grasp and technique makes Die Enttäuschung’s name (which translates as The Disappointment) a fabulous lie, while the jocularity with which Mahall and Jennessen take their stand earned happy guffaws from the audience and even bright smiles from their notoriously impassive band-mate Dörner.

It was a splendid ending to a mostly splendid festival. Bill Meyer SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 51

Monterey Jazz Festival 50th Anniversary Tour UCLA Royce Hall, Los Angeles 1/18/2008

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James Moody, who played with Dizzy Gillespie (whose presence at the first Monterey Jazz Festival in 1958, with Louis Armstrong, Max Roach and Billie Holiday, formed the spiritual underpinning of the evening), prefaces “Bebop” by saying “And I still don’t know it!” And as they launch into it, one wonders, does the old guard belong to a time that has vanished and a world that has gone? Whither goeth jazz? After fifty years that seem like five hundred for the weariness and fatigue in the cracks in the joy associated with jazz, where to now? Onstage, drummer Kendrick Scott takes the solo and rides the toms like horses, soft lasers of metal sliding alongside them, and Moody and trumpeter Terence Blanchard confer and hobnob over by the speakers, sliding into the proceedings amidst a sea of applause while the rim-shots come knocking.

Convivial pianist Benny Green talks about playing Monterey in 1978 at age 15. That must seem like a great time to constantly revisit, and it probably is. On the Milt Jackson and the Modern Jazz Quartet’s “Monterey Mist,” the band does their Erik Satie thing, barely playing their instruments, and most of the focus throughout is the interplay between piano, bass and drums. Singer Nnenna Freelon comes in on a Gerald Wilson song called “Romance”—and her words to the otherwise instrumental track are a song she calls “Winter Love.” Moody plays the flute on this very ‘60s-sounding song that sounds somewhere between an outtake by The Association and something by Diahnn Carroll—or Leslie Uggams, depending.

“Can we hold on to our once-upon-a-time?”, and now Freelon and the bassist duet, bass played almost like a koto with endlessly gentle riffs while Freelon consults her skylark and all’s well, if not searching and restless, and then very suddenly the bass sings slowly and Scott pats his kit here and taps then there.

Moody credits the young players now—the “young lions,” as he calls them—before telling the story of playing Monterey 47 years ago, quoting trumpeter Clark Terry: “The golden years suck.” On “Benny’s,” he scats and vamps amusingly through the piece, hitting the highs (“I had root canal work”) on this play on “Pennies From Heaven,” kidding the kid behind the keys Green’s “Central Park South” is a laidback walk in the park and the players are given free reign to enjoy the spotlight at various points—but neither is it a cacophony or chaos, instead it is the natural order of things unfolding in due course. Now Kendrick Scott and Freelon duet on a piece Scott wrote during a seasick New York to London ocean voyage. The soul of softness, it’s all wire brushes and barely-there piano and bass. Blanchard comes in on trumpet like a sudden dream superimposed over a dream that’s already going. Clare Fisher’s “Pensa-

tiva” is shot through with bass and piano that dominate the “Girl from Ipanema” facsimile while the drummer plays the kit gently with hands and brushes. Keep in mind that this represents a very particular moment in the fifty years of the Monterey Jazz Festival: it’s all straight-ahead, very pleasant, and inoffensive in the nicest way—and it will go on like this most likely through the remainder of their 54-date tour.

Blanchard airs selections from his A Tale of God’s Will (Requiem for Katrina), a Grammynominated album coming in the wake of Blanchard’s family relocating from LA to L.A. while he composed the score for Spike Lee’s Inside Man, at which point Lee came to Blanchard and told him about his upcoming documentary about the effects of Hurricane Katrina, When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. The two pieces, “Levees” and “Funeral Dirge,” are easily the most compelling songs of the night, with bass, drums and trumpet laying out the body of elegy, so vivid that one can almost see the souls fading out of existence, looking down on the city streets above the rising waters. The piano comes in mid-way and it’s as if Blanchard has somehow added another soul to the world—through the instrument; through these songs. The music swells in righteous anger and agony—and it seems almost violently strange to be ripped out of this reverent reverie when Moody and Freelon follow this up with Duke Ellington’s “Squeeze Me.” But that’s how this particular revue comes off: really beautiful to watch and hear, but when it comes to pushing boundaries both emotional and evolutionary, it’s almost like it’s too threatening and so a retreat into standards and traditions must duly be beat.

They encore with “Misty.” “I feel like I’m clinging to a cloud,” she sings. Um, kinda!

David Cotner

Art Ensemble of Chicago REDCAT, Los Angeles 1/19/2008

Somewhere along the way—1970, perhaps —jazz split itself into two hemispheres: evolution and tradition. Monterey is a tradition.

Clint Eastwood is a tradition. Evolution is freewheeling, while tradition is dry-cleaned.

The best tradition can do for evolution is to praise its chops to the skies above—right before sending it to the kids’ table. Tonight’s conflux has just as much power and emotion to it—ecstatic and fractious though it may be —as Terence Blanchard’s “Levees,” although the Art Ensemble of Chicago doesn’t have to necessarily move Heaven and Earth to get there. Roscoe Mitchell on reeds and bells, Famoudou Don Moye on percussion, Harrison Bankhead on double bass and Corey Wilkes on trumpet: picture the dawn of the cosmos at its making and you have a fairly good idea of what took place tonight.

Spread out on table and floor are all the disparate elements of music-making culled from over four decades, and outwardly it seems like chaos but there is a fertile and rigorous order to the way these things work.

The music is tentative but not soft, focused but not demonstrably so. Bass strings are stroked to groaning, their overtones second

Tim Bugbee

Signature Saharan groove: Tinariwen at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts only to wind itself that pervades the space and occasionally there is the sudden entry of the trumpet, a comet from the pangalactic wilderness.

The interplay between Bankhead and Moye is revelatory and sinuously sensual, split only by the reeds and trumpet which merely serve to heighten the hints of the rhythm. Now Mitchell hits his resonant metals and a whole new world pours forth as bass and congas riff sturdily behind him; Wilkes entering and transforming the scene into something out of a cracked and forgotten film noir. The Ensemble doesn’t play standards as such, but instead unfurl a rich, rewarding panoply of jazz that’s instantly recognizable and in which one can absolutely invest oneself. Mitchell’s sax, Bankhead’s bass and Moye’s drums do battle and there is the overwhelming scent of propulsion and energy that is the lifeblood of jazz as much as blood is the lifeblood of vampires. After the gales of applause cease somewhat, Wilkes —whose instrument is amplified via guitar pedal effects—takes center stage while Mitchell plays his blurred-by-volume, totally tubular bells and Bankhead uses two bows on his regal boredom-smashing machine.

Wilkes plays two horns simultaneously and presently Mitchell treats the sax and cornet the same way. The hitherto verboten set-list includes new songs “Femme Fatale” and “Mango Tango,” as well as older pieces like “Til Autumn” (from 2004’s Sirius Calling), “And There Was Peace” (from 1989’s The Alternate Express), “The Meeting” (from 2003’s The Meeting), “Alternate Line” (from 2001’s Tribute to Lester), and “Odwalla/ The Theme” (from 1982’s Urban Bushmen). What a scoop! The encore of “Funky AECO” (from 1985’s The Third Decade) has everyone clapping in rhythm, naturally a bit challenging after the skin of one’s own palms has abraded away from the applause after the concert proper. If you had one of those spy camera rings that takes photographs by clapping, you’d have a thousand unusable snapshots but you wouldn’t even care. Phenomenal, and quite literally so.

David Cotner

Tinariwen

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 11/25/2007 Remis Auditorium at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts was filled to capacity for the rare opportunity to see and hear Tinariwen, the renowned electric guitar band from remote northern Mali. The group formed in a Touareg rebel training camp in neighboring Libya during the 1980s, emerged as leading innovators of what has come to be called Saharan blues, and became internationally known in 2001 at the first Festival in the Desert, which is now held annually in Essakane, near Timbuktu. Since then the group has won all sorts of awards, has perfomed with Carlos Santana at the Montreux Jazz Festival, received accolades from the likes of Bono and Elvis Costello, appeared on the Joolz Holland show, and toured with the Rolling Stones. But whatever hype has surrounded the group instantly evaporated as the five musicians wraped in traditional cloth unassumingly came to the stage, plugged in, and started churning out their signature Saharan groove.

The basic pulse in most of Tinariwen's songs is a loping 6/8 rhythm executed at various tempos, although they do utilize 4/4 time as well, and even have some rhythms approximating a kind of reggae and even a kind of two-step feel. Percussionist Said Ag Ayad made powerful use of the low tones of his close-miced 'djembe' and locked in tightly with the bass guitarist Eyadou Ag Leche.

This combination produced an hypnotic rumble underlying the group's winding and snarly rhythm guitar lines and their Tamashek language vocals. An additional ingredient in their sound is the steady handclapping which needs to be—and was—supplied by the audience. Guitarists Alhassane Ag Touhami, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni and Abdallah Ag Lamida stood in a row across the stage, swaying serenely with the pulse of their own music. Their song selection emphasized

their 2007 CD release, Aman Iman ('Water is Life'), with a few selections from their earlier recordings, Radio Tisdas Sessions (2001) and Amassakoul (2004). The mood of Tinariwen's music is an intriguing combination —somber and melancholy, but at the same time envigorating and stirring, and it had a gradual effect on the audience within the Museum's staid auditorium setting, so that people were dancing in the aisles by the encore.

The entrancing effect of the music was so strong that I didn't immediately realizethe group was missing two performers, the founder and leader of the group, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib—the one who's always strikingly photographed with lots of curly hair—and the group's female singer Mina Walet Oumar. I learned from their manager later that Ibrahim had remained home in Tessalit, Mali for this North American tour due to health issues, and that Mina was taking time off to care for her newborn.

How could the group go out on tour while missing several key members? Aerosmith would never give a concert without Steve Tyler and Joe Perry, and it's inconceivable that you'd have a performance by the Wynton Marsalis group, without Wynton. However, as a community based musical collective, virtuosity, stardom and ego are not part of Tiniwaren's performance practice. They are custodians of the musical resources of their Touareg community, and they maintain and present that music in order to keep that community intact. Who is or isn't making the music on a particular occasion is not really important, it's the communal role of the music that matters. Whether or not many people in the Museum auditorium were aware of it on this night—you could be misled by the electric guitars—we were witnessing the essence of “traditional” music.

It's also worth noting the group has been instrumental in starting a not-for-profit organization back home in northern Mali called Taghreft Tinariwen ('development of the deserts') to promote cultural and economic development in that region of the Sahara.

Alan Waters SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 53

MIXED MEDIA

On disc and on the printed page, Alessandro Bosetti documents West Africans' reactions to modern experimental music. By Kurt Gottschalk

Blindfold test: left, The making of African Feedback Below: Alessandro Bosetti

Arriving a few minutes late didn’t help; I walked into a silent Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on a cold December night night to find one man standing at the front of the room and three at desks (musicians I knew by name but not by face, adding to the disorientation). At first, the three look like laptop players, but on second glance, I see that they have only pen and paper. They write things down and the standing man tapes their notes to the wall. “It’s quiet in here,” he says aloud. “I understand there’s a snowstorm coming. Is that true?”

By breaking the silence, musician and Errant Bodies Press publisher Brandon LaBelle gives the audience permission to make noise: ringtones are triggered, someone begins to sing, and the men at the desks write down the sounds they hear, the pages then stuck to the wall. And like a well-paced mystery movie, I catch on right before the reveal. We’re being recorded. The sounds we make are being documented on paper as well as on tape. The others (Alessandro Bosetti, Jarrod Fowler and Seth Kim-Cohen) eventually get up and go to sit with the audience, and Labelle plays us the recording of us listening to the room.

It’s a clever twist on Bosetti’s African Feedback book and CD—a project released by Errant Bodies which found Bosetti traveling through the West African countries of Mali and Burkina, playing experimental music for people and recording their reactions—seeing its official release that night. Fowler’s take involved interviewing audience members 54 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

with a mike in hand while a mash of 300 African recordings blared through the PA, rendering the interviews inaudible.

But where Fowler intentionally undermined listener reactions, Bosetti puts a tight focus on them. His subjects listened to the recordings—works in the classican tradition (Luciano Berio, John Cage, Alvin Lucier, Olivier Messiaen, Harry Partch), free improv (Derek Bailey, Axel Dörner, Steve Lacy) and sound sculpture (Ryoji Ikeda, Incapacitants, Machine for Making Sense, Otomo Yoshihide)—through headphones, and their reactions are presented twice: in the text of the book and as a sound collage on the accompanying hour-long CD. For the most part, Bosetti doesn’t report to what pieces the interviewees are responding, which is initially frustrating but ultimately makes it a more open, less literal read. When he does, however, nice revelations come about, as in one man's insistence that Phil Minton is singing in Arabic.

The obvious upshot is an exploration of cultural difference, and what’s refreshing about Bosetti’s listeners (as opposed to so many people in the “civilized” world) is their willingness to listen and react: It’s all good game, and only one participant discontinued the session. By the same token, there’s an overall lack of surprise among the respondents “Nobody wanted to know anything else,” he writes, “but at the same time nobody dismissed it…. They accept what seems to them to be ‘the reality of things.’”

The 34-year-old Italian saxophonist and

sound artist, now living in Baltimore, makes some nice observations along the way, such as noticing that Dogon and Morè speakers use the same word for “singing,” “dancing” and “playing an instrument,” and that the ideas of mimicking the music they’re hearing or singing along to complement it are, for them, indistinguishable. In one of the more interesting interviews, Dounerou, a 19-yearold male in Ogol Leye, explains: “If I have my tape next to me, I put the cassette on and I jump! This is not possible with you. … People are going to say that you are lazy, or people are going to say that you don’t know how to dance. This means you are not civilized. … This, I can say, is the music for the boss. … Someone who has a lot of money, he drinks beer and he’s listening. … The poorest of persons, they have many problems but they prefer to dance instead of sitting and listening to the music.”

The project flirts with a dangerous premise, this is, finding charm or worse, humor, in the ignorant native, the noble savage, something Bosetti owned up to in a discussion at Issue moderated by saxophonist Matana Roberts. “This is dangerous because it is like the old colonial idea that black people are like children,” he said. “I exploited them in a sense. I wanted to go out—intuitively the most out place I can think of is Africa.” The result, however, is quite the reverse: African Feedback paints a picture of people who are open-minded and willing to speak freely.

That, along with the dancing, would seem to be the mark of a more civilized culture. ✹

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 55

BOOK REVIEWS

Turning up the volumes: writers' looks at books, 'zines and other printed matters

American of the Avenues: Moondog

Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue Robert Scotto Process Media

Louis Hardin (1916-99), known professionally as Moondog, was an influential composer and formidable street personality of legendary stature in New York City in the sixties and seventies. CUNY professor Robert Scotto has traced Hardin's life story, as well as the philosophical and creative evolution of the Moondog persona, in his new book Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue. Scotto's work is fastidiously detailed; he's an ardent admirer of Moondog's work and a dedicated advocate for his legacy.

Blinded by an accident during adolescence, Moondog's tale is one of stubborn perseverance in the face of many obstacles. Scotto relates a number of anecdotes from Hardin's early life, and it’s clear that his childhood was unhappy long before the accident. His parents’ marital troubles and the resulting frequent moves throughout his early years contributed to Hardin’s lifelong intimacy issues. A nonconformist by nature, dealing with disability caused him to withdraw even further into eccentricity.

Moondog’s decades in New York, from the 40s through the 70s, are the most fascinating part of Scotto’s narrative. Determined to make a living in music despite straightened circumstances, Hardin lived alone for a number of years in a tiny room; eking out a meager existence selling pamphlets and 56 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

performing on the streets. Standing well over six feet tall, with outrageous homemade attire tailored to look like Viking regalia, Moondog became a fixture of midtown Manhattan in the sixties. Whether regaling passersby with poetry and madrigals or standing outside jazz clubs and playing along with the jam sessions, Hardin had a charismatic, unforgettable presence.

While his work as an itinerant street musician and raconteur gained him local fame, Moondog primarily considered himself a composer. Being blind provided significant challenges; he had to hire others to transcribe his compositions from Braille to musical notation. Even at the cut rate many sympathetic engravers offered him, this was an expensive proposition. Fortunately for Hardin, his formidable talent won him many admirers and supporters, enabling him to hear a number of his works performed and recorded during his lifetime. Particularly felicitous was his late career move to Europe, which experienced a Moondog renaissance during the 1990s.

Moondog's music is fascinatingly multifaceted.

Although many of his pieces are miniatures, they are filled with information, as well as considerable wit and musical substance. Often working with a limited harmonic field and ostinato patterns, Hardin was a forerunner of the minimalist movement, an influence that many of his compositional descendants acknowledge. Indeed, we learn that when he was evicted in 1968, composer Philip Glass took him in, letting Hardin live in his apartment for a year. Glass, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, and Moondog even made a few recordings together (the book contains a companion CD which features these selections).

Displaying keen interest in counterpoint, many of Moondog's compositions employ canons. His canonic pieces are often continuously structured,

but relatively simple harmonically, with all of the parts separated by unisons or octaves. His spoken word monodramas presage the Beatnik performance poets. There is also a strong strain of jazz in his oeuvre—“Bird's Lament” is one of his most beautiful pieces. Some of his compositions, such as “Viking I” and the “Heimdall Fanfare,” explore Teutonic themes and aspects of Nordic mythology.

The connection between these disparate strands is tenuous at times. Moondog's unabashed eclecticism was a double-edged sword. Posterity may judge some of his lesser pieces more intriguing than revelatory; but there is an undeniable creativity and musicality in much of his work.

One always hopes that creative artists are as admirable as their pieces; this can lead to disappoint, as is certainly the case with Louis Hardin.

His charismatic performance persona only partially masked a nasty undercurrent of antisocial behavior, racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny. His treatment of women was absolutely deplorable. At one point, he brags to Philip Glass that “blind people can't be prosecuted for rape;” Glass notes that Hardin frequently tried to grope ladies. Hardin even spent time in jail for allegedly molesting his seven year old daughter.

Another telling story related by Glass is that Hardin bragged to him that he hated “blacks and Jews,” and then puzzled over why so many of his friends were part of these very groups. Glass, who is Jewish, was putting Hardin up in his home at the time! Again and again, similar scenarios play out in the book. Conductors, composers, benefactors, and well-wishers are drawn to Moondog, helping him substantially. They are then repelled by Hardin's odious behavior—often pointedly directed at them.

This leaves Scotto in a tight spot; he clearly ad-

mires Moondog and wants to explain away as much as possible. Too often, he plays the role of apologist: chalking up Hardin's distrust of benefactors as a replaying of childhood betrayals by authority figures, suggesting his racial attitudes were a naïve interpretation of his Aryan sympathies, et cetera.

It’s dime store psychoanalysis and it doesn't wash.

True, many of these arguments one could chalk up to Scotto's enthusiasm for his subject, but when the author tries to explain away Hardin's jail stint for child molestation, it becomes difficult to stomach.

Scotto clearly saw much to admire in Moondog, as did several of his caregivers, but it's hard to get past some of his behavior to join them in this regard.

Thus, Moondog: the Viking of Sixth Avenue is a tale of two books. Taken as an introduction to a creative person's work, it is an excellent starting place for those wishing to learn about Moondog's music.

As a biography, it provides disturbing rationalizations for some very egocentric, and at times even hateful, behavior. It would be nice if Hardin's story was that of a good person who overcame adversity.

Instead, we are left with an ambiguous portrait: a grievously wounded but difficult, selfish, and deeply flawed man, who was loved in spite of it by many.

Christian Carey

Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improviser's Art Andy Hamilton University of Michigan Press

It’s a given that musicians hold strong opinions about music—how could it be otherwise? Yet during interviews, and especially in features such as Down Beat’s Blindfold Test and The Wire’s Invisible Jukebox, the comments they make are often circumspect and muted. At the opposite end of the spectrum lie the acid-tongued put-downs of musicians and recordings by the likes of Charles Mingus and Miles Davis—very entertaining, though they might reveal more about the disser than the dissed.

Between these two poles, honest, thoughtful and well-argued criticism has a chance to flourish, and it seems to come naturally to saxophonist Lee Konitz.

This book of conversations on the improviser’s art, based on interviews conducted between 1999 and circa 2004 with the music critic and philosopher Andy Hamilton, allows Konitz to expatiate on all aspects of his music-making, from his beginnings as a student of the clarinet, during the late 1930s, to the years of the new century, and he does so with great candor.

But the discussion focuses as much on the players that Konitz worked with, or were of his milieu, as Konitz himself. Time and again the conversation returns to the so-called Cool School of playing and the musicians who fell under the sway of the blind pianist and musical ‘guru’ Lennie Tristano. Because Tristano’s recordings are few in number and poorly circulated, it isn't often appreciated how influential he was. Nor how much Mingus and Charlie Parker dug what he was doing. Tristano’s music was a kissing cousin to bebop, but because it wasn’t such a hot, sweaty affair it’s been seen, unfairly, as a pallid version of the real thing, cerebral and abstract, disconnected from feelings, a music to be analysed by beard-strokers rather than enjoyed by foottappers. Konitz dismisses these false distinctions and emphasises both the vitality and originality of Tristano’s music—points supported by several musician-contributors to the book.

Following Hamilton’s introduction, a brief foreword by Joe Lovano, a prologue by Konitz, and a potted biography (in a very small pot), the contents proper begin. The course of Konitz’s life in music is set out in 11 chapters, starting with his home life while he was a music student, and his first professional job at age 20 working with the Claude Thornhill band. Several of the chapters cover specific decades in Konitz’s career. Others include:

Formative Influences; Working with Tristano; Early Collaborators; The Art of Improvisation; The Instrument; The Material. Embedded within each of the chapters is a series of brief interviews with musicians, most of whom have worked on the bandstand with Konitz or recorded with him.

These include John Zorn, Phil Woods, Mike Zwerin, George Russell, Clare Fischer, Sal Mosca, Alan Broadbent, Sonny Rollins, Rufus Reid, Ornette Coleman, Harold Danko, Wayne Shorter, Paul Bley, John Tchicai, Greg Osby, Martial Solal and Evan Parker.

Although this is fundamentally a book of interviews, Hamilton provides scene-setting introductions to each of the chapters, explanatory links between subsections, and brief comments that help the reader better to contextualise the interview material.

His contributions to the book are considerable, but they’re done with such a light touch the attention remains firmly on Konitz throughout.

So what of the strong opinions alluded to at the top of the review? Fans of Anthony Braxton may well recall, with bemusement, Konitz’s outburst while being interviewed, in 1999, for The Wire’s Invisible Jukebox. When he was played Braxton’s interpretation of “April”—from Eight (+ 3) Tristano Compositions 1989: For Warne Marsh (HatART)— he exclaimed: “Well, it’s the worst solo I’ve ever heard in my life.” In the Invisible Jukebox he expanded on this comment, and in the book he refers to his earlier comments and adds greater perspective. “I have,” he says, “great respect for what else Anthony can do . . . [but] he’s deceiving himself in some way with this aspect of the music. . . . I know that Anthony cannot play a beautiful line, in the pocket, with a great sound, even if his life depended on it.” Though he acknowledges: “His is another world—his music has to be evaluated on a different set of criteria”. In passing, Konitz remarks upon the distinction that Tristano made between playing with emotion and playing with feeling.

Part of what Konitz seems to find uncomfortable about Braxton’s approach (an approach also taken by many other saxophonists) is the emotionalism he invests in his playing, which, to Konitz’s way of thinking, masks whatever true feelings he may have about the music. Konitz equates emotionalism with a kind of benign fakery—the business of putting on a act rather than just attending to the music and trying to play it as sympathetically as possible. What he tries to do while playing is to avoid anything that is in any way extra-musical. His intention is to make a music that is as creative as possible, and honest, with feeling. Of course, that’s also what Braxton is trying to do, especially when it comes to his tribute albums and standards collections, but his approach and Konitz’s could hardly be more different.

Among the plethora of musicians whose work comes under discussion (many of whom in turn discuss Konitz’s work), Konitz is particularly insightful when talking about Tristano and Warne Marsh.

Though Konitz last played with Tristano in 1964, and their relationship was strained between then and the pianist’s death in 1978, Konitz is magnanimous, brushing aside Tristano’s unwarranted criticisms of him. But although he broke with the Tristano school, Tristano’s foremost ‘disciple’, tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh, remained in a strong creative partnership with Konitz until the late 1970s. Marsh is, without doubt, the saxophonist whom Konitz admires most for his aesthetic, his sound, and his remarkable skills as an improviser. Konitz contrasts Marsh’s approach with that of several other players, including Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, whose solos, though often admirable, rely to some degree on pre-prepared material. There is much useful and subtle discussion along these lines.

Despite being influenced in his early career

by Lester Young and Johnny Hodges, Konitz’s own aesthetic, sound and approach to improvisation owe perhaps more to Marsh than any other player. In essence this is a generous book, about Marsh, Tristano, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Parker, Coltrane and a host of others, and it’s peppered with fascinating critical insights. Konitz’s voice turns out to be every bit as distinctive as his saxophone playing: once heard, never forgotten.

Brian Marley SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 57

Braxtonian outburst: Lee Konitz

Genre in Popular Music Fabian Holt

Konitz: Konstantin Kern

University of Chicago Press

Whether you're disgreeing over a beer or defending a thesis, it’s always easier to stick to universal arguments than admit that specific problems require specific answers. This seems to be the case especially in the social sciences, but ethnomusicologist Fabian Holt takes the difficult route—and navigates it handily. With a toolbox full of “small theories,” “multiple critical models,” and field interviews from across the country, he tackles a variety of intriguing case studies and helps to rehabilitate genre as a useful lens for understanding musical culture. Holt’s main objection is that distain for categories fostered by poststructuralist thought and theories of hybridity have blurred genre boundaries beyond usefulness. He brings genre divisions back into focus, not to regiment them in the style of classic, linear studies, but as orienting points for networks of musicians, critics, fans, and industry workers. Employing music theory and historical, economic, geographic, political, and racial perspectives on a case-by-case basis, Holt presents genres as sites in constant interaction and flux.

Examining the soundtrack to the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the emergence of the term “roots music,” he shows how genres, and, by extension, social narratives can be created and manipulated. Following the ways country and jazz responded to rock and roll beginning in the 1950s, he illustrates how economic conditions shape musical developments. And, in a detailed look at Chicago’s indie jazz scene that pays special attention to Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker, we see how individuals actively negotiate their own identities with respect to genre. Finally, he uses Ricky Martin and conjunto musician Flaco Jimenez to advocate the study of music located in overlapping and intersecting categories By devoting attention to social conditions and offering his many interviewees ample room to express themselves (and even respond to his project!), Holt proceeds much like an academically minded journalist. Leading more by example than making his arguments didactically, he builds storylines readable enough that it’s possible to forget he’s making a point: that genres are rooted in social context and can only be contingently defined. Or, as Holt concludes, “there is not just one truth about genre.” Now there’s an argument worth toasting. Eric Smillie 58 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Overlapping categories: Flaco Jimenez

Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music

Eric Weisbard, editor Duke University Press

It’s true: the best music writing tends to exclude the reader, inspiring a jealous sort of curiosity, a distinct sense of unbelonging—of foreign totems and signifiers, of alien nomenclature and byzantine referents. There’s so much out in that great, wide world, just waiting to be known: fine journalism offers a high-definition window and surround sound.

Listen Again collects reportage from the Experience Music Project Pop Conference, an annual Seattle event where music addicts of all stripes present papers academic, experiential, and just plain insane, for their own edification and the entertainment of their peers. Any topic’s fair game, and no Listen Again essay is any less amazing than any other. One of the collection’s most important pieces isn’t directly related to music; David Thomas examines the career of one Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson, a Cleveland television personality whose ornery, eff-you persona would inspire countless artists who grew up during his 1960s heyday—Rocket From the Tombs, Pere Ubu, and the Cramps among them. Anderson’s job was simply to introduce mid-day b-horror films, but he did so with a gleefully subversive, who-cares élan: “Think of Ghoulardi as a last hurrah of that pop culture masquerade, the rebel without a cause. Just a guy with a bad attitude. Apolitical, non-aligned, drifting across the landscape content to leave behind nothing more than mayhem." Michaelangelo Matos methodically lays out the roots, storied history, and legacy of “Apache”—from its late '50s origins as a gloss on a Burt Lancaster film to its resurrection as a key sampling source in '80s hip-hop. Drew Daniel— one half of conceptualist electronic duo Matmos —returns from a Germs reunion show armed with surprisingly ironic observations of the two performances therein: the real Germs featuring Shane West as Darby Crash, and actors portraying the Germs featuring Shane West as Darby Crash. More nakedly personal is Lavinia Greenlaw’s reminiscence of growing up disco in London before ditching that scene to go first-wave punk; her not-entirely-nostalgic account teems with fashions and fabrics, tentative poses and ever-present singles and shows now fuzzy in memory.

Listen Again recasts yesterday’s boredoms, indignities, and wasted afternoon’s as today’s counter-cultural treasures. Raymond Cummings

Coltrane: the Story of a Sound Ben Ratliff Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Nobody can deny John Coltrane’s monumental stature in the world of jazz, and he’s a musician whose work has been extensively written about, perhaps most successfully by scholar and musician Lewis Porter. So New York Times writer Ben Ratliff comes to an already crowded field and must find a new way to approach yet another book on Coltrane. The first part of The Story of a Sound provides a biography and musical analysis of Coltrane’s music by dissecting the development of his sound, from his initial playing in a Navy band, through his tenure in big bands, wood-shedding to develop tone and technique, and his well documented rise. Rather than just recount his sessions with Miles, his work at Prestige, Atlantic, and his meteoric arc at Impulse, he looks at how Coltrane honed his tone, attack, and articulation in response to the musicians he encountered and his exposure to a variety of music, from Western composition to folk forms and non-Western traditional musics.

There’s nothing radically new here, though he does make some odd postulations, particularly his harsh assessment of Eric Dolphy’s playing. The second half of the book focuses on the influence Coltrane had on subsequent generations. Here there’s a look at various journalists' views of Trane's music and the usual discussion of the benefits of playing long runs at small clubs, an opportunity that's really no longer available to today's musicians. There are excerpts of interviews with contemporaries like Charles Tolliver, Don Ellis, Frank Lowe, and Markus Strikland (to name a few) as well as a look at the influence of Coltrane’s music on rock. But here is where Ratliff missed a huge opportunity. Where’s a discussion with Braxton on his take on Coltrane’s music, as he so often features Coltrane’s pieces in both solo settings? What about a look at how Rova has taken “Ascension” and extended it in both acoustic and electric settings? What about talking with Evan Parker, a musician who is particularly articulate about Coltrane’s music? Or getting Leonard Brown’s take, a professor at Northeastern University who has been exploring Coltrane’s music in a yearly series of concerts in Boston that just celebrated it’s 30th anniversary. Ratliff is certainly an adept writer, and many jazz listeners will come away from this with a fresh perspective on Coltrane’s music. But there’s just not enough here to recommend it over other more definitive works.

Michael Rosenstein

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 59

CD / DVD / LP / MP3 The season's key releases and reissues from the world of creative music ...

Dan Cohoon

Shinsuke Michishita of LSD-March at the Big Jar, 2007.

60 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Kousokuya

Ray Night 2006.0ctober.18 Ray Night Music RNM 0002 CD

Echoes from Deep Underground Archive DVD-1 CD + DVD

LSD-March Big Jar Solo Sets Archive DVD-2 DVD

Nikutai No Tubomi Beta-Lactam Ring mt195 CD x 2 / LP x 2

LSD-Pond LSD-Pond Archive 36 CD x 2

Up-Tight EarlyYears Archive 40 CD

Suishou No Fune The Light of Dark Night Archive 39 CD

The Shining Star - Live Important IMPREC165 CD

Writhing Underground Flowers The Lotus Sound TLS202 CD

It's often said these days that the Japanese underground has rebirthed rock music by intensifying the genre’s characteristics. If there is an element of tribute to groups like Les Rallizes Denudes, Shizuka, Fushitsusha and Kousokuya, it’s honest and well researched. Even when things get more playful, as with the overblown, levels-far-in-the-red psych-punk of High Rise or Mainliner, there’s something transcendent and exhilarating about their accelerated drive.

Regardless, I’ve often wondered whether we need to move away from this argument. It plays into the hands of cultural imperialism, and the notion of a magnification of Western paradigms doesn’t exactly credit these deeply idiosyncratic artists with their own creativity. Listening to Kousokuya’s Ray Night 2006.0ctober.18, their last live performance before guitarist and vocalist Jutok Kaneko passed away, I’m struck by both the ferocity of the performance and the intelligence of the songwriting: though simple, it allows black holes to open between the notes. It’s rock inhabiting its own blasted universe. Here, the group tackles the entirety of their 1991 debut album, Kousokuya 1st, and three extra songs.

There’s still a lot of blood pulsing through these veins, and this might be the ultimate Kousokuya

live set, surpassing Ray Night 1991-1992 Live and Live Gyakurya Kokuu, which both document performances from around the time of their debut. Mick’s consumptive vocals and barebones bass throb act as the centrifuge for both Kaneko, whose guitar is fierce on this recording, swallowing solos whole, as though they’re slowly bleeding from a wounded fuzz box and congealing on the floor, and Ikuro Takahashi, behind the drum kit after an extended absence.

Takahashi always felt like the ultimate drummer for Kousokuya. His more straightforward playing slips between expectations of metre and composition, and when he swims further out, he somehow avoids both free-rock and -jazz approaches. It’s a unique take on rhythm, something accentuated by Echoes from Deep Underground, a CD and DVD document of a 2001 performance, where Takahashi is replaced

by Michinobu Matsuhashi. The latter’s playing is strong when circling the group’s monolithic two-chord riffs, as on “Shadow of a Dream,” but it’s less convincing when negotiating structure versus freedom: in the opening to “Dreams Have Gone,” Matsuhashi is too hyperactive, blocking out some of Kaneko’s noise squalls.

“Clothed in Flame,” however, is a real departure, with one of Mick’s most tortured vocals, and some of Kaneko’s most radically untethered noise sorcery.

Takahashi is also one of the key links between generations of artists. Big Jar Solo Sets, another DVD from Archive, features the members of LSD March playing unaccompanied at Big Jar Books in Philadelphia. Like the Kousokuya DVD, the visual effects are minimal, though at times they border on the cheesy. Shinsuke Michishita and Masami Kawaguchi both turn in good guitar and voice recitals, with Kawaguchi’s guitar tone particularly acrid, and his songs more exploratory than Michishita’s dolorous moans. Their voices teeter on the edge of melodrama: I can’t tell whether their vibrato is natural or forced.

Takahashi’s piece and its countless shrill buzzing alarms is the highlight. It has a nicely symmetrical plot, and the massed tones are like riverbanks of cicadas on high alert. Its visual appeal is admittedly limited, but the audio is riveting.

The second disc of LSD March’s Nikutai No Tubomi is similar to the DVD, featuring experimental vignettes and spare settings for song: the title song is dedicated to ashen-faced mumbling and Takahashi on ritualistic bells and snare. Elsewhere, they tussle with toy instruments, shakers, and primitively blown wind and brass. It’s more interesting than the first disc’s “Aubade,” a forty-minute epic which gets stuck in a grotto of fuzzed-out pedal notes, never quite taking flight; though it sounds suitably dirty, it’s not really that psychedelic. Nikutai No Tubomi is their ‘experimental’ set, and while it’s not completely successful, it’s an interesting listen. With LSD Pond, a one-off collaboration between members of LSD March, Masami Kawaguchi’s New Rock

Syndicate and American stoners Bardo Pond, the players lose themselves in lengthy sweet-jam mazes. It’s good stuff, at times transcendent, though they do rather get mired in pneumatic riffing and grungy drones. Some great free-wah solos crack a few of the tracks in two, however, and the second disc moves further out with the percolating ambient drift of “Sugatanaki Kyofu.”

Up-Tight’s Early Years does what it says on the jar. Collecting their first album, from 1999, and live and studio recordings from 1994, it’s not as rigorously realised as their great, recent albums Five Psychedelic Pieces and Lucrezia. In fact, it takes a while to really get moving—the first few songs off the debut, while enjoyable, don’t quite gel. The closing “Non-Title” makes up for any doubts, though: an eighteen-minute riff monster, it’s positively engorged on its own overload, and Tomoyuki Aoki’s guitar really flies off the hook near the end. A live “King of Ice” from 1994 is thrillingly Neanderthal, the highlight of the set, where the closing “Shining the Red Light,” surprisingly, is clean sounding and even a little ‘indie rock,’ as if Spiritualized got their asses off the couch.

Suishou No Fune are probably the most enduring of the latest wave of Japanese psych groups. They draw from the same wellspring of bleakness as Keiji Haino at his most reflective, and The Light of Dark Night, which consists of a 2007 gig in Philadelphia, reminds somewhat of Haino’s First, Let’s Remove the Colour. When they perform as a guitar and vocals duo of Pirako Kurenai and Kageo, they let their songs morph into one another, shading the simplest chord changes with universe-swamping reverb, and blitzing the audience with sudden bursts of intense distortion and volume. As with Haino, or indeed Kawaguchi, their quiet numbers tend to meander, as though they’re exploiting every nuance of their soporific dream-psych, patiently teasing emotions from their protective shells.

Culling from 2005 and 2006 shows in their homeland, The Shining Star—Live winds the clock further back. Here they’re joined by Tail on drums, whose playing further emphasizes the linear aspects of their songs, sometimes at the expense of the lunar. But it’s interesting to hear Kurenai and Kageo plotting their songs around a more rigid backbone, and it also proves the structural integrity of their songwriting. The closing “The Storm of Light Big Jar Solo Sets Cherry” all but obliterates Tail in a maelstrom of noise: it’s absolutely feral, and the set’s highlight.

However, Writing Underground Flowers is the one, if you have to be selective. The entire album sounds dazed, and Kurenai and Kageo really dissolve into each other: on the closing title track, they weave an impossibly beautiful sequence of chords into a mournful threnody.

Kurenai’s harmonica on the episodic “A Midnight Ode—Like the Wind” is as lonesome as Jandek, and the whole disc is just unimpeachably outside. Jon Dale SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 61

weightless, playful tone: G.F. Fitz-Gerald right: Ken Hyder's Talisker

Kevin Ayers and the Whole World

Hyde Park Free Concert 1970 Reel Recordings RR 002 CD

Pam & Gary Windo Avant-Gardeners Reel Recordings RR 001 CD

Ray Russell Secret Asylum Reel Recordings RR 005 CD

G.F. Fitz-Gerald & Lol Coxhill Echoes of Duneden Reel Recordings RR 003 CD

Ken Hyder's Talisker

Dreaming of Glenisla

courtsesy Reel Recordings

Reel Recordings RR 004 CD

This first batch of discs from the Reel Recordings label, each overseen by label head Michael King, represent some of the most fascinating discoveries from the rare records lists and dusty corner-of-the-room tape-piles of England’s Canterbury Scene milieu. While there have been plenty of reissues or first-time releases of soundtracks and live tapes from acts like Soft Machine, these five discs are as important as Cuneiform’s Miller/Coxhill set for the way they signal Canterbury prog’s implication in the vast web of 1960s and ‘70s free jazz and improvisation in England. It’s not simply a case of healthy interaction between key players, either: the more song-based of the Canterbury crew often borrowed from the 62 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

freedom offered by improv, where the free players found support, work and inspiration in song and volume annexed from rock and pop.

Nowhere is this hybridisation more evident than on Kevin Ayers and The Whole World’s Hyde Park Free Concert 1970. Ostensibly a good times festival gig for Ayers and his mad crew, who at the time counted David Bedford, Mike Oldfield, Lol Coxhill and Robert Wyatt among their membership, the presence of Coxhill and Wyatt in particular really opened the playing up to the ides of the moment.

Opener “Clarence in Wonderland” dissolves into a delirious couple of minutes of improvisation, where Ayers proves he’s adept at the same scrabbly, illogical bursts of jagged skronk sometimes heard from Syd Barrett.

Other songs aren’t quite so livid, but there’s a playful rendition here of “Did It Again”’s Stoogely, one-riff oblivion, and the whole thing sounds like great fun.

Documenting live and home recordings from 1974 and ’76, Avant Gardeners catches Pam and Gary Windo at their wildest: there’s good reason for Pam to recall that ‘Gary was an enfant terrible, it’s true’ in the liner notes.

Yet what’s most appealing about the music exhumed here is its breadth. While there are episodes of classic ‘spontaneous music’ in that scratchy, hyper-tensile style favourite by 1970s free playing in England—albeit with Windo injecting some much-needed fire into proceedings—there are also great moments of reflection, like Frank Perry’s processional, slow-breathing solo percussion improv, “Frank ‘n Myrrh,” or Windo’s lyrical flight at the beginning of “Maiden Stone”.

Windo appears as a member of Ray Russell’s group on Secret Asylum, his 1973 classic.

At this point Russell had blown the windows out of the room, unlocking the freedom inherent in the nexus of strings, wood and amplification, resulting in mind-bogglingly ‘out’ examples of free electric guitar wrangling like “These That I Am”—a classic of its genre that completely predates and anticipates both Rudolph Grey and Stefan Jaworzyn of Ascension. It sounds revolutionary—ahead of everyone’s time. Elsewhere, Secret Asylum maybe

hews a little closer to classic free playing of its era, but that’s a relative claim, as there’s always something slightly off centre about Russell’s approach. One question—is it “These That I Am”, or “Stained Angel Morning”? Anyone who picked up the Russell reissue on Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai would know the track as “Stained Angel Morning”, but on this reissue that title’s given to the opening cut—a pellucid, faintly Eastern-sounding miniature.

English psych/pop/prog historians Sunbeam recently reissued G.F. Fitz-Gerald’s sole album as songwriter, Mouseproof. He also appeared on one side of Coxhill’s Like Fleas on Custard, cementing a productive relationship that found itself gigging at Roxbourgh Place Hall in Edinburgh, in September 1975.

Echoes of Duneden mops up the recordings from the night, and it’s pretty much as you’d expect from the two if you’ve heard their previous recorded engagement. But it’s also lovely stuff. Fitz-Gerald teases a weightless, playful tone from his instrument that’s easily the match for Coxhill’s benign play and wily humour. There’s some spikiness in evidence too, with Fitz-Gerald’s sharp, crackly arpeggios sometimes breaking the surface tension, while Coxhill teases circular melodies from his soprano saxophone. A lovely, welcoming recording.

But Dreaming of Glenisla by Ken Hyder's Talisker may be the most enduring of this lot: at the very least, I’ve found it the most endlessly playable. Documenting this five piece’s switch from ‘largely American influenced music’ to the traditional music of their home country, Scotland, Talisker locate the fiery call at the heart of Scottish trad song, pulling out melody heads that echo the gospel and marching band progenitors who animated Albert Ayler’s screaming melody heads. It’s taken at a calmer clip, of course, but combined with the hum and rasp of droning arco double bass, sometimes mirrored by the two players Marc Meggido and Lindsay Cooper to hypnotic effect, it’s highly effective. If you ever wondered whether British folk modes might translate keenly into the spark and fire of unbridled jazz extemporisation, Dreaming of Glenisla is your ticket. Jon Dale

Anakrid UnoDos

Beta-Lactam Ring mt-154 CD x 2

Those who know Chris Bickel probably know him from his tenure in In/ Humanity and Guyana Punch Line, two good-to-great bands of hardcore ranters that petered out sometime around the turn of the century. Given that pedigree, one would be forgiven for expecting Anakrid, Bickel's current musical project, to retain at least trace elements of his previous band's blustering bellow. Surprising then that both of the formerly self-released LPs reissued here as a part of UnoDos traffic not in ultra-compact post-core brio, but rather in densely layered and constructed noise and ambient pieces that call to mind classic 1980s work of England's supposed Hidden Reverse alongside some nifty nods to German proto-industrialism. That Bickel managed to transition from riff-centric grind to decidedly more nuanced and blackened ambience is hardly surprising; after all, it's a trick many disgruntled punks have pulled before. What takes the listener aback, though, is the remarkably assured poise and confidence he displays navigating the tracks throughout both of these discs. Father's “Secret Submissions” gathers steam effortlessly with its relentless thump and steadily billowing winds, while “Osculum Infame Mucho” strikes like incidental music from an unreleased Tobe Hooper flicker. As opposed to the first disc's tightly wound miniatures, Rapture of the Deep flexes longer pieces with more deliberate pacing. Tonally, though, it's very much a seamless transition from one disc to the next, as the set's second half works through the sunken aquatics of “Wilt” and the claustrophobic clusters of “Electrik Leviathan—The Rapture,” both of which prove that Bickel's latest step is every bit as inspired as his earlier bands. Michael Crumsho

Jakob Anderskov Panta Rhei ILK 136 CD

Pianist/keyboardist Jakob Anderskov has emerged as one of the bright spots in Danish improvised music.

Since making his first recording in 2001, he’s produced ten albums as a leader with various groups, including trios with American players Jim Black and Michael Formanek and the superb octet Anderskov Accident that expands on his talent for unusual compositions and arrangements and employs some of Denmark’s finest musicians. Panta Rhei (Greek for “everything in flux”) is his first solo album, presenting seven improvisations.

Stylistically, Anderskov brings to mind Paul Bley, both in the way he lets his improvisations grow organically and in the way he uses space and silence to great effect. But Anderskov’s harmonic palette is all his own. It’s broader and his sense of melody gives his music a more expansive and open quality. Throughout the disc, the music has a wonderful ebb and flow. “Contradictio: Danbury—Paide” consists of tumbling cascades of notes that gradually become more dissonant and misshapen as the piece continues. The interplay between

the melodic material and dissonance is a dominant motif in this music.

The music generally plays out at the quieter end of the spectrum and its depth reveals itself through repeated listening. Robert Iannapollo

Antietam

Opus Mixtum Carrot Top saki 041 CD

They alternate between rugged indie-rock tunes and dazzling instrumentals; there are three of them; two members are married; one's a woman, two are men. We might as well be talking about Yo La Tengo, who Antietam happen to be tight with. But while most ripening hipsters have at least a passing familiarity with Hoboken, NJ's underground lifers, the Louisville, KY trio behind two-disc powerhouse Opus Mixtum have been virtually unknown for their twenty-some years as a touring and recording rock band. If there's any justice, Mixtum—an expansive work rewarding late-night or early-morning behind-the-wheel listens—should change all that. Despite coming off as an almost accidental, reluctant frontwoman, Tara Key possesses a worn, weathered voice that meshes well with these distinctly Southern, stubbornly unforgettable songs; she's like a less unstable, less hoarse Kristen Hersh, keepin' on in the face of an undeserved irrelevance. So organs blare engorged with blood and sweat; so “That's The Way It Is” rewrites Blur's “Song #2” for a public that's not paying attention; so effects pedals fuse and funnel guitar blare into sonic throw pillows and controlled slo-mo burns; so lonesome prairie pianos plink and peal, with or without refracted synths or autumnal strings to buttress them; so Magellen gets taken down and pinned for favoring waterways over his wife, and every word and move seems suspiciously coded as a strike at a world that's overlooked Key's husband Tim Harris' elastic bass, Josh Modell's rocksteady drums, Key's own inviting-yetstandoffish guitars. “Where were you, for the rough stuff?/Where were you, when I had enough?” she yelps on “RPM”; the answer is and always will be we don't know, but we're so, so sorry. Raymond Cummings

Nils Henrik Asheim & Paal Nilssen-Love Late Play

PNL Records 002 CD

Lasse Marhaug & Paal Nilssen-Love Stalk

PNL Records 003 CD

The inaugural release on Paal Nilssen-Love’s own PNL Records pairs the Norwegian avant-garde jazz drummer with laptop manipulator Lasse Marhaug. While Nilssen-Love has more often been heard with acoustic instrumentalists with a jazz background, Marhaug's blips, bleats, found-sounds and random samples give the drummer a lot of space to interject blast-beats undercutting “Paranoia Agent” and bowed cymbal drones swallowing the white noise of “Satanico Pandemonium.” It’s not always easy to discern who’s doing

what. Many of the throbs, whooshes, clangs and rumbles sound neither obviously digital nor percussive, and Hild Sofie Tafjord processed and edited the original live-to-tape sessions. After five tracks, the convoluted feel can be frustrating. But like Teo Macero's behind-the-boards work for Miles Davis, the cut-and-paste job makes a tasteful montage that’s full of ebb and flow.

Late Play is Nilssen-Love’s collaboration with Nils Henrik Asheim, who for this album played the built-in pipe organ at Oslo Domkirke cathedral. The cathedral has been around since 1697, so it seems fitting how Asheim’s drones seem to stir not just centuries of dust but howls from a mythic, antediluvian past.

Dig the way “Heavy Weight” sneaks near-subliminal bass-pedal moans into slow-motion processions, or how the reverb off Asheim’s snaky motifs in “Clear Mist”—thrown, echoed and returned through the cathedral’s expanse—whorl around Nilssen-Love’s tentative clattering like village-haunting specters. The totally improvised numbers rage in length from around 1 to just less than 14 minutes; the tempo seems to be controlled mostly by Nilssen-Love, who masterfully switches up passive coloring (“Soft Bones”) with martial, cathedral-filling testimonies a la “Slow Thought.” Nathan Turk

Atlas Sound

Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel Kranky krank114 CD

If Bradford Cox presents himself —on stage, in interviews, via blog postings—as something of a loathsome, misanthropic indie-rock diva, the underground-at-large (however grudgingly) forgives the Deerhunter frontman because, well, 2007's Cryptograms and the Fluorescent Grey EP totally smoked stainedglass. Cracked-crystalline, propulsive noise-pop simply doesn't get any better than this Atlanta based outfit right now; they seem to have a killer instinct Scotch-taping familiarly-alien sentiments to dirty-neon smears of sound. Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, Cox's debut album under solo moniker Atlas Sound further underlines the size of his songwriting gifts. “I'm waiting to be… changed / I'm waiting to be… changed,” Cox repeats over a sashaying bass line on “Quarantined,” aglow with wonder, as treated Ghana bells, mbiras, and glockenspiels swirl and slosh around him like a chemically-enhanced cloak. Indeed, Let the Blind resembles something on the verge of becoming, comfortably numb and cocooned between grubby caterpillar and elegant butterfly. The sensuous overall rush of looped and accentuated sonics here gels nicely with Cox's streamof-consciousness murmuring: “River Card” a glistening, sugar-pop love letter to a river that he fears could drown him, “Scraping Past” sacrificing throbbing, overprocessed guitars to supposed weather gods who could care less about the underlying New Wave hook-wink. Songs proper alternate with itchy, twitchy

sinkholes like “Ready, Set, Glow,” where sampled nylon guitar strikes are cut-up with ringing glockenspiel and unfathomable vocals; the result suggests Boards of Canada on meth.

Adrift and weightless in Cox's opiumcoma dreams, surrender equals bliss; whatever pissy irritability he projects hardly matters. Raymond Cummings

Autistici

Volume Objects 12K 1045 CD

The interpretation of ‘organic source materials’ in an electronic framework seems to be a thematic for 12K’s current run of releases. It appears a worthwhile investigation, as Autistici prove with their gracefully composed album of dejected melody, electronically sourced interruptions and found sound beds. Whilst electro-acoustic music has ventured to measure some more compositional or sound (im) balance relationships, Autistici seem more interested in testing the edge of concentration in their listeners and how to snap their attention into and out of focus. “Wire Cage For Tiny Birds” for example is a series of broken passages of tuneful sound linked through a series of connecting textures and process patterns.

The piece is deeply musical, but at no point really resolves into a clearly articulated ‘musical’ progression.

It’s within this hazy juxtaposition of sounds, musical fragments and field recordings that they stake their claim.

Works like “Broken Guitar, Discarded Violin,” and its earthing hum from the guitar scattering across the stereo field, offer an primitive quality—one that is constantly attacked by the digital processes and cut-ups that shape the piece. “Ageless Visitor, Eroded Time” creates this same impression of sound objects caught in a clutter of musical expressions—sense is left up to the listener and their level of engagement, something welcomed wholeheartedly in an age of oversimplification and narrative binaries.

Lawrence English

Autistic Daughters Uneasy Flowers Kranky 115 CD

While the first Autistic Daughters release, Jealousy and Diamonds, seemed like a completely collaborative effort, its follow-up, Uneasy Flowers pushes vocalist and guitarist Dean Roberts to the foreground. Werner Dafeldecker (doublebass and electric guitar) and Martin Brandlmayer (drums, vibraphone and computer processing) are great ballasts for any project, but their contributions, and those of guests Chris Abrahams (piano), Martin Siewert (mandoguitar) and Valerio Tricoli (vocals), are secondary to Roberts’ lyrics. And his is not the kind of vocal delivery one can easily sing along to: it’s hushed and husky whispers of melancholia grosso.

That soft darkness meshes nicely with the intermittent bursts of feedback on “Gin Over Sour Milk.” The secondary layer of Tricoli’s vocals, which sound like they’re coming from the opposite corner of the room, effectively and affectingly add a thin sirenlike echo to Roberts’ sung speech. His lyrics are bold (“he drugs me on the platform/ SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 63

50000000 Phish fans can't be wrong: Jon Fishman and Elvii in Vegas, 1996

Phish

08.13.93 Murat Theatre Indiannapolis, IN Jemp CD x 3

10.21.95 Pershing Auditoreum, Lincoln NE Jemp CD x 3

11.14.95 University of Central Florida Arena, Orlando FL Jemp CD x 3

12.29.97 Madison Square Garden, NYC Jemp CD x 3

Vegas '96

Jeremy Stein

Jemp 1002 CD x 4 + DVD

Somehow, in the past two or three years, the Grateful Dead became hip again. Jerry Garcia's face crosses the cover of The Fader, Freaks and Geeks write them into the series finale, Animal Collective pays tribute, and Steal Your Face graffiti begins to turn up in Williamsburg. Perhaps it was just that the Deadheads needed to go away before otherwise open-eared listeners were able to take their music seriously. But, despite a rising generation of musicians who surely crossed paths with Phish during their high school and college years—and the band was fairly ubiquitous —Garcia and the gang's sudden cultural cache hasn't transferred to the Dead's Vermont-bred descendents. Perhaps it never will.

The latest round of releases from Phish's peak years—one show from 1993, three from '95, and one each from '96 and '97—is filled with adventurous improvisation, elaborate meta-textual concepts, rigorous playing, and ambitious compositions. But it could never be mistaken for hip, and, like a vast combination lock clicking into place, needs probably two or three generations of mass cultural shifts in irony and sincerity before it might be. Sure is fun, though.

And that's precisely, the problem. It runs like a current through Phish's timeline, a tension that eventually led to their musical undoing as they uncoiled into ponderous adulthood. On these 64 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

19 discs worth of music, it's exactly what keeps it going. Despite Phish's famed spontaneity, their mash of genres—funk, bluegrass, jazz, etc.—and cover songs, theirs was a static dynamic, one best served in a large theater or small arena. On that canvas, though, Phish did a lot.

08.13.93, recorded in Indianapolis, has been a Phishhead staple for years, mostly owing to a 15-minute “Bathtub Gin.” There and in the jams that follow, the band demonstrates the type of hyperactive, impressionistic improv representative of their mid-dork period. Guitarist Trey Anastasio leads a vocal jam out of the song's verse, drummer Jon Fishman dementing the beat beneath him. An off-time march soon leads to a bright “Weekapaug Groove” gallop, Anastasio entwining the “Bathtub Gin” melody into soaring rock guitar screams before the band topples into step behind him and melts into further adventures. “Awww, let's go back right into that groove again,” Fishman whinies, but the band is already doing it.

There is something delightfully unformed about the band performing on the four releases from 1993 and 1995. On the middle disc of the 11.14.95 show in Orlando, the band slide into one of the all-time versions of “Stash,” winding through a harmonically tense jam split by Gillespie, Fuller, and Poco's “Manteca” and Fishman's own “Dog-Faced Boy.” The segue into the former, especially, is an example of Phish's working vocabulary in action: Anastasio dropping to his percussion kit in a passive-aggressive attempt to get keyboardist Page McConnell to lead (he continues to pump his clavinet), before picking up the guitar again and dashing into oblique jazz-funk figures. But it works.

By some standards, creating drama by opening a show with a manic two-minute build usually played as a set-closer (“Tweezer Reprise” from 10.21.95 Lincoln) and then reprising the reprise with a not-very-complex major key transition out of a Led Zeppelin cover (“Good Times, Bad Times”), or by eliminating the middle section of a normally three-part suite (“Mike's Song > Weekapaug Groove” on 12.01.95 Hershey) are musically narcissistic moves. But they were catnip to Phishheads, containing a vocabulary that encouraged fans to pay obscene attention to detail. They were also Phish's saving grace: how could any band that encourages close listening be bad? (Deconstructing the crap w00kiees yell

during the quiet sections of the 11.14.95 “Stash” is another parlor trick entirely.)

On “Harry Hood” (also 10.21.95), the quartet sinks into a number of luxurious tangents, Fishman's ethereal shuffles rolling out to meet Anastasio's Frippertronic tumbles. Almost languidly, they make their way from section to section, such that when they eventually reach the song's crest, it is as a flower blooming, its color only revealed in its final stage. On the same song—recorded just over a year later, included on Vegas '96, and almost exactly the same length—there is an inevitability to the same transitions. Early in the song, Anastasio moves to his percussion kit for a spell, tapping out an inventive counter-rhythm to Fishman's already mutated reggae, though the song never strays from its basic character.

Like much of Phish's playing that year, the jam territory is pretty isolated on Vegas '96—a long “Simple” spirals gorgeously around its changes—much of the space taken with the show's set pieces. The still mostly concise Deodato funk arrangement of “2001,” “You Enjoy Myself,” and Frank Zappa's “Peaches en Regalia” linger on the first disc, and a 45-minute story/song “Harpua” encore—with Primus bassist Les Claypool and encompassing yodelers, Elvis imitators, and a Credence Clearwater Revival cover—takes up the third. The latter, especially, is good fun, but to what end? Surprise? Laughter? It makes more sense on a bonus DVD, Fishman's lightbulbencrusted Elvis cape a glorious thing, but it is not lasting music. The 5-song bonus disc Road to Vegas explores the jam territory a little deeper, including a 16-minute “Tweezer” with Santana percussionist Karl Perazzo.

Their dork period over, and their mantle as arena rockers accepted, a seriousness of purpose returns with 12.29.97 at Madison Square Garden. While much of the first set wades in the same malaise, their version of “Crossroads” wholly unnecessary, the show's second half—five songs, none shorter than ten minutes—shows party-era Phish in full sail. Long ambient interludes give way to psych-funk jams like figure/ ground illusions on “David Bowie” and “Down With Disease.”

It's all very groovy—the 12.29.97 “Bowie” and everything, really—but it feels diminished.

Though some of jams do sound an awful lot like Battles. Maybe we're getting closer, after all.

Jesse Jarnow

then leaves with all of my fingers”) yet delivered under his breath, a strategy that reinforces a tension between the music and the words. I love the last minute of piano, bass and drums on “The Richest Woman In the World,” and there are many times while listening to this album that I wished I could hear the music without the vocals, Roberts’ chunky guitar chords included. Uneasy Flowers is a perfect title: something here is growing despite itself. Andrew Choate

Jim Baker Steve Hunt Brian Sandstrom Mars Williams

Extraordinary Popular Delusioms Okka OD12056 CD

these nine free improvisations, opting instead for a high-energy flow that Hunt and Sandstrom simultaneously stoke and obstruct with tumultuous contributions that amplify the music's delicious tension. Williams punches holes in its fabric like a barnstorming pilot flipping his biplane through ragged clouds. Although the tracks (and the album itself) are shorter, this music feels much more sprawling and unhinged than that of the Engines, a testament to their no-net improvisational strategy. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't; either way, Okka has your back. Bill Meyer

Nik Bärtsch's Ronin Holon

ECM 2049 CD

The Engines

Enrico Rava Stefano Bollani

Okka OD12057 CD

ECM 2020 CD

The Engines

Both of these CDs are debut releases by quartets hailing from Chicago.

But even though members of each group play with the others in various ensembles on a regular basis, these units are separated by philosophical and methodological differences.

The Engines features saxophonist Dave Rempis, trombonist Jeb Bishop, drummer Tim Daisy, and bass player Nate McBride, all veterans of the city's indie free jazz scene, and they bring what they know and what you might expect to this new project.

Each band member composed two tunes, and the music goes to intricately configured places that could only be accessed with pre-planning.

The Engines' vocabulary of swinging grooves, rock-derived riffs, atomized ensemble passages, and extended solos goaded to heights of expression by the commentary of the other players will be fairly familiar if you've heard its members' other groups, such as the Vandermark 5, School Days, or Bridge 61. They play this material with a similar level of stern intent and disciplined execution, forging a distinctive collective identity.

Keyboardist Jim Baker, drummer Steve Hunt, guitar and bass player Brian Sandstrom, and saxophonist Mars Williams are no strangers to such methods; all save Baker practiced them together in Hal Russell's NRG Ensemble until Hal died in 1992, when the younger members of the Engines were still in high school. The billing is not of a band, but of four equal contributors; liner notes by John Litweiler, who has been an indefatigable annotator of Chicago free jazz for even longer than these guys have been playing, situate the quartet within the city's musical lineage. Baker convened the quartet in 2005 to play a still-extant weekly gig at a tiny venue called Hotti Biscotti, and they each make it as often as their busy schedules allow because it gives them a sympathetic place to play with no fixed parameters. Nothing is promised except that someone is going to start playing music a little after 8:30; there's certainly no guarantee that the music will sound like this record, since it was recorded in a nice studio with a well-tuned grand piano. Baker barely dips into his bag of lunar ARP sounds or distorted electric piano licks on

The Third Man

Listeners to this label’s vast catalog have argued for decades over the “ECM sound”. If one exists, it seems to reside in a deceptive accessibility.

Whatever patina of seeming simplicity is present, regardless of genre or style, a twist waits just beneath the surface to turn heads and alter perceptions. These two releases are cases in point; brilliant musicianship vies with the dreaded hook, a device that actually turns out to resemble bait-and-switch, ensuring many hours of fascinating listening.

Pianist Nik Bärtsch’s new quintet offering is an air-tight series of multileveled grooves that foster dance and introspection by turn. Like Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters at their best, layers of metered pulse fit seamlessly together in a tightly patterned mosaic of polyrhythm. The fifteen-minute “Modul 41_17” sums up the album’s aesthetic in grand style as the two-note opening phrase, a bit of modified piano and light percussion, breathes clearly through some transparent reverb. It’s initially uncertain, however, whether the pattern is in five or seven, and only when Andi Pupato’s percussion, Kaspar Rast’s drums and Björn Meyer’s bass begin to skip lightly around each other are the subdivisions clearly in seven. The mesmerizing swell of percussion and bass, augmented by deftly precise insertions from reedman Sha, often shifts abruptly with a decisively monosyllabic spirited shout, redolent of the martial arts and presumably from the leader. The entire rhythmic focus changes dramatically, Rast launching into a more standard trap-set pattern as the polyrhythms continue around him. The formula is repeated in many contexts throughout the disc, each environment different and fresh. Particularly inspiring is the pairing of bass and contrabass clarinet on the final track amidst washes of percussion and interregistral piano pointilisms.

The Rava/Bollani disc is a gorgeous collection of standards and new compositions. Bollani’s “Santa Teresa,” to cite one example of the latter, is a beautifully balladesque reverie, informed by Bill Evans but sporting surreptitiously chromatic underpinnings. Throughout the disc, the duo’s long-breathed phrases, set against a delicately reverberant back-

ground, exude viceralgia and magic by turn. The two variants of the Jobim-penned “Retrato Em Branco Y Preto” demonstrate the disparity of approach that is one of the disc’s proudest boasts. Bollani’s playing is both steeped in tradition and tantalizingly free of it, Rava matching him step for step, aching melodic passages giving way to glisses and breathy exhortations imbued with the freedom of long experience. Yet, as the second take of Jobim’s tune ends, the duo is in clear synchronicity, ushering out the final gestures with intimacy bordering on the telepathic.

If the ECM sound is exemplified by clarity and richness of texture, then these two discs certainly bear those hallmarks. The recordings are superb, with fullness and richness of detail pervading every moment. Musically, they occupy different but equally absorbing worlds, marking territory in a catalog already teeming with fresh sound. Marc Medwin

Basalt Fingers Basalt Fingers 3 Lobed TLR-039 LP

Basalt Fingers are an off-the-cuff supergroup of sorts, featuring Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance and Comets on Fire, Magik Markers' Elisa Ambrogio, and Mouthus' Brian Sullivan. Collaborating on a couple sides worth of extended guitar improvisations, Basalt Fingers manage to sidestep the usual pitfalls of “plug, play, and record” style jam sessions in favor of a couple of languorously textured pieces. Though the trio might seem like strange bedfellows, Chasny and Ambrogio have been collaborating pretty steadily up to and including the release of Six Organs' Shelter from the Ash, while Sullivan's intensely visceral approach to the guitar (and the Mouthus-worthy muddiness of the recording he supplies) act as a pretty nice counter point—the thrust, if you will, to his two partners' rather limber groove. The first track here starts off strangely beatific, a slow-motion guitar tones that ebb and flow gorgeously with no deliberate purpose. That feeling hardly lasts, however, as the steady encroachment of (Sullivan's?) fuzz-caked drone bury the piece in grit and grime. The second side-long piece immediately picks up on that note, running faint, queasy melodies through distant distortion until the incessant rumble of a bass tone threatens to wash it all away. Michael Crumsho

Beans Thorns

Adorned & Exploited EPOS58798 CD

The obvious question about Beans since his debut solo single “Mutescreamer” was whether he could improve upon the output of his former group, experimental hip-hop quattro Antipop Consortium. The dense wordplay and stream-ofconsciousness style he had vaunted with fellow MCs High Priest and M. Sayyid could only reach so far with its insistence on pushing extremes.

Yet, over the course of three solo full-lengths, including a Thirsty Ear collaboration with William Parker and Hamid Drake, Beans has managed

to move beyond the Consortium’s intensity by restraining production to focus on the possibilities of the vocal solo. A true minimalist in terms of production, working with only a microphone and a Moog synth, Beans pushes his vocals to the forefront to emphasize their immaculate craft. His poetry-slam wit is based on repetition and articulation, yet always pushes the rigidity of meter by trying to cram too many syllables into each line. It’s sloppy, but it succeeds. Like much of his previous work, Beans’ newest disc, Thorns, can't shrug off the claustrophobia that creeps into a self-produced, solo artist joint. The anthemic cries in tracks like “Fearless Leader” and “We Rock” sound vacant, just one man rapping like one hand clapping. And while typical sample-based production gives depth and shading to the contour of a song, the synth/vocal pairing tends to sterilize each track. But two personal narratives, “MVP” and the a cappella “Fingers,” are disarmingly confessional, refocusing our attention to power of a single human voice.

No matter how cheesy a chorus hook may sound initially, the rawness of that voice returns us to a moment before “I love you” became a pop cliché.

That’s something that tends to get lost in a crowd, and Beans knows it.

Joel Calahan

Beck

Odelay Deluxe Edition Geffen / UMe 001026202 CD x 2

Just as brilliant today as it was when released in 1996: Beck Hansen's Odelay. Where period affectations like Aphex Twin remixes and turntable thwacks turn up periodically across Universal's totally righteous 32-track expanded edition, couplets like “silver foxes looking for romance/in the chain smoke Kansas flashdance ass pants,” as Beck sings on “Hotwax,” transcend to the realm of the timeless grotesque. Likewise, instead of sounding like an artifact of pomo pastiche, as one might've expected of Beck's space-age hip-hop/folk, Odelay is a perfectly encapsulated period piece with songs like “Where It's At” and “Devil's Haircut” remaining bonafide guilt/irony-free party jams that sit in the canon next to other self-aware crossovers like “Once in a Lifetime” and “Rock Lobster.” It just rocks. The discs' 16 additional songs, not counting remixes, are representative of the extraordinary body of work Hansen created in the first years of his career. On Odelay proper, “Jack-ass” is pitch-perfect and world weary, constructed from a sample of Van Morrison's version of “It's All Over Now, Baby Blue” so well integrated it doesn't scan remotely like a sample. But, Hansen wasn't done with it, recording a lovely string-abetted reading with his father, Hollywood arranger David Campbell (“Strange Invitation”), and an even lovelier Mariachi mutation (“Burro”).

Hansen's songwriting process is further on display in an even keeled rerecording of 1994's “Thunder Peel,” and the first draft of the effervescent bass bomb “Electric Music and the Summer People” (which he would try again for 1999's Midnite Vultures and again scrap to b-side status). At the SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 65

Going Up?: Christina Kubisch

Christina Kubisch Night Flights Important imprec 168 CD

Five Electrical Walks

Sebastian Mayer

Important imprec 167 CD

For centuries, artists of all kinds have favored the image of night: that no-man’s land where desire is set loose on a landscape pregnant with potential and order is transformed into blind, fumbling chaos. At night the world of dreams takes over, making even the most banal object appear uncanny in the playful sweep of moonlight. The soul is freed from the fetters of existence to romp in the shadows of unexplored passions, forcing the subject to create from the depths of the void.

This ecstasy is only bridled by the knowledge that our caprices will vanish with the daybreak, and obscurity trumped by reason and clarity.

And so the night offers a tenuous promise, inviting one into its playground as long as what begins in the dark stays there.

The music of Christina Kubisch harbors the night as one of its central concerns. For the past three decades, the German-born sound artist has pushed the limits of both the vinyl recording and the interactive sound installation.

Beginning with 1983’s Night Flights (now issued for the first time on disc) and culminating with this year’s Five Electrical Walks, Kubisch has worked to marry the site-specificity of conceptual art to the ordered beauty of musical form. Less stoic than others who are content to document the world in unadorned fragments, she builds her field recordings into architectures of subtle mystery and nightmarish presence. Her avant-gardism, like that of Terry Fox or Annea Lockwood, is a form of storytelling peppered with demons of the natural world, leading the listener through an artifice more real than reality itself. For as Fred Jameson once wrote, it is always a narrative construction, a fiction, that truly prepares us to see our landscape in a new light.

Night Flights is already a very mature work and perhaps the high point of Kubisch’s career. It begins with hints of chirping and scraping, backed only by the warm drone of 66 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

synthesizers. As the first of the album’s three compositions, “The Cat’s Dream” introduces all of the elements that will come to figure throughout this very cohesive suite. Mumbling, polyphonic voices are transmuted into laughter, which is then looped over a darkly abraded texture. These vocal ablations have an almost religious quality, pulsating in an inhalation/exhalation pattern whose hushed monotony certainly has its roots in liturgy. At this point Kubisch mostly abandons concrete sounds in favor of shimmering, high frequency electronics and abstract sound effects— though occasionally the pained, mournful cries seem to have their origin in the natural song of whales, birds and frogs. “A ghost,” says Michel Chion, “is the kind of perception made by only one sense,” and these nighttime reveries are all the more startling for our inability to localize them in any obvious visual referent. Colored by the swirling mist of tones, where an occasional bass note resonates like black ink in water, the space of the recording is transformed into a veritable forest seething with hitherto-unknown nocturnal creatures. “Night Flights” continues the journey in a more subdued vein, with tubular glass horns forming slow, steady waves not unlike Phill Niblock’s work. While not overtly rhythmic, it creates a series of passages that overlap with seductive regularity, a steady hum that is nevertheless a constantly evolving melodic structure. The third and final composition, “Circles III,” finds Kubisch at her most ethereal, paring the source material down to delay-modified flute and overtone singing courtesy of Roberto Laneri. One could say that Night Flights as a whole takes the form of the human sleep cycle, moving as it does from the sudden bursts of energy which accompany initial repose to the slow, regular delta waves of deep sleep. Kubisch’s gently trilled flutes give the impression of an orchestra during tune-up, with the same phrases repeated until the sound takes on the hypnotic qualities of Gregorian chant or bagpipes, while Laneri’s voice summons the spirit of Tuva in this stunning duet whose effects will linger far past the first, superficial listen.

Five Electrical Walks investigates the theme of night from a different perspective.

Originally designed as an interactive sound

piece, electrical walks are produced by a pair of wireless, custom-made headphones capable of perceiving electromagnetic waves both under- and aboveground most urban locales. Visitors are invited to don a pair while walking through a given neighborhood, and Five Electrical Walks is culled from recordings done in New York, Madrid, Birmingham (UK), London, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo and Taipei between 2005 and 2006. Edited together from a handful of unadulterated field recordings, these composite walks explore various thematic concerns: whether it be the gaudy, nervous pace of the inner city or the dull, ominous tones of antitheft security devices. The most vibrant and intense of these is the Times Square piece “Homage With Minimal Distortion,” which pulsates in a way rather similar to the minimal electronics of Raster-Noton and its ilk: warm yet precise, with sine waves and static interference molded into crisp blips and low-end blips. From hereon, with the exception of the spirited “Security,” Five Electrical Walks considerably mellows, choosing instead to probe the droning paranoia of a society under surveillance in such famed non-places as the airport, the shopping mall and the abandoned factory. The somber tonal colors of “E-legend II,” “Atocha” and “Night Shift” are distinctly modern, reminding one of the omnipresent hum emitted by all electronics, as well as the fantastic results when two or more isolated sound fields are jarringly combined.

Rather than portray an exotic, unfathomable jungle, Five Electrical Walks explores what happens when technology reigns supreme, because it is the machines who truly control the malls and parking lots at night. Nothing sounds more alien in this electromagnetic geography than the human voice. Nothing is what it seems. Rather, the mute buildings we thought we knew so well are revealed to vibrate in jubilation, speaking a language that has no need for man’s intervention. Our ear’s tendency to synthesize complex patterns into single tones is overturned in favor of the buzzing confusion of sense in the raw. Heralding a new way to see and hear the world, these two flawless albums once again announce Kubisch as a sound artist of the highest caliber. More importantly, they show us the night that is always at the heart of day. Seth Watter

heart of the additional material (and oddly separated from one another) is the three-song Deadweight EP which bridged the gap between Odelay and 1998's melancholy Mutations.

Besides a few dated remixes, the only songs that feel extraneous are the two that were previously unreleased— “Gold Chains” and “Inferno”—which each have a few moments to recommend them, but sound unfinished and unedited. Even those are instructive, if only to demonstrate that Beck understood where the limits of his creativity lay. Jesse Jarnow

Gianluca Becuzzi & Fabio Orsi Wildflowers Under the Sofa Last Visible Dog LVD 120 CD

Vapaa

Hum Hum Hum

Last Visible Dog LVD 115 CD

John White John White

Last Visible Dog LVD 118 CD

The third album by the Italian duo of Gianluca Becuzzi and Fabio Orsi mixes guitars, keyboards, and field recordings into three pleasant soundscapes. Clearly a studio construction, each layer of Wildflowers Under the Sofa is in accord with the whole sound, and everything seems to have been put in place with great care. The result is a set of long lush drones with faint textural additions. It doesn't grab your attention, or even hold it rapt if you attempt to give it, but these sounds do provide a calming and agreeable ambience. I would have liked to hear more chances taken with the layering, like the slightly disjunctive whistle of wind throughout much of “Last Flower” and the ember crackle that ends the track.

Vapaa is four Finnish dudes who churn out decent drone rock. While no instrumentation is given in the packaging, it’s easy enough to discern drums, sitar stylings and lots of pedals for the guitars and basses. The best and longest track on the disc, “Varjosta”, is also the most frustrating, In this world of trancey, ritual-laced improvisation, this track stands out for the occasional but regular electronic squiggles that shoot out on top.

But as the drums propel an insistent rhythm for all the instruments to play off of, a mellow pinging guitar dominates the tone and repels attention the way all of the contributions by the other instruments attract it. As the band gets close to some tense freakout zones, the congenial shimmering guitar pings squash momentum.

The John White disc compiles two unreleased albums onto one CD. While White uses a little accompaniment—dashes of piano, cello, accordion, etc. from various friends—this release is really about showcasing White’s talents as a singer/songwriter, and they run deep.

These simple songs won’t redefine the genre, but they do perfectly fulfill it. He writes great lyrics like “the sea is a timebomb of H2O” and his vocal intonation grows on you with each listen. He’s also got a wispy delivery that with the help of a small amount of effects, thickens into a dense cloud.

Each album features eight short and wonderful songs, though the Dunedin session that closes the disc tags on a twenty-two minute instrumental guitar drone that to my ears would be better placed on another release focusing on that side of the man's work. Andrew Choate

Sathima Bea Benjamin A Morning in Paris Ekapa EKPR 04 CD

In 1963, a 26-year-old South African singer living in Zurich persuades Duke Ellington to hear her boyfriend, a pianist, perform. Ellington, always attuned to comely women, agrees and is so impressed with the man that he arranges a record date for him. Thus was launched the international career of Abdullah Ibrahim, then known as Dollar Brand. The singer recorded, too, with Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Brand on piano. The record was never released and the tapes of Beattie Benjamin's debut recording were presumed lost. Or so the legend went. But the session's engineer had made a copy, and it was from this source that A Morning In Paris originated. The session saw limited release a decade ago, but Sathima Bea Benjamin, now 71 and in charge of her own label, has once again made it available. It would be unfair to say that this is a historical discovery on the order of the recent Mingus and Coltrane tapes of a similar vintage that have resurfaced. Still, this is a remarkable session in many ways, not least for the assurance that the young singer shows in fast company. That's the only thing fast about the session; most of the tunes—even the normally bright-tempo numbers—are taken at Shirley Horne-speed. Benjamin is never fazed, delivering performances of sustained intensity and remarkable sensitivity. Strayhorn's accompaniment on “Your Love Has Faded” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” are delicious and make one wish he'd done more of this sort of thing. Not so Svend Assmussen, whose pizzicato violin obbligati quickly cloy. Fresh from recording the legendary Jazz Violin Session with Ellington two days earlier, he's way up in the mix while Benjamin is buried in a wash of echo. Not much the engineers can do about that given the circumstances of the source tapes, and its not enough to spoil a heartening, frequently heartbreaking, document from a golden age.

John Chacona

Sean Bergin's SONG MOB Fat Fish Data 061 CD

Bite the Gnatze

Wals door het raam TryTone TT559037 CD

Daniele D'Agaro's Adriatics Orchestra Comeglians

El Gallo Rojo 314-13 CD

The presence of South African expatriates is one of the reasons the European jazz scene has been so rich and variegated over the past several decades. Saxophonist Sean Bergin

hails from Durban but has been based in Amsterdam for decades; his group MOB is his vehicle for exploring cross-cultural connections of all sorts. The group’s name stands for “My Own Band,” and that hint of proud, childlike possessiveness is entirely appropriate to the music, which is suffused with a gentle sense of wonder. It’s a large but orderly “mob” of A-list improvisers, mostly drawn from the Dutch scene: saxophonists Tobias Delius and Jan Willem van der Ham, the twin cornets of Eric Boeren and Felicity Provan, trombonist Wolter Wierbos, violinist Mary Oliver, guitarist Franky Douglas, pianist Alex Maguire, bassist Ernst Glerum and the redoubtable Han Bennink on drums. Fat Fish expands the group into a SONG MOB with the addition of three vocalists: Mola Sylla from Senegal and Phil Minton and Maggie Nicols from the UK. Despite the group’s size, the textures are spare and graceful, the singers inevitably claiming the centre of attention without indulging in histrionics. The band’s lightness of tone and overall feeling of serenity smooths out stylistic jumps that would otherwise be disconcerting: folksonglike material sits next to free-improv vocals or deadpan foolery without friction or easy irony. The grooves are infectious, but the rhythms are never pressurized or driven, instead coming off as sheer celebrations of being—a graceful dance in one spot. There are dark moments, such as a setting of fragments from Carson McCullers (“When We Are Lost”) and a “Dirge,” but above all the music is about small, ordinary pleasures—songs in praise of chicken feet and, yes, fat fish.

Bite the Gnatze is another largish ensemble from the Netherlands, led by the guitarist Paul Pallesen, who is probably best known to North American listeners as a member of Joost Buis’s Astronotes. The group has a markedly different sound from other Dutch bands, despite some personnel overlap, because of its borrowings from country and folk musics. Jasper le Clercq’s bravura fiddling and Buis’s lap-steel guitar are key elements of the group’s sound, and instruments like bouzouki and tin whistle are liable to turn up at surprising moments; Pallesen’s playing, for that matter, recalls Marc Ribot’s laconic take on roots music, old-time rock and pop.

Despite the mutant country swing of “Als enn hass op een kale berg” and “Schuivertie voor de nacht”, Wals door het raam is a more melancholy album than the group’s previous disc, the rumbustious Wilde dans in een afgelegen Berghut. Pallesen’s compositions make imaginative use of the band’s unusual sonorities, typically involving gently contradictory strata of polyphonic activity. The best example of this strategy—and one of the disc’s outstanding tracks—is “Voor de wijkertulp,” a bittersweet after-hours blues dream in which the moodily unfolding layers of melody tug against Alan Purves’s steady brushwork. A whispery arrangement of the traditional tune “Midnight over the Water” brings the album to a memorable close.

In 2006 the saxophonist/clarinettist Daniele D’Agaro put together a nine-piece ensemble for an open-air music festival in the Alpine village of

Comeglians. The players involved included several fine Italian players as well as a small Dutch contingent— indeed, there’s a significant overlap with SONG MOB, with Bennink, Delius and Bergin himself appearing in both bands. D’Agaro’s charts for the nonet range from powerhouse grooving to pointillist abstraction; the group’s woozy in/discipline, vibrant attention to colour and sense of friendly competitiveness at various times suggests Mingus, Sun Ra and the ICP. I’ve never found the leader’s experiments with graphic scores and free improvising particularly gripping, and the album opens with a long stretch of this kind of material, but a little patience is amply rewarded: from the point that the feverish organ-trio groove of “The Prisoner” kicks in, the musicians don’t put a foot wrong.

An arrangement of Pat Patrick’s “No More Love” demonstrates D’Agaro’s classy taste in jazz arcana; Bergin’s alto sax feature here has a splendid, wounded beauty, spattered with gobs of Hammond organ by Bruno Marini. “Chicago Beer Coaster,” D’Agaro’s memorial of a Stateside visit, was first heard on his hatOLOGY album Chicago Overtones, but this is the definitive version. It begins with a joust between Delius and the leader, a genial display of extremity (high freak notes and gross low notes) that suggests a showdown between David Murray and Bennie Wallace. The full band eventually joins in, whipped along by Bennink’s drumming, which manages to be both heavy and graceful, stomping and dancing-ontiptoe. Nate Dorward

Bevel

Phoenician Terrane Contraphonic CON065 CD

One can easily hypothesize that this combo's major influences (or at least those of singer/songwriter Via Nuon) include Tindersticks; 1960s baroquepop mavens the Left Banke (their massive hit: "Walk Away Renee"), and Nick Drake's Bryter Layter. Needless to say, Phoenician Terrane is not first-disc-of-the-day or up-and-at-'em music—the prevailing mood is one of almost unrelieved melancholy.

Nothing wrong with that, especially with the collective level of care and heart Bevel put into it. There are impeccable (though hardly sterile) arrangements for violins, winds, and vibraphone along with the usual "rock" setup, and Nuon's harmonious vocals (recalling Richard Hawley and Lloyd Cole in their "down" dispositions) have just enough echo to make it sound like it's seeping up from the basement or from under the comforter in the bedroom upstairs. There are 14 songs in about 36 minutes —all models of winsome, rainy-day pop perfection. There's a sameness of tempo, (with the sole exception of the swell, glistening mid-tempo rocker "Coronation Day," which combines aspects of glam- and Enoera David Bowie) but their brand of melancholia is comforting rather than self-absorbed, wallowing, or fatalistic.

For those days when staying indoors under two or more layers of blankets in the only option, Phoenician Terrane makes for an ideal companion.

Mark Keresman SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 67

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday

Rare Live Recordings 1934 - 1959

Library of Congress / Carl Van Vechten Collection

ESP-Disk' 4039 CD x 5

I don’t know precisely when I first heard Billie Holiday, but I was certainly aware of her by the time I was twelve, around 1960, when I heard the Columbia LP of The Sound of Jazz, a companion to the landmark 1957 television program that presented jazz musicians as they might have appeared in a recording studio.

Holiday sang a version of “Fine and Mellow,” her original and absolutely defining blues number. It was among her last great performances. Within a couple of years I would have absorbed much of what was going on in jazz at the time and I would have heard the Max Roach/Abbey Lincoln recordings on Candid.

It was likely from the notes to Lincoln’s Straight Ahead or a corresponding interview in the jazz press of the day that I would first read of unrequited love as the defining condition of the Holiday ethos.

Through the years I’ve been conscious of Holiday. My wife has always been fond of her, so I bought the LPs and later amassed a small collection of her CDs. Holiday was clearly a genius: she synthesized all the best sounds of the 20s, the depth of passion of Bessie Smith somehow levitated in the pop lightness of Ethel Waters then given infinitely more flexibility with the brilliant phrasing of Louis Armstrong (and later Lester Young). Most jazz singing simply irritates me, but Holiday is something special.

What’s most extraordinary is her emotional complexity, simultaneously fragile and resilient, encapsulating everything that is most central to the human experience—listen to the brightest, most insouciant novelty number of the 1930s and some of the pain and wreckage of her last agonized recordings is already articulated in her sound, in the grain of her voice. Similarly, a late performance like “Fine and Mellow” has overtones that suggest all the playful expectation of twenty years before might suddenly spring to life anew. The pres68 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

with Pops and Pee Wee Russell in New Orleans, 1946

ence of her voice is immediate. Is it the drawl or the richness of the high harmonics which bubble effervescently, a complex sound that seems so much more alive than other voices?

The grit—the rasp —of the later, damaged voice is the low-register mirror of those ambient highs.

In recent years the Holiday oeuvre has become as ubiquitous as it is brilliant. I walk into a woody, dingy inner-city vegan café and her voice drifts off the owner’s mix tape; in a slick deli in a yuppie neighborhood, I hear her broadcast digitally over satellite radio. I hear her in bookstores (both the chains and the independently-owned) that play the local jazz radio station. A few weeks ago my wife and I were browsing a warehouse sale filled with cargo container household merchandise. Playing over the sound system was Billie Holiday (you could buy cheap knockoff compilations of her work there).

And then it struck me, the continued centrality of Holiday to the contemporary experience: It’s the sound of unrequited shopping, the song that let’s us know that, no matter how much we love merchandise (including the reified songs of Billie Holiday), it won’t love us back. No matter how much we search, we won’t find the right product, though search we must.

I won’t claim to be an authority on Holiday's recordings. If I wanted to be, I would probably spend a good deal of time at www.billieholiday.be, a comprehensive webdiscography from Belgium. The best part might be the statistics. The most remarkable?

The home page claims to contain the contents of 1081 albums; contrast that with the total of complete issued music tracks—799.

Yes, there are substantially more albums than individual tracks, giving some sense of the extent to which Holiday has been packaged and re-packaged, marketed and re-marketed, both by companies with legitimate claims and by bootleg outfits. There’s also the common practice of finding affinities between Holiday’s sound and contemporary singers who sound nothing like her, a kind of marketing by proxy.

But none of this should interfere with your enjoyment this 5-CD anthology on ESP

Records. It spans Holiday’s entire career, and it’s very much a documentary effort. Steering well clear of the studio recordings, it has live club and theatre dates, usually originating as radio broadcasts, and there are her appearances in films and on TV talk shows, complete with introductions and patter. It presents Holiday’s public career as much as her music, including her bizarre turn as a singing maid in the film New Orleans (with some of the best inter-racial dialogue this side of Gone with the Wind). Danny Kaye introduces Jerome Kern to give Holiday an Esquire magazine award.

The liner-notes mix key events in her career with the track listings and description of the music here, so it’s a cavalcade of Billie Holiday, her life and public reception as well as her singing.

The music is often wonderful, and you hear Holiday with many of her equals, opening with a film soundtrack with Ellington (1934’s Symphony in Black) and a broadcast with the Basie band (from The Savoy Ballroom in 1937) through 1946’s New Orleans with Louis Armstrong to some club tunes with Stan Getz. She’s interviewed on air by guitarist-host Eddie Condon and appears on the Tonight Show (though not with Johnny Carson as the notes would have it—it wouldn’t be Carson's show until a decade later.). There are multiple appearances with Steve Allen and the set’s concluding performances are superb 1950 recordings with Basie.

Given the focus on media events and live performances, you get multiple takes of Holiday’s most popular songs—“My Man,” “Fine and Mellow” (best in an Apollo Theatre broadcast with Hot Lips Page) and “I Cover the Waterfront” appear repeatedly—giving both a sense of how much Holiday’s performances of the same song could change, and how much her public’s perception of her depended on just a few titles.

Anyone new to Holiday gets a sense of the entire sweep of her career; anyone familiar with the often superior studio material gets an excellent portrait of the Holiday career in context. It’s a fine complement to the Columbia, Commodore, Decca and Verve sets.

Stuart Broomer

Maurizio Bianchi / Hue / Fhievel Erimos

Digitalis digi048 CD

Maurizio Bianchi’s 1980s Industrial/ noise recordings stood out from the post-Throbbing Gristle pack for their stentorian demeanour. While presenting as somewhat grim, Bianchi’s releases never devolved into rote Industrial shock jockeying: no serial killer mystique or pornographic tape sleeves for MB. This, combined with the single-minded pursuit of one hundred shades of grey found in his music, hailed an artist whose aesthetic was assiduous in its unyielding tenor.

His recent return to the recorded realm has been patchy though, with too many discs leaning on new age synth presets. This collaboration with Italian artists Hue (Matteo Uggeri) and Fhievel (Luca Bergero) sits somewhere between these two poles: it lacks rigour, but at least it’s not always easy on the ear, particularly when the trio engage the troops for the occasional jolt of magnesium-flare noise to spice up some more predictable patches of aerated drone. Erimos shares with Bianchi’s earlier work an incredible patience. Most everything folds in and out gradually, with the whole fortythree minutes sitting together nicely, mapping not so much an ‘arc’ as a series of topographical dot points. The more predictable elements, such as the opening crackle of a needle stuck in a run-out groove, appear to come from Uggeri and Bergero, which suggests Bianchi may need to reign in his collaborators. Furthermore, the whole set is coated in a little too much slick reverb. Regardless, it’s one of Bianchi’s better recent excursions. Jon Dale

Michael Blake

Amor de Cosmos Songlines 1567 CD

Chris Gestrin

After the City Has Gone: Quiet Songlines 1568 CD x 2

Saxophonist Michael Blake has turned in some cracking recordings over the past few years, but this latest release might be his best yet. Leading an all-Canadian group (where the Vancouver native is joined by trumpeter Brad Turner, percussionist Sal Ferreras, keyboardist Chris Gestrin, bassist Andre Lachance, and drummer Dylan van der Schyff), Blake is out to navigate a conceptual exploration of Canadian history (the album’s title is inspired by the name adopted by a 19th-century B.C. politician) and to explore different improvisational settings. Gorgeously recorded, the saxophonist’s lush tone is front and center, especially on the improvised duo with Gestrin that opens the disc (where Blake consciously tries to play bluntly, clumsily). “Temporary Constellation” is filled with great timbral and rhythmic contrast—Blake and Gestrin navigating the muscular backbone and feinting with the puckish lines laid down by Ferreras/Turner (this piece boasts outstanding contrapuntalism and a brilliant kit-collapsing drum solo). The title track opens with some aimless electronic frippery but the threads are picked up by Gestrin

with a fine Rhodes solo, ending with some serious invocation of In a Silent Way. A glorious Turner solo on “So Long Seymour” cues up a terrific (and dense!) exchange between marimba and piano. The trumpeter also sounds great on the bouncy confection, “The Wash Away” but Blake goes one better in a joyous, full-throated, concluding turn. On this open, expansive group music, it’s a pity Blake doesn’t feature himself more, but it’s a fine recording nonetheless.

Gestrin’s two-disc whopper involves some of the same musicians, but takes a less conceptual, indeed less compositional approach.

It’s simply a healthy dose of Gestrin —playing on a wondrously resounding Steinway—with some of his pals, in duos and trios. As ever with such compilations, mileage may vary on the value of specific tracks and instrumental combinations. And there is an awful lot of music to sort through.

I found the following exchanges among this release’s most satisfying: some lyrical duos with cellist Peggy Lee (especially the lovely “D.S.”); tracks where Gestrin is bookended by two trumpets (Bill Clark and JP Carter), whose tart lines (one open, one muted) sound great on tracks like “Bees”; soprano saxophonist Jon Bentley and drummer Bernie Arai coax some of Gestrin’s finest work from him on “Living Candles,” a piece whose subtle incandescence is captured in its name; “Viewpoint” has him working on a prepared piano, with Joseph Pepe Danza (hang and ney) creating atmospheric contrast; Ron Samworth’s cranky, jittery guitar fits impressively with Gestrin’s powerful rubato on “Turnstile”; and I love, love, love the duets with Gordon Grdina (acoustic guitar on “Guilty Gates” and fantastic prepared dobro on “Moonshine run”). There’s much more, clearly enough to satisfy fans of small-group improv that pokes its head into the chamber. Jason Bivins

Jimmy Blythe

Messin' Around Blues: Enhanced Pianola Rolls Delmark DE 792 CD

Not much exists by way of pianist Jimmy Blythe's recordings, save for a handful of 78s where he backed up big blues names of the pre-Depression era like Lonnie Johnson and Ma Rainey. His small legacy is really with piano rolls, those perforated things that spin inside player pianos to produce pre-recorded music. Rolls boasting Blythe’s early-jazz flavored compositions were numerous and, for Blythe, a regular source of income until his death in 1931. So Messin’ Around Blues is a good picture of what he was all about, at least commercially: bouncy left- hand rhythms support simple right-hand melodies in non-threatening flavors like boogie-woogie (“Black Gal Make It Thunder”), 12-bar blues (“Sugar Dew Blues”) and occasionally tin-pan alley, where even numbers like “A Good Man is Hard to Find” show a strong penchant for blues groove .

The “enhanced” part in the title refers to recording equipment available to Blythe for laying down these piano rolls in the 1930s; older rolls sounded more mechanical, less real-time. So

combined with ultra-crisp restoration by one Frank L. Himpsl, we get a real good idea what a prewar household might’ve heard from its living room, as well as what Blythe might’ve been contributing to his under-recorded group sessions. Nathan Turk

Borbetomagus & Hijokaidan

Both Noises End Burning Victo 106 CD

Consider Both Noises End Burning a gut-busting, Sino-American onecourse meal, an auditory, hallucinary reaction to Dante's Inferno, or just out-and-out out-improv nirvana. The New York-based two-saxes-and-an-ax trio Borbetomagus are a quarter-century deep into an uncompromising anti-pop career; guesting on Sonic Youth's “Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style” back in 2002 is the closest they'll get to mainstream recognition.

Japanese experimentalist quartet Hijokaidan have been strutting their underground stuff even longer.

When the two groups performed together as one at the 2006 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, the audience surely must've believed this seven-headed beast was gnawing a bloody hole in the very fabric of reality, en route to some other-dimensional where. That's this listener's reaction, at least. An unholy, shrieking cacophony brews, then scalds: horns screaming themselves sick, guitar tones twisted like pretzels and spraying discord napalm, Junko Hiroshige wailing like a medium channeling the spirits of detainees tortured to death, drumsticks crashing along upstream against a turbulent current that's sporting razor-sharp fangs.

Raymond Cummings

Henry Brant / Charles Ives

The Henry Brant Collection Volume 7 Innova 414 CD

With this release, Minnesota's Innova Recordings has reached a pivotal moment in its ongoing survey of the music of Henry Brant. Brant’s orchestration of Charles Ives’ Concord sonata is presented in full, constituting an homage to one of his primary influences and a formidable orchestral performance. Brant’s association with the complex musical vision of Charles Ives began in the late 1920s, upon receipt of the whimsically fantastic scherzo movement from Concord.

This began a life-long fascination with the composer, claimed by Brant to be the greatest of the 20th century. Ives’ sophisticated harmonic language and imaginative use of instrumental placement, as in his “Unanswered Question,” would have a profound influence on Brant’s Spatial Music concept, first manifested in the 1950s and still a going concern as he approaches his 95th birthday. Encouraged by Henry Cowell, whose New Music publication introduced Brant to Ives’ work, the orchestration of Concord was first undertaken in 1957 and completed in 1995. Published in 1921 but sketched as early as 1907, Concord is an ever-changing juxtaposition of extraordinary complexity with heartbreaking simplicity. It was no

mean feat to orchestrate this four-part portrait of Ives’ beloved transcendentalists in a practical and viable way, something very important to Brant; he therefore began with the simplest movement, that dedicated to the Alcotts. Penultimate and starkly beautiful, it stands as a gateway to Brant’s orchestral conception, pitting the flute, winds and brass of the opening gestures against the gentle strings that interrupt the main thematic material, which is drawn from the opening notes of Beethoven’s fifth symphony.

The separate instrumental forces that grace the third movement are combined in the ecstatic scherzo, written in homage of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Brant’s accomplishment here is nothing short of stunning, as Western European art music’s multivalent history is summarized, the shifting transparencies of Debussy supplanted

by Mahler’s majesty in a wonderfully pantonal context. Melodies and motives that remain hidden in the dense piano texture reveal themselves in supple pizzicatos and sensual oboe lines, the orchestration allowing for maximum clarity even in the midst of Ives’ most forbidding clusters. The first and fourth movements, Emerson and Thoreau respectively, are treated with equal care and obvious study, each change in mood and dynamics wonderfully orchestrated. As the low-register ostinato that ends the fourth movement disappears and the gentle close fades, a sense of having journeyed is palpable. The conducting and playing are superb, and the long ovation is justified on all counts.

Recorded on Brant’s birthday in 2000, this is a fitting tribute to Brant, to Ives, and to the musical vision they share.

Marc Medwin

Anthony Braxton

Performance (Quartet) 1979 hatOLOGY 610 CD

Ninetet (Yoshi's) 1997, Volume 4 Leo LR 500/501 CD x 2

Solo Willisau Intakt 126 CD

Solo Live at Gasthof Heidelberg Loppem 2005 LocusLoppem CD x 4

Anthony Braxton is one of the most-recorded musicians of the most-recorded era, with each season typically bringing a handful of releases and reissues. While it’s popular to bemoan certain artists as over-recorded, Braxton’s not in that category. The best musicians document themselves relentlessly: there’s no better antidote to repetition and redundancy than genius. There’s no grand design to the selection considered here; rather it’s a selection of what’s newly available, whether reissued, archival or recent material.

Performance (Quartet) 1979 has previously appeared as both a two-LP set and as a CD. It presents a quartet that might unjustly be viewed as transitional, with trombonist Ray Anderson, bassist John Lindberg and percussionist Thurman Barker. It’s less famous than its predecessor (with Kenny Wheeler or George Lewis, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul) or its long-lived successor (with Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser and Gerry SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 69

Kindred Spirits: Bill Dixon and Rob Mazurek

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orcestra

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra

courtesy Thrill Jockey Records

Thrill Jockey thrill 192 CD

Hugely active and influential on American and European improvised music since the early ‘60s, the jazz public has been largely unaware of the music of trumpeter-composer-painter Bill Dixon, despite the fact that many of his small-group and solo recordings for Soul Note, FMP and his own Archive Edition remain in print. It’s fair to say that trumpeter, composer and multimedia artist Rob Mazurek operates on a similar fringe, for despite leading the Chicago Underground aggregations and collaborating with a diverse range of Chicago’s avant-garde talent pool, his own work and presence falls outside the Chicago improvising cognoscenti.

Needless to say, it’s a fitting collaboration.

Bringing Dixon’s voice and legacy into the context of the Exploding Star Orchestra begins to make amends for the fact that his work as a composer for large ensembles has been very poorly documented, despite its importance in the lineage of creative music.

Intents and Purposes (RCA-Victor, 1967) presents a staggering tentet piece, “Metamorphoses 1962-1966,” keenly pastoral and almost romantic, yet with continental soundmasses of reeds and strings cut through by waltz-time jabs from two percussionists. One of the most crucial records of post-1965 free music, the album’s been out of print almost since release. Dixon’s spectral “October Song,” realized by a tentet under the direc70 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

tion of tenorman Marzette Watts for a 1969 Savoy recording, is likewise nearly impossible to find. Finally, his direction of the Orchestra of the University of the Streets, as well as the large ensembles he conducted for the Institute of Black Music Studies at Bennington College, remain without commercial recordings.

In these infrequently heard orchestral paintings—some carrying the rhythm fields of Pollock, others massive like Clyfford Still or latter-day Mark Rothko—one hears the seeds of more “visible” orchestral works like those of Alan Silva, Michael Mantler, and even Peter Brötzmann. So it is also quite fitting that what could be Dixon’s most publiclyvisible work yet also provides the treat of his writing for an orchestra, that jazz history may be somewhat righted in accounting for his music and his influence.

“Entrances” is presented in two versions here, and sets up drummer John Herndon and tympanist Mike Reed in collusion with vibes, two basses and guitar. The piece sounds vaguely Ra-like at the outset, Sound of Joy as a rhythmic springboard for the inventions to follow. While the two bassists play a descending figure against the layered upturns of percussion and guitar, the resulting web feels solid and less intimately subdivided than Dixon’s small groups. Flurried brass quickly takes hold, Dixon, Mazurek and cornetist Josh Berman conversant against the orchestra’s pitch and yaw, the leader cutting a swath across the whole. Indeed, it’s pianist Jim Baker and flutist Nicole Mitchell who take the brittle front-line structures and telescope their glassy notes outward, far above the freight-train drum line.

Trombone, bass and tubular bells provide a drone against Dixon’s gauzy breaths, an instantly evaporating filigree that nevertheless carries huge presence. Dixon has become environmental in his approach to physicality

(shades of Rothko), and it’s interesting that the orchestra is able to expand upon this fact, instruments operating “spatially” rather than in traditional forms, themes or moods.

The second version has the leader entering earlier, in flurries, strokes and jagged gestures, filling in corners around the fourmember rhythm team.

Mazurek’s “Constellations for Innerlight Projections (For Bill Dixon)” is the record’s centerpiece, and it begins with a poem recited by Damon Locks. Small glisses and flits from the ensemble play off Locks’ words, exploding into a massive collective improvisation. Dixon is the primary solo voice, blowing delicate tightrope structures of half-valve smears, guttural growls, and entire areas made of subtones. The commentary from the ensemble—walks, counterpoint—is an extraordinarily subtle use of an orchestra as a living, breathing thing. Dixon is in a duet with the whole, even as it’s been parsed into a number of orbiting bodies. The piece’s second half finds the ensemble hurtling forward with vamps and riffs, somewhat distanced from the trumpet-with-satellites sections that make up its youth. One vamp gives way to an interesting, stately near-requiem, Jason Adasiewicz’s tubular bells providing the wheels on which the orchestral bottom turns.

Locks returns to give a few closing words but it’s the thunderous howl of Dixon’s trumpet that ends the piece.

Bill Dixon is an extremely unique voice on his instrument, not to mention one of the most influential composers in contemporary music. Consequently, settings created for his instrumental voice are extremely rare – Mazurek obviously understands his humanity and his art in a way that few people do.

I can’t think of a better recording to bring Dixon’s work into the forefront of modern jazz consciousness. Clifford Allen

Hemingway), but it’s a band capable of all the things one expects in a Braxton ensemble, from virtuoso execution to structural revelation.

The 69-minute concert is an evolving discourse, working through seven of Braxton’s compositions mostly drawn from the Composition No. 69 series: here fixed components are assigned to different members of the group—the bass or drums might carry thematic components; materials are expanded in contrasting ways, whether using melodic, rhythmic or timbral components as the basis of improvisation. Themes include boppish and march-like figures while the solos explore moods from manic intensity to outside playfulness. There’s an inventively melodic duet between Anderson’s trombone and Braxton’s soprano, while elsewhere Lindberg’s bowed bass can dart out with a hornlike fluency. The same melodic and sonic inventiveness extends to Barker, a drummer who moves readily from chamber music textures to full force.

Cerebral, yes, but there are also moments of weird roadhouse funkiness in the wailing improvised counterpoint that precedes the theme of 23G at the concert’s conclusion. While the Braxton canon is remarkable for its consistency, this is a stand-out.

While it may not have initially appeared as vast as last year’s 9-disc Iridium box on Firehouse 12, Braxton’s five-night stand at San Francisco’s Yoshi’s in 1997 is gradually matching it in scale. This is the fourth two-CD set (the fourth night) that Leo has released, and it chronicles a major event in the Ghost Trance series, with a nine-member band that matches a three-piece rhythm section (guitarist Kevin O’Neal, bassist Joe Fonda and percussionist Kevin Norton) with six reed players (playing 25 woodwinds, three of them bass clarinets): Braxton, Brandon Evans, James Fei, Jackson Moore, Andre Vida and J.D. Parran.

Here the pieces are No 213 and 214, each pressing on an hour in length, and the results are quite wonderful.

Few musicians get to invent a new music at 50, but Braxton’s Ghost Trance works have definitely been that, from the obsessively even, eighth-note themes with their lockstep repetitions to the sudden appearance of composed sub-themes in the midst of collective improvisation. Despite the instrumentation, this is far from the saxophone blow-out; instead, everything from sopraninos to contrabasses, clarinets to flutes, explores texture and contrast. There’s a kind of obsessive-ecstatic quality here that both links and underlies commonalities with world musics, free jazz and the minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

The other discs present more recent solo alto performances. The 75-minute performance from Willisau in 2003 surveys Braxton’s solo works, mixing newer pieces with earlier.

“No. 119m” gets an extraordinarily visceral treatment, half-articulated words wrenched through the horn suggesting a voice entombed in music. “106p,” immediately following, is a work of continuously streaming lyrical invention (the kind of thing for which Dean Benedetti followed Charlie Parker around with a wire tape recorder). Next up, “328 D” uses a

march-motif for another shift in direction, ending with comically blatting arpeggios. The concluding “91j” is initially remarkable for its sudden shifts in voice, from liquid to guttural to hoarse shriek in a single line; by its conclusion, the piece has reduced itself to muttered aside and whispered high notes, a work of great power that possesses something of Samuel Beckett’s almost mute monologues.

You might expect something similar from the Loppem set, but it’s a even more daunting achievement— four discs of four solo concerts concentrating on three series of new works—“307a to h,” “308a to l,” and “309a to g”—with standards from lachrymose (“I’ll Never Smile Again”) to gorgeous (“Stardust”) interspersed throughout. Produced by an art gallery to commemorate Braxton’s return after 20 years, it’s an exotic (and beautiful) production without an issue number and even a strange message that one track has been omitted but can be found on-line—weird because the track would have fit on the CD; weirder still because it seems to be here. So who wants a world of routine coherence? I find the more of Braxton’s music that's made available, the more extraordinary it becomes— variations, contrasts and sub-themes mounting into the stratosphere. The very close recording often catches breathing sounds, emphasizing the profoundly human qualities—the song-like lines and emotional intensity—that drive this work. “308h,” a 13-minute ballad that opens the third performance, possesses a beautiful, keening clarity of line. Almost forty years after the inspired performances of For Alto, Braxton is still a soloist of expanding vision. Stuart Broomer

Peter Brötzmann

Chicago Tentet at Molde 2007 Okka 072 CD

One Night at Burmantofts Bo'Weavil 027 CD

Ten years is a long time for any group—let alone a group of ten—to survive as a living, working, breathing entity. Since its 1997 debut for a festival of FMP associates in Chicago, the Tentet’s lineup over ten and a half records has changed very little.

This latest version, captured live in concert in Molde, Norway last July, finds two relatively new additions in trombonist Johannes Bauer (in for Chicagoan Jeb Bishop) and tubaist Per-Åke Holmlander (also of Barry Guy’s New Orchestra and the Globe Unity Orchestra). Programmatically, though, things have shifted somewhat over the group’s lifetime. It is, in a sense, more Brötzmann’s unit than a true cooperative these days. The last three recordings have emphasized his compositions over those of Ken Vandermark or the fiery directed improvisations of cellist Fred LonbergHolm and reedman Mats Gustafsson. And though his instrumental arsenal has contributed mightily to the group’s sound, Joe McPhee’s bluesy writing and clear reverence for his forebears doesn’t enter into the Tentet’s book at all. All this is to say that the band, as rousing as their live performances can be, seem to be falling into a bit of a stylistic rut. The

Molde concert, while offering balls, meat and a hefty dose of painterliness, often enters this very trap.

“Ten By Ten” begins with low, dusky rumble from the leader’s taragato; trombone, tuba, baritone, strings and percussion darken the corners before a brief, tailgate-heavy interlude adds some levity to the proceedings. A frantic collective improvisation arises from nowhere, Vandermark blowing hot, fierce and coolly controlled tenor, a bootheel-digging amalgam of fire music style that leaps far beyond its corrals (think Joseph Jarman out of the gates on side two of Alan Silva’s “Seasons”). Following a brief brass trio that garners a bit of role-reversal in Holmlander’s high-pitched chortles and whinnies, cellist Lonberg-Holm is up to his usual tricks of distortion, wah-wah and black lacquer. Sure, Zerang and Nilssen-Love get a hell of a cross-rhythm backbeat going under all the vein-popping blowing (it’s easy to visualize Gustafsson, in black skater shorts, pouring sweat), and in this respect the “group” is what carries the music. Clearly, each player understands what will get the soloist off, and even raise the bar higher within the context. Of course, there are winsome interludes and occasional near pastorals, but by the time the brief riot of “Little By Little” makes an appearance it’s fairly obvious that the songs (and their roles) remain the same.

At this stage in Brötzmann’s career, the occasional small-group conflagration comes as a welcome change. One Night in Burmantofts features a quartet performance in Leeds from over a decade prior to the Molde concert. Here, Brötzmann is in cahoots with the UK duo of reedman Alan Wilkinson and bassist Simon H. Fell, and German drummer Willi Kellers (whose first recording with Bröztmann was on 1989’s A State of Undress, with trumpeter Manfred Schoof and bassist Jay Oliver). The acrid-toned Wilkinson and burnished hardness of Brötzmann make a complimentary pair as they lock in atop Fell and Kellers’s swirling storm of time and units. The two saxophonists have a similar searing quality to their approach, so there isn’t really a huge gap in phraseology (though Brötzmann’s affection for the sandblasted, throaty swing-era tenors is in plain view). At the outset of “Bird Flew,” the pair finds a similar tarnished ground, one that might be recognizable to fans of the McPheeBrötzmann quartet. Brötzmann’s clarinet is in full, dervish-like force atop Fell’s rubbery pizzicato and Kellers’s mounting whirlwind, but it’s Wilkinson’s husky baritone barging in like a drunk at a Christmas party that really sets “Bird Flew” in motion.

Kellers is surely the quartet’s secret weapon, though—as Wilkinson and Fell fiddle and flit about their guest’s tenor, lightly suspended cymbal work and subtle tom jabs interlock to a tightly-wound and busy web, a steady prod to whomever has the pulpit in this beautiful fracas. Though the regular groups certainly garner well-deserved press, it’s sometimes the one-off that seals the aesthetic deal. One Night in Burmantofts is obviously a one night stand to remember. Clifford Allen

Gavin Bryars with Alter Ego & Philip Jeck

The Sinking of the Titanic Touch TONE034 CD

Every time I play Bryars’ latest version of his constantly evolving semi-aleatoric nautical masterwork The Sinking Of The Titanic, I feel like I'm hearing it for the first time.

This highly evocative interpretation of RMS Titanic’s final moments has an ephemeral, hallucinatory quality that mirrors the changing nature and unpredictability of the North Atlantic’s icy depths. When familiar signposts do arrive, such as the rendition of the Episcopal hymn “Autumn” (rumored to have been played by the ship’s band as the vessel sank) that has played such a pivotal role in previous recordings of this piece, or the ghostly voices of survivors recounting their tragic stories, they are almost always of human origin. Bryars may well be emphasizing the extent to which we are at the mercy of nature’s mighty forces whilst alluding to its beautiful, uncontainable magic. Here, maybe, we have a warning shot across the bows of all those who regard unfettered technological progress as the key to all our modern day woes.

Bryars has imbued his work with the sense that a great narrative, as well as the occasional sub-narrative, is being played out. Accompanied by the Rome-based group Alter Ego, Bryars evokes the uneasy calm before the calamitous storm and yet you can hear in the musician’s performance a sense of foreboding for what is about to befall their muses. The inhalations and reports of flutist Manuel Zurria suggest a palpable trepidation, as if he is weeping for those who lost their lives. However, it is avant-garde turntablist Philip Jeck whose presence is most keenly felt and what separates this version of The Sinking Of The Titanic most definitively from its predecessors. His inclusion here makes total sense; Jeck shares with Bryars an innate ability and desire to draw power from the artefacts of the past.

Scattering vinyl crackle and static like fairy dust over the entire composition, he lends it an air of antiquity, of distance and, yes, hallucination, transforming The Sinking Of The Titanic into a marvellous documentation of mournful memories. Spencer Grady

Bush Tetras

Very Very Happy ROIR 8303 CD

The Slits

Return of the Giant Slits Blast First PTYT 008 CD x 2

Just about everyone who ever heard Bush Tetras’ 1981 song “Cowboys in Africa” can most likely still sing it.

It was a killer cut—a bit mysterious with a suggestion of colonialism and, most importantly, epitomized the band's modus operandi. A posse of New York punks (were punks and cowboys really so different?) adapting African rhythms into their own hybrid, Bush Tetras were the Stateside equivalent of The Slits: all unabashed energy and estrogen. Both bands had boys behind the drum set, but both were fronted by aggressive SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 71

Steve Lehman

Steve Lehman Quartet Manifold

Clean Feed CF 094 CD

On Meaning

Michael Galinsky

Pi Recordings 25 CD

Reed player Steve Lehman has quickly established himself as a vital force in modern jazz, both as a leader and as a sideman in groups led by musicians like Anthony Braxton, Kevin Norton, and Liberty Ellman. Studies with both Braxton and Jackie McLean have provided him with a rock-solid foundation in post-bop vocabulary along with a structural formalist approach to composition.

But he’s been able to fully absorb this into a constantly evolving, highly personal style including recent work for large ensembles as well as computer-driven models for improvisation. Where his last release, Demian As Posthuman, found him fusing elements of hip-hop with overdubbed reed lines, these two sessions are all-acoustic affairs that grapple with jazz-based extensions.

Manifold is a live recording culled from three nights at the 2007 edition of the Portuguese Jazz ao Centro Festival. Here, Lehman is joined by trumpet player Jonathan Finlayson, bassist John Hebert, and drummer Nasheet Waits. The leader provides all the compositions with the exception of one

by Finlayson, and “Dusk,” a liltingly lyrical piece by Andrew Hill which is given an impassioned reading by the group. (It’s great to see that more musicians are starting to draw on Hill’s compositions.) On the leader’s pieces, the quartet immediately synchs in to the maze of interwoven lines and circuitously complex rhythmic underpinnings. Both Lehman and Finlayson play with a torrid urgency and keen sense of phrasing and articulation, and Hebert and Waits are fully integrated into the collective approach. This is a music of four equal voices as focus continually shifts from one musician to another. This is particularly evident on the four composi72 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

tions from Lehman’s “Interface” series. The quartet can they can also throw down sizzling counterpoint over a free groove on a tune like “Cloak & Dagger” or probe poignant abstract lyricism on a tune like Finlayson’s “Berceuse.” Throughout, it’s captivating to hear how the group absorbs the writing, pushing the forms while keeping a collective tautness to their playing.

Two weeks later, Lehman and Finlayson were back in a Brooklyn, NY studio to record On Meaning. This time out, Drew Gress and Tyshawn Sorey provided bass and drums and vibes player Chris Dingman was added to expand the group to a quintet. Again, Lehman uses chopped and skewed rhythms and phrasing as the basis for his compositional forms. With, the quintet session, the ensemble sound is even more integral as lines are refracted across the various voices. Listen to a piece like “Open Music,” where the theme flits back and forth between sax and trumpet over the cyclical flow of bass and vibes while Sorey’s percussion splashes twist and weave across the flow. The compositions constantly explode any traditional notions of lead voice and rhythm section while still drawing on a free bop vocabulary and killer sense of swing. The group makes it all sound so seamless and familiar regardless of the underlying complexities. Every note fits in to the overall sound while still preserving a bristling dynamism. Lehman’s laser phrasing and acerbic tone is balanced nicely by Finlayson’s angularities and more rounded attack. The chiming resonance of Dingman’s vibes are a key component of the lush harmonic intricacies of this set, juxtaposed to the more open sound of the quartet. Gress is the veteran of the otherwise 20-something group and his playing brings to mind his work with Tim Berne. Drummer Sorey attacks the constantly shifting and subdivided rhythms with aplomb.

These two releases show complementary sides to Lehman’s impressive improvisational strategies and give proof that there’s still plenty of room for discovery within the jazz tradition. Michael Rosenstein

femininity, with guitarists (Pat Place and Viv Albertine) who played their axes like ice picks. And both are back and gigging today. “Cowboys in Africa” somehow didn’t make its way to Very Very Happy, the new Tetras album that isn’t quite new, isn’t quite best-of and isn’t quite a collection of rarities, but which packs quite a wallop nonetheless. Half of the 13 tracks are new recordings of old songs (including “Creeps,” a cut as classically Tetra as “Cowboys”). The 1996 EP Tetrafied provides another five tracks (including a faithful version of John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey”).

Their version of “Sister Midnight” is borrowed back from the 1997 Iggy Pop tribute We Will Fall and a live version of their song “Motorhead” completes the set. In fact, the only thing from the ’80s here is Tom Jarmusch’s New York-gritty video for “Creeps,” one of three bonus Quicktime clips. While the album may be a bit of a hodgepodge, it doesn’t sound like one. Songs from various sources may have been tossed up and left to lie where they landed, but it works. From the opener “Nails” (which anticipates a Kim Deal / Kristin Hirsch ugly-accusatory openness) to the pop-cult goof of “Jaws” (which would actually seem to be about The Deep) to the tossback of “Turkey,” it’s a great reminder of a band that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Return of the Giant Slits should have been The Slits’s fourth record.

Following the triumphant first, a second release that’s a bit of a retread, then a third that begins to hint at a new direction, the band releases their boldest album yet: That's the rockband pattern, and that’s the path The Clash—the other main punk-to-rasta outfit—took from their first album to the EP Black Market Clash. But, in fact, this 1981 LP was the Slits' second release, following 1979's Cut. Unfortunately there are big gaps in The Slits timeline. Their raw, pre-Cut sound has since been filled in with Peel seesion and live releases, but the space between Cut to Return remains a missing link.

Cut was so great, so inspired, that it’s hard not to resent its followup for not being more like it. But listening to it again, by way of this new reissue from Blast First, gives an opportunity to hear it on its own terms. It’s a good record—like those of Wire, PiL or Pigbag, an attempt to find what might be made out of the ashes punk left behind. What The Slits made out of that which punk wrought was a chunk of Earth Mother jungle dub—infectious, fun and heartfelt. And while credit goes to producers Dick O’Dell and Dennis Bovell and to Steve Beresford, who plays piano, toys and other things throughout, Revenge also dispels the doubt cast on Cut in the macho, supposedly egalitarian punk world, that the Slits were amateurs who couldn’t play. The ideas and execution here are clearly theirs.

The reissue includes a second disc of 12” mixes that are more than beat-boosted reworkings. The dub version of “Face Place” stands out, thick with surprises. And while four of the seven mixes are of “Earthbeat,” the groove holds up for the length of the disc. Tacked on the end is

a period radio interview from their American tour that is hilarious, punk attitude with a woman’s touch. It’s a shame to have lost the original cover art, but besides that it’s a welcome collection. Kurt Gottschalk

Tom Christensen Tim Sund Tomas Ulrich Kailash

Nabel 4710 CD

Caroline

Ayman Fanous Tomas Ulrich

Temporary Residence TR111 MP3

Konnex KCD 5191 CD

Murmurs Mixes

The age of the iTunes exclusive record seems to be taking hold. It’s a useful medium, a chance for artists to release outtakes and remixes that just wouldn’t make sense on a more physical format. For Caroline, the ever-so-sweet vocalist and songwriter who unites that delicate, naïve Japanese vocal style with soft focus electro-pop songs, Murmurs Mixes is perfect itunes fodder.

Inviting a range of artists to re-visit her most recent LP record of 2006, these variations still embody much of what makes Caroline’s music so enticing. Her voice is recontextualised, the melodies broken apart and restructured to create a fractured mirror reflection of Murmurs. The beguiling waves of reverb that cloud much of Brightest Feathers “Sunrise (Sunset Mix)” set a beautiful and emotive rush that Caroline’s voice soars within. Equally the additional tracks, that clearly didn’t fit into Murmur such as “Time Swells” are elegant and dainty songs—again richly detailed and sitting almost in the shadow of a kind of emotional J-Pop. Thankfully never saccharine, Caroline is like the legitimate link between more experimental singers/ abstract composers such as Tujiko Noriko and the completely twee loveliness of Yuki. It’s a perfect site from which to produce pop music free from the constraints of commercial expectation. Lawrence English

Child Pornography She's Got Legs

Deathbomb Arc dba 063 CD

I triple-fucking-dog-dare you to do a Google search on “child pornography.” Inside of ten minutes, you’ll have Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC in your house saying, “Have a seat!” And, naturally, after you play him She’s Got Legs, he’d let you go after a long, lost evening of drinking and dancing. Can you imagine Chris Hansen being good at billiards or Jello shots? Me neither. The cover photograph is an image of rainbow rays shot from the anus of a mystery individual – the perfect metaphor for Deathbomb’s spazzed-out, crackedout electronica aesthetic. “Lawrence of Arabia,” clocking in at slightly less than five minutes, was an improv jam recorded in 2004 at KXLU. The rest of the sixteen tracks come and go like a shotgun blast in the face of musical competence and virtuosity. “I Wanna Hurt,” anthemic to say the very least, summons memories of “Urgent” by Foreigner, not a bad thing by any stretch of the cerebral cortex. Offered up enthusiastically from the guts of 8-bit culture, pornographic videogames and youthful energy itself, She’s Got Legs isn’t the antidote to anything other than the twenty minutes or so you would have ordinarily just stayed bored. David Cotner

Labyrinths

T.E.C.K. String 4tet T.E.C.K. String 4tet Clean Feed 089 CD

Tomas Ulrich is surely one of the most accomplished and intriguing cellists in improvised music, with a brilliant technical mastery and the ability to play prickly improv, jazz, classical, film music or pretty much anything he desires. Three recent releases present Ulrich in various settings that demonstrate his considerable depth.

Kailash finds the cellist in the company of pianist/leader Tim Sund and multi-reedist Tom Christensen. The eleven song story cycle focuses mostly on classically-influenced terrains that favor tightly-written charts with some room for improvisation. While often soft-hued, cinematic works, the emotional content is still high and the challenge remains. For instance, the oboe-centric dance of “Igorissimo” is dramatically playful but easy on the ears, as is the sprightly Corea-like tango of “A Midsummernight's Tango,” the wistful balladry of “Kailash” that is darkened by Ulrich's moodiness or the soaring flight of “Passagio,” with lovely English horn work here from Christensen and a rich lyricism from Sund. As for more spirited material, the record's opener, “Bela's Door” is a modal romp with Ulrich and Christensen, on tenor, demonstrating the ability to easily navigate a difficult piece, while the trio is simply moving on the inspired undulations of “A Proud Round Cloud.” While the compositions are mostly scripted, the trio does look at four terse improvs, which despite the talents of this cast, seem somewhat as if they are just going through the motions. They fare better on the record's final piece, Christensen's “Gumshoe Rondo,” matching melodic counterpoint with a sense of urgency, and rhythmic, percussive drive.

Labyrinths is the recorded debut of Ulrich's partnership with guitarist Ayman Fanous, an eleven song program of interactive, attuned improvisation. Fanous’ style favors a sense of prickly percussiveness, though he is more than happy to play melodically when appropriate, in other words, a stylistic amalgam of Derek Bailey (or Roger Smith) and Paco DeLucia. What is perhaps most interesting is the way in which Ulrich's dark, woodsy tone meets Fanous’ shimmering, wooly plucks. The duo mixes beauty with intensity on many of the performances, with the opening cut, “Alluvial” providing a map of the meeting, a solo guitar journey full of jagged harmonics and gouged tracks meets Ulrich's soulful lines with a hushed sensibility. This approach is also put to great effect on the beautiful venture of “Labyrinths” or the meditative “Incantation,” featuring gorgeous pizzicato from Ulrich.

Fanous impresses at every turn,

whether ripping it up solo on “Inter Alia” or during the gorgeous Spanish hues of “Chiclana, Vere,” certainly the record's most accessible track. The fiercest work comes on tracks like the urgent “Mariposa,” with Ulrich's arco lines whipping up a maelstrom, as well as the terse, yet fierce race of “Sekhmet” that leaves one breathless. Despite the rarity of such a configuration, this is the benchmark for any guitar/cello duo.

Ulrich again emerges as a member of T.E.C.K., String 4tet, in the company of guitarist Elliot Sharp, violinist Carlos Zingaro and bassist Ken Filiano. Focusing on chamberish improvised music, timbral excursions abound, with plenty of plucked strings, hand-woven slithers and a unified sense of being. Prickly percussives percolate on the busy “Levitation,” as well as the scrapes and pizzes of “Still Not Easy.” Most vital is that the set has an overarching intensity given the expressiveness of its interactions, with the fireworks of “Intuitive Reduction” or “Memory Hanging,” the sense of doom of “If Not Now, When,” the wiry “Ripples,” or the excitable “Hard Evolution" proving potent. On the other hand, the eerie marshes of “Swampland,” a nice feature for Filiano's low tones or the melancholic beauty of the airy “As Hard As It Comes,” a feature for Sharp's resonant electric tones before the collective dust settles, demonstrates that there is more than meets the eye. Though the instruments vary in tone and color, they merge into a singular whole almost immediately, yet the spirited individuality of each player shines through. Jay Collins

Hong Chulki

With and Without Cartridge

Balloon & Needle bnn 18 3" CD x 2

Hong Chulki Choi Joonyong Hum and Rattle

Balloon & Needle bnn 19 CD

Mituhiro Yoshimura Not BGM and so on (h)ear rings 2 CD

From Korea’s Balloon and Needle label (which last year issued a lovely, brief concert recording from Tomas Korber and Bernd Schurer) comes a pair of provocative releases. The first is a solo offering from turntablist Hong Chulki, comprised of two mini-discs (one featuring his playing with cartridge and one without). With cartridge, he delivers two tracks of fine, Otomo-inflected sonic violence, filled with rough scrapes, jarring shifts, ear-bleeding howls, and the occasional recorded fragment, almost like something coughed up after being devoured. There’s even the occasional blast of old school hip-hop mixalot stuff, but quickly covered in a tidal wave of sound. Bracing stuff, like good ristretto. Without cartridge, things aren’t necessarily sparser or more muted; Hong still prefers an aggressive approach. But there’s slightly more contrast here—between the flat machine effects and those which sound like rustling paper or rubbed balloons. The second track opens like a whining drill bit, a sonic

middle finger, slowly morphing into a crying sound as something large and mechanized bears down. It rides out with a chorus of tea kettles whistling in unison.

Hong teams with Choi Joonyong for a long release pairing CD player and turntable, a less caustic affair than the above release. There are exceptions, of course, like the steam-heaton-steroids “u a” or the face-blast “n l,” but generally the disc wanders in the middle territory. They’re trying things out, occasionally succeeding with dazzling effect, but this disc lacks the focus of other efforts from these guys. The long gaps and sudden spasms, contrasted with the watery drones that appear elsewhere, sound a tad derivative at this point. The best track is the restless sizzle and, yes, rattle of “a t.”

Mitsuhiro Yoshimura specializes in microphone and headphones, creating a laser-focused, metal-minimalist sound that extends the idiom of Sachiko M and Toshimaru Nakamura to its extremities. For the sophomore release on his (h)ear rings label, entitled not BGM and so on, he’s joined by Taku Sugimoto (credited with “electric fun, CD, acoustic guitar, lightsabers”) for five improvisations.

Flinty sine waves envelop a Charlie Parker recording on the opening “BGM.” You can hear the room— small, dry, wooden—in ways both obvious (feet clomping) and subtle (a spatial sense that emerges through Yoshimura’s insistent paring down).

The third piece “not and” is superb, with thick strands of electronics coiling around each other, with subtle pitch fluctuations. By the fourth track (“music”), one wants Yoshimura to at least change the pitch. I realize that relentless consistency is part of his aesthetic, but as a listening experience it’s taxing. Some chaotic noise, and lapping waves towards the end redeem the track. But overall this isn’t as strong as his debut. Jason Bivins

Nels Cline Carlos Giffoni Alan Licht Lee Ranaldo

Nothing Makes Any Sense No Fun NFP-28 CD

Congeniality in improvised music doesn’t necessarily make for great art.

It’s nice to know performers can ‘sit comfortably together’, but until they create productive friction, they may as well be in a jam band, asleep at the wheel—and there’s plenty of those floating around already. This, however, leaves us largely unprepared for the likes of Nothing Makes Any Sense, in which Cline, Giffoni, Licht and Ranaldo reach near-immediate consort without needing to scare each other out of their respective skins. Outboard effects make it easy for guitars to merge ‘into one’, so the gtr/gtr/gtr/synth line-up hardly represents major challenges to creating cumulative meatball effect; indeed, you’ll probably spend most time wondering whether those plangent, chiming notes are Nels Cline or not.

Ultimately, it’s the plotting of high volume and suffocating density that makes this collaboration successful.

Most importantly, the use of volume isn’t a mask or shroud required to SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 73

Martin Tétreault, left, and Kid Koala battle in Victoriaville

hide a fundamental inability to listen to one’s peers. Rather, it allows access to a heightened awareness: some of the best moments involve spiralling, microbal, fractal patterns that appear from the weave and wane of synth and guitars burning through speaker cones. Jon Dale

Cokiyu

Mirror Flake Flau 01 CD

Martin Tétreault & Kid Koala Phon-o-Victo

Martin Morrissette

Victo 107 CD

On the face of it, a review of Phon-o-Victo, Martin Tétreault’s new album with firsttime collaborator Kid Koala, seems like it could write itself: two turntablists from two different backgrounds, 100% vinyl source material, a groundbreaking one-off between hip-hop and the avant-garde. In fact, the distinction between these two musicians was never so obvious.

Though Tétreault has become known for his counter-intuitive approach to the turntable that eschews any use of vinyl, Phon-o-Victo is something of a return to form for the Montreal native. One need only flip through the composer’s oeuvre to find him playing extensively with loops and quotes on Des Pas et Des Mois (1993) and the recently reissued Snipettes!

(2007). Tétreault’s early work for the Ambiances Magnetiques label has much in common with Kid Koala’s warped sense of humor, plying the same terrain with cleverly chosen vocal samples and collage material drawn from LPs of the instrumental, novelty and audio demonstration variety. Koala, while far more marketable with his smooth blend of jazz grooves, virtuosic scratching and pop culture references, has never shied away from dissonance and abstraction. The relatively conservative structures at work on his tour-de-force solo outings should not take away from his daring compositional gambles and densely layered soundscapes. The major difference between the two scenes has always been hip-hop’s determination to give its source material a degree of autonomy and the avant-garde’s more grudging acceptance of its debt to popular music.

Phon-o-Victo is a meeting of strong personalities, and for anyone familiar with the work of either artist it isn’t too difficult to guess from whose table a sample originates. Tétreault is back with his vast collection of instructional records and kitschy space-age sound effects, while the introductory loop from Raymond Scott’s 74 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

“Toy Trumpet” or the mutant Delta stomp of “Godzilla et Les Blues” is undeniably Koala. For the most part, though, this 2005 concert (captured live at the 22nd Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville) shows both turntablists pushing themselves into exciting new territory. The opener “Drum-o-scope” begins with a strong hook only to abandon it within thirty seconds for a dark mélange of skittering percussive loops and warped vocal overtures; layers of rhythm build upon each other until the piece collapses from sheer pressure into something far more abrasive than anything the two DJs have ever put to wax. “Michel au Pays des Merveilles” is more relaxed, but just barely, matching a steady bed of background electronics with sudden bursts of howling noise. Soaring drones rub up against an array of “little sounds” like cut-up voices, sci-fi squeaks and displaced guitar phrases. Koala’s scratching is some of his most expressive, going beyond the breakbeat to create deep growls and seismic ripples, finally coalescing in a sped-up jazz sample whose mathematical precision has all fingers pointing to Anthony Braxton. The two spin through seven dialogues in a crisp forty minutes, moving from the repetitive industrial clank of “Pluto Attack” to the off-kilter lounge piece “Lîle Aux Trésors?”. The final two tracks in particular (“No, Fantasy Island!” and “The DJ Factory Turn Crazy”) are some of the most thrilling turntable pieces in years, restless and inventive while still retaining formal cohesion. The duo resists climax at every return, always ready to supplant boisterous laughter with gentle birdsong and robotic rhythms with serpentine horns.

If this collaboration lacks anything, it's an agenda, moving in so many directions that it’s hard to discern any clear aesthetic design. But its dedication to the spirit of play, the sheer joy of experimentation at work, places it at the vanguard of turntablism today. I love this record for what it is and for what it is not: a plethora of new ideas for this unlikely instrument and a complete rejection of its future codification. Seth Watter

One of the emerging characters of the booming Japanese ‘Bedroom Pop’ movement, Cokiyu’s music rests snugly alongside the likes of Piana, Gutevolk and, at a stretch, Caroline. Embracing MAX/MSP to create washy beds of flowery ambience, fertilized with disjointed melodic fragments on which she plants hushed swells of adolescently saccharine vocals, Cokiyu’s debut is some ways a bucolically urban affair. Taking notes from many of her contemporaries, she manages to strike out a number of very personal sound spaces with Mirror Flake, most of them inspired by masked incidental sound and the sense of density within her mixes. What also makes Mirror Flake of particular interest is Cokiyu’s ability to create lilting song forms that haplessly manage to be abstract yet completely rewarding at a superficial musical level. She seems to have found a point of connection between the essential nature of ‘pop’ music and the completely abstract nature of DSP driven electronica.

Uniting her more substantial song works with a flood of melancholic, but ultimately uplifting interludes, this record seems merely to mark the territories in which Cokiyu will cultivate her work over the coming years.

It offers a pleasant introduction to a bedroom producer who promises even greater music on next meeting.

Lawrence English

Maile Colbert Moborosi

Twenty Hertz TH 018 CD

Some musicians are meant for titanic amphitheatres, and some are meant to affect you deep down through the soft expanse of headphones, mainlining the sacred and the transcendent through the jack and up into that open-minded frontal lobe one forgets one actually has, from time to time. Disembodied voices both rue and rule the day on Moborosi, the debut album by Los Angeles native Maile Colbert, but it’s not a disorienting effect— something that carries with it the implication of the remote and the disconnected. Rather, it’s an album of collected moments, of birds and crickets and cities changing and possibly musical instruments in there someplace—moments that inspire the curiosity of a child without the vaguest smidge of fear. Inspiring close and attentive listening, it’s a collection of spaces: hollow spaces, tinny spaces, private spaces and “in what universe is this?” spaces. You come away from “Moborosi” with the feeling that something slightly profound just happened, and you won’t know quite what it is. David Cotner

Cryptacize

Dig That Treasure

Asthmatic Kitty AKR038 CD / LP

I’m of two conflicting minds about Cryptacize and Dig That Treasure, this trio’s gingerly stitched debut. Chris Cohen’s turgid guitar blare is always welcome; Nedelle Torrisi has the sort of warm voice that could melt Hitler’s heart; Michael Carreira I’d never heard of before, but he acquits himself well on drums and harmonica.

Until last year, Cohen was a member of Deerhoof, an art-rock outfit who always seem to have a spanking new release; he left, supposedly, to devote more time to The Curtains.

At first, Cryptacize struck me as a pared-down, less histrionic take on Deerhoof—with a female lead singer whose pipes could destroy a metropolis, as opposed to one who comes off like a squeaky Japanese schoolgirl—Cohen here shouldering Greg Saunier’s non-drumkit role, you know, the role of sensitive-white-guywith-limited-range who occasionally steps to the microphone for a quick emo spot. So that’s one view. On the other hand, Dig That Treasure plays like a Broadway musical minus all the conversational stuff and supporting cast members and exposition, with Cohen and Torrisi at opposite, spotlit ends of a stage tenderly serenading one another: lovers sometimes enthralled, at others disconsolate. One takes a turn, then the other; harmonious duets erupt, in splendor. Their exchanges take place over a lot of sonic white space, as instrumentation exists as a guide, an accent, airport runway illumination: the thrilling strum of a harp, the eclipsing warble of harmonica, the falsely leading blare of a guitar—a momentary loss of control or a fit. Yet Cryptacize are a crafty lot, and though I spent my initial listen with them hoping for more, for some sort of explosion, their poise and economy have proved hopelessly magnetic to the extent that— whether vaguely imitative or nakedly theatrical—Dig This Treasure might be the year’s first incredible indie-rock album. Raymond Cummings

Rhodri Davies Matt Davis Samantha Rebello Bechir Saade Hum

Another Timbre at04 CD

John Butcher Xavier Charles Axel Dörner Tempestuous

Another Timbre at01 CD

It’s odd to think that the micro-gestural sound world of musicians like the groups heard on these releases now have a deep tradition on which to draw. Improvisers have been mining the lower boundaries of dynamics, and densities for long enough that the vocabulary and strategies are no longer the radical affront they once appeared to be. Today's listeners are attuned to the flickers, breaths, scrapes, and hisses to the point that they can get past the surface textures of extended technique and focus on the music that is being created.

Rhodri Davies and Matt Davis are

both well-established improvisers in settings like this. For the live set captured on Hum, they are joined by flutist Samantha Rebello and bass clarinetist Bechir Saade for an series of intimately detailed collective sound explorations. While Rebello is a new name, Saade is member of the Lebanese improv scene along with Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Sehnaoui, and Mazen Kerbaj. The instrumentation is harp, trumpet and electronics, flute, and bass clarinet but of course that does little to describe the music. Instead, what jumps out is a strategy of collective circumspection as the four assiduously construct spontaneous tracery. There is the clear weighting of sound and space; durations of tone placed against scrubbed and scraped textures; velocity of activity balanced with inky stasis. While electronics are present, their use is understated, placing a much stronger focus on the acoustic interactions. Fluttering breaths, sputtered reed pops, bowed and scraped strings, strident flute overtones, and brassy exhales, buzzes, and valve clicks create a taught balance of density and transparency.

Their palate and attack eschews line for more of a sense of collective sonic choreography and it is here that they really develop their group sound.

For all the subtleties, this is not about muted silence. Instead the four have woven together improvisations full of variegated lucidity informed by careful listening and radiant interaction.

John Butcher, Xavier Charles, and Axel Dörner have been playing together as a trio for close to a decade now. Tempestuous is their third release, and their second live recording. Captured at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the recording provides an intimate view of these masters. All three take an elemental view of their instruments; Butcher on tenor and soprano, Charles on clarinet, and Dörner on trumpet. They each strip things down to the conical bore of brass or wood, the mechanical valves and keypads, or the vibrating striations of mouthpiece and reed, and build back up from there. Having heard them live, they know how to play to a given room, measuring the acoustics and physical space and carefully gauging their use of attack and decay accordingly. They can stretch their instruments to extremes, but they are also comfortable letting pure tones slip in, whether popped tenor notes, quavering trumpet, or long woody clarinet hues. Their improvisation is defined by an unhurried sense of arc with accumulated sonic events separated by pools of silence. Tensions are built and released as the three make waves of skirled textures and burred breaths. As the piece moves toward its hushed conclusion, they have created a palpable sense of the collective process of shaping sound and silence into spontaneous form.

Michael Rosenstein

Del the Funky Homosapien 11th Hour

Definitive Jux DJX CD

For the better part of two decades, rapper Teron Delven Jones (as Del the Funkee Homosapien) has been

Theo Travis

arrangers develop nearly orchestral textures for saxophone ensemble out of the raw material of Softs motives —Issie Barratt’s “Somehow With The Passage Of Time” converts “Kings & Queens” into something barely recognizable, although the original piece’s themes become increasingly evident near the end. “Mousetrap” and “Noisette” undergo similar transformations. Interpretations of Karl Jenkins’s “Floating World,” “Aubade” and “The Tale Of Taliesin” vary less from the originals, but fit the classical theme nicely. The opening improvisation based on Hopper’s title song show the quartet’s ability to improvise minimalist interludes similar to those Ratledge and Jenkins once added to Softs albums. At its best, the Delta Saxophone Quartet’s CD is that rare thing, a tribute disc that stands on its own.

Saxophonist Theo Travis became the latest addition to the Softs extended family when its current performing incarnation, the Soft Machine Legacy, recruited him to replace the late Elton Dean. Double Talk doesn’t sound much like the Softs, but Travis’s group also features organ (although Pete Whittaker plays a Hammond rather than Ratledge’s trademark Lowrey), and his CD has one foot in jazz and another in psych/ prog. Lack of variety is a common problem with jazz CDs, but Double Talk goes a bit too far in the opposite direction—within its first three tracks it touches on ECM cathedral jazz, CTI jazz-funk and the raucous blues of McLaughlin-era Lifetime. Ambient music also plays a part; Travis scored a coup by getting Robert Fripp to appear, restoring the long-broken link between Fripp and British jazz, and Travis’s flute melds comfortably with Fripp’s Soundscapes. Guitarist Mike Outram’s extroversion makes him a fitting complement to the reserved Fripp, but he indulges in arena-blues clichés too readily. “See Emily Play” is a fun track, but mainly because Travis and his band have the good sense not to get in the way of Syd Barrett’s melody (and the inventive drumming from Roy Dodds is a plus). Reservations about the program aside, Travis plays with both a strong sense of melody and an arsenal of Brecker-ish scrambled phrases. Double Talk will reach fans of jazz and rock circa 196776, but others may rather wait for a more integrated set with the rock role models less easy to spot. Pat Buzby

33 Jazz 166 CD

Dengue Fever

followed by the unfortunate identifier of “humorous,” a branding akin to calling a vocational poet’s craft “light verse.” But this adjective is only unfortunate by what it betokens, since Del has an undeniably casual flow that is, fittingly, actually funny as he threads sophisticated and puerile jokes together. The need to point out so obvious a stylistic choice, rather, seems to be code for explaining his lack of commercial success through politeness. It would be fine for De La Soul to be called “goofy” or A Tribe Called Quest to rhyme “tongue in cheek,” but Del? “Humorous.” The lack of a proper adjective notwithstanding, Del’s influence on West Coast rap is safe, and his downward mobility should rather be seen as the natural consequence of recovering his own means of production. I Wish My Brother George Was Here was a modestly successful debut, recorded with a nepotistic boost from Del’s cousin, Ice Cube. But even a hint of commercial success has a way of shackling an artist, and for his sophomore album, Del retreated to the fold of his Oakland-based production collective The Hieroglyphics.

Over three albums as collaborateurs, Del and The Heiroglyphics crafted a world-wise yet down-home approach to production, eschewing obvious Parliament samples for low-key strings and jazz. Despite album sales that were mere percentages of what the Hieroglyphics had acquired on individual major label forays, there’s something elementally classic about discs like No Need for Alarm and the collective effort Third Eye Vision. After an eight year hiatus from solo work, the 11th Hour feels like Del’s reunion album. Though dated, the production is still vibrant, full of bounce and swagger. Unfortunately, what’s missing now is the funny, as if what sounded exemplary in the feel-good 90s won’t cut into the irony-laced 00s.

Del’s most popular single to date, “Clint Eastwood” on the Gorillaz debut album, dipped into the pastiche that moves units now. The 11th Hour, for all its sincerity, is lost in the woods.

Joel Calahan

Delta Saxophone Quartet

Dedicated to You ... But You Weren't Listening Moonjune MJR017 CD

Double Talk

Even a Soft Machine fan like myself will admit that the number of Softsrelated CDs has gotten ridiculously high in recent years. Their music encompassed four distinct elements – psychedelia, jazz, English classical and minimalism; on their lesser recordings, one of those elements crowds out the others, but at their best the band kept all four in balance. The Delta Saxophone Quartet mostly bypasses the psychedelia (no Daevid Allen or Kevin Ayers, and only a trace of Robert Wyatt) and does a professional but anonymous job with the jazz —“Facelift” is a literal rendition, featuring composer Hugh Hopper on bass but lacking the original’s aggression.

The CD’s highlights come when the

Venus on Earth M80 101 CD

World music popcorn: Los Angeles six-piece Dengue Fever have long been identified by their Cambodian roots despite their major-league affectations for garage and psych rock.

Even the group’s most “Cambodian” album—their eponymous debut —comprised covers of 1960s Cambodian pop rock. Venus on Earth, Dengue Fever’s third album, might be the first that could reasonably be called "anticipated" and it moves the group further still from whatever ethnic roots they’ve cared to display; Singer Chhom Nimol, originally recruited specifically for her ability to sing in her native Cambodian Khmer SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 75

Easel bigwig: Charles Cohen

Charles Cohen Ed Wilcox

Those Are Pearls That Were His Eyes Ruby Red RR 08 CD

Planet -Y

Space Station

Wendy Jane Hyatt

Pubic Guilt PG 012 CD

Electronic instrument inventor Don Buchla didn’t christen his 1972 invention the Music Easel simply to provide us poor critics with a colorful metaphor. A leap forward from the already revolutionary Modular synths that proceeded it, the Easel’s allowance for “real-time” composition and performance (in addition to its technocratic complement of sequencers, oscillators, filters, etc., controlled by keyboard plus all the knobs a boy could want) made for a machine of labyrinthine resources constructed for hands-on play instead of extracurricular programming. Synth till you drop—here was a true analogic for the times.

Years have neither dulled the Easel’s lustrous rep nor deadened its irruptive elasticity, but few have optimized the box’s attendant bells and whistles beyond gradschool academics or the odd engineer lazily searching for network advertising jingles.

Multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp’s been a Buchla advocate for decades, but he can’t hold a candle to Philadelphia musician Charles Cohen, whose unparalleled level of intimacy with the Easel has bleeped away across a 20-year span. He’s oxygenated the surrounding airspace when drawing on the Easel live, and with collaborator Jeff Cain in the criminally underrecorded (and unreissued) Ghostwriters worked his molten mojo onto both tape and wax quite splendidly.

Cohen’s but a footnote in the discographical annals of electronica when it comes to CD representation, but arriving twice with these new joints in tow should put an immediate stop to that. An abject, restless study on how sympathetically percussion dynamics can interface with the Easel’s 76 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

pliant dexterity, Those Are Pearls… inverts the notion of the “solo drummer” record, re-energizing a template gone wilted and now rescued thanks to the cyborgian fellowship between player and instrument.

Cohen is an improvisor’s soulmate, adaptive in split seconds to whatever curvature Wilcox deigns navigable. The percussionist himself pitches enough dizzying asymmetric patterns to give the most stalwart accompanyist vertigo, but Cohen’s got too strong a constitution to go all knock-kneed. Letting rip a baker’s dozen of stringent burbles, blips, bangs and beads, and an often corrosive array of shifting background textures to cushion Wilcox’s stormy blows, Cohen goes toe to toe with his partner, countering every thrust and parry with equal bravado.

Par example: on the fifth and sixth untitled tracks, Wilcox rains down a fusillade of renegade snares and cymbals, ekeing out a fierce urban gamelan over which Cohen daubs a skimcoat of pervasive wiggles and chirrups, tickling the surface like centipedes burrowing into mulch. Those unfamiliar with the Easel’s timbral syntax might consider the duo’s hairpin cantilevering a recipe for disaster—instead it’s a match made in heaven, and one zesty lunch for the ears.

Further out on a limb—right to stars’ end, no less—is the Planet-Y project, Cohen’s Easel duel with guitar synthesist Yanni Papadopoulos. Recorded live in Baltimore, Space Station’s single 28-minute piece plays like a science fiction soundtrack cooked up by an amnesiac who’s taken one too many trips of the acid kind. Moving in and out of phase, phasers and phasics, Cohen zaps Papadopoulos’ curdling guitar prams, submerging them in wraiths of sinuously obsequious rhythms, noises that get absorbed by glowing wormholes, vestigial tones from quasars eddying in the great blackness, reverberations of things going bump in the night. A vast psychedelic assault on the senses, criss-crossing more ideas per minute than most folks achieve in a week, the piece’s only weakness is that it’s over far too soon. Indeed, the world needs to hear more of Cohen, the consummate Easel bigwig, trader in a new millennium mogul thrash. Darren Bergstein

now joins guitarist Zac Holtzman during English language compositions.

The worst of these English tracks feature Nimon and Holtzman recounting banal details of a relationship (real or imagined). On “Sober Driver” they share the chorus, “You call me up because I’m sober and you wanted me to driiii-ive/ I’m getting tired of being treated as just a free riiii-ide/ I finally figured out that you’re just a thorn in my siiii-ide” which Nickelback will immediately regret not having written. On “Tiger Phone Card” Nimon states, “It’s 4 a.m. I check my email.” These acts, of course, occur in real relationships, but couched in too-literal language, Holtzman’s plain delivery and what can best be described as unassuming pop-rock, their retelling may be unwarranted. I know what you’re thinking: Dengue Fever certainly wouldn’t be the first “world” band to mask, er, inefficiencies with unfamiliar phrasing and language. In the midst of their more embroiling, righteous moments it’s no use wondering if the Khmer lyrics are shit or to what extent, beyond language, these tracks count as Cambodian. In Khmer, Nimon enchants, be it through phrasing or her humid, salty pipes. Album bookends “Seeing Hands” and “Mr. Orange” snap tartly. When the band’s on, even she’s not necessary: “Oceans of Venus” is a blistering surf-rock instrumental, soaked in Farfisa and scarred by its riffage. These are fine, sandy mysteries worth mulling over, untainted by the band’s comparatively infrequent transparency. Andrew Gaerig

+DOG+

Spiritual Awakening Love Earth LEM-16 CD

Harsh noise band +DOG+ hail from Santa Susana, a placid little hamlet just Simi Valley and Chatsworth. And you thought no one cared about you!

Just imagine making difficult art or music in the thankless incest-ridden wastes of suburbia like Simi Valley.

For +DOG+, Spiritual Awakening was “…intended to be a folk/new age recording…but as it turns out (we) decided to basically record a CD that encapsulates a more physical experience.” The liner notes are folded inside the CD sleeve like a ransom note. “This CD sets out to destroy sound itself.” Don’t laugh!

When was the last time you tried to change anything in the world other than canceling your subscription to Playboy and switching to Knocked Up and Milky? The cover illustration is that of Kali, Hindu goddess of annihilation – a carefully chosen image that asserts the fact, and rightfully so, that spiritual awakening can be noisy and harsh and difficult just like any other form of enlightenment. A lot of distorted sound comes out beautiful and a lot of beautiful sound comes out really jacked up. Your speakers will wish they were never born.

David Cotner

Hamid Drake Anders Gahnold WIlliam Parker The Last Dances Ayler DL-075 MP3

Should we curse the fact that music is

being issued in increasingly insubstantial formats, or be grateful that they make it possible for us to hear sounds we would otherwise never hear? This download-only release offers more material from the trio's sold out And William Danced session, recorded in Sweden back in 2002, and even listeners who consider computers an inferior playback format may want to cock an ear, because it's solid stuff.

Hamid Drake and William Parker have been one of the best rhythm sections in jazz since the early 90s, and they do nothing to discredit themselves here. Parker's assertive and elaborate melodic figures indicate that while his feet may have been shuffling, his fingers did their dancing on the strings, and they did not trip over each other.

Drake modulates the energy and pulse with scientific precision and a bodhisattva's beatific attitude. Anders Gahnold balances sky with a bit of earth, or something else gritty; his alto sax tone is abrasive enough to find its way into a carpenter's tool chest, yet persuasively pleading in a way that reminds me just a bit of the young Archie Shepp. Fleet, varied, and swinging, it's a swell set.

Bill Meyer

Ectogram

Fluff on a Faraway Hill Klangbad 34 CD

This Welsh trio’s last offering, Electric Deckchair, was one of the most interesting and intricate releases of 2005, raw and powerful but stunning in its clarity. Produced by Faust’s Hans-Joachim Irmler, a fine sound manipulator in his own right, Fluff on a Faraway Hill finds the group aesthetic having undergone a fairly rapid seachange. The clarity of Alan Holmes and Ann Matthews’ guitar interplay seemed at first to have vanished as thick warm distortion and clouds of feedback rolled in. Maeyc Hewitt’s drums seemed to rumble amidst the murk, the whole sounding like parts of Faust’s Ravivando—no surprise there. Yet, repeated listens demonstrate tightened songcraft and clever word painting; one of the initial moments of revelation came in “Devisor,” where Matthews steelypure delivery of the line “half and half again,” ends with her voice vanishing, incrementally, beneath guitar thrum and Hewitt’s funk-infused thunder.

The track’s opening moments pulse with the internal rhythm of tremolo, overtone-inflected guitar buzz traversing and filling the soundstage.

Whatever effects pervade the disc also remain far from obscuring the fascinating time-shifts in “Toolbox,” where a four-square feel suddenly finds wings in a faster, more intricate series of riffs and rhythmic patterns.

Similarly infectious is the initially sunny vibe of “Strategy 3” as bubbly minor and major chords lope and skip around each other, carrying the tune along a happily psychedelic path that soon grows forbidding. Fans of this group may need to adjust their sets, as the overall volume has gone up several notches. While I accept the band’s decision to use an outside producer, Irmler may not be a perfect fit, as there is a hint of reverberant sameness throughout this album never present in previous efforts. Still,

Fluff is anything but, an intriguingly complex listen; beautifully dreamy and mind-stompingly heavy by turn, it’s the thorniest but the most sonically complex offering to date from this innovative trio. Marc Medwin

Einstürzende Neubauten

Alles Weider Offen Potomak LC 07149 CD

“Pleasant, strangely cabaret-like, and almost holistically beneficial music.”

That's how a staffer at San Francisco’s Aquarius Records once described Einstürzende Neubauten’s post 1980's work. Not a bad estimation, but this rather sunny abstract of the band’s latter years doesn't tell the whole story of Alles Weider Offen, a powerful piece of work from this still-vital band. Various types of metal objects are processed, drilled, beaten and draggled, but if most of the noise elements are subsumed into the songs' landscapes, they’re nevertheless fully present. Close listening opens resonant layers in these diverse song settings. Translating as “Everything Open Again”, the disc pulls no punches with the opening "Die Wellen” (“The Waves”). Pounding, dissonant piano mirrors the title image, and a song-ending maelstrom resurfaces later on the disc's longest track, “Unvollstädigkeit” which has a great string arrangement by Jan Schade. The amazing “Von Wegen” (Of Ways) opens in deep biological space, and builds orchestral layers of noise and strings into a daunting, emotional experience. A jet turbine appears on “Nagorny Karabach”, which combines a wonderfully liquid feel with a poignant, clock-ticking sense of dread. Other tracks are more approachable, even reminding me of Canadian singer Bruce Cockburn's 1980 LP Humans (another great document in the ongoing saga of the political as the personal) in their circular, comforting song structures. “Ich hatte ein Wort” (I Had a Word) is strange cabaret at its merriest, and "Let's Do It a Dada”, a bragging-rights ode to Dada artists, reminds me of LCD Soundsystem's “Losing My Edge”; in a great line at one point, Blixa Bargeld claims that he “once bathed with the urtext”.

The majorly kicking “Weil Weil Weil”—which the band point out is “pronounced exactly like 'vile, vile, vile'”—uses dub elements in a great instrumental interlude right before the last verse, and sports a classic Bargeld vocal. "The teeth are being ground down in the works/ideas are stretched thin/all you learn is nothing more than parallel parking” he sings, and that’s just a snatch of the lyrical eloquence found throughout this great album.

Larry Nai

Amir El Saffar Two Rivers

Pi Recordings 24 CD

Suburban Chicago-born, New Yorkbased trumpeter Amir ElSaffar developed into an in-demand classical and jazz player in the late 1990's, including work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the iconoclastic Cecil Taylor, as well as associations with other young, boundary-stretching

artists like saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa and pianist Vijay Iyer.

In 2002, ElSaffar traveled to Iraq, his father's homeland, to seek further inspiration for his compositions.

While in Bagdad, ElSaffar studied the maqam, a demanding Iraqi vocal tradition that involves the quasi-improvisational recitation of poetry within a framework governing rhythm and melodic structures. Subsequently, ElSaffar studied in Europe with several maqam masters, and also picked up the santoor, an Iraqi hammered-dulcimer. As a result of these experiences, ElSaffar's has developed a unique compositional strategy incorporating maqam, jazz and improvisational characteristics. The ten compositions of Two Rivers offer a potent musical meditation on Iraq's mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers, with a diverse range of microtonal sounds brought to life by an inspired ensemble. “Menba’/ Jourjina” commences the record with ElSaffar’s santoor musings alongside bassist Carlo DeRosa and drummer Nasheet Waits’ vibrant undercurrents, with ElSaffar’s melodies shadowed

by Mahanthappa’s incisive alto saxophone and Zafer Tawil’s violin amidst a propulsive groove. While traditional maqam stylings prove moving on “Diaspora” and the absorbing multisectioned “Blood and Ink/Aneed,” ElSaffar’s most gripping performance appears on the solo piece, “Awj Intro,” where his mournful trumpet glistens with a dramatic, vocal-like delivery. ElSafar’s most striking compositions are those where the full ensemble revels in the stylistic stew and odd-meter vamps. There is no better example than “Hamayoun” with DeRosa and Waits locking into a jaunty swing that inspires Mahanthappa’s spirited lines and ElSaffar’s glorious crescendo, while other high points also include the suspenseful drive of “Flood” or the throbbing 17/8 meter of “Khosh Reng.” Waits is particularly astounding on the dark funk of “Shatt al-Arab,” a lovely feature for Tawil’s oud, and with his slashing, DeJohnette-like dances on the jazzy “Blues In E-Half Flat.” Two Rivers vividly demonstrates ElSaffar’s desire to challenge himself and chart his own course, and the development of an artist with much more to say.

Jay Collins

Evangelicals

The Evening Descends Dead Oceans DOC004 CD / LP

So Gone, the terrific 2006 debut album by Evangelicals, received little of the attention it deserved, perhaps because this oddball outfit from Norman, Oklahoma, did not fit easily into the any current indie-rock category.

Evangelicals continue to defy genre boundaries on their second album, playing chords and melodies that might have worked as pop songs and then twisting them into distorted miniature epics of passionately felt emotion and supernatural imagery. The songs seem almost to be fighting their way through a haze of reverb, echoing feedback, twinkling keyboards, harp glissandos, snippets of dialogue and various unidentifiable sounds, but the tunes do make themselves heard. Josh Jones sings about monsters growing inside of

him, waking up screaming, encountering skeleton men and going crazy outside his mother’s door. When he alludes to more prosaic pop-tune topics like, say, romance, he delivers lines such as: “When someone loves you very much, you’re fucked.” More than one song includes a proclamation about the end of the world being near. The apocalyptic turmoil in the lyrics gives Jones license to sing with almost unbridled feeling, gliding his falsetto up and down the melodies in search of sometimes elusive notes.

As a vocal performance, it’s fearless, even when the strange stories told by the lyrics seem to filling Jones (or his characters) with quivering fright.

Jones and his fellow Evangelicals, Kyle Davis and Austin Stephens, bring their wonderfully hallucinatory trip to a hopeful-sounding climax on the keyboard-driven “Bloodstream.”

Sure, the song talks about getting shot in the eyes by God himself, but its protagonist wakes up laughing —a feeling the listener may share as the last track fades. Robert Loerzel

Evangelista

Hello, Voyager

Constellation CST050-2 CD / LP

Last year’s collaboration between guitarist/vocalist Carla Bozulich (Ethyl Meatplow, The Geraldine Fibbers and Scarnella), her friend and bassist Tara Barnes, and members of the Montreal post-rock fraternity, including drummer Shahzad Ismaily and Thee Silver Mt. Zion resulted in the harrowing, elegiac song cycle, Evangelista released under Bozulich's own name. This same crew toured all over Europe and North America so it made sense to bring them back together, and they've expanded the cast even wider to include over a dozen Montreal musicians. Bozulich has referred to the original Evangelista record as: “a sound that you can open your chest with, pull out what's inside and make it change shapes.”

And like Evangelista, Hello, Voyager is packed with open-sore expressions of pain, guilt, fury, despair and frustration. Similarly, Voyager builds on the mini-exorcisms of its predecessor and travels on an even darker and heart wrenching journey to the depths of an anguished soul, yet is stylistically less monochromatic. There is the bludgeoning, thunderous, snarl of “Smooth Jazz” and the blistering desperation of “Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space” that both reach back to her days in the Geraldine Fibbers and rage and roar with enough intensity and garage blues stomp and lurch to make the wee lads in Grinderman cower. But Voyager isn’t all growl and spit. There's the gentle, tender croon of the string-drenched ballad, “The Blue Room” and its counterpart, the slow, lamenting waltz, “Paper Kitten Claw. There's the playful, seductive outlaw in “Lucky Luck Luck” and the frightening Diamanda Galas-like horror show of “The Frozen Dress”.

Bozulich keenly understands the power of drama and dynamics, when to go wild and when to hold back, and uses her voice wonderfully to wholly embody the different characters and narratives of the songs. As she barks out on the title track: “I was never who I seemed to be”. SpeakSIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 77

Anguished and Aloof: King Crimson in New York, 1974

ing of which, the lengthy title track finds Bozulich at her possessed and testifyin’ best, with her accompanists laying down a brutal, ramshackle, gospel-ized noise rock dirge that is at once raw, redemptive and radiant.

Richard Moule

The Family Élan Stare of Dawn Locust 102 CD / LP

King Crimson

The Great Deceiver, Volume 1 DGM / Inner Knot 5004 CD x 2

The Great Deceiver, Volume 2

courtesy DGM

DGM / Inner Knot 5005 CD x 2

With the dissolution of the Greg Lake and Boz Burell-led lineups of King Crimson in 1972, founding guitarist Robert Fripp was professionally disenfranchised, musically frustrated and spiritually adrift.

Years of effort in assemblage and execution had left him with little to show for his troubles besides a healthy distaste of the music business and a calcified aversion to blues-based rock. What better time, then, to put together a new lineup—one that would lay waste to all previous conceptions of the group? The band he assembled, comprised of ex-Yes skinsman Bill Bruford, bassist/vocalist John Wetton, percussionist/ nutjob Jamie Muir and violinist David Cross, is agreed on by many Crim enthusiasts to be the most potent incarnation of the band. This version of Crimson released one record, 1973’s stellar Larks’ Tongue in Aspic, before Muir split for Buddhist monastery in Scotland. The remaining members soldiered on, playing increasingly ardent live shows in Europe and America to audiences that were most likely stoned out of their gourds. The Great Deceiver documents those heady excursions. Previously released as a four-CD box set with comprehensive liner notes by Fripp, it’s now reissued in a two volume, double-disc format with all of the musical fury and finesse intact. Much of the material on Deceiver is improvised. This is as much due to Fripp’s famous reluctance to perform “legacy” material, as the fact that the new incarnation had yet to amass a wealth of compositions. Still, mid-period KC faves such as “Easy Money,” “Starless” 78 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

and “Fracture” all make appearances.

There are also a couple of songs that never made it into the studio, including “Doctor Diamond,” which sounds like it could’ve been part of the Crim 1.0 repertoire. Fripp’s effervescent sustained notes and protometal cross-picking are on full display, as are the polyrhythmic tantrums of Bruford.

Wetton’s bass is a snarling monster, often threatening to overpower the guitar. Poor David Cross is left to fight a losing volume war on his violin, which, even with the benefit of sundry fuzzboxes, fails to win sonic territory from the other instruments.

As time and tour progressed, Cross found himself increasingly relegated to the role of keyboardist, stabbing out Mellotron lines on epic numbers such as the Cross co-penned “Exiles.” Some of the music from these concerts made their way to proper Crim records, albeit in slightly modified form.

Portions of “We’ll Let You Know” ended up on 1974’s Starless and Bible Black, while the simmering improv “Providence” found home on the lineup’s incandescent bow-out, Red. Other numbers find new life through live exploration. The band’s signature ode to napalm and bad trips, “21st Century Schizoid Man”—one of Fripp’s few concessions to his musical past—is given a fierce makeover, but the song’s Gordian Knot of a mid-section retains all of its highwire complexity. There are a lot of duplicate numbers on The Great Deceiver, with “Easy Money” appearing several times. However, each version is remarkably different, which illustrates the fearlessness and creativity with which King Crimson approached its oeuvre.

The baroque solemnity of the “The Night Watch,” is refined from night to night, with Fripp’s guitar playing at turns anguished and aloof. The Great Deceiver may not be the ideal entry point into the maddening and meaningful world of King Crimson, but it does provide an unhindered look at one of the most intensely inventive groups to ever prowl the planet. Casey Rae-Hunter

The Family Élan is Glasgow's Chris Hladowski, who also plays in combos Nalle, the One Ensemble, and Scatter. State of Dawn asks the question, what might happen a young fellow who has proficiency with stringed instruments (guitar, bouzouki, possibly dulcimer, etc.) and has an epiphany after listening to the Yardbirds' “White Summer” (essentially a raga-tinged acoustic solo by Jimmy Page, and a fine one at that) and/or the Pentangle's guitarists John Renbourn and Bert Jansch at their most dazzling. Well, the lad might go ahead and make an album like this one, full of swirling modal melodies evoking Middle Eastern, Greek, Indian, Andalusian, and Celtic scales and inspirations.

There are five long instrumentals (well, two or three tracks have quiet, hazy vocal sections) wherein acoustic stringed instruments (and occasional recorder and percussion) are layered and lovingly interwoven. He's no John Fahey (though Fahey's ghost may lurk within) nor does he try to be —his playing is very fine, but I don't think virtuosity is the point. The music this Family makes is rhythmically engaging and melodically entrancing, and it's got spunk. It's the kind of stuff that makes time itself seem kind of irrelevant. Mark Keresman

Bobby Few

Lights and Shadows Boxholder 054 CD

Sadly, it’s not often that we hear from veteran pianist Bobby Few these days. It seems like every few years he emerges with a solo recording, like the galvanic Continental Jazz Express (2002), or this reflective, quirky suite of compositions. The vast range of Few’s technique and imagination is captured here, resulting in a richly varied and well conceived set.

The cascading notes on “Bells” lead into a wondrous reimagination of Lacy’s “Flakes,” dense and polytonal.

The slow-moving, ponderous “From Different Lands” is a vivid study in contrasting registers, and also in Few’s tendency to eschew lines in favor of pinwheeling lattices of sound.

The bright, bouncing “Enomis” is a standout, sort of like a darker Bill Evans tune. And the long title track is a pretty stunning feature, with powerfully shifting dynamics, cascades of notes, and an incredibly rapid musical imagination. But as fine as this track’s dizzying energy is, I’m more partial to the slow-moving pendulum of “What You Doing?”—it’s got passages where notes are squeezed out like last drops of water from a gourd, mutant stride (a la Byard or Burrell), and mashed up scrambles. After this exhausting course, the gentle “Dreams” leads out like an ellipsis.

Jason Bivins

Joe Fiedler Trio The Crab

Clean Feed CF092 CD

Trombonist Joe Fiedler came to the fore with a rare lineup of 'bone, bass and drums, and an even rarer entrée into the canon with a disc entirely made up of Albert Mangelsdorff tunes. The German trombonist's multiphonic prowess, his ability to play chords whilst donning a melodic cap worthy of J.J. Johnson, and his bawdy sense of humor are all certainly worthy of aspiration, though one rarely hears his name spoken among American trombonists. Fiedler, an heir apparent to both Manglesdorff and Ray Anderson’s bold, funky slashes, returns to the trio format on The Crab, engaging nine of his own compositions as well as two homages to Albert. The setting of Fiedler’s deft combination of growls, tailgate and bebop flickery against the pliant push-pull grooves of bassist John Hebert and drummer Michael Sarin makes for a compellingly sparse formula. Most of the pieces here have a jagged, skittering gait (hence the album title, perhaps), and it’s fair to say that they’ve arrived at a “sound” at a fairly early date. The title track is fitted with a brief theme, slushy in all the right ways, but with a suspended and earthy rhythmic gait. Fiedler is at turns mournful and delicate, buzzing and chortling, and prim with a trumpeter’s clarion. His dissociated blues recalls Roswell Rudd, seemingly taking on an unaccompanied air whilst Hebert and Sarin subdivide time all around him. “Trout Stream” is a slinky fantasy for plunger, while its follow-up “Don’t Impede the Stream” is equal parts frantic freebop hustle and throbbing multiphonic grunge, volleys traded from fleet flicks to woody, sweaty jabs. The ost obvious paean to Mangelsdorff is “For Albert,” a soliloquy of guttural split-tones over delicate brushwork and Hebert’s melodic outlines. Surely the late trombonist’s spirit is captured here—and throughout— in the sheer weight of Fiedler’s throaty brasswork, but this student’s healthy appropriation of a diverse range of tromboneliness will only make him into his own man. Clifford Allen

Fond of Tigers

Release the Saviours Drip Audio DA00239 CD

The Inhabitants

The Furniture Moves Underneath Drip Audio DA00253 CD

Over the past couple of years, one of Canada's most consistently interesting experimental music labels has been Jesse Zubot's Drip Audio, offering a healthy stock of creative improvised and jazz projects focusing on the volinist and his cohorts.

Fond of Tigers is a septet of Vancouver musicians founded by guitarist Stephen Lyons that heroically mixes rock (prog and post), jazz, fusion, improv and electronics. Release The Saviors is the group's second record, consisting of seven group interactions that provide a study in contrasts. It's celebratory music propelled by its two drum-kit rhythm section and the front line of Zubot and trum-

peter J.P. Carter, drawing on a host of markers, including King Crimson, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Tortoise.

Most compelling are the two longest pieces of the record, “Pemberdunn Maple Wolfs” and “A Long Way To Temporary”; the former's punishing, glorious wall of sound proves rather disorienting despite its steady rhythmic course, while the latter is fifteen minutes of skronky instrumental rock that threatens to spin violently out of control. Quieter, impressionistic pieces like the hushed introspection of “Let's Carve Forever Together” and the timbral creakiness of “Born Again Ready” balance the session.

This is vital, multi-layered music that is attention-grabbing, to say the least.

Tigers' Carter and drummer Skye Brooks are also members of the cooperative quartet, the Inhabitants, where they're joined by guitarist Dave Sikula and bassist Pete Schmitt.

The Furniture Moves Underneath is their second record and it builds on their debut's mix of experimental rock-tinged jazz fusion. For sure, the results aren't far off from that of Fond of Tigers or nu fusion acts like Jim Black's AlasNoAxis. The opening, “Kurt's Dirt” is a brickwalled whirlwind before Schmitt's bass quietly sets a menacing Mahavishnu groove over which Carter soars as the crescendo swells. The ominous sound whirlpool of “Remember,” with Carter's distorted sound smears and the sweeping punk funk of “The Rancher” ramp things up further, yet the group offers its fair share of moody-intricacy on the slowly-building swamp journey of “Sad Friend” or the spooky “Phototropism.” They also prove surprisingly sensitive, particularly on the lovely “A Part of You” or the the shimmering crawl and thundering resolution of the closing “Drop Descender.”

Jay Collins

Fripp & Eno

Beyond Even (1992-2006) Discipline Global Mobile 0702 CD

At this point, the very idea of a collaboration between Robert Fripp and Brian Eno has as much potency as any music they could possibly deliver. The two British gentlemen are, unarguably, titans of experimental rock and ambient music. In the years since their 1973 joint effort, No Pussyfooting (which is getting the royal reissue treatment in the coming months), Fripp and Eno have gone on to cement their respective statuses as modern musical visionaries. Fripp’s ever-evolving work with King Crimson helped lay the foundation for much of today's avant-metal, while Eno’s sonic aesthetics have made him one of the world’s most revered producers. It’s cool that two such vaunted figures continue to make music together, but one wishes the results were more interesting. Fripp & Eno’s latest offering, Beyond Even, is a hodgepodge of tracks recorded between 1992 and 2006. Whereas previous efforts (including 2004’s Equatorial Stars) have been largely ambient works, Beyond finds the duo employing percussive loops and sundry electronic rhythms in addition to their more typical soundscapes.

Technology has surely evolved since Fripp & Eno first got together. Then,

Fripp used tape decks to layer his guitar lines, christening the process “Frippertronics.” These days, he relies on guitar synths equipped with an onboard sustainer pickup. (What the self-declared “non-musician” Eno contributes to these sessions, is, as always, something of a mystery.) Despite the broader palette offered by today's technology, the music sounds somewhat sterile. The best bits are those in which ambience is given full reign. In these spots, Fripp’s guitar lines drift in arcs of barely-delineated melody like half-heard tones from across a vast chasm. The beats, on the other hand, are God-awful, even by early-’90s standards. Instead of providing a sense of motion, the canned-sounding rhythms have the effect of tying the music down, while cheapening the overall sonic character. This is too bad, because it’s clear that both men still possess a sense of playfulness and adventure. While Beyond Even doesn’t tarnish Fripp & Eno’s well-deserved reputation, it does makes you recall the days when the two were ahead of the curve, rather than a few steps behind it.

Casey Rae-Hunter

The Geordie Approach Why Eye

Bruce's Fingers BF 68 CD

This debut release by the Norwegian/ British trio The Geordie Approach reveals a band grappling with a thorny mix of electronics, rock squall, and free jazz energy. Alto sax/electronics player Petter Frost Fadnes, guitarist/ electronics player Chris Sharkey, and drummer Ståle Birkeland dive headfirst into dense walls of sound, jumping from skirling blasts to shuddering scrims with fervent abandon. With heavy use of electronic processing, it becomes just about impossible to tell where the abraded textures and mercurial washes of sound are coming from; where distorted sax lines end and where shredded and processed guitar playing picks up. The result is a blustery gale churning over the metallic clanging of percussion and caterwauling energy of thundering drums. That is not to say that the improvisations run full-tilt throughout.

Instead, the set flows from piece to piece, shifting densities and velocity along the way. They are just as comfortable laying out seething free-form soundscapes as they are charging through funk-inflected skronk. Hanging guitar chords ring through over glitched static and echoed loops, but then just as suddenly, they can veer off into flayed all-out noise. The three have already started to make a stir as part of the improvised music scene in Leeds where they crossed paths with producer Simon Fell. This release sprawls a bit at times but should connect them with listeners with open ears. Michael Rosenstein

Glerum Omnibus Omnibus Two Favorite FAV5 CD

Ernst Glerum is best known as the doublebassist for the ICP, but he plays piano exclusively on Omnibus Two, the second release of his work with this trio. Joost Patocka is the drummer and Sean Fasciani is the

bassist, while Jesse van Ruller joins on guitar on one bonus track. The playing is classy, like three olives in a dry martini, and reminds me of one of my favorite piano trio records (George Arvanitas’ 3AM with Doug Watkins on bass and Art Taylor on drums). Both trios play it slick: they wouldn’t be offensive at a hotel bar, but the interplay and execution is so good that if you pay attention, you notice all the idiosyncratic choices being made within a fairly orthodox style. Glerum wrote ten out of the eleven tunes on the disc, but they are played so convincingly in the tradition that they all have the feel of standards. Solid playing from all the musicians make this a great disc to put on when you’re in the company of folks that aren’t hip to the outerreaches of the contemporary music world. Your own ears will be perked and satisfied. Andrew Choate

Golden Arm Trio The Tick-Tock Club Golden Arm CD

Graham Reynolds's Golden Arm Trio actually features a couple dozen musicians over the course of its twelve selections. The disc serves, in part, as a tribute to the Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich, with three of his pieces nestled in amongst slices of cinematic noir, fractured post-bop, rock-based workouts, punkish attitude, and a slew of sonic experiments. This diverse musical palette has also served Reynolds well as a film composer (he scored A Scanner Darkly). His hybrid sensibilities are uniquely his own, but embrace an approach shared by John Zorn, especially with his Spillane and Morricone projects. Reynolds has effectively found a common ground for modern classicism and take-no-prisoners contemporary tumult and pummel.

Not for the weak of heart, nor the stuff of romantic dinners, the music of the Golden Arm Trio demands your full attention. David Greenberger

Dennis González NY Quartet At Tonic

Clean Feed CF094 CD

Dallas, Texas-based trumpet player Dennis González put out a series of incredible recordings in the ’80s featuring musicians like Prince Lasha, John Purcell, Charles Brackeen, Malachi Favors, Alvin Fielder, Louis Moholo, Fred Hopkins, Carlos Ward, as well as his Dallas home crew. And then, in the mid-’90s, he decided to stop playing. Since reactivating in 1999 he’s experienced a strong return to form, working with his sons in their group Yells At Eels and collaborating with musicians in New York, Boston, and Lisbon, Portugal. His appearance at the 2003 edition of the Festival of New Trumpet Music at Tonic in New York played a big role in getting him some renewed visibility. The Clean Feed release NY Midnight Suite captured a studio session by the group that played at the festival with González, Ellery Eskelin, Mark Helias and Mike Thompson. In the notes to that release, the trumpet player bemoaned the fact that the tapes from the live gig at Tonic only SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 79

Friends Like These: Jimmy Carl Black and Eugene Chadbourne

Eugene Chadbourne and Jimmy Carl Black The Jack & Jim Show presents Hearing is Believing Boxholder 53 CD

Jon Larsen

Strange News From Mars

Tim Bugbee

Zonic 2001 CD

These two records both draw heavily on the voice, drums and persona of Jimmy Carl Black.

Once the drummer for the Soul Giants, a bar band who played R&B in southern California in the early 60s, Black's life changed forever when a certain Frank Zappa joined the group. Now living in Mannheim, Germany, he trades off this celebrity with grace and good humour, touring with the Liverpool-based Zappa cover band the Muffin Men. Black is a presence and a legend, and his charm and sincerity mean nobody's disappointed when they meet him. Someone should publish a collection of anecdotes called “What Jimmy Carl Black Said To Me.” Hearing is Believing is a project/object lesson in how to approach Zappa's legacy, or indeed any musical tradition: dump the so-called "qualities" of musicianship, expensive recording, and synths which sound like brass fanfares, and focus on what hits home to listeners comfortable with punk and rap: jangling chords, snide humour, contemporary politics, repartee. It also helps if the musicianship is so alert and hungry the players reinvent arrangements in real time just to make each other laugh, or cause train wrecks simply for the joy of making something beautiful or interesting out of the rescue operation. The Jack & Jim Show (Eugene Chadbourne and Jimmy Carl Black) have been playing together as a duo for at least fifteen years. So it isn't just a matter of giving Black some amusing lines to recite: this is a playing relationship which has altered Chadbourne's bio-chemistry, injecting a previous generation's experience of music and politics into his veins. Here they're joined by the English improvisor Pat Thomas on keyboards (noted collaborator on the Jack and Jim Show's astonishing album of Hendrix covers) and Schroeder, a German electro-noisician. Their repertoire now stretches beyond Zappa and 80 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Beefheart, including “Pithancanthropus Erectus”

by Charles Mingus (with a lovely Canterbury Rock intro from Thomas and some scrabbling rhythm guitar from Chadbourne which made my jaw drop), Marvin Gaye's “What's Going On,” Dizzy Gillespie's “Salt Peanuts,” and “Eleanor Rigby,” “Me and My Monkey” and “The Word”

by The Beatles.

Chadbourne and Black live this material, they treat it with complete familiarity and affection, like parents swinging their children round in the air. They can smush it up and reinvent it because it belongs to them, as well as to the audiences they've wowed in countless insalubrious, nonprestige venues all over the world. The spiky freedoms of Free Improvisation embrace jazz, protest song and freak rock with an ease and warmth which elude the earnest tubthumpers of post-rock and art-rock. That's because Chadbourne and Black know why they're using this stuff: to protest a society in which consumer cool and competition is the sauce to economic exploitation and imperial war. While Chadbourne's erstwhile colleague John Zorn walls out social facts inconvenient to his aesthetic theory with glossy photographs of mystical arcana, the Jack & Jim Show tell it like it is. The joy and relief achieved by this humble honesty are palpable.

The divisions between “genres” like Bebop, Improv, Punk and Country were the Big Challenge for musicians of this generation: Chadbourne solves it by proving that a unit of real musicians —who are also real friends—can play anything under the sun.

It would be uncharitable to dwell too long on Jon Larsen's release, which has “fun written all over it. For the last 25 years Larsen has played guitar in the Hot Club of Norway. Recently he went to LA to record something hi-tech and sci-fi. As well as Black's report on the conditions on Planet Mars, Zappa alumni Tommy Mars (keyboards), Bruce Fowler (trombone) and Arthur Barrow (production, bass on one tiny track) are also aboard. Some of the CD sounds like Zappa at his smarmiest (“Wild Love,” “Cy Borg,” “Yo Cats“), but despite claims to be surrealist, that tired old bourgeois duvet called “quality musicianship”—in the Smooth Jazz Radio sense—smothers every effort. Larsen hasn't the compositional invention or daring necessary to set challenges for these versatile musicians, and the results are thin and formless: a backing track looking for an event. Black's radio messages from Mars have an arresting quality—as if he found Larsen's lines genuinely hard to read—but he's stuck in Berklee-School treacle. If this is surrealism, then Kenny G is André Breton.

Ben Watson

captured part of the set so the studio session was arranged. Well, it appears that everyone rethought the idea of releasing the live concert. So At Tonic salvages a good portion of the date, interleaving the two long improvisations with duets that González recorded with drummer Mike Thompson a year later. As displayed in the studio set, this is a group that gels immediately. There’s no way to tell that this is a first-time meeting. For all of his freedom, González is a markedly lyrical player. The two quartet pieces drive along across the simmering, loose polyrhythms of Helias and Thompson. The leader attacks the pulse with free melodicism matched nicely by Eskelin’s husky energetic playing. Helias and Thompson get extensive solo space as well, each displaying their own freely melodic take on their instruments. The duet pieces are open dialogues providing some spirited interplay between trumpet and drums, though the inclusion of a ten-minute solo piece by the drummer meanders a bit, missing the leader’s linear focus. While not quite up to the studio set, this one was still worth rescuing for release.

Michael Rosenstein

Burton Greene

Bloom in the Commune ESP-Disk' 4038 CD

Pianist-composer Burton Greene’s career output has been varied over the past forty-odd years, and recent recordings for Cadence Jazz and CIMP have explored post-bop, free improvisation, and Indian scales in a diverse array of settings. Yet the early work for which he's still best known has stood the test of time.

Greene’s first date of two for ESP as a bandleader (a January 1966 session originally known simply as Burton Greene Quartet) brings altoist Marion Brown and bassist Henry Grimes to the stage, along with appearances by obscure tenorman Frank Smith and drummers Dave Grant and Tom Price.

A Chicagoan wowed early on by Horace Silver as well as the Tristano/ Konitz bag, Greene’s “Cluster Quartet” provides a theme full of dissonant block chords against a rock-solid beat, not unlike a jittery free excursion on the foundations of the Tristano school. Brown is searing and gritty, but his phrases are assembled liquidly in contrast to the rattle of drumsticks and garbage-can lids inside the piano. Grimes’ earthy pizzicato cuts through like a massive and steady prow, not necessarily driving the ship but helping the range of sonic strokes maintain course. Tom Price, a holdover from the Patty Waters Sings session of months prior, makes his only other appearance on “Ballade II,” using hands, feet and mallets to create a field of steady accents underneath Brown’s delicate keen and Grimes’ maddening col legno.

Greene’s unaccompanied rhapsody is a tension-filled tone row, a ballet on hot coals after the trio’s dark portrait.

The relentless closer, “Taking It Out of the Ground,” adds tenorist Smith to the front line, a preacher in the vein of Ayler and Frank Wright whose hot blasts and yelps bring a feral energy to the proceedings. Augmented with audio interviews and includ-

ing Greene’s original liner essay, this reissue is a welcome addition to the growing ESP archival catalog.

Greene’s music has evolved considerably since these initial quartet/quintet sessions, and it’s interesting to revisit the territory from whence he came.

Clifford Allen

Randy Grief & Kenji Siratori Narcoleptic Cells Thisco Thisk.48 CD

iTunes sez that this record is by house DJ Junior Vasquez and that he’s reading the audio-book of “Les Miserables.” Junior turns 62 this year. That’s depressing and slightly bizarre. What’s really bizarre is how this crackling, glitchy (but not glitchy in error) and fascinating slab of mirrored goodness escaped practically everyone’s notice in 2007. ‘Twas ever thus! Randy Greif—composer of the “Alice in Wonderland” quinary of CDs in the early ‘90s, confounding co-founding father of the West Coast tape music scene in the ‘70s and sometimes ReMax realtor(!)—took the raw material of sound from Siratori, a Japanese cyberpunk author with 53(?!) records to his name in 2007 alone. The CD sleeve smells like rosewater; the sound itself is 54 minutes of what Greif sums up as an impression of Siratori’s writing style: “Upon reading the work of Kenji Siratori, I was struck with his construction of what seemed to be a hybrid language— the combination of text messaging shorthand, Burroughs-stlye cut-ups, poorly translated Japanese technical manual, and a new form of computer language.” Sort of like the script for Juno. Ew, okay, never mind that—just know that as you marinate in the romantic glow of the VDT screen, those little 0’s and 1’s are filtering their way into your dreams, and this is their soundtrack. So like it or lump it, cyborg! David Cotner

Drew Gress

The Irrational Numbers Premonition 90775 CD

With cover art by Steve Byram, mixing and mastering by David Torn and personnel including trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist Craig Taborn, drummer Tom Rainey and saxophonist Tim Berne, you'd be forgiven for mistaking this for one of Berne's own releases. However, bassist Drew Gress' second CD under his own leadership is truly of his own devise. Like its predecessor, 7 Black Butterflies, Gress' composing uses his instrument as the axis of well-hewn structures that also provide him with plenty of solo time. Thankfully, the solo spots are as compelling and crucial as his effective use of dissonant horn tones, beautifully melodic pianisms and jigsaw rhythms. Indeed, while this session might be difficult to fit into a particular bag, Gress’ music has increasingly become a unique stylistic blend, with Rainey being the secret weapon, contributing one sublime pattern after another. The jagged interplay is what makes this record so compelling, as evidenced by the multi-section “Neapolitan” with its vamp meeting freely improvised segments that offer Berne’s most spirited moments. The

quintet keeps it relatively inside on the playful post-modern swing of “Your Favorite Kind,” highlighted Taborn’s spiked shards. The pianist's depth is further displayed on Gress’ ballad-like pieces such as “Fauxjobim,” the lush “By Far” and the gentle waves of the record’s closer, “True South,” which manages to be both romantic and prickly at once, with shimmering final statements from the world of Torn matching Gress’ electronics. While he may be known mostly as a collaborator, Gress’ strong leadership skills and continuing output indicates a mature compositional voice. Jay Collins

Grey Daturas

Dead in the Woods Crucial Blast 62 CD

Sure, these Aussies have noise-rock roots—they've issued material via Collective Jyrk, Heathen Skulls, Isolated Radio Waves, and other purveyors of fucked-up sound. But on the evidence of this reissue of their out-of-print 2004 Crashing Jets release Dead in the Woods, I'd argue that they aren't really noise-rockers.

Noisy rockers, maybe. True noise is mysterious, amphorous, bewildering: in its purest form, noise should elicit confusion, even annoyance, with respect to to the tools of its construction. Or, if said tools are knowable, noise should be unhummable: fractured, ugly, ungraspable. Grey Daturas growl; they blare, they bray, they spit feedback and bash cymbals; but good luck losing yourself in their spew the way you can with that of Yellow Swans, Sightings, Wolf Eyes, or any number of out/noise artists.

Maybe Earth make for a better reference point, but Earth's music is louder, more pulverizing. Don't get me wrong; Grey Daturas shred in a certain way, but except for fare like “Force is a Weapon of the Mask” or the gnarlier moments of “Repear Until False,” they don't send me reeling or spinning. They're like a Mogwai or a Kinski for the Fusetron mailorder set—a less punishing Skullflower, if you like—too often riffing when I wish they were eschewing structuralism altogether. Or maybe I'm not wasted enough? Raymond Cummings

Franz Hautzinger Gomberg II

Loewenhertz 018 CD

While Franz Hautzinger’s Gomberg (Grob) was not the first entry in the stream of solo trumpet albums that have radically defined the instrument’s possibilities in the last decade, it was—and remains—one of the heaviest hitters. Its combination of alien sounds arranged in immaculately organized performance and lengthy, analytical notes by Bill Dixon persuasively argued the album’s significance as a statement. By contrast, everything else Hautzinger has done in the oughts is just good (or occasionally excellent) music. By assigning the Gomberg name to this release, another solo recording, the Austrian quarter-tone trumpet player invites comparisons to its predecessor. How does it compare, musically and methodologically? Does it matter as much in today’s musical climate? Gomberg II is a drastically different record, one

that casts its creator in a very different light. The first record was not only a solo performance, but very closely associated with improvised music’s challenges to conventional technique; while he is the only player on II, he has overdubbed himself into an ensemble, and this music has already been presented by live musicians at the Contrasts 07: Strange Music Festival. The record has moments of wind tunnel ripple and coffee grinder rasp, but also some gorgeous open horn work that should make it accessible and enjoyable to people who cover their ears and run when confronted with the collected works of Dörner, Kelley, Kerbaj, and Ulher.

On “Tonga,” hocketing lines wheel immaculately in formation in the pitch stratosphere while impossibly low groans locate the ground somewhere far below your feet. The low end is very important here, and very well recorded—you could do worse than this record if you’re looking for something to test a new set of speakers. The wide range is matched by organizational breadth; while “Tonga” sounds like a descendant of centuries of brass band music, “J.M.’s” grainy feedback belongs to a lineage that started with Cage and was impelled into the mainstream by the likes of Hendrix, Reed, and Townsend, and “Pitch’s” distant horizon stare weds the near-stasis of Radique and Niblock to the digital treatments of Mathieu and Fennesz. Gomberg II casts Hautzinger as a composer who avails himself of a continuum that stretches back centuries and reaches from the recently discovered toward the still unknown. Bill Meyer

Tim Hecker

Norberg, Sweden Room40 EDRM414 CD

Atlas

Audraglint ag117 10" LP

Unlike some of his peers in sound-art, Tim Hecker isn’t afraid of concision: one of the great triumphs of his revered Harmony in Ultraviolet was its engrossing structure, a series of short (2-3 minutes) vignettes that never allowed his abstractions to overwhelm.

That’s not the case on two recent releases, a 22-minute 10”, Atlas, and a 21-minute live performance Norberg, Sweden, two long-form pieces that skew Hecker’s work toward the bold and violent. Gorgeously pressed onto heavy vinyl, Atlas is the more blissfully gauzy of the two, opening with barely discernible guitar wisps before settling into slyly dissonant grind. Hecker, though, works with volume as well as he works with tones; his best work has always rewarded a clockwise turn of the stereo knob. Side B best encourages these turns, opening up to large gapes of sunlight and oxygen, a welcome, nuanced juxtaposition every bit worthy of the extended format.

Norberg fares worse. Recorded during the Norberg Festival, this piece arrives as an unbroken swath of sound. A texturally resilient piece— think skinned knees or scraped palms but, you know, driftier—Norberg suffers from a lack of both context and dynamics. Removed from its performance space, the piece takes little time to ramp up from its pointillist

piano intro to its saturated tides from which it unfurls its long, static fadeout.

The audience waits three seconds to make certain the silence isn’t more art, claps politely, and presumably scatter, having just learned how strangely unpleasant lingering, even inspired lingering, can be. Andrew Gaerig

Hisato Higuchi

Butterfly Horse Street Family Vineyard FV053 CD

Since emerging in 2005 with two self-released discs, Tokyo, Japan’s vocalist and guitarist Hisato Higuchi has sketched a living portfolio of music that’s so diffident, the artist’s breaths into the mic register as seismic ruptures. It’s not particularly precious, however: there’s no sense that Higuchi has archly contrived such a quietist aesthetic. There’s a level of structuring consideration in these recordings—they’re not sloppy improvisations—and a good portion of this music could have flaked from an aging tape in Loren Connors’s dusty archive, a sure sign that Higuchi grasps the key traits of the ‘Venusian blues’. But there’s plenty of space within that world for him to stretch his limbs, and Butterfly Horse Street is the first of Higuchi’s records where he really lights on new territory: namely, use of distortion and feedback. This new guitar tone is stretched and agonised, as though it’s tearing at the speakers—it sounds as though he’s gone direct to four-track, bumping everything into the red.

However, though it is nasty, it’s not loud. Such is Higuchi’s aesthetic that even the songs where he raises the roof pitch themselves at low volume, a deadened rumble from overhead traffic instead of a kick in the face.

Elsewhere, he quests further into the dark heart of his quieter songs, with even more intent. He’s still slowly undressing flowers, petal by petal, each note floating to the ground softly, but now his near-silences are staggeringly powerful. Jon Dale

Horseback

Impale Golden Horn Burlytime BTR 002 CD

A great drone record can envelop, displace and fascinate by turns, such is the wealth of detail in every frozen but rapidly liquifying moment. Lesser efforts may favor detail over impact and change over stasis, but it is the rare breed that achieves the fine balance of subtlety and power necessary to maintain interest over extended listening. For that reason, Impale Golden Horn, Chapel Hill, North Carolina multi-instrumentalist Jenks Miller’s debut full-length as a solo artist, is one of the finest drone discs I’ve encountered in some time.

Although drone is at the heart of Miller’s aesthetic, labeling the project that way is somewhat unjust. The disc’s closer, “Blood Fountain,” sports a beautifully morphing structure akin to songcraft, but it is also the easiest point of entry for what can be a dense listening experience. Miller layers creamy-smooth guitars, piano, watery-clear vocals and hard-panned drums over a bed of distortion, but for Miller, distortion is never a crutch.

As with Birchville Cat Motel or early SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 81

Stars of the Lid, it is a vehicle, a portal through which starker focus on the subtle transformations occurring in simultaneous sonic events is achieved. Harmonic shifts and the drums’ miraculous emergence are bolstered but, importantly, never overshadowed by shimmering fuzz.

By contrast, “Finale,” somewhat ironically the album opener, is a study in what I will call frequency modulation. Mids and lows rumble the piece into existence, the steely calm ruffled only by the most delicate piano notes imaginable, each then sinking the calm surface of the deep sonority. As its seventeen minutes slide effortlessly past, the mids spread suruptitiously to highs, each slithery tone bringing overtones with it, well-used fuzz again giving the whole additional clarity.

By track’s end, high and low blend in powerful symbiosis for a sense of real completion before the journey’s half done. Apart from a vocal cameo from fellow Chapel Hill instrumentalist Heather McEntire, whose Bellafea project is poised to release its debut full-length, Miller handles all instrumental and vocal duties. The disc’s diversity is somewhat masked by allencompassing drones, but it is there, waiting to reward the dedicated listener. Marc Medwin

Hot Chip

Made in the Dark Astralwerks 5179172 CD

Hot Chip operate a bit like a gang because, like a gang, they all look a bit alike, dress funny and talk stupid.

Also like a gang, you get the impression that joining forces would require some manner of extreme unpleasantness that inhibits everyone from being like Hot Chip. They’re that good, and they make it look easy too: Made in the Dark builds off its 2006 predecessor The Warning’s electric funk, joviality and underlying sexual alienation. Hot Chip has proven fertile soil for remixers in the past and Made in the Dark continues to establish the band as dastardly programmers; lithe mechanical symphonies churn underneath surprisingly surly opening duo “Out at the Pictures” and “Shake a Fist,” raves gone nasty, both. The band has become more adept at looping their already impressive harmonies, building “Ready for the Floor” on Alexis Taylor’s sock-hop chicanery. “Wrestlers” survives a half nelson/Willie Nelson joke and a quip on “My Humps” because it provides the best distillation of the band’s schoolboy/romantic/jester aesthetic: “I learned all I know from watching the wrestling/ I think you think I’m about to throw the towel in.”

Don’t let the antics distract: Hot Chip succeed mostly because they’re one of the first electronic pop acts to take R&B literally. The album’s one proper guitar riff—the Stones-y inflection that opens “One Pure Thought” —bursts into scatterbrained, multi-part funk.

Fuzzy caterpillar organ chords inhabit “Touch Too Much.” They’re cagey enough to know that true lovesickness needs time, so they pull back from “We’re Looking for a Lot of Love” and get patient with a tambourine. Modern eroticism is doo-wop comraderie, ecstasy-inducing mandrill shakedowns and goofball challenge 82 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

(“It’s me versus you in love”). Make it in the dark. Andrew Gaerig

Earl Howard Clepton

New World 80670-2 CD

The crux of this disc is the thirty-eight minute title track, the result of a 2006 commission from the venerable Donaueschingen festival. It features Earl Howard on an old Kurzweil 2600 synth, accompanied by the trio of Georg Graewe on piano, Ernst Reijseger on cello and Gerry Hemingway on drums. Howard’s organization of the piece is a quasi-Braxtonian improvising-in-mapped-zones type thing, with the areas in which the performers are to work defined by phrases like “continuous noisy less-pitched texture” and “slow and precise undulating mass.” It sounds more like one of those Nonesuch electronics LPs from the 1970s than a contemporary improv trio-pluselectronics. The texture of Howard’s synth and live processing resembles the digital grain of George Lewis’ Voyager program a bit too closely for my taste, though there are moments when he squiggles out some wool-thick waves that stretch and ripple over the sticky landscape. The second track, “Improvisation,” is a six minute interlude that I’ve listened to more than ten times, and it still hasn’t generated any memories or notes.

The last cut, “Rosebud,” is a 1989 duo improv between Howard and Hemingway, a fifteen minute bonus track that comes from a different world than the bulk of the disc, but which I appreciate the most. Howard’s synth has more of a razortooth raw sound and he does some very nice high whirling stuff to coincide with Hemingway’s Oscar the Grouch bangon-cymbals-like-trashcan-lids routine.

But that’s only one of the dynamic scenarios within “Rosebud,” and there are enough unusual moments to make it a very worthwhile addition to this release. Andrew Choate

Giuseppe Ielasi Roel Meelkop Howard Stelzer Frans de Waard zondag

Port PTCD 003 CD

Howard Stelzer Bond Inlets

Intransitive INT 030 CD

Ah, the European idyll! No, not sleepy farms, broad fields, and windmills, but Sunday (or zondag) in the Dutch city of Nijmegen. Outside: the January chill. Inside: coffee, a long breakfast, and–hey, why not?–an afternoon of electro-acoustic improvisation. So it went for this quartet of noise crafters in 2005, and the results have all the casual poise one might hope for.

Ielasi’s deep, tender guitar tones float slowly past Stelzer’s gritty cassette tape textures and gusts of noise, while Meelkop (Roland SH-101) and de Waard (Korg MS-20) build a denser core of synthesizer clicking, rumbling, whining, and sawing.

Sounds loud, but the album is mixed such that it (almost) never becomes an aural assault. It opens gently and, for the most part, the five songs’

drone frameworks build and change slowly and meditatively, even while filled with unique sound events–whirring static squalls, synthesizer spasms, and bell-like notes. A bonus remix track from label head evala gives the foursome a microsound treatment for a smoother, deeper, and less visceral effect. All in all, a beautiful document.

Stelzer has been juggling, tweaking, and generally abusing cassettes for ten years. After many collaborations and smaller-run releases, his first widely available solo album revisits his debut, tears it to shreds, and then puts the best sounds back together again. As soon as they came back from the press, Stelzer threw away most of the copies of the earlier album, 1997’s Stone Blind (of which Bond Inlets is an anagram), so few people will be able to compare it to the two humming, muck-covered drone compositions captured here. In the first, half-comprehensible voices, industrial clanging, and thumps and hissing from tape-player motors gather steam like a do-it-yourself How to Destroy Angels, give way to a quiet interlude, and then slowly build up again. The second is more desolate: windswept, with an eerie quasi melody punctuated by squeaking wheels, jumbled sounds, and occasional seismic blasts of bass. The pace and the focus on the struggling mechanisms of tape and player combine to evoke a fine feeling of rueful mortality. Eric Smillie

Jandek

Glasgow Monday Corwood 0785 DVD

Brooklyn Wednesday Corwood 0789 CD x 4

Over the last four years, Jandek's work has been recontextualized, with the injection of different instruments, shifting ensemble configurations and diverse geographic locales after 25 years of seemingly air-tight isolation in the Corwood studios. The kicker is how strongly his music absorbs these influences, and emerges, ever more lucidly, as wholly his own.

The music on these discs is not the forbiddingly dissonant, end-ofthe-road, outsider howl that Jandek’s music has always been trumped up to be (and never really was). The most persistently painful misunderstanding about Jandek—that he never tunes his guitar—misses the fact that alternate tunings and detunings alike can produce absorbing colors, textures, even rhythms. Jandek’s tunings, as far back as his 1978 debut, Ready For The House, have always been engrossing. Another misperception— that he's so “primitive” and challenging as to be without precedent—has also been put to lie as new and old listeners, in the wake of Jandek’s going public, vigorously discuss and re-evaluate his music.

Glasgow Monday documents Jandek’s suite, “The Cell”, performed live at that city’s Center for Contemporary Arts on May 23, 2005. As on his initial two gigs, Richard Youngs and Alex Neilsen accompanied him, but this time with Jandek on piano, instead of electric guitar. Jon Dale, writing about Corwood’s CD release of this set in STN #44, heard Erik Satie in Jandek’s measured

piano playing, but the contemplative rumination of the opening of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” is also present.

Unfolding at this pace over some 90 minutes, the suite is immensely calming when heard in its entirety, and suggests the time-altering form of a Morton Feldman work. Neilsen is an inventive percussionist, exploiting his drumkit for all manner of sounds and textures, many of which are quite lovely. His patient, attentive ears foster a trance-like absorption in the piece’s slow rhythms, while Youngs, on bowed acoustic bass, works mesmeric, low-end drones that Neilsen decorates with delicate, metallic clouds. The suite’s title image is rich with metaphoric range, and its scientific meaning is neatly implicated in the lyrics, such as when Jandek takes the micro level even further by referencing mitochondria, the main source of a cell’s energy. The lyrics have D. Boon's economy of expression (“Peripheral vision tells me I can be/Something I like/What do I have/A soundtrack, a video screen/A vision/A way to comply/I don’t give anything/ What do I have/I don’t know”); for all their deep ambivalence, they also have something of Boon’s cautious optimism, such as when Jandek says, “Some kind of ecstasy grows everyday”.

Recorded September 7, 2005, the personnel on the more readily ferocious Brooklyn Wednesday is equally compelling. Bassist Matt Heyner and drummer Chris Corsano had accompanied Jandek the previous night in Manhattan (documented on Corwood’s Manhattan Tuesday CD) as part of a group including guitarist

Loren Connors; over the four CDs and 17 songs presented here (in an attractive, simple slipcase) the duo on Wednesday pushes Jandek to some of his most aggressive playing on disc. “Put Me There” pummels beautifully, “there” being a small, windowless room with no human contact.

Corsano’s subtle cymbal atmospheres on “Destroy the Day” introduce the first of a number of wistfully floating tracks, that hover in odd corners of space. As with “The Cell,” most of the lyrics are a kind of agit-prop rant directed at the Self, but “Obscure Physics” has Jandek delivering selfreferential lines befitting his performer status: “I observe obscure physics when I do what I do/I use all the things I found out/and draw my attention to them.” Heyner's big, Charles Mingus-like bass tone contrasts with his work on “Different Blues”, where his twilight zone glissandi accompany Jandek with unsettling delicacy. By the end of disc one, the trio has worked itself into a blustery lather; “Structure of Words” begins with an Asian blues feel, but quickly breaks through into territory reminiscent of Cream, with Jandek doing some nice work in the guitar’s middle register.

“Change My Brain” has him sculpting string shards like Chuck Berry on a stoner trip, emerging, over nearly ten minutes, as one of the heaviest, most savage performances in the Jandek repertoire. “How 'R You” is a medium grind, Corsano getting a perfect Sunburned Hand of the Man groove going, adding some sharp cymbal work for further complexity; Jandek's playing is striking in its spiky, sprung economy, as if the Magic

Band had kotos in place of guitars.

Another highlight is the 12-minute “City Pounding Down”, which shows Jandek's playing to be as much about string texture, as it is about harmony and rhythm. He and Heyner weld thickets of call and response, dialogues between low and high strings that bring Corsano cresting in like a huge wave, with a descending guitar riff that stokes the band into a vicious onslaught. Creative electric trio music of a high order, this stuff can evoke the extreme dislocation of Amon Düül II at their trippiest, or get under your skin like the most excoriating singer/songwriter antics you can name. Larry Nai

Steve Jansen Slope

Samadhisound SS 012 CD

The relative influence of '80s postRoxy Music synth romantics Japan on the rock canon remains hazy, but if nothing else, history will paint its members as iconoclasts in a genre that gradually had its lifeblood sucked out by overarching corporate vampirism. A square peg in the round hole of the “new romantics,” Japan began life as a goth crew doled up in the expressionism of idols Bowie, Ferry, et al, and many a fop decked out for a night of empty hedonism would have been content with endless copies of Adolescent Sex. But then Tin Drum hit the bricks, and nothing was quite the same, least of all for the band themselves.

Thanks to that benchmark record, David Sylvian, Richard Barbieri, Mick Karn and Steve Jansen (neé Sylvian,

David’s bro) announced to the world that they weren’t simply wolves in cheap clothing—instead, they capitalized on the idea that to be part of a new wave, you needed to doing something new. That maxim’s held Jansen in good stead ever since.

His is a restless spirit, physically and artistically, whether in cahoots with his former mates in a spate of disguises (Rain Tree Crow, the JBK trio) or blitzing genre in tandem with other courageous souls (ex-YMO’er Yukihiro Takahashi, Burnt Friedmann via last year’s Nine Horses project). Jansen’s muse is similarly inclined, equally at home forging prog-pop intricacies or dipping his bill into murky ambient waters. An adroit percussionist and nimble programmer, versatile in MIDI as well as mallet, Jansen’s first actual solo record looks to reconcile his mutual passion for both soundscape and song. Placed under a magnifying glass, Slope reveals a virtual microbial terrarium of rhythmic finesse—indeed, lost in the teeming synthetic pleasures of the opening track “Grip” you automatically feel you’re going to be in good hands, that Jansen’s cueing his audience to expect the unexpected. Too bad such notions fail to come to fruition. Slope can hardly be challenged sonically—the patina of its frequency range is minted like a fine jewel—but this isn’t a record of galloping experimentalism. Jansen’s playlist juggles twilight-wrapped, digi-centric “ballads” with IDM-lite fripperies, providing little reconciliation between the two. Guest vocalists abound (including the aforementioned Sylvian, natch), and the “songs” match in splendor anything

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 83

marked out on Sylvian’s own Gone to Earth or Blemish records, yet the nagging feeling remains that Jansen’s work in this area is regretfully shadowed under big brothers’. Risk-averse he should not be, for tipping the scales in favor of bolder innovation might prevent Jansen from traversing such a slippery Slope in the future.

Darren Bergstein

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings 100 Days 100 Nights Daptone DAP-012 CD

These days, the art of soul music —that uniquely American amalgam of rhythm and blues, gospel, and pop—is an endangered art form. It's doubtful many music fans under the age of 30 even know the music of Solomon Burke and Irma Thomas and the contributions they made to R&B/ soul/African-American pop/whatever.

But without a hint of pedantry or nostalgia, Brooklyn's Sharon Jones and her band the Dap-Kings is making certain that old-school Southern soul shall not perish from this Earth. Ms. Jones has a rich, vivid, gospel-infused voice in the manner of Barbara Lynn (“You'll Lose A Good Thing”), Etta James, Patti LaBelle, and the young Gladys Knight. In an era where many singers think range is something on which to boil water, Jones heartily wails and testifies, without feeling the need to hit every note in existence.

She sounds real. Their ensemble sound takes a page out of the Stax book with footnotes from Motown— sharp n' terse guitar riffs (think Steve Cropper), keys, bass, drums, tangy horns (think Tower of Power, the JB's), and a touch of vibes on the Martha & the Vandellas-ish “Tell Me.” There's not an unessential note to be heard. The songs feature trim, slinky, churning grooves – especially the Al Green-like gem “Answer Me” —and insinuating melodic hooks.

One brilliant surprise is the buoyant, undulating, ska-like rhythm of “Keep On Looking”—another is the lubricious “Be Easy.” Sly Stone would’ve been proud to write “When The Other Foot Drops, Uncle” in his glory daze with the Family Stone. The only thing wrong with this firecracker of a platter is it's a bit slight at a mere 34 minutes. But if the Stax sound and/or the rougher side of Motown has ever made you warm n' runny or you've grooved to the style of the aforementioned singers, you'll want to have this one on the shelf. Mark Keresman

Kaada / Patton Live

Ipecac IPC-096 DVD

What to expect from a new live DVD from former Faith No More frontman and avant-mouthpiece Mike Patton and Norwegian soundtrack composer John Kaada? Certainly not the unexpected. This joint effort, filmed at a rare gig at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival in 2005, finds the two musicians serving up the kind of spooky aural noir most fans would anticipate.

But it’s a treat to actually see how they do it. (Plus you get to peep Patton’s dirt-’stache in the close-ups.) Patton proffers ambivalence about music DVDs, stating in a recent interview 84 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

that it’s tough enough for him to sit through an entire real-life concert. So why is he releasing this performance on his own label, Ipecac? Presumably because of its one-off nature and the fact that one of Kaada’s pals happened to show up to film it. Good for us that Patton deemed the result —an understated, black-and-white concert doc with nifty rehearsal extras —worthy of public consumption. The material, taken from Kaada/Patton’s 2004 collaboration Romances, seems exceedingly difficult to pull off live.

That they manage to do so in such resonant fashion is a tribute not only to the duo’s formidable musicality, but also that of their backing band, which is comprised of A-list Scandinavian film music vets. Curiously, they all look like American indie-rockers.

The music ranges from B-movie creep-outs to Liszt-inspired grandeur.

Patton’s elastic voice is well suited to this terrain, with his whispery falsetto and broad baritone filing the music’s dark hollows. He’s mined much of this territory before, particularly within the quieter sections of his spazzmetal outfit Fantômas. Still, there’s no shame in being a stylist, particularly one with chops like his. Kaada comes across as an able associate, or should I say, enabler. His role is mostly support, but his arrangement acumen is clearly top-notch. The footage is crisp, no-frills and eminently watchable, with no gimmickry beyond the band’s black-suit attire. Live might not make any new converts but it’s sure to be welcomed by Ipecac Records enthusiasts, who'll lap this shit up, just like I did. Casey Rae-Hunter

Jason Kahn Tomas Korber Norbert Möslang Günter Müller Christian Weber Katsura Yamauchi Signal to Noise Vol. 4 For4Ears 1866 CD

Jason Kahn Norbert Möslang Günter Müller Aube Signal to Noise Vol. 5 For4Ears 1867 CD

Erik Carlsson Martin Küchen David Lacey Paul Vogel Chip Shop Music Homefront 2 CD

Percussionist/electronician Günter Müller must have exceedingly fond memories of his March 2006 Japanese tour. His label has just released the fourth and fifth volumes documenting the music he made with improvisers based in Europe (Jason Kahn on analog synthesizer and percussion, Tomas Korber on guitar, Norbert Möslang on cracked everyday-electronics, and Christian Weber on bass) and Japan (saxophonist Katsura Yamauchi).

Like its predecessors, the fourth volume consists of just a pair of long tracks. Breath noises and guttural low end open things up, with Yamauchi and Weber eventually working a tight interval. A dark cloud gathers across time, and I like the way this

music eschews formulae in favor of digging into the grain, even including an embrace (albeit in the name of experiment) of properties idiomatic to the instruments (Weber tends to bring this out in many of his sessions, for which kudos, and the overall effect glowers with menace, as on the Meursault records). The burble that opens the second track is much more familiar, but it becomes a twisting, whining, howling machine.

Four tracks make up Volume 5, a studio summit for Kahn, Möslang, Müller, and Aube (laptop, electronics).

Something of the flinty edge Weber and Korber bring is very much missed here. But the burbling, aqueous mass has charms of its own, as the musicians dive deep into the benthic layer on the opening tracks. On the record’s latter half, they delve into sub-space via some kind of helicopter on the third piece and surround themselves with thick, clicking, repeating density on the closer The second release on David Lacey’s and Paul Vogel’s Homefront imprint features a flinty, at times aggressive performance from June 2007 in Dublin. Lacey plays percussion and electronics, Vogel works a computer and a clarinet, Küchen plays tenor and pocket radio, and Carlsson plays percussion and electronics. The music consists often of grainy, wheezy, clattery noise, with ghostly activity at the edges. I actually think this recording is more successful than its predecessor (with Keith Rowe and Annette Krebs), mostly insofar as there’s more purpose here, audible in the moments of well-struck contrast and consonance in “21st Century Chip Shop Man” (I especially enjoy the horn fluttering and melismatic twirling towards the end). “Goodbye Mister” immediately dives into low-end hum and scraped/ swirled metal. The ominous swelling at the edges encroaches on your listening space, and then on occasion erupts in spasms of angry noise.

Jason Bivins

Achim Kaufmann Frank Gratkowski Wilbert De Joode Palaë

Leo LR 504 CD

While much of saxophonist and clarinetist Frank Gratkowski’s recorded work has been in the company of modern jazz’ foremost polyrhythmic stokers, figures like Gerry Hemingway, Michael Vatcher and Hamid Drake, this half-decade-old trio operates within entirely different propulsive parameters. Joined by fellow German, pianist Achim Kaufman and the Dutch bassist Wilbert De Joode on 2003’s Kwast (Konnex) and 2004’s Unearth (Nuscope), this date for Leo marks their third recorded meeting. With one-third of the usual rhythm section missing, even the expected “free” pulse is only a memory, replaced by a free flow of counterpoint and an inhaling/exhaling of mass as De Joode’s horsehair is flying and Kaufman’s pas-de-deux twist into metallic sighs and clangs from inside the piano. The instrumentation standard would appear to have been set by Jimmy Giuffre’s chamber trio of 1961 (with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow), especially as

Gratkowski leans heavily here on the clarinet family. “The Heart of All” is heir apparent to that group, Kaufmann and Gratkowski outlining a similarly spry attack, vaguely songlike, if impulsively so—a walk here, a note-cell there in a canvas of motives and alien developments. Yet these three are capable of producing an unholy racket: imagine Giuffre joined by Fred Van Hove and Buschi Niebergall and the thrust of “On the Cold, Terrified” becomes clear.

That isn’t to say this music is without an astounding amount of detail, pensiveness and elegance—indeed, De Joode’s work with improvising dancers in his native Amsterdam belies sensitivity in how he places his mass.

Witness the caresses, lip-smacks and smooches he trades with Gratkowski on “Storeys Above,” Kaufmann’s icy chordal call outlining their gestures.

From hot, Dolphy-esque cascades to piano-roll pointillism, to unresolved twelve-tone tales, it's improvised chamber music of the highest order.

Clifford Allen

Toshinori Kondo Silent Melodies Off/Still OCD 004 CD

Toshinori Kondo surfaced as a free improvisor back in the 1970s, recording classic bubble-and-squeak albums with Eugene Chadbourne, Peter Lovens, John Zorn and Derek Bailey. In 1994 he teamed with Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake and William Parker to peel some paint with Die Like A Dog, and in 1999 Kondo joined Eraldo Bernocchi and Bill Laswell in Charged, a space-funk

blast that owed much of its success to the programming work and sick beats of Bernocchi. Rock, DJ and fusion musics were never far away; Kondo’s band IMA was a Japanese-rock successor to Miles Davis’ Agharta legacy.

He's also collaborated with classical musicians throughout his career, and has lately evolved into more of a world-music type approach, culminating in the massive 2001 World Festival of Sacred Music in Hiroshima, co-curated by Laswell and smiled upon by the Dalai Lama. Since 1993 Kondo has divided his time between Japan and Amsterdam, launching the serial solo project Blow The Earth for electric trumpet and natural environments (many video examples may be found online). In 2005 Tzadik released Fukyo, a solo electric-trumpet set that applied guitar-box freakyisms to Kondo’s very personal sound-world within a post-Stockhausen aesthetic of Eastern mysticism commingling with Western technology ... which brings us to Silent Melodies. Titles like “Clear Water,” “Sky Cry,” “Moon Cloud,” and “Song For The Small Planet” leave little doubt as to the composer/ performer’s sentiments in assembling this collection of electronically cradled solos. It’s not at all silent, as the title suggests, nor does Kondo pitch his tent among the jostling camp of solo “eai” trumpeters such as Greg Kelly, Axel Dörner, and Nate Wooley.

Free-ranging in mood and texture, these folk-songy vignettes are, for the most part, melodically accessible and gently contoured. Kondo uses tonal alteration, heavy delay/reverb, pitch shifting and sophisticated looping/layering to construct his

meditative soundscapes in real time.

For “Gone Dream – 2” Kondo uses the simple technique of overdubbing medlodic variations over a bass ostinato (created from trumpet). The slow, groaning mood intensifies as the piece progresses; the bass layer drops out and Kondo’s wah-effected horn echoes alone in a vast container of cries and squiggles. Later, Kondo pushes the envelope a little; “Wind Temptation” rides on a surging trumpet-generated bass loop, while “Stars Night” includes a skittering of his more nervous trumpet effects. While Kondo’s trumpet is technically airtight, there are some electronic glitches on the album. Most carry the signature of microphone overload, and one can occasionally pick up the little bumps and grinds of the digital loopers as they cut in and out. The problems culminate in a rather jaw-dropping episode of static discharge about six minutes into “Wind Temptation”. The abrupt edit that ends the final track reinforces the impression of hasty production, quite at odds with the mood that Kondo seems to be going for (whereas on the punkier Fukyo, the occasional overdriven noises seemed a more natural part of the overall fabric). The glitches toss dirt on what would otherwise be an ethereal set of music ... or perhaps we’re being offered an advanced case of wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of locating beauty in imperfection. Tom Djll

Mike Ladd Nostalgiator Def Jux DJX153 CD

Mike Ladd is a poet/philosopher

who uses hip-hop as a template to investigate the many things on his mind. Most Ladd fans, like myself, tracked this one down when it was originally released in 2004 by Germany’s K7 records; it made its way into many US stores, and not at import prices, so I guess I don’t understand why it needed an official domestic release. Ladd plays most of the instruments on this record, but don’t let that scare you off if you’ve heard his early solo stuff: his playing has gotten a lot better, and his arrangements are dense, with a wide range of textures. Killer combinations of anthemic brass and guitar blasts (think of the best stuff off the Infesticons album) fortify “Trouble Shot,” “Black Orientalist,” and “Afrotastic.” His static vocal delivery has always been his weakest asset, but other parts of a song usually make up for it—the lyrics, the music, the concept etc—and while he sticks to his signature vocal sound for much of the album, he does make forays out of it occasionally, and it pays off big on “Housewives at Play” and “Sail Away Ladies,” singing melodiously on the former and emitting an old-timey deep-bass rasp on the latter. “Housewives at Play” is also ridiculously funky (I’ve spun it countless times at dance parties) even while the lyrics satirize MILFs and the kind of lesbianism espoused by MTV. “How Electricity Really Works” sounds like a leftover from his 2000 release Welcome to the Afterfuture and as such seems a little out of place here. But Ladd’s slight shortfalls become endearing quirks when measured against the vital originality

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of his body of work, and there is no reason to hesitate to pick this one up. Andrew Choate

Francisco López Wind (Patagonia) and/OAR and/26 CD

Storms are non-representative vicissitudes par excellence. With Wind, sound artist Francisco Lopez forgoes any such attempt to conjure the specter of the wind and reveal some of its secrets. Instead, he uses contact microphones like tiny mirrors, positioned strategically, which reflect some of the many voices of the wind and their ability to arrest and negate a sense of time and reality. The sounds are identifiable enough, but torn from their relational frameworks and real-life implications, they become something other, something uncanny, or, better, they enter upon another - perhaps pure - state in which their internal properties are explored. Such was the goal of Lopez, as outlined in the brief linear notes accompanying the work, and in this he is wholly successful. From rippling surges to sub-aquatic whirrs and calm pools broken gently by incidental creaks and croaks, Wind touches a world whose physical and emotional heft is unexpectedly strong and resilient.

Max Schaefer

Lyrics Born

Everywhere at Once Anti 86804 CD

Until Lateef and Lyrics Born reunite for a followup to their 1997 Latyrx LP (which has supposedly been “in the works” for years now), everything either one of them does by themselves will necessarily be in its invisible shadow. Everywhere At Once is Lyrics Born’s second full-length since that hallowed Latyrx album (I don’t consider the CD of remixes or his live album as complete releases), and it’s better than his first. The sound of instruments rather than samples at the foundation of the music is one reason: the bass on “I Like it, I Love It” writhes the spine instantly. He tries his hand at a couple of different genres over the course of the 18 tracks here, including a couple R&B numbers and a decent stab at reggaeton, but the center of his musical world has always been his words and his ability to make his articulation of them coincide with their meaning. He is brave enough to spin honest rhymes about the death of his best friend on “Whispers” and silly enough to include a skit that ends with him saying “I’m Lyrics Born, and I’m a shoe ho” elsewhere. As an MC, his word choice and focus on the physical characteristics of language— alliteration, assonance, etc.—remains unrivalled. I think of Lyrics Born as the kind of guy I’d want to date my daughter (if I had one): his lyrics are intelligent and noble, but he still knows how to have fun, and bring his music to a bounce. Andrew Choate

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks Real Emotional Trash Matador OLE-772 CD / LP

Throughout his career with Pavement, Stephen Malkmus made it seem OK 86 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

to feel apathetic. When the indie-rock archetypists’ Slanted and Enchanted debuted in 1992—as King George the First’s reign came to an end—it became the fitting anesthetic to alleviate 12 years of Republican rule.

Sure, these guys probably wanted the troops to come home just as much as anybody, but Malkmus was preoccupied (or mildly occupied, rather) with his own problems—“I’m the only one who laughs at your jokes when they are so bad/and your jokes are always bad,” he sang on “Here.” Now, as another eight years of another Bush's rule closes, Malkmus still serves as a welcome distraction from the real world. Although his music sounds less messy than that from his early days, and his tongue seems deeper in cheek, he hasn’t changed much, which is good. Real Emotional Trash, his fourth post-Pavement release, contains some of his catchiest quirky hooks on “Dragonfly Pie” and the title cut and hums with guitar fuzz throughout. “Baltimore,” the album’s standout, pits Malkmus’s storytelling (“It’s warm for a witch trial, don’t you agree?”) against expertly played guitar interludes, and it’s made up of a few movements in a sort of mid-’60s FM-radio way (c.f. the Who’s “A Quick One”). Occasionally, the album rambles as Malkmus gets lost in the sound of his guitar, but after all these years, that’s become his method. And though they’re certainly no Pavement in their controlled abandon, Malkmus’s backing band, Jicks, seems more and more an extension of him with each release. Ultimately, Real Emotional Trash fits nicely in Malkmus’s oeuvre—at its best, it’s a soundtrack to the here and now, and at its least, it's still exciting, it’s just what you’ve already heard “Here.”

Kory Grow

Lasse Marhaug Tapes 1990-1999 Pica Disk 001 CD x 4

This four-disc set, the first release on Norwegian sound sculptor Lasse Marhaug’s Pica Disk label, offers up the prequel to his huge and varied output of the last several years.

Compiling his cassette releases of the 1990s, it’s yet another testament to his versatility and skill with what I will delicately label sound manipulation. Anyone only familiar with this prolific artist’s contributions to Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band, or to his mind-stomping assaults as a seminal member of Jazzkammer, will have heard only a part of the spectrum so nicely captured in this set. Yes, the grinding intensity and pure impact are here from the beginning, the four-minute Zonked Scum demo a jaw-dropping stomach-raising ride through distorted low-end pitch fluctuation and rumble. Yet, the brief vocal snippet crammed in the middle and the gradual incorporation of higher frequencies suggest that a unique compositional aesthetic was also in formation. Cutups and turntablisms are introduced in the succeeding tracks as variants of Herbert Mullin are adopted and mutated as pseudonyms. “Delirium Acutum” is a hilarious look at what can be done with a record collection, some body functions and the neat little squeak

a cassette player makes when you stop recording. Cutups and repetitions have remained a mainstay of Marhaug’s approach to composition; even the brief blast of “Megadecimal Shriek,” a late 1990s work, depends on loops to sustain it. However, as the 1990s progressed, they became integrated in a language that was somehow more spontaneous, the patterns never so easy to detect as in the earlier works in this set. The epic “Monster,” clocking in at just under 30 minutes, is a deafening statement that runs the spectral gamut while maintaining an extremely high dynamic level. Much of the early humor is gone, not to return until a project like “More Sugar Please” brings a few slides and swoops to the higher frequencies, but “Monster” is a thing of intense power and beauty, unfolding with the majesty and variety of which latter-day Merzbow seems all too often incapable. While there is a healthy degree of violence in Marhaug’s music, he serves no master and espouses no dogma. The thunderous gunshot evocations of the youthful “Eurotrash” are simply that, and the human screams begin to take on the hypnotic qualities of incantation as they proceed. Whether in collaboration or solo, these tracks present the work of a sonic explorer.

While so-called Norwegian noise is diverse enough to render the category meaningless, Marhaug’s work is the real thing; for those in search of visceral bursts of electronic scree and splatter in the service of great compositions, one need look no further than this exhaustive chronicle of Marhaug’s initial development. Marc Medwin

Pascal Marzan & Roger Smith Two Spanish Guitars Emanem 4145 CD

Paul Rutherford Solo in Berlin 1975 Emanem 4144 CD

Elliott Sharp & Charlotte Hug pi:k

Emanem 4143 CD

Trio of Uncertainty Unlocked

Emanem 4141 CD

John Butcher

The Geography of Sentiment Emanem 4142 CD

Martin Davidson's Emanem remains an extremely vital label, even after several decades documenting primarily London-based improvising.

Readers familiar with guitarist Roger Smith will know him from his tenure with an incarnation of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, as well as his occasional presence in large ensembles (such as those convened at the Freedom of the City Festival).

Though under-regarded, he is an important and highly individual player in the London scene. Smith invited the classically trained Pascal Marzan (himself a more frequent participant in improvised settings) to perform in honor of Derek Bailey, followed by the two acoustic specialists' meetings

in Smith’s flat, from which this recording is culled.

Warm in both acoustic and spirit, this album is on the one hand non-idiomatic free music but is on the other hand very idiomatic in instrumental terms. The entire range of the guitar is used and expressed here—chords both choked off and resounding, harmonics, struck and rubbed bodies, fragmented lines, and more. There’s good separation and the musical distinction is often clear, with Smith’s whizzing, skirling strings—that light and almost airy frisson he generates by whooshing up and down with fingernails—contrasting with Marzan’s more pointillistic, note-based approach. The preparations on “Flowing Water” sound like dull, rusty metal —quite fine. Things grow sparser, at times almost balladic, on “Freezing Water,” with delicately chiming strings and the occasional cautious glissando or counterpoint And the miniatures of “Sparrow Amour” are as gentle as the birdsong their name connotes.

To call Paul Rutherford’s solo recording a master class would be too belittling. Certainly it’s got the mastery, technical range, and sheer “how does he do it?” quality that term connotes; but it’s not staid, dry, or formal. These eight performances (seven unreleased) are taken from the March and November 1975 Total Music Meeting in Berlin, and Rutherford’s incredible deconstruction of tromboneliness (both literal, as on the clattery extensions of the first piece, and figurative) is arguably even finer than on his well known The Gentle Harm of the Bourgeoisie. Lusty and garrulous, surly and declamatory, puckish and inquisitive, all these qualities flash in a moment, courtesy of a truly vivid musical imagination and a powerful, individual technique.

Elliott Sharp and Charlotte Hug delivered two of the most memorable solo albums in recent years (the guitarist’s The Velocity of Hue and the violist’s Neuland, both also for Emanem), so it’s a distinct pleasure to listen to their duo outing (which finds them both using electronics too).

Sharp is in an aggressive mood, attacking the steel strings with menace and vigor; it makes for a delight-

ful contrast with Hug’s microtonal work, with long gauzy double-stops and slow scrapings; elsewhere, his frantic neck-tapping contrasts with the keening voice of Hug’s bow. The two whip up some serious momentum, mercury and froth throughout. The subtle ghosting audible on “Stay in line” sounds like there’s an extra strings player, and the effects are thankfully not obviously “electronic”; they supplement rather than distract.

The Trio of Uncertainty is violinist Satoko Fukuda, cellist Hannah Marshall, and pianist Veryan Weston.

This disc is haunting and lyrical, with some exquisite counterpoint and dynamics. For a player with such a density of ideas, Weston has always struck me as particularly bouncy and effervescent, an apparent contrast marvelously built in to his approach.

Such an amazing listener, too, giving tons of space to the young Fukuda.

The group language is intense, with racing triple helixes here, limpid pools there, and occasional moments of somberness like those hear in a Bartok small group. Marshall is amazingly resourceful, gritty and bustling where necessary but elsewhere keening, weeping (“For This Were a Dream”).

Perhaps the best music on the disc is the mélange of dizzying glisses and washes of noise on the closing “Periodic Questioning.” This is a superb entry from Emanem, appealing to fans of bassist Kent Carter’s recent discs for the label.

John Butcher’s latest solo recording is another dazzling entry in his catalogue, with equal parts reinvention and refinement. “First Zizoku” and “Second Zizoku” were recorded in the dark reverberant space of the Oya Stone Museum (Utsunomiya, Japan), where the saxophonist gets some massive resonance out of overblowing and filling the bell of the horn with buzzing sound. It’s as good a point of entry into his sound world as any, as (on “2”) he plays notes in a staggered fashion, toying with the decay as he constructs mutant phrases out of wide intervals. It’s not just the soundworld of a Butcher solo disc that knocks me out, as impressive as that continues to be (and I’m still not sure anyone has done more post-Evan than this guy).

But it’s the sheer quality and exuberance of his musical ideas, as on the densely packed repeating phrases of the long “Action Theory Blues,” the alien music of popping keypads on “A Short Time to Sing,” or his superb use of feedback on tracks like “Soft Logic” (although not quite to the level of intensity as on his Invisible Ear). By the time of the closing “Traegerfrequenz,” with its vast echo and chorus of a thousand insects, you begin to feel like Butcher is some kind of sonic prophet, ushering in the doom of a conventional music with his horn and imagination. Bring on the end times, in that case. Jason Bivins

Alireza Mashayekhi / Ata Ebtekar (Sote) Persian Electronic Music: Yesterday and Today 1966-2006 Sub Rosa SR277 CD x 2

I work in a used bookstore and whenever I put on Persian Electronic Music, curious customers ask, “What’s playing?” Then I show them the CD’s handsome cover, and their interest is further piqued when they discover that the music’s source is Iran—U.S. target number one. This excellent double-CD contains the work of two composers, Alireza Mashayekhi (born 1940) and Ata Ebtekar, aka Sote (born 1972). Both composers have spent a fair amount of time in the West: Mashayekhi studied music in Iran, Austria and the Netherlands, while Ebtekar spent time in northern California where he studied sound art. So it’s no surprise they draw from both Western and Iranian musical traditions. Mashayekhi’s work is ravishing. The lengthiest of his pieces presented here, “Mithra,” dates from 1982, and was realized in New York and Utrecht. The work’s title refers to Mithraism, which according to Merriam-Webster was “a mystery cult for men of Iranian origin that flourished in the late Roman Empire.”

Evidently, the religion’s rituals took place in the mithraeum, which was a cave or a cave-like place. Mashayekhi says “Mithra” takes us to an unreal space and indeed it does. The composition evokes a magical subter-

ranean chamber with entrancing acoustics where reconfigured shards of traditional Persian music resonate.

You can think of “Mithra” as ambient music, but the piece features far more detail, drama, and sense of form than is usually associated with that style.

The disc also collects seven other Mashayekhi pieces, dating from 1966 to 1979, that display a variegated sound world that is endlessly fascinating. This is music that’s simultaneously challenging and inviting. Ebtekar’s work has a brittle quality that contrasts with the warmth of Mashayekhi’s compositions. This colder sound is probably partially attributable to fact that the younger composer came of age in recent years: think digital ice versus electromagnetic warmth. But Ebtekar’s somewhat harsher work has its own pleasures. “Miniature Tone,” which was inspired by Persian miniature paintings, ripples with plinks that sound like sped-up santur (hammered dulcimer) tones. It’s a good example of the way both composers draw from the past as they head into the future. Fred Cisterna

Tommy Meier Root Down Intakt 135 CD

The liner notes to tenor saxophonist/ bass clarinetist/conductor Tommy Meier’s new album opens with the question “Is Africa in Zurich?” The foundation for this album lies in the South African presence in Zurich in the '60s, including Dollar Brand and the Blue Notes, but another product of South Africa, the Brotherhood of Breath, is clearly the template for Meier’s 22-varying-member amalgamation. But where BOB’s lineups came from various circles of ‘70s London jazz, Root Down draws from the talent pool of the Intakt Records roster, appropriating members from the bands of Co Streiff, Omri Ziegele, Koch-Schutz-Studer, Lucas Niggli and the grand dame herself, Irene Schweizer. Root Down is patched together from several concerts dating from late 2004 to early 2007. Some musicians appear for just a track or two and almost never are there consecutive cuts from the same

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source. Add to that material ranging from wildly divergent Meier compositions, two tunes by Fela Kuti and one

by Blue Notes and Brotherhood of Breath altoist Dudu Pukwana and its all starts to sound like a gnarly stew.

Somehow though Meier’s vision for the album holds up, less a patchwork than some bizarrely cohesive suite, electronics melding with Globe Unityesque squalls, township jive moving into the disco hall. And even with the different aesthetics—both from the music and those playing it —Meier ably inhabits both the role of Chris McGregor and Teo Macero. Live his conduction is open and entertainingly loose; in the studio, he creates tribal momentum, a sum greater than its parts. Andrey Henkin

Memphis Slim Boogie Woogie Sunnyside SSC 3071 CD

Memphis Slim and Roosevelt Sykes

Szilárd Mezei Quintet Cerkno

Leo LR 503 CD

Double-Barreled Boogie

As You

These two titles are the latest in Sunnyside's Maison de Blues reissue series drawn from the French Disques Barclay catalog. The first showcases the piano virtuosity of Memphis Slim (John Len Chatman) in a boogie woogie mode, accompanied by his longtime Parisian drummer Michel Denis. Piano and drum duets are very rare in blues, and for that reason alone this recording holds some interest. But beyond that, the grooves and rhythms and sheer energy of Slim's keyboard work are spectacular.

The accompanying liner notes include a statement from Slim describing how when he was coming up in the juke joints of Mississippi and Louisiana the owners would ask him to play louder and faster whenever there were fights and shootings, which was fairly often. “The owner would ask you to keep on playing no matter what,” and you can definitely hear that propulsive drive in these tracks, with chorus after chorus racing by with a feeling of constant acceleration.

Denis' drum accompaniment seems a little tepid compared to the force of Slim's playing, too delicate and prissy with not enough dirt. But on tunes like “Just Playing Boogie,” “Talk to Me,” “Stomping at the Caveau de la Huchette” and “Nathalie's Boogie” Slim's exuberance is overwhelming and the cascading on rush of notes can almost make the listener giddy.

Double Barreled Boogie presents Memphis Slim in an even more unusual duet—with Roosevelt Sykes, who'd been his piano mentor in the clubs in Memphis back in the '30s.

Slim went on to relocate to Paris in 1962, becoming a kind of European ambassador for the blues, while Sykes was based in Chicago until 1954, and then lived in New Orleans until his death in '83. This summit meeting of these two giants of blues piano, from a session in 1970 in Paris, is built around a conversation between the two men which is interspersed in little segments between the musical tracks.

So the recording is a spoken word document as well as a musical dialog.

(Bob Marley's Talking Blues album has a similar format.) They reminisce

Draught, the Szilárd Mezei International Ensemble’s 2006 release on Leo Records exposed a lot of people outside Eastern Europe to Mezei’s viola and compositional prowess.

Now we have two releases featuring two different quintets led by Mezei.

Mezei’s regular rhythm section of Ervin Malina (bass) and István Csík (drums) appear on both discs, while Cerkno fills the band out with Milan Aleksic (piano) and Bogdan Rankovic (bass clarinet, alto sax). With a smaller band at his disposal, this live recording from the Cerkno Jazz Festival focuses more on improvisation than arrangement, but uniquely: these musicians are willing to improvise into rhythmic and melodic themes and attempt to make compositional arrangements in real time. And there are certainly some small pre-composed elements that begin a couple of tunes, but it’s incredible just how much richer the tunes become after the band has a chance to improvise with the material and each other. The influences of Ellington and Mingus on Mezei have been appropriately noted often enough, but this recording reveals another side of Mezei’s tuneful sensibility, one that shines the light of snakily unfolding chromatic structures back to Ornette Coleman’s late ‘50s quartets. All of the musicians on this disc display preternatural abilities to make music live beyond just the sounds played at one time or another, but Malina’s bass on “Cougar” and Rankovic’s clarinet on “Jaguar” need to be heard to be believed.

The quintet on As You keeps Mezei’s working trio intact and replaces the piano and reeds from Cerkno with Albert Márkos’ cello and the tuba of Kornél Pápista. There are three long improvisations on this disc, compared with the eleven cuts on Cerkno, and indeed the band stretches into freer jazz territory here. Individual contributions are given more weight, while the density of three strings of Mezei fire off at each other in a similar vein to the Revolutionary Ensemble’s ESP records. One of the real treats on this album is Pápista's bassy brass, making the band sound huge when

Sunnyside SSC 3070 CD

88 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

about the Midway Cafe at 4th and Beale, about selling moonshine whiskey during prohibition, about traveling from town to town playing house parties and hooking up with women all over the place, about dealing with pimps and hookers and gamblers, hopping freight trains, going to Chicago, Big Bill Broonzy, and on and on. At one point, the two of them compare notes on their respective nicknames, the “grinder man” and “the honeydripper.”

Throughout all this Slim is heard in the left channel and Sykes in the right.

Musical highpoints include “Miss Ida B,” “Going Down Slow” and “47th Street Boogie,” although the playing and singing is uniformly excellent and vibrant on all twenty-three tracks in this double dose of barrel house blues. Alan Waters

Ayler DL-071 MP3

played against the stormy, circling attacks of all the bowed strings on “Rain, Rain, Rain.” As You presents the group more informally than the Leo disc; it's surprising since it’s a studio recording. But over the course of two days in March 2007, in a studio in Novi Sad, Serbia, each instrumentalist was superbly honed in on setting the others’ improvisations alight, all the while bolstering the themes and forms of each song. Mezei’s instrumental and compositional voice is so distinctive that even though these are just his second and third major releases, you can already hear the beginnings of a major talent blending the musics of Hungary into the world of jazz. Andrew Choate

Phil Minton Yagihashi Tukasa Sato Yukie Higo Hiroshi Nippara • Tokyo Austin ARR-0017 CD

In a time when European and Japanese improvisers try to “challenge” audiences with desiccated conceptual cul-de-sacs, here’s a contingent that provides fat slabs of raw sonic meat for hungry ears by—gasp!—filling up space with sound. Phil Minton sounds like he had a blast doing these tracks, all recorded live in Tokyo in March 2004 with a posse of responsive, inventive Japanese soundsters. Coming in at just under forty-six minutes, it’s a short ‘n’ sweet assembly of improvisations that pinballs among the genres, from jazz to punk to noise to the pure beyond. In doing so, Nippara aspires to nothing more—or less—than to pass some time in a pleasantly unstrung manner. The resulting success is in the details. Cuts 1 –3 were recorded “at former Nipparaelementary-school,” but from the outset, Minton’s feral grunts and the sax squeaks and guitar plonks sound like elementary life forms out for a Sunday stroll through the proverbial primeval swamp. Cut 2 provides a shady respite; Yagihashi’s breath-pushing sounds suck in and blow out among Minton’s screeches. Cut 3 has Minton taking a long hiatus in the backstretch; Sato’s guitar starts off buzz-sawing

and remains electronic-sounding in the first half, then he takes on a peaky Thurston-Mooreish strum & twang. The second half of the CD was recorded “at the Temple of No Power No Virtue”—which sounds like an improviser’s roadside stand if there ever was one. Minton toots some whistles, elec-crickets chirp a night drone, sax and voice create a twisted tapestry under which watery guitar gurgles (Sato sounding quite a lot like Peter Cusack here). Minton’s emotionally deracinated delivery grasps at a sick catharsis, a dark umber crater where nobody can hear why you scream.

Quack, and cover. Cut 5 goes deepest in extended structures, whistles and echoey string-bongs elbowing each other in and out of the front-field of your speakerphones. Minton hums distractedly, then sniffs. The piece exhales its last breaths in a bright jungle of parroty activity. Cut 6, at 2:21, is little more than an afterword, pitched in high-key colors and sandy textures—the hit single launched from a steamy Venutian guerrilla FM station. Tom Djll

Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble Black Unstoppable Delmark DE 575 CD

Black Unstoppable: Live at the Velvet Lounge Delmark DE 1575 DVD

Ari Brown

Live at the Green Mill Delmark DE 577 CD / DVD

This pair of double CD/DVD releases feature two Chicago-based artists at different points in their careers. Saxophonist Ari Brown is a veteran musician, now in his 42nd year of playing professionally, having grown up in and being nurtured within a community that contained the remarkable people who created the AACM in the early 1960s. Flutist Nicole Mitchell, current co-president of the AACM, has been playing professionally for less than two decades and released her first album in 2000. Her story is that of a young woman who didn’t quite fit in to her birthplace, Syracuse, NY, or her adopted home of California and had

to seek out mentors, finally making her way to her mother’s birthplace of Chicago, where she found the kind of musical and spiritual community she’d been looking for. Both recordings find the respective groups in fine form, with each embodying a commitment to freedom of individual expression with a communal attitude that respects the tradition while resolutely looking forward. In fact, there are four recordings here. Brown's set at Chicago’s Green Mill has been issued in both CD and DVD formats, while Mitchell has released both a studio CD and a DVD recording of a live set by her Black Earth Ensemble at the new Velvet Lounge. An interesting feature of the DVDs is that each contains an uninterrupted concert recording with the opportunity to layer artist commentary over the live set.

The format allows Brown and Mitchell to speak at length about their own musical history and to comment on their music and fellow musicians. For those who've never visited Chicago, it is also an opportunity to see the venues and their patrons.

Musically, the Brown quartet is more conservative but not unpleasing for it. Brown’s playing reflects the influences of John Coltrane and superficially at least, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, as well as Ben Webster on the lovely ballad “One for Skip.” The Black Earth Ensemble covers a wider range that touches on swinging postbop, free jazz, Ellingtonia, and R ‘n B. Several pieces feature the vocals of Ugochi Nwaogwugwu. The timbre of the flute contains echoes of Africa, and the stellar playing of saxophonist David Boykin and guitarist Jeff Parker demonstrate an intimate feeling for the whole of the jazz tradition.

Michael Chamberlain

Gordon Monahan

Theremin in the Rain C3R 011 CD

Gordon Monahan is a master at an instrument which, despite its inception as a non-idiomatic device, is overburdened with associations (not just Clara Rockmore but a world of bad sci-fi) and a canny conceptual artist as well. The ten tracks here are part

of an installation project Monahan has used in various spaces, one where he alternately probes the limits of the theremin’s physical structure as well as those of the performance space.

But the pieces aren’t mere exercises to be deployed different depending on location. They’re extremely well-conceived and musical, where the analog signals of the theremin are converted to midi signals that act on prepared piano strings and amplified percussion plates (on which water drops, cued by midi signals). The results are gorgeous. The opening title track situates some Project Blue Book code waves amidst rain sounds and superb detuned strings. Things go deeper into dark waters on “Flex String” and emerge amid dull bells and woodblocks on “Fluid Dynamics.” “Updown” is very much like a lost Harry Partch piece, circa “Delusion of the Fury.” The record tends to alternate between percussive pieces and fulsome drones, though the two approaches are combined to pretty dazzling effect on “AerialDrop.” And a dash of sine-wave minimalism on “Wavelength” closes out the disc.

Jason Bivins

Virgil Moorefield

Things You Must Do To Get Into Heaven Innova 664 CD

Monroe Golden Alabama Places Innova 680 CD

Don’t be put off by the religious, Mitch Albom-like title of Virgil Moorefield's new CD. The title track from this University of Michigan composer and new media specialist may be a meditative suite on mortality, but it's from the standpoint of individual consciousness and psychological space. It is also the follow up and counterpart to his last disc from over a decade ago, 1997‘s The Temperature in Hell is Over 3,000 Degrees. Moorefield is one of that rare breed who's just as comfortable pounding the skins for avant garde artists such as the Swans, Elliott Sharp, Bill Laswell and Glenn Branca, with whom he continues to work, as he is composing modern

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classical chamber compositions.

And in the case of Moorefield, once a rhythmatist, always a rhythmatist.

The powerful, moving ‘Subliminal” is a solo percussion comprovisation, and Moorefield acknowledges in the liner notes that he may written the album as a percussion piece of sorts, but even without that knowledge, it would be hard not to catch the undeniable rhythmic sensibility that runs through all of these tracks, regardless of the notation or technique he is exploring at the time: counterpoint, variations, intervals, harmonics, clusters, micro tonality, crosstalks and jumpcuts. They give the pieces a sense of drama, liveliness and authority even when they are at their quietest and subtlest. Though Moorefield uses an acoustic ensemble of bass clarinet, piano, percussion, cello, violin and guitar on the title track, he isn’t opposed to electronic manipulations such as the contorted, stretched piano samples of the closing “Arrival of the Crows.”

While Moorefield’s disc has decisively cinematic sweep, Alabama Places, a set of 12 duets for piano and microtonal keyboard by Alabama modern classical composer, Monroe Golden, is more contemplative and low key. As interpreted by two keyboardists—Ellen Tweiten and Kurt Carpenter—Alabama Places might be seen as a love letter to this southern state as each of the pieces is connected to specific town or place (Pell City, North Shelby, Montevallo). However, instead of looking to country music as his sound source, Golden notes that: “the pieces serve as studies in the tradition of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, but in overtone-based harmony rather than key relationships. The keyboard is detuned by an interval between four and 48 cents, in four cent increments, for each of the 12 pieces. Thus, the entire set explores 12 different 24-note scales made up of two asymmetrical 12-note equal tempered scales. Available pitches at a given moment correspond to overtone relationships from fundamental frequencies that also shift in four cent increments.” In lay person’s terms, this is process systems music, with the effect of the piano and microtonal keyboard being like an out of sync player piano and music box struggling to play in unison: at once charming and disorienting. Listening to Alabama Places, especially for northerners like myself, brings a whole new meaning and dimension to the idea of southern music.

Richard Moule

Mostly Other People Do The Killing Shamokin!!!

Hot Cup 063 CD

Peter Evans Quartet The Peter Evans Quartet Firehouse 12 FH12-04-01-004 CD

Mostly Other People Do the Killing have an approach to the jazz tradition that's as in-your-face as their name.

From the vintage liner note send up by “Leonardo Featherweight” to the band’s gleeful dissection of standards and their epic 20-minute version of “A Night in Tunsia,” (which manages 90 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

to both honor and dismantle the bop classic), MOPDTK tease and tweak the Jazz Tradition. And they’re not quiet about it, either. Trumpeter Peter Evans, alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon, bassist Moppa Elliott, and drummer Kevin Shea storm out of the gate and charge at their material.

“Handsome Eddy” is, of all things, a boogaloo, at least for a while. Evans makes a mish mash of jazz history, conjuring up Louis Armstrong, Lee Morgan, and Don Cherry, often at the same time. Irabagon quickly twists soul jazz conventions until they are barely recognizable. The title track gallops away at a rapid two-beat swing, but quickly stumbles into a deconstructed thicket of rhythms, with Irabagon blowing squeaky-wheel sounds over Shea’s thrashing drums. On “Dunkelbergers” Irabagon obsessively worries his phrases while Evans flies overhead like a noisy crop duster. Clearly these guys have been to music school and now want to see what will happen if they play all their lessons “wrong.”

It's fun and unfailingly musical.

Evans’s staggering chops and fervid imagination are spotlighted on his debut album as a bandleader. Evans covers seemingly covers the entire trumpet vocabulary, from convoluted bebop on steroids linear soloing on “!!!!” and “Frank Sinatra” to vividly imagistic sound painting on “Bodies and Souls” and . His phrasing is uncannily difficult to predict, he rubs against the grain and flows with it creating delicious tensions and releases on “The 3/4 Tune” and “Tag.” (He and Han Bennink would have a lot of fun together.) His hot, sweet tone is a consistent attention grabber, too.

It’s the sort of sound that makes you want to listen to what he’s playing.

His quartet, featuring guitarist Brandon Seabrook, bassist Tom Blancarte, and Shea again on drums, matches Evans’s quirky turns with a few of their own. On “!!!!,” Seabrook comes on a like an airplane landing at a NASCAR race, swamping the tune with waves of noise. And on “Tag,” which begins innocently enough as free jazz piece, Seabrook’s Godzilla-attack guitar kicks the tune apart into sonic abstractions until the tune reasserts order. Throughout the album, Shea’s boisterous cymbal work and tom-tom cannonades positively overflow with energy and joy. Ed Hazell

The Mountain Goats Heretic Pride 4AD CAD 2801 CD

The Mountain Goats' career splits neatly into two parts, bridged by the consistency of John Darnielle's crisp, narrative song writing. During part one, main Goat Darnielle often recorded himself on a boom box and garbed his terse, kinetic short storiescum-songs in extremely minimal arrangements—mostly voice, guitar, cassette grind, and maybe one other instrument. Since signing to 4AD the cassette grind has disappeared and the backing morphed into fairly polished indie-pop; paradoxically the songs have gotten more personal, peaking with The Sunset Tree, an extraordinarily harrowing yet uplifting semi-autobiographical portrait of a young man busting out of an

abusive home. Heretic Pride adds a drummer, Superchunk's John Wurster, to nearly every track, but backs away from the autobiographical material in a big way. The subjects this time include a Chinese lake monster, Michael Myers, and a lot of people who have no business being on the bus together, but persist in pursuing intimate relationships with disastrous consequences. Darnielle knows this terrain well and he navigates it with customary skill; the tunes are solid, the hooks are in place, the lyrical details are tellingly deployed. At first spin the record's only problems lie with its arrangements. The drumming is streamlined and solid, but never terribly interesting; when it takes the foreground on the annoyingly busy “Lovecraft in Brooklyn,” I find myself wishing that I could hear the acoustic demo instead. Guest guitarist Annie Clark's filigree on “Sax Rohmer #2” has a fussiness that complements the song's schematic narration in the worst possible way. More often the backing is functional in a way that neither adds nor detracts, although cellist Erik Friedlander's contributions are more than merely apposite. In particular, his overdubbed pizzicato groove and swooping melody lines illustrate both the poignancy and trepidation that enshroud “San Bernardino's” protagonists as they make the leap into parenthood rather too soon. Tellingly the album's most affecting song is the one that is not total fiction. “Sept 15 1983” memorializes Prince Far I, the devoutly religious reggae vocalist who met a gruesome and pointless end during a home invasion. Darnielle underplays

the scenario's horror and lingers on its cruel ironies, then salves the tragedy with spiritual grace in the chorus.

The song's success casts light upon Heretic Pride's chief problem—bad timing. If it had come before The Sunset Tree, it would be a worthy addition to the discography marred by a few easily overlooked production gaffes. But coming so soon after the Mountain Goats had attained new heights, it's harder to cut this record some slack. Bill Meyer

Sainkho Namchylak Jarrod Cagwin In Trance Leo LR 502 CD

Sainkho Namchylak is one of those artists who not only brings something local to the global table, but who plays it like a dealt hand in an ongoing game that can make or break its players. She holds her cards not tight and close, but weighs their realities and possibilities against the others in the game, discarding and replacing them boldly according to the calculus of commitment and risk rather than fear and loss. She’s been in the game long enough to have won and lost more than many, and to strengthen both local and global economies (of musical riches). In Trance is a live recording of a concert in her adopted home of Vienna, where she’s arguably become best known and valued. It has the feel of a measured, safe energy, something satisfying in her case that might feel wanting in someone who hadn’t spent and given so much so freely and intensely (some 30 CDs over the last few decades), and in

much more challenging conditions and circumstances: the rich minimalism of a proven master. Jarrod Cagwin is a serious percussion voice (most of what he plays here sounds like a shaman’s frame drum) on the New York world/improvised/experimental music scene, by way of his American heartland home state of Iowa.

Those roots swell in this context most happily in their many suggestions of Native American music. Namtchylak’s shamanistic Mongolian roots resonate with those, recalling the ancient overland migrations from her part of the world to ours. Cagwin’s open sensitivity to what Namtchylak has to offer nurtures its most delicate and dazzling nuances like soil and sun brings out the curls of the rarest orchid. More distinctly, Namchylak puts the many facets of her androgynous voice—the Tuvan throat singing (khöömei), the guttural speech-song and drone, the trained bel canto, the jazz-like rhythmic scatting, the breath that suggests the wind, the multiphonic screech that channels a whole gaggle of bats, to name a few—to the music’s inspiration: “the great paintings of Dunhuang caves in China.” The cover art features five of these, murals of Indian Buddhist figures in the grottoes dating from the 4th century. Each of the four tracks is annotated with a bit of a narrative spanning all, about a young man named Dim who visits one of the caves for the first time, falls into a trance that takes him back 4000 years, brings the spirits of the cave alive and into communion with him, leads him to the Great Mother and the power imbued to both channel the spirits as a great artist in his own

life, and to free them from the frozenness of their incarnation as art into the liberation of the Great Nothing.

Mike Heffley

Németh Film

Thrill Jockey thrill194 CD

It’s been three years since Radian’s last record, long enough for fans to tire of turning to the Viennese trio’s proliferating side projects to get their thrills.

But Film is more than just a methadone fix. It’s definitely recognizable as the work of the man responsible for the electronics that fill in the spaces between Radian’s stark beats. There’s an emphasis on electrically produced, digitally altered textures, some soft enough to rest your head on them, others rough enough to buff your scaly heel, that is pretty close to Radian’s, and Stefan Németh has even recruited Radian’s drummer Martin Brandlmayr to add some typically hollow, space-dominating percussion to one track. But the input of other parties helps make this album an expansion, not a reduction, of Németh’s other work. Each of Film’s six tracks was originally fashioned to accompany a short film or video installation, and some were reworked for this release. But Németh hasn’t made his music subordinate to the images; rather, having someone else’s ideas to bump up against seems to have clarified how he wants to express his own. And it’s that clarity that adds a hyper-real quality to “Transitions’” This Heat-like stomp and screech and that makes “Luukkaankangas’” layers of crackle and thump pulse like

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some warm-blooded creature with appetites to feed. Bill Meyer

Silje Nes

Ames Room FatCat FATSP16 CD

These days, seems like there are more laptop poppers out there than you can shake a stick at; but Norwegian home recording artist Silje Nes distinguishes herself with Ames Room, her debut full length.

An multifaceted musician, Nes plays an array of instruments and adds her sweet, unassuming singing to a charming sound world, filled with nuanced timbres and delicate harmonies. Most impressive is Nes's deft exploration of contrapuntal intricacies. After a glitchy, bumptious intro, brass instruments negotiate angular yet unforced lines in the main section of “Shapes, Electric;” imitated by dovetailing vocals, the result is a sophisticated interplay that retains astonishing immediacy. “Drown” pits a strummed acoustic guitar ostinato and shuffling groove against two vocal demeanors: hushed, almost murmuring verses and a limpid soaring chorus hook. The title track revels in layers of lush harmony, sustained singing, and arpeggiated guitars. As if aware that the music needs a little tartness to avert a diffuse sensibility, Ness offsets this lovely atmosphere with background percussive clicks, which provides the right touch of forward momentum. “Giant Disguise” does a similar thing on the macro level, bringing electric guitars and electronic percussion into the mix, supplying an arrangement with just a pinch of rock sensibility. While her music deftly negotiates the fickle demands of pop, “No Bird Can” demonstrates Nes's corresponding talent for crafting lovely chamber music. A winsome bagatelle for vocalise, winds, and glockenspiel, it serves as a fitting coda to this precocious debut.

Christian Carey

Alipio C Neto

The Perfume Comes Before the Flower Clean Feed CF 093 CD

Tony Malaby Tamarindo

Clean Feed CF 099 CD

Stephen Gauci's Basso Continuum Nididhyasana Clean Feed CF 101 CD

The Lisbon-based Clean Feed label specializes in modern jazz, largely as practiced in New York and environs, though also paying special attention to Portuguese musicians, sometimes in trans-Atlantic collaboration. The label practices an exalted selectivity about musicians and groupings that’s resulted in some excellent recordings. These three CDs by tenor saxophonists display high levels of organization and committed invention, along with a rich humanity of sound and a shared capacity to surprise.

Alipio C Neto is a Brazilian, resident in Portugal, who has recorded in a couple of groups (IMI Kollektief and Wishful Thinking). On this, his debut as leader, he is supported by 92 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

trumpeter Herb Robertson (whose darting, varied lines act as a foil to Neto’s substantial centrality), bassist Ken Filiano, drummer Michael T.A. Thompson and, on three of five tracks, tubaist Ben Stapp. Neto distinguishes himself here as both player and composer, with an elegiac nobility of vision that is his defining characteristic. Track one first juxtaposes rapid drumming and improvised trumpet splatters against low tenor blasts; a later theme pitches rapid bass bowing against the horns’ held tones. When Neto finally solos, he’s a radical melodist, creating a continuum of abrasions and graces, building from great low blasts through sudden upper-range skitters and hollow-voiced mid-range lines.

Like the first, each of Neto’s compositions contain multiple themes that are welded together by the ensemble, often creating a feeling suspended between through-composition and collective improvisation. Clearly every player here is engaged by Neto’s intensity of purpose, and the results sound like a working band.

Tony Malaby is a very fine saxophonist, a consistently adventurous and intense player who adds to any situation. He’s been particularly good at assuming the foreground in groups led by “background” players, like Mark Helias and Paul Motian. Part of what makes his work compelling is his interest in sonority, and it comes to the fore in this bare-bones trio with Malaby beginning very quietly, restrained muttering and whispering down amidst William Parker’s bass and Nasheet Waits’ drums. It’s that sense of a fully integrated trio that thrives here, as in the tangle of “Floral and Herbacious,” with Parker’s bowed bass and Waits’ sudden punctuations leading the dialogue as much as Malaby. Among the many voices lurking in Malaby’s soprano and tenor, there are oboes and flutes and a human chorus with choked, gargling, and shouting voices.

Stephen Gauci’s Basso Continuum is a refreshing group concept, matching the leader’s tenor saxophone with Nate Wooley’s trumpet and the basses of Mike Bisio and Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten in a series of collective improvisations. Gauci possesses a distinctive restraint, his volume and density perfectly matched to Wooley’s trumpet in the extended conversations that occur here.

The approach of the two basses is genuinely inspired, with Bisio and Håker-Flaten create dense, pulsing dialogues, sometimes using the wood of the bow (spizzicato) to mimic drumming. The band is a thoughtful variant on the usual piano-less quartet, leading to long stretches of quietly intense, collective creativity, often with more happening rhythmically than you might expect with a drummer. Gauci’s opening solo on “Ghitta Vilasa (Play of Mind)” gives an immediate indication of his quality of musical thought, ranging from rapid invention to warm, reflective bleat, while Wooley follows using a whistling air-flow of sub-articulated notes to duet brilliantly with bowed bass. It’s a technique from the far shores of improvised music, but its the kind of thing that enlivens this performance. Stuart Broomer

The New Blockaders Das Zenstoren, Zum Gebaren Blossoming Noise BN 028 CD

Recorded at the Thurston Moorecurated edition of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, Das Zenstoren, Zum Gebaren is a document of what is supposedly the final live action from the New Blockaders. Active for almost three decades, theirs is a remarkably consistent sound: the short jolts of noise that activate the beginning of this fifty-minute piece shadow the metallic scrapings writ large through early LPs like Changez Les Blockeurs. Their extended line-up and the ritual energy that accumulates in this particular live context spurs the group on to even more obliterating form, though, and here they absorb the entirety of the screen, splattering rough-hewn noise across the frame in an almost Pollock-esque performance of ‘selves as artists’. This is no bad thing. The New Blockaders at their most ritualistic are a pulverising force, intent on erasure through a combination of overwhelming volume, textural saturation and abreactive audio. Unlike a lot of noise artists, who set their parameters and then tinker aimlessly, The New Blockaders are closer to improvisers, more like the extremist free jazz/improv of Borbetomagus than the latest Merzbow, and thus their noise always breathes. This is rare for their particular genre, though they do share with other great noise artists a general lust for transcendence via negation: as Byron Coley describes in his liner notes, this is ‘[m]usic which is not-music, communication which refuses to communicate, art which is not-art.’ Jon Dale

New Generation Quartet Dances

Ayler DL-067 MP3

This download-only release features three long tracks recorded in Novosibirsk, Russia in 2000. Sergei Belichenko (drums) and Dimitri Averchenkov (bass) are both in their sixties and have worked with such better-known Russian jazz masters as the Ganelin trio and Surgey Kuryokhin. Vladimir Timofeev (tenor sax) and Roman Stolyar (piano with occasional flutes, harmonica, etc.) are in their forties, and the amount of time that all four of these musicians have put into their instruments is vividly palpable on

this release. The improvisations are loose, with no egos pushing to assert themselves, and there’s a relaxed feeling out of each other that culminates the band moving more freely into territories that you don’t expect out of free jazz. “Two Step Blues” has a straight-ahead rhythm that gets into loungey, even sleazy territory, and I love it. Timoteev's sax goes out of control a bit, but Stolyar's piano remains focused. There is something sentimental about the tones explored here, but they are arrived at so naturally that the emotion actually means something. Belichenko’s drumming throughout is marked by carefully considered timbral juxtapositions that heighten the listener’s attention to the movement of each improvisation.

Andrew Choate

Lucas Niggli Big Zoom Celebrate Diversity Intakt 118 CD

Lucas Niggli Zoom Meets Arte Quartett Crash Cruise Intakt 130 CD

Steamboat Switzerland Zone 2

Grob 859 CD

Celebrate Diversity is the first studio recording by the quintet configuration of Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli’s Big Zoom band (they released a live disc on Intakt culled from concerts recorded in 2002) and the crisp recording deftly captures their impeccably tight playing. Nils Wogram (trombone), Claudio Puntin (clarinet), Philip Schaufelberger (guitar) and Peter Herbert (doublebass) unite with Niggli to form a kind of European version of the Vandermark 5: virtuoso instrumentalists navigating complex but groovy compositions with sexy aplomb. Puntin’s clarinet, especially his freakout on “Bridges from Good Times” and everything in “Grosse Sprünge,” is just killer. Every instrumentalist in this band actively makes the others sound better and the whole composition sound vital. There are a lot of bands trying to work in this territory of compositions structured to include improvisation, but this band nails it. Implied narratives run amok, testament to the high level of songcraft being employed for purely instrumental purposes here.

Satisfying as that CD may be, Crash Cruise is the best jazz record I’ve heard in a year. It features the trio version of Zoom (just trombone, guitar, drums) plus the saxophone artistry of the Arte Quartett (Beat Hofstetter, Sascha Armbruster, Andrea Formenti and Beat Kappeler). The saxophones render these compositions huge, symphonically deep. And the clarity of their articulations turn the intricate rhythms into fodder for both blissful and heartrending expressivity. The bounty of sick grooves doesn’t hurt either: check out Wogram’s solo over the contrapuntal sparks on “Moonkey” and his otherworldy vocalics on “Tornica.” The pointillism of all the instruments colors the whole timbral palette on “Stau” and “Lift,” and since everything is synced so well, the snap is just irresistible. Each song has a different focus: Schaufelberger’s guitar takes a slow trot around centerstage on “Reflex,” while “One for Evan,” a dedication to Evan Parker, investigates a Dumitrescu-for-saxophones type landscape. Each change in mood adds up to a more and more complete listening experience as the disc proceeds. Few records attempt —much less achieve—the level of expression found on this disc.

Niggli's Steamboat Switzerland already have four full-lengths to their credit, but Zone 2 is their first recording made primarily with acoustic instruments: piano (Dominik Blum), acoustic guitar (Marino Pliakas) and drums (Niggli). But just because it’s acoustic, don’t jump to the conclusion that this record isn’t as dense as their past stuff: Zone 2 is an eerie, heavy, forty-five-minute-long chunk of improv. Hammered piano strings cascade into fists full of cluster chords, making all future rumbles fill with a sense of tension and expectation.

There’s a lot of drama, with Niggli painting on a reduced drumset that finds him in more of a textural role than he is with his Zoom bands. The more I listen, the more I hear motifs and an underlying, self-organizing structure: the flow is ingenuous and the interactions between instruments unhurried yet instantly appropriate.

Andrew Choate

Pauline Oliveros Miya Masaoka Accordion Koto

Deep Listening DL 36-2007 CD

Federico Fellini wrote in his autobiography that without art life would be

reduced to nothing but lungs breathing in and out, and heart beating on like a cuckoo clock until it stopped.

The question begged, of course, is what would life—let alone art—be without the lungs and the heart? At its core, the music on this CD is an art of the body, not one to escape and look down on it. We know (from the liner notes, and their links to more about the artists) that the bodies making their music are those of two women, one a venerable elder, the other a young mother. We hear a music built on drone and gesture: which body, which instrument, best embodies which of those? Your first guesses, both intuitive and educated, are probably true, but remember that the three twos (drone/gesture, old/ young, accordion/koto) reside in, spawn, stimulate and fertilize each other in the one world of their art.

Listen deeper... Pauline Oliveros, an accordionist since age 9, speaks of her instrument as an extension of her vocal cords and lungs, something “very huggable” sitting on her lap; Miya Masaoka’s koto is, to her, a body reclining, to be stroked, caressed, and plucked into its life in sound. Their own bodies extend from their natures into other parts of culture: family, ethnic, national identities; musical traditions and interests, from the acoustic-mechanical to the electroniccybernetic, as bones, tissue, and vibrating membranes extend into the electrical currents of the central nervous system and then to consciousness, intellect, emotion, imagination.

We hear it all here, in as full and brilliant a flower as a Fellini ever filmed: the Japanese gagaku and African-American music Masaoka has so entwined with; and the modern art music discourse Oliveros has long helped voice and direct, suffused with her consciousness here of her instrument’s deep roots in the ancient Asian free reed mouth organs (sheng and sho). The electronic artistry of each complements the other as artfully as do the other binaries mentioned. Oliveros calls her Expanded Instrument System—the pioneering work with tape delays begun in the 1960s—an extension specifically of a sound through time, from its past origin through its present capture and alteration on tape to its future incarnation as a new sound. Masaoka speaks of the (koto-performance-inspired) Aural Gesture applied to her Laser Koto, and of exploring therewith different ways of seeing and living time

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 93

from various world cultures, reflecting natural cycles. Both meet in a music conceived (per Oliveros) in “deep listening” to the synchronic more than the diachronic moment. Once born (in a studio session at Bard College, where both taught for awhile) the music here, like all newborns, needed a name. Oliveros suggested the titles should be in both English and Japanese. Masaoka named the four tracks “Daybreak,” “Forenoon,” “Afternoon,” and “Twilight,” after Indian-raga tradition; more specifically musical, their Japanese words conveyed them by sound-markers (birds, bells) associated with each.

This music, listened to in the spirit that made it, will distract nobody from some perceived boredom with itself. It will rather show anybody what a magisterial panoply of peace, power, fun and games its simplest lines can draw upon. Mike Heffley

Orchestra Ethiopia Ethiopiques 23 Buda Musique 860152 CD

Among the most fascinating documents in producer Francis Falceto's 23-volume labor of love are the releases documenting the points of contact between the West and Ethiopia's ancient and singular musical traditions. The name Orchestra Ethiopia promises more of the same, but this latest release in Falceto's invaluable series is surprisingly traditional.

Orchestra Ethiopia was founded in 1963 as an ethnographic ensemble by the Egyptian-born composer Halim El-Dabh, now a professor of composition at Kent State University in Ohio. Perhaps because he was an outsider, El-Dabh was able to bring together for the first time musicians from Ethiopia's various ethnic groups. The concept worked and the Orchestra was among the first Ethiopian musicians to tour outside the country. Appearing as the The Blue Nile Group, Orchestra Ethiopia even appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

All this open-mindedness—and the fact that two Americans took turns at leading the ensemble—virtually assured the ensemble's demise following the Derg revolution. By 1975 it was all over. The group recorded a bit during its heyday, but 18 of the 23 cuts here, recorded with varying sound quality, are released for the first time. It's heady stuff. The end-blown wooden flutes and pounding drums of “Tezeta” are eerie and ceremonial in ways that recall Sun Ra. “Ancient Aethiopia” indeed! Elsewhere, almost familiar-sounding lines collide and wobble off in unexpected directions, suitably ancient sounding music from the ancestral homeland of the human species. Listeners with computers should not miss the richly illustrated and poignant essay by Charles Sutton, a Connecticut jazz pianist who as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s, directed the Orchestra. It's on the CD as a .pdf file. John Chacona

Orchestra Maxfield Parrish The Silent Breath of Emptiness Faith Strange 007 CD

What kind of music might you impro94 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

vise if you were spending Christmas day in an observatory? Guitarist Mike Fazio, recording under the name OrchestraMaxfieldParrish answers this question with a full length, multimovement work crafted in an inspiring setting. The result, The Silent Breath of Emptiness, is a spacious, lushly ambient affair. Fazio mixes aesthetic approaches; there are times, particularly in Parts I and III, when his soundscapes recall the fascinating explorations of Robert Fripp, presenting structures that ebb and flow in dramatically shaped arcs. At others Fazio seems smitten with a kind of spacey New Age music that vokes precisely the kind of soundtrack one expects to hear at a planetarium.

True, the blunted harmonic palette still sounds far cooler on Fazio's guitar than the bargain basement synth sounds that accompany your local star show, but it's frustrating to hear the gap between the guitarist's best improvising and music that is bizarrely contaminated by consumer culture.

Still, Fazio's a fascinating player when his work stays in the deep end of the pool, maximizing timbral resources and musical materials.

Christian Carey

Claudio Parodi Horizontal Mover Extreme XCD 056 CD

Italian multi-instrumentalist Claudio Parodi makes process primary in his explanatory notes to Horizontal Mover. Inspired by the sound and example of Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting In A Room,” he subjected a track from Tiziano Milani’s Suoni 2005 CD to twelve diffusing influences, using different amplifiers and resonators, plus digital elongation up to the point where his computer’s memory couldn’t hold all the music and some of it had to be excised.

Then he cross-faded it together to make the piece, clocking in at 58:31.

But documenting the “how” doesn’t explain the “why,” and fans of long tone music might find a lot more than the skilled execution of an idea to appreciate here. Parodi stays away from low-end drones, instead working mostly with high feedback frequencies and moderately abrasive textures generated by the different resonators—mostly different drums and cymbals—through which he plays the tones and punctuated by audible punch-ins. The effect is both hypnotic and even nostalgic. It reminds me of my first appreciation of sound as art, when the distant construction and destruction sounds of chainsaws, drills, and generators heard through open windows blurred into an infinitely deep and rich sound field. Bill Meyer

Pelican

After the Ceiling Cracked Hydra Head HHH666-114 DVD

Having seen Pelican last year on their Australian tour, this DVD acts as an interesting counterpoint to the actual experience of the band. Sure, seeing and hearing loud rock bands in the flesh will always be preferable to DVD reproduction—sound, physicality and heck, even the smell all contribute to that ‘authentic’ experi-

ence created by band, amps, PA and room. That said, sometimes there's detail missed depending on the mixer, equipment and the like, and certainly this DVD recorded in 2005 at Scala in London in an incredibly rich experience for the acquainted Pelican listener. “Autumn Into Summer” is sizzling, its considered and paced tones burning red hot as the band slowly deploys the track—the same can be said of ‘Sirius’, the interconnectivity of the bands individual contributions, really revealing what makes Pelican tick musically. Add to this copious amounts of additional footage, including some rather old school bootleg-like recordings from Youngstown Ohio in 2003 (which are utterly distorted and charmingly lowfi) and you get a very full package.

Lawrence English

Jeff Platz Kit Demos John McLellan Pulsar

Skycap 45 CD

Put together a trio of guitar, bass and drums and even in a jazz improv context, there's a natural assumption that it is a power trio. In other words: heavy on the volume, aggression and muscle with little room for nuance and discretion. Boston-based jazz guitarist Jeff Platz, who takes a break from his groups Skull Session and Bright Light for this session, opts for a softer, subtler approach that may be old skool in tone, but it is forward looking in terms of improvisational technique. Platz posesses a light, feathery style that is on the one evocative of Bill Frissell and Derek Bailey. From the former, there is a warmth and spaciousness, an languidness and ability to linger and gently roam the fretboard. From the latter, comes a tight, tangled, wiry intensity, that is full of complex arpeggios, runs, and fingerings. But this is a collaborative effort with sublime interplay between three improvisers at the top of their game. “Fall Forward”, “I And You And Me” and “Respite at Rons” feature some gorgeously, intimate solos from Demos, while McLellan’s brush work on “Little Fingers, Big Fists” is deeply felt. Pulsing with vitality and vibrancy, this trio proves that powerful music can come from playing softly. Richard Moule

Pomassl

Spare Parts

Raster Noton RN-88 CD

Coh

Strings

Raster Noton RN-85 CD x 2

Having just witnessed Pomassl's incredibly strange live performance piece at Poland's Unsound Festival (during which he stopped the concert to ‘soundcheck’ again and used a computer as a prop), this new edition from the Viennese musician presents a rather less confounding impression of his work. Spare Parts, a collection of residual material from Pomassl’s output of the past few years, is offered as a set of ‘more mature arranged elements and carefully structured sections’. Though it promises to explore very high and very low frequencies, this record sits more comfortably in

the mid-range of electronic work— there’s no serious extremes regarding compositional choice, sound source or frequency response. One can’t help but wonder at what point Pomassl's rhetoric departed from his execution.

In essence Spare Parts is a mere passage through basic beat progressions, static interference and fairly standard electronic sound generators.

By contrast, Coh’s Strings presents a considered and focused exploration into the connections and disconnections of stringed instruments and digital processing. Reflecting on a deeply personal connection between the various major musical themes in his life (eg, spending his early years in piano lessons and some teenage dabbling in metal music versus his present interest in deconstructive electronic practise) “Ivan Pavlov’s Strings” grows from abstract washes of devolved instruments into emotive pulsing masses of melody and rhythm. The humour and almost confessional aspect of the “No Monsters No Rock” passages is a truly endearing work—an honest offering to uncover that skeleton that still peaks out of so many of our closest.

Strings is a work that makes peace with a lifetime of musical experiences— beautifully, humorously and most of all with genuine enthusiasm, which can be heard in every note and power chord! Lawrence English

Rafter

Sex Death Cassette Asthmatic Kitty AKR 037 CD

The prolific Rafter Roberts presents himself here in the guise of a band, and the volume of his meticulously arranged songs would seem to be the result of the efforts of many. But it's just one man, calling on compadres only when needing violin, horns or a female voice. This latest nineteen song set again mixes pop smarts with gently experimental flourishes, filtering often ambitious constructs through ground level (but not lo-fi) audio production techniques. The result lends even the most obtuse lyrical passages a folksy next-door-neighbor believability. (Case in point being “Breathing Room” and its chorus of “Fuck you the sky.” Rafter sings it with such easy confidence that it's tempting to pick it up as a phrase to use in one's own travels.) Clearly many of the songs were built from chordal structures up, grooves becoming impressive bits of architecture. Even tracks that clock in at under a minute are rich in character and detail, such as the noirish nightscape of “Adventurer“ and the acoustic balladry of “I Love You Most of All.“ David Greenberger

Rapoon

Alien Glyph Morphology Caciocavallo CAD 30 CD

Reformed Faction The War Against ...

Soleilmoon SOL 153 CD

Being drawn in by the beauty of a Rapoon album is not unlike being drawn in by the beauty of a slab of concrete. Every pebble, every crack and every layer of paint, tar and oil creates a pattern. Though it is not immediately discernable to the focused

eye, there is a rhythm to the surface of any parking lot that is vast and pleasing on a primitive level. Robin Storey paves his albums in a drone of textures and cluttered bits of sound that, are a mash-up of bright black radiance and mystery. He crafts the antithesis of pop music, and the slow simplicity of the music’s design demands a deeper look into the empty spaces that, upon closer study aren’t so empty after all.

Alien Glyph Morphology is the third installment of Storey’s trilogy; each chapter being slightly different from the last according to format: The first version was a DVD, the second a 2x10” edited down to the length of the vinyl’s limitations. This final edition takes shape as the definitive volume of the Alien Glyph experience. There are no visual clues and the uncut recording is the definitive invisible soundtrack to Storey’s vision of the mysteries of the universe and the various avenues of the human condition. The recording is best taken in as a whole, as titles, like “The Voice Beneath,” “Condensed Nightmares” and “The Paranoia of Abstraction” blur into one another. At times the droning ambiance is a spellbinding sedative; at other moments solitary percussive plinks, slow motion chirps and the sound of a locomotive drift like ghostly forms in the fog. This is not so much a refined effort as it is a conceptualized journey not meant for the faint of heart.

The War Against… is less of a streamlined offering than Alien Glyph, but the album’s mesmerizing effects are no less engrossing. This second offering from Reformed Faction, the pairing of :Zoviet*France: alumni Storey and Mark Spybey is a bit rougher around the edges. Song titles, such as “Fish Build,” “Cold War Creeper” and “Diesel-Stammer” feel like after thoughts in light of the music’s drift as a unified whole. The echo-laden rumble of percussion is a subtle and powerful undercurrent to a collage of manipulated sounds. Disembodied voices sink in and out of the sonic mire giving a human element to the glowing atmosphere. After immersing oneself in decoding the mysteries of Alien Glyph Morphology, The War Against… is a welcome sanctuary of abstract sound where the focus lies on the sheer beauty of sound itself.

Chad Radford

Steve Reich

Music for 18 Musicians Innova 678 CD

This performance of Steve Reich’s minimalist classic by the new music ensemble of the obscure Midwestern university Grand Valley State is astonishingly clear and precise—it’s not easy to maintain one’s concentration over the course of a piece this long and repetitive—and the mix by Silas Brown and ensemble director Bill Ryan pulls out the most colorful threads from Reich’s tapestry. It isn’t often that a bunch of unknown college students release a recording that does justice to a technically demanding, hour-long piece, but these kids have managed it. As for the piece itself, it sounds as great in 2008 as it ever did. Music for 18 Musicians features the seemingly

endless repeating patterns for which Reich is best known, but its most attractive characteristics are its dreamy, hypnotic richness (don’t drive with this in the stereo, or you might wind up in a ditch) and its composerly touches —the startling entry of the maracas about halfway through the piece, for example. This disc is a worthy recording of one of Minimalism's best pieces. Charlie Wilmoth

The Residents

Present the Voice of Midnight Mute 623732 CD

After their last great surprise—having embraced human emotions, and middle-aged ones at that—The Residents now offer another shocker: a coherent storyline presented with intelligible vocals. As often as not, The Voice of Midnight doesn't even sound like The Residents, although conceptually it's very much of a piece with their overall body of work. The album is, quite formally, an operetta, based on the 19th century tale “Der Sandmann”

by E.T.A. Hoffman. In spirit, it’s their take on classic horror, similar ground to the vampire stories that inspired the 2006 album Tweedles. But the horror unfolds with an innocent love story and some genuine character development. The familiar voice of the singing Resident (aka Mr. Skull) is present as the villain, but three actors are employed to sing the parts of the young lovers and the girl’s mother.

The music is, for the most part, appropriately incidental, although there are passages of grinding guitars and keyboards. But it’s the story that’s at the forefront, and as such is easily the band’s most successful narrative since the impressive God in Three Persons (from 1988) or 1979’s Eskimo. Like the other recent Resident releases and reissues from Mute, The Voice of Midnight comes in a sturdy, squarebound illustrated book. By the nature of the project it might not stand up to repeat listens as well as their best records, but it’s an impressive piece of audio drama. Kurt Gottschalk

Matana Roberts Quartet

The Chicago Project Central Control CC1006 CD

Matana Roberts left Chicago to make her mark in New York a few years ago, but her hometown still looms large in her music. This record shows that while you can go home again, it isn’t always easy. The alto saxophonist has played extensively with most of the musicians present, and when the music catches fire, its combustion generally derives from the sparks she strikes off the other players. The communication is especially pure on three patient and concentrated explorations of shape and sound duets between her and her old mentor, tenorman Fred Anderson, that provide some of the album’s best moments. Jeff Parker, who has been on a roll lately (check his work with Powerhouse Sound), and bassist Josh Abrams, who has worked extensively with Roberts in the excellent trio Sticks And Stones, switch fluidly between subdued support for the saxophonist’s most swinging work and jaggedly textural SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 95

challenges that scrape away all superfluity. And I can’t fault Frank Rosaly’s generally empathetic drumming.

Still, the music only works in fits and starts; the parts that don’t work are generally the moments when it feels like Roberts is trying hard to catch something just beyond her grasp. It isn’t a technical issue—her playing is more than fine. But particularly on the first couple tracks, the music heaves with audible effort that compares poorly with the gracefulness of her duets with Anderson. Bill Meyer

Steve Roach Arc of Passion Projekt PRO202 CD x 2

Existential tone vendor, synth music’s reigning chaostician—such characterizations give meaning to the brand, yet the hasty tossing about of too many labels only dilutes the caliber of Steve Roach’s luminescent constructions. For sheer breadth of imagination and profundity of sound design, his formidable back catalog is beyond reproach in its consistent quality, a feat made that much more remarkable by the fact that Roach has deftly traversed the banks of minimalism and maximalism so effectively. With an abundance of raw materials, he has created works staggeringly beautiful in their austerity (Structures from Silence, Quiet Music), darkly strange and wondrous (The Magnificent Void), and often ferociously ritualized by cultures exotically topographic (Dreamtime Return, Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces, Early Man). He illustrates many of his breathtaking mesas with either a sharply chosen economy of means or a vivid riot of primary colors; regardless, much like the maxim of Pauline Oliveros, his music is optimized for deep listening.

Though Arc of Passion formally ushers in the new year, it is in fact the ideal copy to summarize an intense period of activity that saw Roach releasing a fistful of music (the two-disc Fever Dreams III and the third part of his ongoing Immersion series, a threedisc magnum opus), and blitzing the psyches of those fortunate souls witnessing his 2007 flurry of live performances. Culled from one of those in-person events—in front of 80 gathered at southern California’s prime boutique for electronic gear, Analogue Haven—Arc of Passion is another two-disc powerhouse, a music that travels across a suite of endless, windswept vistas, electrically-interwoven crescendos and mortal isolationism. There is a tense emotional undercurrent that pervades the triad of pieces here, soldered into a symphony of drones by the titular recording’s galvanic force. “Moment of Grace” is an expansive preface of sorts, as Roach filters and sweeps his faders along a blinding horizon of white light, the tones swelling in pitch as if arising out of the breaths of deepest ocean. He coaxes the ear along gradually until the undulating sequencers of the album’s namesake prickle the air and assume shape, coiling about like writhing serpents. It is here that Roach lets loose the entirety of his arsenal’s effects, allowing glistening curlicues to impact the surface, ripple out, and re-enter the whirling atmosphere as they cycle once again.

96 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Germanic influences notwithstanding, Roach has so mastered how to weave a sequencer fabric, how to alternate and mix any number of disparate sounds and then reintegrate them back into the matrix that the hoary template has in fact become the contemporary norm. It’s startling stuff, and when he picks up the pace on disc two, the shifts in time, though subtle, course through variant, episodic micro-events whose calibrated sprites truly unveil themselves during subsequent exposures. By the time “Views Beyond” is revealed, a 21minute sojourn into spooky twilight zones and Lovecraftian foreboding (which should proffer new directions for exploration), it’s a satisfying, if ominous, conclusion—such is the agony and the ecstasy Roach cultivates.

Darren Bergstein

Herb Robertson NY Downtown Allstars Real Aberration Clean Feed CF096 CD x 2

The term “all stars” is bandied about too readily in the world of improvised music, but with trumpet player Herb Robertson’s NY Downtown Allstars, the title is on the mark. Putting together Robertson with saxophonist Tim Berne, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Tom Rainey seems like a sure-fire bet. Consider that Robertson, Berne, Dresser, and Rainey have been playing together since the ’80s, and that all of the members are brilliant improvisers, composers, and leaders on their own. The crew was first assembled for the 2004 Vancouver Jazz Festival, which was quickly followed

by Elaboration, a studio session released on Clean Feed. This time out, the quintet was captured live during a 2006 performance at the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal.

As with their debut disk, Robertson provides a core extended framework and then steps back to let everyone take off. Composed interludes bleed their way into collective improvisation; individuals dart off on expansive solo segments which get wound back in to the ensemble. But neither one of the two long suites ever come close to devolving into mere star turns. Sure there are stellar solo moments, like Mark Dresser’s haunting arco solo that opens “Sick(s) Fragments” or Robertson’s burred flutters that take center stage toward the end of the piece.

Or the central section of “Re-Elaboration” which is structured as a sort of relay with various duos handing things off to each other while moving through every iteration of instrumental combinations. With this group, an alto, trumpet, and piano trio can stoke things to fiery intensity without even drawing on the power of bass and drums; nothing overstated; no grandstanding; just finely tuned collective interaction. Robertson has come up with a winning combination and the appellation of “allstars” is well deserved. Michael Rosenstein

Ethan Rose

Spinning Pieces Locust 096 CD

Ethan Rose works with unlikely instrumentation—Spinning Pieces features

tracks constructed from an automated carillon, an optical film reader, player pianos, and music boxes—to create music that he then locks away in rare artist multiples. But Spinning Pieces blows the cover on this hidden history, compiling three pieces that originally leaked out in limited form between 2003 and 2007. I’m of two minds about Rose’s music. In some respects, he tames his sources by placing them within a post-glitch framework, where tiny loops and glissando glides are tied together in rather demure formations. You sometimes find yourself wishing Rose would push things further, really strain at the cracks and burn everything into the red end of the VU meter.

However, Rose’s compositions are still well structured, and it’s ultimately hard to remain churlish about music that’s so… damn… lovely. “Singing Tower,” in particular, is a charming piece of mutant carillon song, with clanging bell tones gathering around a carefully repeating three-note phrase, while all kinds of clatter accumulates below the radar. I think he still could drive the form a little harder, but Spinning Pieces is an understated delight.

Jon Dale

David Rosenboom Future Travel

New World NWR 80668 CD

American composer/performer David Rosenboom has been making experimental music for more years than you've had hot breakfasts, so we'll dispense with the reading of his extensive resume. Future Travel presents two extensive works, the title piece from 1981 and “And Out Come The Night Ears” from 1978. “Future Travel,” for Buchla synthesizer, piano, violin, percussion, and read texts, is a seven-part suite that's dazzling in its variety and scope. Portions of it (“Palazzo” and “Nova Wind” for instance) recall the spacier (yet still somewhat rhythmic) aspects of Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Gong (such as their album You) and mid-1970s (pre-soundtrack) Tangerine Dream with occasional nods to the early minimalism of Steve Reich (the stuff with instruments, not the tape works). Other parts sound like alternately pensive and berserk ragtime as played by Conlon Nancarrow's programmed player-pianos. “Station Oaxaca” sounds like Americana a la Aaron Copeland and Brian Wilson—there are snatches of sweet

melodies evoking hymns and even ”Michael Row the Boat Ashore.” It's all-over-the-place and in this case, that's a good thing. Travel is more like an engaging, time-spanning novel or a kaleidoscopic survey of American electronica, not a lame, something-for-everyone mishmash or mere abstract sonic noodling. “And Out Came…” is for piano and some sort of electronic interface system, and suggests pianist Jaki Byard's eclectic forays with Charles Mingus and Rahsaan Roland Kirk ghosted by some percussive electronic sounds.

It rambles some, but with such vim n' vigor it becomes riveting—imagine Bela Bartok playing Fats Waller or a giddy Keith Jarrett. A darn dandy listen, this is. Mark Keresman

Israel resident Yair Etziony seeks to merge a mirage of distended rhythms and floating melodic passages of piano and general ambience. The character of the record is mixed and while many of the pieces individually seem rather disparate, the record as a whole has a considered flow that’s playfully insidious. With glances over the shoulder to Basic Channel production motives and the sonic aesthetics that guided many of the early ~Scape records, there’s many charming aspects to this suite of works. Lawrence English

Minoru Sato + ASUNA

Beast Alert!

Texture in Glass Tubes and Reed Organ Spekk KK 012 CD

Yair Etziony Flawed

Spekk KK 013 CD

These two latest editions from the increasingly vital Spekk imprint bring the Japanese label back into line with its earlier curation focused on examinations into textural and tonal works. Sato + Asuna’s Texture In Glass Tubes And Reed Organ is without question one of the most elegant and considered drone records to emanate from Japan in some time. A simple series of layered harmonic passages, the two pieces collected here demonstrate that even the simplest idea executed with care and precision can create a wealth of sonic engagement. The first work “Superimposing Five Harmonic States” sees the two musicians combine five separately recorded works into a slow-modulating monster. Its depth seems far greater than five layers, a result no doubt of the frequency interactions between individual layers. The second piece “Weaving Seven Resonances” again allows subtly to flourish in the compositional form. This time made from a single recording, Sato + Asuna’s strategies are to bring forth various frequencies to create subtle tonal variations, an action that provides surprising aural stimulation.

By contrast Flawed, an album born in error as the liner notes explain, finds Spekk's catalog drifting into the realm of minimal techno—albeit in a rather deformed and distorted way.

Don Scott Out of Line

Feast Your Ears 112 CD

Loitering Heroes Loitering Heroes CD

For his debut, Out Of Line, dynamic young Toronto guitarist Don Scott has assembled a supportive, zestful band consisting of reedist Quinsin Nachoff, bassist Michael Herring and drummer Nick Fraser. Compositionally and instrumentally speaking, the results compares well to the work of Scott's mentor, saxophonist David Binney: a mixture of jazz, rock and improv that favors odd-meter excursions. Scott prefers a bright, yet elegant sound, suggesting a cleaner-toned Pat Metheny via Jim Hall, while Nachoff is a perfect front-line foil, with his vertical, tension-raising hiccups that suggests a close study of modern mainstream jazz players like Chris Potter and perhaps Donny McCaslin. On the whole, the record leans on knotty, angular jazz pieces that emphasize unison lines and ensemble soloing.

The winding rhythms of “The World Is Your Ashtray,” set the stage for Scott's measured fretwork, while pieces like the brisk levity of “Sudden Valley/ Precarious Contraption” or the dance of “What Are The Factors?” are other examples of group empathy.

While none of the pieces offer a white-hot incisiveness, much of the drama emerges in the subtlety of the ensemble's interaction within its midtempo excursions. For instance, the buoyant waltz of “Holding Pattern” is a lovely journey with Scott's Methenyisms soaring over the Herring/ Fraser bounce, while Nachoff's solo here is perhaps his strongest, with well-executed arpeggios matching the rhythm section's vamp. Nothing here is heart-stopping, but it's still and

enjoyable and rewarding disc.

Scott and Herring are also members of Loitering Heroes, an indie rock quartet helmed by Kevin Parnell, one of the guiding lights of Toronto's independent music community. On this twelve-song debut, the pieces favor a rock vibe for sure, but Parnell's supporting cast adds shades of improv and jazz. Parnell's not a particularly tuneful singer and he's merely a decent guitarist, but what he lacks in technical prowess, he makes up in wordplay and emotion.

Most engaging are the singsongy, shifting tempo-based riffs of pieces like “We’ve Devised New Pagan Rituals,” “Sailor's Delight (Jamboree On The Seven Seas)” and “Go Away Ghost Ship,” all focusing on seafaring themes amidst rhythmic waves inciting instrumental diversity. The Heroes also venture into country folk territory and aren't afraid to drive a groovy beat or to take things to experimental proportions. Instrumentally, the quartet handles the active songshifts easily, and Scott surely sounds energized on several tunes, particularly on “Holes In The Story” where his distorted solo offers an interesting contrast to his more laid-back jazz ventures. Jay Collins

Sam Shalabi Eid

Alien8 alienCD 74 CD

I won’t purport to understand exactly what should appear on a “modern Arabic pop” record, as was Sam Shalabi’s aspiration for Eid, though smart money says probably not eight-minute jazz loops and deathdrone market scenes that elevate from bustling to warlike. Consider too that Eid is at least nominally concerned with Western pop culture, containing a song named “Jessica Simpson,” a two-part suite about Billy the Kid and several tracks featuring heavily distorted electric guitars.

Eid, though, represents a redemption of purpose for Shalabi, who after releasing The Trial of St-Orange—still one of the decade’s best instrumental records—has struggled through the Shalabi Effect’s woolly Pink Abyss as well as a string of concept-art solo performances on the oud. This cultural confusion enervates Eid, on which Sam receives plenty of help from his Shalabi Effect collaborators, Latin-Canadian songstress Lhasa de Sela and Constellation veterans Elizabeth Anka Vajajick and Katie Moore.

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The resultant risks taken are the sort that occasionally end badly—the first “Billy the Kid” is so dramatic and cawing as to be atonal while the amped-up “End Game” arrives too brutish and insistent—but they’re welcome because they seem to advance the record’s hazy purpose.

When Shalabi plays to his strength —mood-altering Eastern psych—he delivers the socially brutal title track, “Eddie”’s elliptical horn breaks and opener “Hawaga,” a solo guitar rumination set to Middle Eastern modes. On the penultimate “Billy the Kid (Part 2)” a sultry female voice finds comfort among the slow, sawing guitars: “Beauty and carnage/ It all looks the same to me.” Eid’s strength is its ability to find that same ambiguity between the pop and the avant-garde, between Western pulp and Eastern broil. Andrew Gaerig

Steven R. Smith Owl

Digitalis ace007 CD

Ulaan Khol I

Soft Abuse SAB 026 CD

Seasoned Steven R. Smith fans may leap out of their chairs when they hear the man’s voice lolling from the speakers on Owl’s opener, “Across the Flats.” Given his long-term involvement in parched guitar instrumentals and re-settings of Eastern European folk tunes, a bewildered reaction would not be surprising. If anything’s genuinely unexpected, though, it’s the actual sonority of that voice. Neither a dust-bowl croak nor low-slung growl, Smith’s singing is keening, mellifluous, and defiantly earnest—in a good way, I’m happy to report. (Earnest vocals are usually painfully trite and discomforting.) If there are any parallels, they extend beyond comparisons of the grain of the voice, and are more to do with the way the voice sits within the music: I’m left thinking of Souled American, US Saucer, and Bluetile Lounge as precedents. Like those artists, Smith slips his singing in at the same level as the instruments, and yet there is a weird ‘authority’ to its tenor, despite attempts to erase itself from the mise-en-scène. This shift toward voice and lyric has also freed Smith from having his guitar carry the main motifs, which results in both some of his most self-effacing performances, and some of his most noisy, scratchy playing in some time. There are also some songs—such as the naked, tormented “Cleft”—that rate as some of Smith’s most moving music.

Ulaan Khol is Smith’s new pen name, and its first release starts from a point of intensity Owl only reaches in passing. It’s branded ‘expansive psych’ by the label, which is as good a tagline as any, though I can’t help but think this is a good deal more hermetic and bleak than most psychedelia. I opens with Smith spilling a molten tone from his guitar: it cracks, buckles and flakes while he pours notes from the instrument in an unsteady stream. The tone reminds of the Swell Maps, but Smith takes this to different places. He worries around the same set of chords throughout a good portion of I, which ensures 98 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

thematic consistency, and though the record keeps strictly to its mood, it never overdoes things. Compositionally, it draws on everything Smith’s done so far—melancholy drone, improvisation, traditional folk, overloaded rock—and channels them into an overwhelmingly heart-wrenching, cinematic song cycle. Jon Dale

Son of Earth Pet

Apostasy AP 024 LP

Son of Earth uses microcosms of sound to evoke macrocosms of emotion. Whereas their peers often build a wall of drone with multiple buzzing industrial sounds, the Holyoke, MA trio focuses on the atoms of a composition, exploring two or three minimal structures until they wrap around a listener’s mind hypnotically. Since 2001, the three-piece has lurked on the periphery of Western Massachusetts' experimental music happenings and, along with Idea Fire Company, provided a composition-based counterpart to its dominant free-improvisation scene. Son of Earth’s recent string of CD-Rs, from 2003’s Man to 2006’s Erotic Empire, chronicled their strengthening, each with stunning sound sculptures screaming for vinyl release. In their world, drone tunes progress logically and naturally, evolving in structure instead of merely heightening in volume. Pet, their first commitment to wax, marks no great departure for the band. As the band further explores a drone’s ingredients, each piece presents a snapshot of sound with a slowly emerging haze of guitar feedback and drawn-out static. The repetitiveness of each cut seduces the listener, as it burrows into the brain and emits a trance-like emotion. A massive feedback wail begins “An Elegant use of Foilage and Grace” before it folds and bursts into a tiny, meditative guitar groove encased by static. As the guitar plucks become tainted with a soft paranoia, guitar feedback washes through and a slow psychedelic undertow develops with dueling guitar. “A Little Piece of White Cloth and Oil” breathes Eastern air into a death march, with meditative xylophone strikes laid out against a dissonant sound strip. “First Breath” injects a single plucked bass line into a roving hum that sounds like an unholy monk chant at the far end of a sewer. The band employ domestic sounds, like a door creak, as the song dampens, effectively weaning the listener from their narcotic world. Steve Kobak

David Starobin Family Album

Bridge Records 9239 CD

Nick Didkovsky Ice Cream Time New World 80667 CD

Family Album is the seventh volume in Bridge’s “new music for guitar” series, and it features the sublime talents of Starobin engaged with some lovely scores from William Bland, Poul Ruders, Tania Leon, and Paul Lansky (as well as Starobin’s own Ives-influenced “Three Places in New Rochelle”). Bland’s “Six Preludes” is fully idiomatic, almost like a con-

temporary Scarlatti piece, with lovely intervallic playing and such exquisite touch from Starobin. In an age when so many assholes seem to cling to “experimental” or new or improvised music solely to the extent that it’s all abrasive, all extended-technique all the time, it’s a delight to listen to music that is unafraid to be lyrical, communicative, and simply pretty.

Every so often Starobin will rev it up a bit with some percussive playing (the attacking fifth of Bland’s “preludes,” or the exchange with snare drum on Ruders’ “New Rochelle Suite”).

But the pleasures of this album are heard in the range of the composers’ imagination for this instrument, rendered with perfect intonation and crisp phrasing by a guy who can do anything he wants and never sounds as if he’s pushing. Highlights include the subtle percussion (in the form of soft gongs and steel drums) abetting Starobin’s nimble use of harmonics on “Three Places,” and the alternating race and reflection of Lansky’s long “Semi-Suite,” an extremely emotional performance.

Nick Didkovsky explores a different kind of “new music for guitar” on the splendid Ice Cream Time. In some ways, he’s exploring sonic textures similar to those he delved into on last year’s fine Pogus release Tube Mouth Bow String. Here, however, the instrumentation is different, with Didkovsky on electric guitar and laptop, joined by electronics ace Tomas Dimuzio (sampling and processing) and the saxophone troupe ARTE Quartett (Beat Hofstetter, Sascha Armbruster, Andrea Formenti, and Beat Kappeler), a unit increasingly on call for ambitious new music compositional cycles like Tim Berne’s "The Sevens".

The music is suffused with a palpable energy and glee, but features the kind of rhythmic tricksy-ness that Didkovsky fans relish in his music along with a very wide harmonic palette. The suite ranges from drifting aleatoric nostalgia (check out the calliope and accordion mashup on “Fall”) to howlingly rambunctious electric blues fantasies. It’s nice to hear Didkovsky in such a compositionally advanced mindset, exploring new territories like the ominous bleary drones on “Seltzer Session II,” and the outrageously perky counterpoint on “I Cheer Pet Eater”—almost like Discipline-era King Crimson played

by ROVA. “Calm” and “Waiting” are like baths, limpid pool of overlapping tones and chords that blossom

wonderfully into dense polytonality, somehow still wafting even after the closing “Rise.” Jason Bivins

Room40 422 CD

Babel of voices seemingly alive in response to the dynamic shifts. Hectic, rustling transitions in the fourth part blossom into a lovely mix between full drones and slash/scrapes, and the piece rides out like a slowly cooling magma flow. Jason Bivins

Sebastien Roux

Carl Stone

Room40 431 CD

In Tone ITO 10 CD

Steinbruchel Basis

Revers Quest

The latest from Steinbruchel—seven tracks over an hour—starts out with delicate sound bubbles rising and popping, glitchy melodic ephemera that will please Fennesz freaks.

Though the music travels widely, it’s rarely surprising but it is pleasant to listen to. We hear digital rain and static with a slowly growing hum/drone on the second track. A fine stacking of tones yields some provocative intervals, suspended in the thickening cloud of sound—it sounds almost like very muffled guitar chords, which is a nice touch amidst the insistent whine.

The radiant optimism somehow morphs into a dark, harmonically dense arpeggio. Subsequent tracks return to Fennesz territory, sounding almost as if Steinbruchel is remixing In a Silent Way instead of Endless Summer, even to the extent that there is some distinct Fender Rhodes audible.

These are generally long pieces, not in a hurry to arrive anywhere but instead languorously exploring their rich tonal qualities (as opposed to linear restlessness). Towards the record’s end, glitch pop tranquility returns and unfolds at length (the last track recalls Jacques Dudon’s light-triggered instruments to me).

The Sabastien Roux recording is a strange beast, seemingly defined by ghostly electronics and field recordings (courtesy of Cristian Manzutto).

But at the heart of this five-part composition seem to be the small scratchy sounds of Herve Birouni (ears), Leonzio Cherubini (extremely restrained drums), or Quentin Sirjacq (prepared piano) and the hushed voices of Emma Morin and Laurent Poitrenaux, whispering like radio jocks, penitents, or conspirators. Yet at times the electronics—both harsh and muffled, like a twirling radio dial personified—give way to more idiomatic, tonal sounds (no doubt from Severine Ballon’s cello and Georges Aperghis’ moose pipe, though most noises here seek purposefully to conceal their origins). The middle of the piece is thick with bells and swelling clouds, a

Al-Noor

Carl Stone's latest disc continues the sound explorations of this former student of Morton Subotnick and James Tenney, manipulating songs and singing from around the globe via live performance on his computer. The material ranges from a solo voice on the title track, to the dance rhythms of “Flint's” and the hypnotic whirlpool of “Jitlada.” The latter suggests elliptical orbits around the central song, with surprising juxtapositions revealing both the rhythmic and harmonic possibilities of the seemingly simple source material, as well as Stone's joyful wizardry. The set's longest piece, at over 24 minutes, is the closing “L'Os a Moelle.” At first it seems a surprising change of musical setting as the Byrds-like groove starts up, but then it becomes apparent that Stone has stepped back from his own American roots and is treating these sounds as yet another global voice.

The transformation it goes through is slow but steady, and an unfolding journey that many a psychedelicallyinclined musician would have loved to have gone on, had such travel been possible outside the confines of one's own head back in 1967. It makes for a remarkable hour, with the celebratory and the ephemeral captured in mysterious splendor.

David Greenberger

Stone Breath

Songs of Moonlight and Rain Hand/Eye h/e031 CD

Robin Crutchfield

ForOurFriendsInThe EnchantedOtherworld Hand/Eye h/e032 CD

Recorded in the summer and fall of 1996, Stone Breath’s debut release Songs of Moonlight and Rain predated the freak-folk craze by the better part of a decade. The work of Timothy Renner, who also runs the Hand/Eye and Some Dark Holler labels, the album combined the

dark-sky headiness of Current 93 with the rustic songwriting of Tom Rapp.

This deluxe reissue edition, packaged in a handsome fold out cardstock case, adds nine bonus cuts, culled from early EPs, live recordings and rerecorded versions cut by later incarnations of the band. In the liner notes Renner speaks of how Stone Breath was conceived as an “acoustic ‘noise’ band,” a more earthly take on the experimental folk he had been previously playing. The instrumentation is appropriately sparse: acoustic guitar figures, banjo and mandolin accented with chimes, sitar, zither and—quite literally—bells and whistles. A number of the tracks are layered with field recordings of birdsong, adding to the woodsy vibe. The songs are thick with innocence, occasionally only sketches.

Listening, one is able to connect the dots as Renner blends his influences of British and American traditions into the mystical, mossy folk which he would perfect on future recordings.

Known to most as the keyboardist for New York legends DNA, Robin Crutchfield’s recent output couldn’t be further removed from the jagged no-wave of his former band.

ForOurFriendsInTheEnchantedOtherworld is a collection of pristine harp recordings. Delicate and gentle, these 15 tracks are mini case studies of the otherworldly. Crutchfield adds droning tanpura, wine glasses, bells, flute and other light instrumentation but leaves the focus on his harp. It’s intriguing music; entirely alien yet oddly comforting—new age meditations without a hint of irony or cliché.

Ethan Covey

Subtle

Yell & Ice Lex 050 CD

Leave it to Subtle to make an album of “remakes” from their last LP (2006's For Hero: For Fool) that actually doesn't sound much like that album at all. The Oakland six-piece features both members of Themselves (one of the indie hip-hop collective Anticon's weirdest acts, and that's saying something) making complexly layered rock, techno and hip hop along with a group of multi-instrumentalists. This record is similar to For Hero in that it doesn't seem to have boundaries— one gets the sense that just about anything could make its way in there, if only as one layer in a thick texture.

That's not the worst problem to have, especially for Subtle, whose

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 99

frontman Doseone never runs out of creative things to do with his voice (though he often settles on a kind of speak-singing that's oddly reminiscent of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony). And since Yell & Ice features collaborations with a number of indie-rock luminaries (including Why?, Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner, and TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe), maybe it was best to give these folks some space rather than worrying much about continuity.

But I can't help wondering what would happen if Subtle tried to do something just as determinedly weird but less maximal and more focused. This is not to suggest that you sleep on Yell & Ice—Doseone's style is as theatrical, dense, and completely original as ever, and there's plenty of inspiration in the wide-ranging collection of tracks that accompany him. Charlie Wilmoth

Sunship Sunship

Sunship Music CD-R

From the ashes of the late Seattle band Stinkhorn rises Sunship, a solid post-fusion outfit that draws directly on some of the top-shelf jazz of the seventies: electric Miles, Ornette's Prime Time, Sonny Sharrock, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Though it seems to be a co-op effort, saxophonist Michael Monhart contributes most of the compositions here, the first of which, “Spotless Pots,” takes cues from dirges like “Alabama” and “Lonely Woman.” Monhart’s tenor and Stuart Dempster's trombone make a lovely sound together, limning this hymn of downtrodden-ness.

“Moonlight” strikes a similar mood with its mournful melody, backed this time with dissonant, droning shades straight out of the Get Up With It playbook.Guitarist Brian Heaney contributes two tunes, “Psalm X,” which would seem to pay homage (in title, anyway) to O.C., but which rolls and roars more like Ornette’s disciple Shannon Jackson and his Decoding Society. Dave Revelli’s drums and Andrew Luthringer’s e-bass weave a richly textured polyrhythmic carpet (awesomely recorded by Doug Haire).

Trickster Dempster lays out, except for the heads and a short squeaky-toy solo, a little off-mic—which may be just as well. Heaney’s other piece, “UFOlogy,” peels back your scalp and prods some burning alien implants into your cranium ... too bad it all ends so soon!

The album closes with another dirge, this one improvised—the tightest of the three improvs on the disc. While it may not transcend it's influences, this Sunship flies high and burns brightly on its maiden voyage. Tom Dill

Tall Firs

Too Old to Die Young Ecstatic Peace! E#41 CD

There is an old adage that a band is only as good as its drummer—and whether one is talking about Max Roach or Billy Ficca, it tends to hold true. Brooklyn’s Tall Firs, for their selftitled debut on Ecstatic Peace last year, employed the talents of drummers Chris Corsano and Ryan Sawyer, but mostly elected to showcase spiraling guitar duets dressed in austere fuzz-folk hazes. On their follow-up, Too Old To Die Young, Sawyer is a full-time 100 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

third member of the Firs, and while the group has retained its folksy looseness and lack of pretense, the resulting energies have been channeled into the work of a fine, stripped-down rock outfit, with an openness that goes beyond what’s expected from by-the-numbers contemporary indierock. This even goes for the likes of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and a host of other bands to which the Firs are often compared. With a pedigree that has included work with Sabir Mateen and other New York underground free jazzmen, it’s no surprise that Sawyer hits free-time passages like a fish to water, keeping a gentle tension between deliberate order and swells of chaos. The waves of fills and crashes in “So Messed Up,” the album opener, finds a swirling cascade of percussion nearly overpowering the earnest foot-tapping of guitarists Aaron Mullen and Dave Mies. The gallops built from simple rim-shots on “Blue in the Dark” catapult the song to whirlwind, a pace not lost on the Steve Shelley-inspired radio nugget “Hairdo.” The trio hits an easy (and almost lovelorn) drift midway through, though “Loveless” nicely approximates the Strat/Jag front line of Television (even if its swagger is more On The Beach). “Hippies,” while embodying the naïve nonsequiturs of Thurston Moore’s lesser lyrical moments, turns San Agustin-like continental drift into a hook-laden folk-rock opus. Though not the closer, it certainly boasts a summation of the Firs’ talents, and what they are capable of. Clifford Allen

Thee Silver Mt. ZIon Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band

13 Blues for Thirteen Moons Constellation CST051 CD / LP

One of the world’s most artfully outspoken post-rock ensembles, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band have unleashed a powerful record with 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, redefining their own unique take on elegiac punk while positioning Efrim Menuck as a hugely important voice in underground music. The ‘blues’ of this Montreal seven-piece are repossessed in a similar manner as those sung by Patti Smith, Diamanda Galás, or Fugazi, where pain-induced rage inspires gorgeously articulated, emotional responses with topical, political resonance. SMZ’s intertwined group vocals and temperamental arrangements have never been so incandescent, with Menuck emerging fully-formed as a pointed abstractionist and compelling singer. Messing with online torrents, the first 12 of 16 tracks are a segmented squall of feedback, leading into a ghostly choir coolly chanting the first real piece’s title, “1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound.”

Thundering drums, gritty guitars, and an insistent string section hint at the bombast of Zeppelin but Menuck’s diatribes against frivolous musical forays (“Your band is bland,” he quips before belittling mp3s, and later adding ‘Silkscreen that ye twits, across thy internet”) are singularly scathing.

The wailing vocals are orders from the dead, crying not for reparations but for empathy. The impassioned title track’s devastatingly heavy opening verse is interrupted by notes rendered in a Neil

Young-circa-Rust Never Sleeps guitar tone. A gentle riff introduces a jazzblues groove underneath Menuck’s vivid, wartime imagery and pleas to “Let it fall down.” Fighting a plastic age, SMZ write 13-odd-minute-long songs like “Black Waters Blowed/ Engine Broke Blues” that are jarring, multi-layered masterpieces and call for revolution (“We want punks in the palace”) on “Blindblindblind” with wondrous conviction. Poetic and vital, when SMZ repeatedly intone “Some hearts are true” to close this record, it’s impossible to doubt them.

Vish Khanna

The Thing with Ken Vandermark Immediate Sound

Smalltown Superjazz STSJ 105 CD

About a decade ago Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson, and their entire audience sat at the bar at the Empty Bottle and watched the Chicago Bulls play a thrilling championship game. If you were ever in Chicago during Michael Jordan’s reign, you know that nothing else went on while they played, so the sparse audience was no surprise. But as soon as the game was over, before anyone had a chance even to turn off their tube and drive to the show, Vandermark, Gustafsson, and the rest of FJF stepped onto the floor and played a set that topped the game we’d just seen. It remains one of the greatest free jazz concerts I’ve ever experienced, but don’t I bring it up just to bask in its memory. These two reed players, one from Chicago and the other from Sweden, are joined by a common compulsion. They have to play, and whatever they've done before, they have to take it up a notch. Here they are, a decade later, playing at the Hideout, the tavern that has supplanted the Bottle as improv’s burgeoning beachhead on Chicago’s rock and roll turf. The two multireedists have continually honed their partnerships with each and the rest of The Thing (Paal Nilssen-Love, drums; Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten, double bass) in the AALY Trio, Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet, Free Fall, and more duos and bands than we need to count. And they’re still taking it up a notch. But what does that mean? Rather than hit a ceiling where flat-out energy becomes a dynamics-bereft blare, these four players have successfully matched their fire and exhilaration with invention and grace. It’s not

news that these guys can play in many tongues—punk and garage rock, modern classical, grey-market electronics, and stomping R&B all inform their collective jazz aesthetic— but marvelous to hear how they make the constant flux of styles and sounds and energy levels feel so right. The take-it-down hush of a bass solo or the graduated white-noise hiss of a cymbal excursion grip as much as a mastodon baritone sax stomp or the ripple of Mats’s freaky gargles contrasting with Ken’s soulful tenor pleas (we don’t see him play much of that horn these days, and his playing here makes that seem a damned shame).

And when they pull it all together the sound is not only immediate, it resonates with connections back down the timeline and away into the future. Bill Meyer

disappointing set. His wordless baritone is strikingly reminiscent of The Drift-era Scott Walker, but let down by the context in which it is embedded.

Only on “Light” (which, due to an error on the back sleeve track-listing, is mistakenly labelled “Shapes”) does the group finally deliver. Like Supersilent without the overt jazz influence, the group work in harmony towards the construction of a nebulous sonic weather system, thankfully eschewing the tyranny of the beat, a rarefied alien atmosphere of transcendent drone, metallic chimes and, from the half-way stage onwards, a chorus of birdsong. At last, a belated taste of timeless divinity. Spencer Grady

Timeless Pulse

Columbus, Ohio’s Times New Viking produced two albums of infectious, lo-fi post-punk for Siltbreeze, a label known for the inventiveness and poor recording quality of its bands.

After hopping islands to Matador, some fans predicted the band would graduate from the 4-track recorder to the 24-track and lose some of their charm in the transition. However, on Rip it Off, the band continues the evolution it began last year on Presents the Paisley Reich, concocting catchy one-to-two-minute paeans to the everyday life of 20-somethings.

If anything, the band has slathered their sound in even more rust and feedback. Each song swims in a basement fidelity that adds an extra coat of noise to the mix by melding hi-hat crashes with a guitar’s ringing fuzz. Their diverse delivery channels virtually every school of post-punk from the dissonant sing-a-longs of Desperate Bicycles (“Rip Allegory”) to Young Marble Giants-like romantics (“Another Day”). The band’s songcraft continues to develop into a fishing box of hooks and guitar lines. Many of the songs clock in around a minute-and-a-half but pack a righteous wallop. “Mean God” welds a guitar line straight out of the Painful-era Yo La Tengo fakebook with an undeniable chorus of “I hope they’re aware/ We don’t care” and a transcendent 20-second keyboard and guitar duet. Rip it Off boils the excess fat for a lean, effective hunk of rock ‘n roll meat, seasoned with a killer hook and piles of scuzz. Why change the recipe when it’s mouthwatering as-is? Steve Kobak

Quintet

Mutable 17527 CD

While recently watching Pauline Oliveros’ performance of her composition for solo accordion, “Mind Matter: A Solo Peace” at London's Serpentine Gallery, I was struck by the great spiritual power that resides at the heart of so much of her music.

As the drones swelled around the listening space, I was gathered up in a quasi-religious reverie, wholly focused on body, mind and the moment.

Oliveros’ group, Timeless Pulse, uses this meditative state as a foundation from which to launch their electroacoustic explorations for accordion, percussion, electronics and voice. But there resides an inherent contradiction within the ensemble’s expansive tapestries of sound, an incongruity spelt out by their chosen moniker.

Just how are we to lose our sense of time when we are shackled to the chronological measure of a pulse? Of course, the group’s cymbal shimmers and tom-tom tumbles never spill over into hardcore four-to-the-floor territory, but the percussive contributions of George Marsh and Jennifer Wilsey are more like the unwelcome intrusion of an alarm clock going off too early on a Sunday morning than additional threads woven into the magic carpet. Yes, the quintet manages to make time stand still, but too frequently in the wrong way.

Their ambition is surely to free us of time, not to strangle us with it. Even Thomas Buckner’s impressive pipes can’t salvage the majority of this

Times New Viking Rip It Off

Matador OLE-760 CD / LP

Tuung

Good Arrows

Thrill Jockey thrill190 CD

London-based folk collective Tunng have diverse inclinations, all of which they embrace and incorporate into an organic whole on Good Arrows, their third album. Indeed, their mix of folk, ethnic, soundtrack, experimental rock forms, psychedelia, and more, is utterly friendly, as if they've invited all their influences to a costume party and no one's exactly as they appear to be, but everyone's having a rollicking good time. There's a giddy sense of surprise, as a voice darts in, or a chorus amasses, or a bit of studio gadgetry brings in an instruments, tosses another out, and then sprinkles some bubbly sounds across the top of it all just because it's right. The singalong quality of the songs create alluring contrasts as semi-inscrutable (or perhaps slowly unfolding) poetics are wedded to melodies that sound as natural and familiar as “Happy Birthday.” David Greenberger

230 Divisadero 230 Divisadero Locust L97 CD

Nick Grey and Matt Shaw, the BritishCanadian duo comprising 230 Divisadero, cultivate an exquisitely gloomy aura that’s quite at odds with the fact that one of them currently resides in Monaco. Come on, dude, Princess Stephanie will surely return your call sooner or later… here, let me help you with that bottle of absinthe. In any case, these guys have got the craft to make their moody soundscapes hold up over the long haul.

Their vocal melodies move at a crawl, but they eventually get somewhere different from where they started, and when the duo shoot for low-note harmonies, they hit a distanced-fromthe-scene vibe that might remind listeners of a certain age of Graeme and Peter Jefferies’ singing with This Kind Of Punishment. But where TKP had to make the best of very modest means, Shaw and Grey luxuriate in the best sound that home computers can yield. Wind blows through the stark piano notes on “Porte-à-faux,” and you feel the chill; hand drums and processed voices seem to talk to each other from different caverns linked by a pathway of slow, snaky keyboards dusted with crumbling guitar sonorities on “Lèri Achrar;” and a complex braid of keyboard

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 101

and mocking harmonica SIGNAL TO NOISE melodies samples keeps “There Is No Such IS AVAILABLE AT Thing As Human” from drowning in MOST PURVEYORS its melancholy. If you’re ready to make that plunge, 230 Divisadero has your OF FINE MUSIC bath ready. Bill Meyer AND PRINT Valet NATION-WIDE! Naked Acid including ...

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102 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Kranky krank116 CD

The shuffling percussive chains and bells that straddle the opening phrases of “We Went There’ summarize so much about the atmosphere of Valet’s Naked Acid—shimmering richness, generous tonal detail but most of all an overwhelming sense of dreamy imagination. Honey Owens, the driving force behind this project, has drawn a deep breath from the progressive, perhaps even conceptual, rock records from the 1970s. With some willing free falls into ambience, she generates a personable, though not always familiar, sound world that expands greatly on her previous effort for Kranky. There’s an apparent disregard for any sense of sonic cohesion and the choice to hustle from one shape of sound to another does give the sessions a rewarding open-ended quality. It’s as though Owens offers multiple points of departure into the core of the record—if you miss the first sound usher, then one of the other pieces is almost sure to collect you and connect you to the disc.

Gentle guitar patterns with swelling waves of phase-like distortion or dirty post-blues moods are washed and groomed by her illusory voice—the measured eruption of raw drums punctuating several of the pieces. Like the surreal cover art, Owens’ songs come like a dream at dawn—the moment of sleep and waking intermingled and unclear, but pleasurable.

Lawrence English

Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend XL 318 CD

Vampire Weekend is a quartet of enthusiastic young lions from New York, horny, funny and fresh out of the Ivy League. They make culturally specific pop music that freely incorporates African and Reggae influences, a little like Paul Simon or The Clash, but smoother, because they grew up with it. They sing about being young and white and the products of a bizarre social system in which sailboat insignias and pastel pants are not uncommon. All of that is going to make some folks very angry; I strongly suggest that if you are one of these people you take a deep breath.

Instead of getting bent out of shape, think broadly about Whit Stillman’s 1990 film Metropolitan; or maybe Belle & Sebastian’s studied prepschool charm; or at least the ability to tell your friends that you really like this new band that “sings mostly about Victorian architecture and punctuation.” The best way to enjoy Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut is to fall for the same girls these boys do: prim, with summer homes and dinner etiquette and names like “Bryn.” It’s not all so formal, though. Yelpy frontman Ezra Koenig’s charmingly colloquial banter pokes plenty of holes in his Nor’Eastern society. On standout

“Oxford Comma” Koenig very improperly says “fuck,” twice, quotes Lil’ Jon and asks a flame why she’d lie to him about “something dumb like that.” “Walcott” urges a burnout friend to leave Cape Cod (“Hyannis Port is a ghetto”). The band is even gauche enough to close the album with an excitable fadeout finale, albeit one concerned with “shiny shiny cufflinks.” Don’t begrudge them their influences, either: they’re as honest as anyone else’s and tenderly executed, with claviers and chirpy violins accenting the mix. Vampire Weekend are as sniveling and dismissive as any group of punks—to Walcott, Koenig spits, “Fuck the women from Wellfleet”— and just as unaware when they cross over to irritation (“One”). The old saying: one man’s Dr. Marten’s are another man’s Docksiders.

Andrew Gaerig

Various Artists

Benefit CD for Olivia Zofia Strama MT6 CD

Few causes are as worthy as those that benefit the most vulnerable among us: infants, animals, the environment. As the majordomo of Baltimore-based MT6 Records, Alex Strama is responsible for releasing some of the finest and most forwardthinking musical morsels of the last few years. He's also responsible for the welfare of his daughter Olivia, who received a heart transplant last fall at the tender age of 7. As everyone knows, costs for basic medical treatment are astronomical, let alone extensive care; the Stramas need a little assistance, and the proceeds from Benefit CD for Olivia Zofia Strama will help defray the expense of the surgery and future medicine.

MT6-affiliated artists have chipped in live tracks and B-sides, and what's more, their motley contributions (rare or live) are co-complimentary, well-shuffled, and offer just enough of a tease to demand, in most cases, further investigation: folk, punk, noise, rock, and uneasy atmospheric excursions cohabitate on Benefit.

A few songs come across as almost painfully topical and frank. “Struggle,” a rough demo courtesy of Pat Grant, encapsulates Olivia's parents' emotions titularly even as his pained, white blues man's vocal underlines a sense of hopeful uncertainty; the Wire Orchestra's downcast, bell-soaked fantasia “Life Goes Down” seems to counsel a grim perseverance.

Chief Pokawa's “Wind”—a catchy indie-rock ditty shot through with swirly, spirally Wurlitzer—could be read as a parental love-letter from a father to a grown-up daughter: “Your eyes light my soul/It's your love that makes me whole/And I will never let you down/As long as I'm around.” For the most part, though, this compilation operates outside of the realm of gestural meaning, unless one wants to view its parts as joyfully fugly celebrations of life: Antics Award Show's creepy, ginzu tonal mixology and monster bass, Bad Liquor Pond's skuzzy Jane's Addiction imitation, A Torture Mechanism's throbbing, linear noise-voltage, Retarted Garfield's Religious Right-baiting demonic electronic fuckery, Dirty Marmaduke

Flute Squad three-chord spew, the sort of beered-up Cali-punk gang chant that's launched a million crappy Maximum Rock'n'Roll newsprint ads.

The best part? By purchasing Benefit, you're helping ensure that Olivia will grow up to see some of these bands live—and maybe even make a racket of her own. Raymond Cummings

Various Artists

Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Nigerian Blues 1970-76 Soundway SNDWCD009 CD x 2

When the devastating Biafran war for independence ended in 1970 there followed a musical resurgence in Nigeria, and this superb compilation brings together twenty-six tracks which document that period of amazing vibrancy and creativity.

The influence of American soul, jazz, funk and even psychedelic rock was widespread at that time throughout West Africa, and many of the selections on this two CD set testify to that. But these influences are always folded into the traditional rhythms and styles of the regional cultures, always “Africanized” if you will. In fact one of the appealing features of the song selection here is that it is not confined to the dominant Yoruba and Ibo languages, but includes songs in the Kalabri, Edo, Ibioio and Kwale languages, which are typically overlooked in surveys of Nigerian music.

Ghanaian highlife was also having a heavy influence in Nigeria at this time, which can be heard on tracks such as “Ayamma” by the Anambra Beats and “Koma Mosi” by The Harbours Band. And then tracks such as “Nekwaha Semi Colon” by The Semi Colon and “Ugali' by The Tony Benson Sextet prove that Fela was far from alone in forging the afrobeat idiom. One especially killer track is “Asiko Mi Mi” by the Nigerian Police Force Band, an afrobeat vamp that percolates with an intense earthforce, while the set of recodings as a whole conveys a definite impression of musical urgency, diversity and strength.

The fact of the matter is that the Afro-pop marketing niche emerged in the West when a small number of recording artists from the continent made their way to international prominence during the 1980s and 90s, but for every Youssou N'Dour or Salif Keita who made it onto the world stage, there have always been dozens and hundreds of regionally popular performers throughout the continent—making great music— who remain entirely unknown and unheard outside their area. This compilation addresses exactly this situation in Nigeria. Aside from traveling to Lagos and poking through old record bins where else are you going to find music by Popular Cropper and His All Beats Band, The Don Isaac Ezekial Combination, Dan Satch and His Atomic 8 Dance Band of Aba, Celestine Ukwu and His Philosophers National. Leo Fadaka and the Heroes, or Bola Johnson and His Easy Life Top Beats? Soundway's Miles Cleret has done some outstanding archival research in assembling this treasure trove of vintage Nigerian music from old LPs and 45s, extensive liner notes and historic photos. Alan Waters

Various Artists

important,. Just embrace the music, you won’t regret it. Spencer Grady

URCK 2021 CD x 2

Various Artists

Post-Asiatic: Lost War Dream Music The term “Post-Asiatic” will get some pundits ready to rehash the same old arguments that have been levelled at the Sun City Girls (whose influence is seismic here) and their Sublime Frequencies imprint concerning cultural appropriation without due respect.

Well, those crushing bores are not only patronizing but they're also missing the point. It’s a view that presumes weakness on the part of the perceived “exploited,” when really it’s the power of their music that pervades. Just one listen to the Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra’s wonderfully dreamlike “Iron Shoes” or Amps For Christ’s raga wig-out on “Happy New Year, Sibanjar” should be enough to convince any non-believers that this compilation is the document of a love affair and not a record of imperialistic rape. Many of the pioneering troupes that contribute here offer a brand new music for a mythological continent, much like Harry Partch went about describing his vision of a new America in a language all of his own devising. They treat the indigenous idioms as a springboard from which to launch their strange hybrids and mutations. So, we get the snake-charm chant of Refrigerator Mothers on “Salic Trip” and the typically dub-heavy middle-eastern polemic of Muslimgauze’s “Zahal End”.

But the pick of this bunch has to be F-Space’s brooding “Shining Light”, an epic tribal juggernaut that gradually unfurls to reveal a Neurosis-like maelstrom beating at its psychedelic heart. Elsewhere there are wonderful homages to the traditional, such as the sublime recording of the Venerable Showers of Beauty Gamelan with the Lewis & Clark Gamelan Players whose meditative chimes on “Kait Gantur Sari” would not seem out of place on a set of Javanese Court music.

This album is rich with such jewels.

Appearing intermittently throughout are excerpts of field recordings taken from the geo-musical mother source.

Listening to a series of public service announcements from India, or the playful anarchy of a Burmese puppet show, helps put the work of the western contingent into context and effectively applies some conceptual glue to the project. But my advice: ignore the concept, it’s really not that

When Rhythm Was King Heartbeat 11661-7830-2 CD

Studio One Dub Vol. 2 Soul Jazz SJR 166 CD / LP

When Rhythm Was King is a compendium of tracks from the iconic Kingston-based Studio One label.

For fans of old-school reggae and rocksteady, Christmastime comes whenever you slap this platter on.

There are a few of the big names, the most soulful singers Jamaica ever produced: Alton Ellis, Sugar Minott, and Bob Andy—the specter of American sweet soul haunts these sides. You also hear some ruder sounds, such as the toasting self-defense lesson from Dillinger, “Natty Kung Fu” and spooky-groovy canyon-echo “Things a Come Up To Bump” by the Bassies.

Mostly though, “King” serves up the melodious, somewhat romantically pleading sound of rocksteady, such as the haunting gem by Basil Daley, “Hold Me Baby,” which reminds this old-schooler of the Delfonics. For collectors, there are four tracks of alternate and previously unavailable versions. But collector or casual fan, if it's the sweeter-but-still-roots-y style of reggae you seek, Rhythm is crucial.

Though Studio One was not a “dub-heavy” label, they did get into the act, with many of the dubs done by label honcho Coxsone Dodd himself under the nom de musique of Dub Specialist. Hailing chiefly from the years 1967-78, the material on Studio One Dub Vol. 2 are B-sides of 45 PRM singles never before on CD. 18 tracks in 55 minutes, it's a buoyant rocksteady groove album with spacey echoes and surprise a cappella bits throughout. It may not be the melt-inyour-mind, synapse-warping dub-wise of King Tubby, Scientist and Lee Perry, but it'll speed along your household tasks nicely. Mark Keresman

Various Artists Victrola Favorites

Dust-to-Digital DTD011 BOOK + CD x 2

While trawling through various fanzines in the '90s, I’d occasionally stumble across mention of the Victrola Favourites cassettes, released on the Climax Golden Twins’ Fire Breathing Turtle imprint. The tapes cherry picked from

Noise Lovin' Ned

the Twins’ (Robert Millis and Jeffrey Taylor) extensive collection of old Victrola records; I remember at least one editor temporarily foxed into believing that the material on the cassettes was played by Climax Golden Twins themselves, in what must have sounded like the most convincing ethnological forgery ever. Now, Lance Ledbetter’s Dustto-Digital has released a compendium of choice cuts from the cassette series in their typically beautiful packaging: a hardback book with over 100 pages of full-color artwork, label details, sleeves and temporally resonant imagery. So gorgeously presented as to be almost ridiculous, the Victrola Favorites anthology plays out as the greatest shortwave radio broadcast you never heard, each selection buried in the hiss and crackle of the Victrola machine, trawled from archives that, while slightly prioritising the USA, also take in plenty of Greek, Portuguese, African and Asian entries. The latter are the set’s most uncommonly bewitching interventions: far beyond any exoticisation/romanticism, performances like Kachikuri Mimasuya’s “Shiokumi Kasatsukashi”, for bamboo xylophone, or He Zemin and Huang Peiying’s shrill, hilarious “Big Idiot Buys a Pig,” land between the cracks, opening up the set to different intonations, arrangements, and playerly approaches. And some of the Middle Eastern contributions sit very comfortably with American blues recordings, reflecting the Byzantium roots of the blues. There’s been a fair amount of teeth-gnashing around appropriation of Third World/Ethnic music and culture by labels like Yaala Yaala and Sublime Frequencies, but Victrola Favorites’s contextualisation of continents is far more provocative, and a real fist in the face of hermetic, tightassed Ethnic Music ‘authorities’ everywhere. Remember that many of these cities were, and remain, cosmopolitan and transitory in nature. The way this disc tells it, the liberating power of recording apparatus, combined with the surprising echoes of form that flit from landmass to landmass, unlock what Millis correctly terms the ‘secret history of these old objects’—animated again.

Jon Dale

Voltress

Antelopes Shortwave 001 LP

The first thing you hear after dropping the needle on this record is an

answering machine message: “I got a message for ya—how bout you kiss my ass?” Maybe it's just me, but I don’t find the sentiment inviting. As the vinyl continues to spin, more and more answering machine messages received by label-proprietor, producer and Voltress keyboardist Eric Hartz threaten to gridlock as they pile atop each side-length jazz jam. Luminaries Roscoe Mitchell, Richard Davis and Bernie Worrell augment the tracks laid down by Voltress regulars Jeff Muendel (organ), Brendan McCarty (Nord lead), Matt Rogers (bass), Fender VI (drums), Beau Sorenson (guitar) and Mark Sinnott (guitar, piano), but as each musician recorded his part, only certain tracks were made audible to him. The results are muddied by all the answering machine messages anyway, which chart an insistently insular psychogeography that detracts from and belittles the contributions of all the musicians who attempted to make music in what was already an unnecessarily convoluted process. The abundance of analog synths—with Worrell’s Mini Moog shining especialy bright—sounds pretty good on “Thirsty Zebras and the Wildebeest,” which fills the second side of the LP, but the steady rhythmic vamp that runs throughout seems to be taken as license to layer whatever, whenever on top. Mitchell’s sax sounds fantastic when it bleats, as does Corey Wilkes’ trumpet gusts.

And the silk-screen packaging on this 180-gram vinyl release (which comes with a CD copy for convenience) is also immaculately produced. But the intrusion of self-involved verbal messages (like “I’m having an existential crisis”) into the music make this release practically unlistenable, regardless of the presence of these jazz and funk legends. Andrew Choate

White Blue Yellow & Clouds Introducing I and Ear 11 CD

I found myself absentmindedly and in a pure state of merriment humming “Hushabye,” the classic and sweet Mystics doo-wop ballad covered by White Blue Yellow & Clouds on more than one occasion after listening to this album. Matt Bauder may be best known for his boundary-pushing in the fields of contemporary jazz and improv, but for this project he stays

by Ffej

SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 103

wonderfully within the form of ‘50s and early ‘60s doo-wop and vocalgroup soul. There are a few scattered covers—notably the Flamingos “Lovers Never Say Goodbye” and Brian Wilson’s “God Only Knows”— but the originals sound just as true to tone as anything on Rhino’s doo-wop box sets. In fact, many of the originals are so perfectly arranged, they'll have you racking your brain trying to figure out where you've heard them before.

Truth be told, “Cheer Up In Your Sleep (Daydream Believer)” is indeed a reinterpretation of the classic Monkees tune, but they push the original into darker street-corner soul keeping only the melody and none of the lyrics. The band hits all the right notes as far as style is concerned, with Fred Thomas’ guitar and Jason Ajemian’s bass being especially evocative of a plush 1950s poodle skirt prom dance.

Bauder pushes his vocals so sincerely into the emotions of each song that they sometimes break, playing wonderfully off the thick harmonies of the other vocalists. Frankly, I don't want to meet the person who doesn’t enjoy this record. Andrew Choate

Tony Wilson Peggy Lee John Bentley

Escondido Dreams Drip Audio DA00206 CD

Tony Wilson 6tet Pearls Before Swine Drip Audio DA00251 CD

Three key members of Vancouver, British Columbia's new music scene form the cooperative trio heard on Escondido Dreams. Guitarist Tony Wilson is an original, visceral stylist and a musical chameleon. Cellist Peggy Lee bridges the chasm between improvisation and composed music, leading her own acclaimed groups, working with guitarist Ron Samworth's Talking Pictures, and with Standing Wave, a new music ensemble that specializes in works by contemporary Canadian composers. Saxophonist Jon Bentley has collaborated with a diverse array of players—including Brad Turner, Oliver Lake, Dave Douglas and Kenny Wheeler—and has two CDs as a leader. As you might expect from the minimal, intimate instrumentation, Escondido Dreams is the more contemplative of these two sessions, but that doesn't mean Wilson keeps his effects and occasional prepared guitar totally under wraps, nor does Lee refrain from her ear-opening extended techniques. Bentley is the lyrical lynchpin here with his gorgeous tone and thoughtful lines. The title track, “Tony's Solo” and the aptly named “Frenetic Warrior” form a fascinating triptych. “Escondido Dreams” is primarily a guitar/cello duo with rich col arco work from Lee, her solo a jumpy, twangy tour de force.

Bassist Russell Sholberg, saxophonist Masa Anzai, trumpeter J.P. Carter, drummer Skye Brooks and violinist Jesse Zubot round out Tony Wilson's own 6tet. The stomping backbeat crunch peppered with guitar distortion of “Ee-Gypt-Me” lets you know right from the git-go that this isn't music for folks who have to file everything in a neat little category.

104 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

“Squirk” has an exotic-sounding theme and breaks loose in some empathic free improv midstream with Zubot's scratchy violin a standout.

“Boo-Dat” is a catchy onomatopoetic tune that features delightfully architectonic drumming from Brooks and multi-textured Carter brass. “Innocent Objections (aka; 12/8 Tune)” begins pensively in rubato before Wilson sets the delicate rhythm and fetching melody in motion. There's much more of interest here, including the infectious groove of “For Fela Kuti/#2,” the hilarious C&W-meetsMonk “Horn'in In” and the lovely post-modern balladry of “J.P.'s Tune.”

Bill Barton

WIre

Read & Burn 03 Pink Flag CD

On their last go-around Wire turned rock to their own ends, used it cruelly, and came up with some of the best pissed-off guitar racket of the decade.

But to do so certain members had to repress a decided distrust of the medium they were using; that tension both fueled the bilious intensity of Send and the first two installments of Read & Burn, and ensured the ultimate closing of that chapter. Read & Burn 03 opens another, albeit one with hyperlinks to past editions of the band. For if the early-aughts Wire posited a digital upgrade of Chairs Missing, this one sounds like the band c. 154 remixing the late 80s version with an ear to bringing back the grit.

Alternately, it could be a dialogue between Colin Newman’s recent guitar-pop adventures with Githead and Graham Lewis’s voice-as-plasticmaterial collaboration with John Duncan. “23 Years Too Late” toggles back and forth between Newman’s crisp, barking guitar pop and Lewis’s ripely enunciated recitation, then shuffles the two in a hurtling, headphones-remunerative coda. On the other three tunes the pendulum seems to swing in Newman’s direction; at any rate, he’s the only singer.

But the rest of the band have their say by abstracting the rock elements into audio sculpture. In place of Send’s coarse, saturated guitar roar, they’ve compressed synths and strings into an audio image as broad and flat as that TV screen your brother-in-law blew his last tax refund on. Robert Grey’s (guess it’s finally time to retire that punk name Gotobed) drums are the only live-sounding instrument in the mix, and they punch out of the sound like power line pylons thrusting up from flat prairie turf. Bill Meyer

Peter Wright

At Last a New Dawn

Students of Decay SoD 36/7 CD x 2

Taiga Remains

Crushed Radian Deities Students of Decay SoD 34 CD

Whether you call it drone, long tone music, pedal porn, or something else, there’s a lot of this stuff around these days. Students of Decay is one of the one-guy-in-a-bedroom labels that has sprung up in the past couple of years to help propagate it. Label head Alex Cobb also records under the name Taiga Remains, whose

Crushed Radiant Deities rounds up some pieces he recorded in 2005-6.

Although their original sound source is an electric guitar, each track spends a long time sounding like something else. The opener issues a bright, bracing blast reminiscent of a concrete saw hitting glacial ice and coming up against metal; the three that follow evoke a choral halo, an unmuffled engine roar, and feedback threaded through the eye of a needle. In each, there’s enough micro-activity buried within the macro-sound to keep you engaged for the track's ten or fifteen minutes.

But if Cobb is a worthy practitioner then Peter Wright, who was born in New Zealand but recently settled in London, displays real mastery on his latest long player At Last A New Dawn. Wright, who has put out about three dozen singles, cdrs, and cds, has honed his skills to the point where it’s the sentiment as much as the sound that overwhelms you. He weaves recordings of birds, crowds, and urban environments into eventful, guitar-generated sound fields whose depth and density persistently keeps some part of the piece just out of focus. The moment when perception finally becomes clear—for example, when you realize that the sirens and newscaster dialogue on “Blue Light District” were recorded the day that bombers attacked the London, an event that must have had special resonance to a guy who had just moved there from halfway around the world—is the moment when each piece grabs your emotions as well as your ears. Bill Meyer

Lester Young Live at Birdland ESP-Disk' 4040 CD

During the last decade of his life, saxophonist Lester Young could blow hot and cold, metaphorically as well as musically. So, it's no surprise that this collection of airshots from 1953 and 1956 originally released on the Italian Philology label should be similarly uneven. When Prez is good, as he is on the opening “Oh, Lady Be Good,” he commands the bandstand (it doesn't hurt that Horace Silver, just months after his recording debut as a leader, is the forceful pianist). The next tune is “A Foggy Day,” and it certainly seemed to be so for Young, who struggles with what sounds like a balky reed. The 1953 session pairs Young with former Savoy Sultan Jesse Drakes, a solid swing-to-bop trumpeter but Silver's rhythmic drive walks away with the session. The two 1956 dates find Young with a pair of forgettable trumpet foils (one of whose names has been lost to time), and a better rhythm section (bassist Gene Ramey and drummer Gus Johnson replace journeymen Franklin Skeete and Lee Abrams respectively, though Bill Triglia, the pianist on Mingus' Tijuana Moods session, is not Silver's equal). Jazz at the Philharmonic was Young's primary gig during the 50s, and despite an occasional tendency to fall back on some crowd-pleasing gestures, he sounds best at bright tempos. On the sometimes-wayward ballads, Young freely paraphrases the melodies as if in his own world.

That makes a certain kind of sense.

The proto-modernist Young's ability to float above the rhythm and circle around the edges of harmonies always gave the impression of a subtle detachment from the music. Maybe in this way, he was a proto-postmodernist, too. John Chacona

Richard Youngs Autumn Response Jagjaguwar JAG 121 CD

A line from the first track here, “I need the light/to go into the darkness,” earmarks one of Richard Youngs’s many skills—spinning songs that are initially friendly and welcoming, but that pull the listener almost impreceptibly into territories that can only be described as dark, so shadowy and mysterious are they. Youngs’ may dive deeply into the pool of the psyche, but his exquisite examination of those depths is warmly human. The light from which Youngs proceeds suits the rich definition that his fellow countryman and poet, Matthew Arnold, gave it: Intellectual power and truth. There’s a deeply felt contemplative core to this music, yet it’s also readily tied to the everyday; on “One Hundred Stranded Horses” he sings, “If I’m out walking in the woods/then I’m not watching TV,” but even in this familiar context, the track churns itself into a fever dream, Youngs’ multi-tracked voice evoking a visceral image of stallions stumbling headlong in staggered motion. There are also echoes of James Joyce: the stacking of vocal harmonies in “Before We Were Here” suggests the infinite play of villagers’ conversations in Finnegan’s Wake; a reference to flowing “back to the source, bringing all things in” recalls the river Liffey in Ulysses. “Low Bay of Sky” is a great example of his incantatory approach to drone in (relatively) conventional song format, while “Tinsel Matrix” slides immediately, effortlessly, into what seems pure emotion, making the heart well up.

Youngs uses strictly acoustic guitar on the disc, and his playing is a thing of beauty, intertwining lovely pausing grace notes and curlicues, like lovers folding into each other. His voice, as key to the pleasures of his music as is his playing, is similarly lovely, ringing with echoes of Scottish and English folk musics. Forthright and endearing in its quietly detailed phrasing—I love, how he repeatedly pronounces “everything” as “everythin’”—it’s a voice I could listen to all day. Larry Nai

CORRECTIONS!

From Simon Fell: “Just a quick note à propos the review of the ZFP CD (page 77, #48): the artist is actually ZFP Quartet, the album name is Ulrichsberg München Musik —just in case anybody was to try and find it after reading the review, they might have trouble with the info as published. This isn’t my band, it’s a joint project set up by Carlos Zingaro & I, and is basically run as a collective. Anyway—just to set the record straight.”

Absent photo credits #49: p.8 Carlos Zingaro by Kurt Gottschalk and all photos from “Half Japanese” by the piece's author David Morris.

SOUNDWATCH

Kurt Gottschalk turns on and tunes in for the season's key DVD releases.

A Joint so big, everyone could smoke it: Heavy Metal Parking Lot If ever there was a music documentary that perfectly captured its subject, or one more deserving of DVD release, it’s the 1986 15-minute video Heavy Metal Parking Lot (Factory 515).

It’s spot on in its anti-journalistic approach—John Heyn and Jeff Krulik pretty much just went to the parking lot outside a Judas Priest concert and asked people if they liked Judas Priest. The documentation of drunken tailgate parties is like a time capsule, and has made the rounds through traded dubs (and later internet message boards) for years. Heyn and Krulik went on to do Neil Diamond, Harry Potter and monster truck parking lot vids (all included here), but none can hold a candle to the original. Among the many bonus features is a reproduction of a 10th generation VHS dub of the original, so you can relive those predigital days.

HMPL spawned many copycat docs, including Black Metal Parking Lot, filmed outside a Cradle of Filth show. But where HMPL relies on stoopidity, BMPL strives to understand its subjects. The filmmakers (Jasmin St. Claire and Bobbi Badden) ask the metalheads if they’re Satanists, and about the misogyny in the music, to often thoughtful response. It’s on the DVD This is Black Metal (Satanica Magica), which includes videos by (and St. Claire's interviews with) Cradle, Celtic Frost, Venom, Morbid Angel and a handful of other mainstream-leaning metal bands.

An even better documentary about metal and fandom is Jim Heneghan’s KISS Loves You (8th Grade Films), which focuses on the rivalries between KISS cover bands. The film rises above its ridiculous subject matter by being measured and even-handed, neither dumbing down nor mocking the bands, and its actually a pretty good piece of filmmaking. It peaks with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley showing up at a KISS conven-

tion to reclaim stolen costumes, disheartening the assembled fans by taking care of business.

A different take on metal comes on Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party: The Heavy Metal Show (Brinkfilm). O’Brien hosted a New York City cable access show that, surprisingly, thankfully, didn’t meet the dumpster years ago. This is the fifth DVD release from the program, which originally ran from 1978 to 1982. It was a remarkable moment in time, a studio filled with the likes of Deborah Harry and Chris Stein, Fred Schneider, Walter Steding, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Fab Five Freddy working with the assumption that no one was watching, smoking joints on camera and taking calls from people who have no idea who they are. Unfortunately, their mocking scorn of metal drags this episode down: the seven-guitar blowout comes off like someone putting Suicide in a bag and using it to beat up the Velvet Underground. But that’s also the beauty of it.

Metal has gained some avant cred since then, in no small part due to the efforts of the aptlynamed guitarist Buckethead, the one-degreeof-separation between Bill Laswell and Axl Rose.

In 1990 and ’91, before his first recordings with Praxis and a solo record on John Zorn’s Avant label, the fretboard whiz was staying in the basement of Guitar Player editor Jas Obrecht, who filmed his band Deli Creeps with an 8mm camera. Five club gigs are collected on Young Buckethead 1 & 2 (Avabella Productions).

The Deli Creeps were an entertaining enough outfit along the lines of the Butthole Surfers and Primus, and included drummer Pinchface, who would show up in later Buckethead bands.

But the real value of the two DVDs is the home movies Obrecht made. The young buck is seen playing acoustic at a backyard barbeque, being interviewed in character in a park and playing

organ in a mock-horror setting in the basement (during which, for what it’s worth, his face is only partially obscured by a clear plastic mask). It’s all quite silly, but his playing and persona are in place at 16, which is fun to see on it own.

Buckethead also shows up, if briefly, in Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth (MVDvisual), a well-deserved documentary on a musician whose quirk outshines his genius. Worrell’s keyboard riffs on Parliament’s “Flashlight” and Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House” alone were enough to set two generations of groove, and this video valentine features interviews with Laswell, David Byrne, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Mos Def, Prince Paul and others. Worrell himself isn’t interviewed (though he is seen playing and interacting with various bandmates) and there’s little by way of biographical information. But it’s a nice look at the man, buttressed by 20 minutes of bonus footage of Worrell in the studio with Will Calhoun (Living Colour) and Warren Haynes (Gov’t Mule).

Another crazy-genius documentary on the shelves is The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story (Zeitmedia), which basically gives a nice housing to a British documentary on the songwriter-turnedacid casualty. The deluxe edition includes the unedited footage of interviews with (and performances of Barrett songs by) Robyn Hitchcock and Graham Coxon, as well as interviews with Barrett’s bandmates, and a little envelope containing reproductions of Pink Floyd concert posters. None of that sells it, but the film itself does a great job in telling the tragic story. It’s surprising, with the care given to the packaging, that no one thought to update the film, or include a second video on Barrett’s 2006 death, but it’s otherwise a nice tribute to a great songwriter.

More repackaging of films about a musician on the fringe are found on Enclosure 8: Harry Partch (Innova 399) the most recent in an impressive series of multimedia Partch releases.

The DVD serves as an excellent introduction to Partch, with footage likely to impress those already familiar with the composer and instrument maker who struggled in obscurity until his death in 1974. A 1958 interview with Partch in his studio and a 1968 half-hour TV show featuring Partch interviewed and playing his inventions with a small ensemble are invaluable. Even better is Rotate the Body in All its Planes, a nine-minute film from 1961, another in-the-studio film but this one choreographed for cinema by Partch. Another film with a Partch score and two less-exciting posthumous performances round out the set.

There may be no band more in need of the DVD age than Negativland. Essentially a multimedia project, they’re audio releases often seem to sell them short. In that respect, Our Favorite Things (Other Cinema) is they’re best release to date. It collects clips (concert footage, TV broadcasts and recycled films) from across their career, including their U2 battles, their attacks on Christianity and Pepsi and their excellent cut-ups of The Sound of Music. It also comes with an audio CD of Negativland tracks interpreted by the a cappella group 180 G’s, a brilliant and perfectlyexecuted idea, meaning the best audio and video projects from the San Franciscan pranksters are now available in one little box. All hail the consumerism they so abhor! ✹ SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 105

CIRCUIT BREAKERS

Darren Bergstein monitors electronic music's vital signs.

Carter Tutti Next time someone within earshot mutters that there's nothing-new-under-the-sun, dangle the new Carter Tutti joint below their nostrils and watch olfactory senses perk up. Throbbing Gristle renegades Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti reinvent themselves so graphically album to album it’s easy to forget they’ve been in the vanguard since the Ford administration. Forget the prototechno/80s synthpop dancehall of yesteryear—a tweaking of protocol buttresses soundscaping of the highest order, sanctioning a marriage to “song” on Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether (Conspiracy International DD045 CD) that stitch arcane folk fripperies, tribal musics and pin-cushion electronica together into one deliciously English tapestry. Hot on the heels of the previous Cabal, Feral Vapours plays like a trip into Aleister Crowley’s fevered occultism, eleven works of oceanic melancholia precipitously modulated by Tutti’s black forest vocals. In times past, as Chris and Cosey, galloping rhythm was the order of the day—years of exploring psychological dreamstates as CTI now find the duo’s stream of consciousness insinuated by weeping pianos, icemelt strings, and a siren’s cry of cornets, Carter linking the spaces between with web-thin rhythmic filaments and electronics that cascade like snowflakes. Techno-gothika par excellence, from here to sublime.

You know those records that are so good they suddenly make you cease all activity other than listening, where you just have to stop and simply admire? His opening gambit for the uniformly excellent Spekk label, Flawed (and if there’s an album title any more unillustrative of its contents, I’ll eat my shorts) finds Israeli producer Yair Etziony patently rescuing microsound from its virtual ghetto, re-endearing the genre to ears jaded by over-caffeinated techno and witless frequency exchange.

That Etziony—who, as Faction, once recorded a 106 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

disc of amiable, warmdesk bionics for the late, lamented Neo Ouija imprint—would doff fashionable obfuscation and release his sophomore effort unimpeded by concerns such as personality speaks volumes about his artistic self-confidence and compositional moxie. Embers spewn by the bonfire that was Mille Plateaux crackle identically throughout Flawed’s short lifespan, Etziony detaching from the 4/4 for melodic sensibilities aching for more, more. The component parts, like worker bees, reconnoiter inside the hive—deepcore bass pulses, existential drift-tones, electrostatic pops, looping brillo-pad shush—“familiar” elements all, yet Etziony’s gifted turns-of-phrase, layering an isolationist appliqué over Basic Channel’s airless dub expanses, paints glitchy abstraction as sensual delight. Oh, and the track “Sivan” is one of the most gorgeous pieces of fuzzware ever. Reel in the evening: an ’07 best-of contender.

The Delaware-based Gears of Sand label has in a scant few years raised the bar for CD-R wanna-be’s, thanks to gorgeously rendered artwork (jeweled art within a jewel box) and the taste of owner Ben Fleury-Steiner, a musician in his own right whose keen ear sports radar sharper than NORAD’s. The two latest GoS releases burn the candle from different ends, but each unveils the kind of elaborate, sumptuously-minted sound design that demands you open your well-worn wallet yet again. On Compass, Con_Sense part the overwrought red seas of laptop nonsense in the yielding of sonic schemes aburst with good sense. Scattering moonshot contrails over grey fields that drone on into the night, the mysterious duo possess a rhythmic tenacity that makes for heady spiralling down their interspatial sinks. Case in point is the lengthy “Sirius”: astronauts in awe viewing swiftly blossoming nebulae, synths a rush of blurred images surging in heavenly resins, until

fluorescent beats eclipse the night sky, bidding travellers’ return. Con_Sense inaugurate a new breed of cosmic courier, dreaming in tangerine yet funkily-flavored—pretty great. Back on earth, newcomer Yui Onodera clearly owes some tuition to the Noble school, and, like other artists on that engaging Japanese label (plus its spiritual aesthetes residing at 12k, Plop, Apestaartje, Headz), works a filigree of means into tightly-wound ornaments of sound. Rhizome examines the residual eddies orbiting about noises glimpsed at nearly subatomic levels, where the crunch of neutrons becomes palpable, where congregations of masticating insects assume intensities of biblical proportions.

Recalling Michael Prime’s fascinating anthropomorphic capturings of plant tissue, Rhizome’s effects (constructed out of hand-picked field recordings, electronic drizzlings, ultra-processed guitar, and piano will o’ the wisp) echo across vast microbial regions to reveal the teeming events unfolding deep within. Hugely engrossing, as it should be.

Russian label Monochrome Vision goes where others fear to tread—out of the teeth of a Soviet permafrost into the experimental fire, thawing out fringe artists looking for warmer embraces.

Hopelessly obscure Swiss outfit Batchas is one such lost soul whirling somewhere. Explorations 85-95 (MV-14 CD) actually features tracks culled from an unreleased album plus additional material reworked and remastered from those intervening years. Undulating through various seasons of machine made voodoo, the 13 works play like the soundtrack to a David Lynch mindfuck. “Amphibians’” monolithic malaise of smeared tones, crunch and ethereal whoop and holler is the very music emitted by steam radiators during coitus; the stormy chaos churned about by “Flash Flood” lies at the very heart of battered-up analogs and rusty synthetics, perfect for those late-night cruisings down the river Styx. Exploratory drones of much unease, like radioactive dust blowing through abandoned military complexes.

Old-timer Al Margolis, better known as If, Bwana (my vote for one of the best aliases in the pantheon), continues to wreak obstreperous havoc on the downtrodden masses. Something of an unheralded icon, emerging from the 80s downtown New York experimental ethos, he remains a fixture on the “scene”, busily ministering his own Pogus Productions label, as well as the Mutable Music and Deep Listening shingles. Radio Slaves (IB-3 CD) is a welcome reissue of a cassette originally released in nano-quantities on a tiny French label, and consists of Margolis enthusiastically warping the parameters of a newly acquired Casio SK-1 sampler. Each track’s impressive architecture is built upon edifices of small loops, embroidered by bits of voices, vinyl exotica and numerous strange textures Margolis snatches from the ether of both radio and wax. Eerie, unsettling and polymorphously perverse, most of the tracks hover on the brink of noise, preacher samples recalling Cabaret Voltaire’s late 70s experiments minus the post-punk angst, except that Margolis is too savvy a composer to cede control to his machines. Carefully orchestrated and devised, through the cacophony bubble sinister ectoplasmic rhythms and coarse atmospheres—folks such as William Basinski were still sucking their thumbs when Margolis was practicing his weird science.

Wholly contemporary and utterly absorbing stuff, get this before it vanishes—again.

YAK (Monochrome Visions MV-13 CD), credited to (and abbreviated from) Y-Ton-G, Asmus Tietchens, and Kouhei Matsunaga, is soundsculpting taken literally, as if the three participants excavated the attendant inchoate mass of shivers, trembles, and haunted house creaks with chisel and spatula directly from pliable base metals. Each artist provided the raw materials, which are then re-worked and/or used as substantive elements to yield the eventual compositions. Those seeking melody need not apply here—these three gents specialize in earspace grit, be it strange, roughhewn frequencies that sound like they were made with dirty synths, or odd scuttling noises that suggest someone in the kitchen left their tea on to overboil. Abyssal-deep at times, punctuated by what might be molested guitar frets, nocturnal trills that seem to bore through the studio’s very walls, the entire affair is alternately arresting, frustrating, and truly out there, even by Tietchens’s standards.

An acquired taste, to be sure, but boring it isn’t.

Robin Storey, aka Rapoon, has always been an industrious fellow, what with another handful of releases spread out over differing labels throughout 2007. His debut on Italian newie Glacial Movements, Time Frost, finds him ever-so-slightly deviating from his aural signature; although his is a catalog that isn’t without its detours (say, Cold War Drum ‘n’ Bass, for instance), Storey’s carved out such an acute niche for himself that he’s practically his own genre. Time Frost (GM 003 CD) is an ode to frozen isolationism, Storey utilizing snatches of Strauss’s Blue Danube as the basis for his demonstrative loops, of which he then twists, corkscrews, and otherwise manipulates into some pretty spellbinding shapes. Place this album right next to Wolfgang Voigt’s various Gas projects of the 90s, and sensorialism becomes an autonomic function.

In general, Storey’s expertise lies in mapping out and navigating a mood; here, it’s lucid dreaming or various psychogeographic states, organizing a series of revolving faux-crescendos that conceal latent power. “Horizon Discrete” makes the bite of wind chill a tangible presence coating the speaker fabric, and the softly cooing droneblitzes of “Thin Light” circulate vividly enough to pierce the darkness, but it’s on the half-hour-plus “Ice Whispers” where Storey’s seemingly “tiny” sounds are writ large: massed chorales of sound that surge, billow, hover, and enshroud the ear in a veritable tour de force of symphonic beauty. A highwater mark in the Rapoon oeuvre, and one of Storey’s best recent recordings.

On Eleven Questions (Unsung UR 003 CD), Markus Reuter and Robert Rich pool their resources, pull their disparate talents together, and come up trumps on all counts. Reuter’s pretty much a master of the touch guitar, which can be played upright and slapped about to achieve both guitar and bass-like effects, much the Chapman Stick. Rich, of course, not only brandishes his patented brand of electronic gadgetry (he’s credited with overall “sound design” here), but also his trusty piano, flutes and lap steel guitar. Nevertheless, the blending of all these noisemakers is seamless; it’s unimportant who does what when the end result justifies the means. Reuter and Rich produce some engaging propulsive environments, bringing to mind Jon Hassell’s Power Spot, Rain Tree Crow, (including some of the early Jansen/ Barbieri experiments), even Steve Tibbetts at times, wrapping the listener in their rubbery gauze before sinking him leagues below the earth’s crust.

Atmospheres range from galactic to groundswelling: “Recall” (all the tracks begin with ‘R’, for reasons only known to the duo), all demonized guitar chatter and gnomic voices amidst numerous pregnant pauses of synth, situates you in one particularly lonely, possibly unfriendly, place. Moments of this album revisit the inebriated undergrowth found on Rich’s grossly underrated Bestiary, and Reuter himself is an excellent foil, wrapping his tense guitar lines (nipping from skronk, silk, and lace, realized in small pieces, tasteful and inventive) around Rich’s somnambulant drones with Frippian/ Crimsonoid menace, an element usually not found

in the kind of fourth-world gestalts empowered here, where their very incongruity becomes a key asset befitting the entire enterprise.

Launching the steveroach.com sub-phylum of his Timeroom Editions mainstay, Mr. Roach presents a couple of promising young whippersnappers as the potential frontrunners on 2008’s new ambient ticket. Roach’s guiding hand and formidable presence (literally and figuratively) is not only fruitful but multiplied on the two sets under consideration here; rubberstamped and mastered for optimal frequency response, one can at the very least trust the headmaster’s instincts— it doesn’t hurt that Roach’s protégés possess a fair modicum of chops, either. Brian Parnham’s previously self-issued Between Here and There was a respectable amalgam of southwest terra incognita and rattlesnake shake: Mantle instead gets down with its badass drone self, hunting for subterranean universes where light bends, ceases, and conjugates its invisible energy into something else. Tracks titles “Liquid Aggregate”, “Strata Peel”, and “Altar of the Underworld” find their metaphorical reflectors in the music, shifting through layers of arid, arcing tones, phased breaths, melting resonances. Parnham plays tricks on your ears, peppering his itinerant soundscapes with subtle yet dramatic effects. Far too much occurs inside the music’s knotty contours for casual dipping to reveal—repeat listening is necessary for adequate saturation. Conversely, Asunder, newcomer Nathan Youngblood’s debut, catapults headfirst into harmonics of darkness, unafraid to see what lies beneath for the taking. Menacing, minimal drones creep along buzzing faultlines, adjunct noises uncurling behind them like a great beast opening its talons. A singleminded relentlessness governs how Youngblood allows the dense surrounding air to elongate and assume perilous form. For the entirety of the first two tracks, the level of tension builds to unimaginable climax, but rather than shatter our preconceptions to the rocks, instead Youngblood tenders “Umbrasphere” with a delicate, if cautionary, finesse, driving two snapping wavelengths against a seemingly indestructible wall of electronics.

Ebony meets ivory in a storm of drones—here’s to anticipating Youngblood’s follow-up.

Sebastian Meissner, aka Klimek, has been a card-carrying member of the Kompakt klubhouse for some time, ekeing out his own measure of “ambient”, reducing it down to its component parts. Dedications (Anticipate 004 CD) takes that process a step further, positing eight especially personalized works of deconstructionist quietude. Naming each track for individuals Meissner reveres/respects, usually more for the dichotomies that result rather than any complimentary attributes the persons share (e.g., Steven Spielberg and Azza El-Hassan, Michael Gira and Vladimir Ivanovich), he proceeds to strip away the veneer from his samples, robbing their tactile characteristics (a single tripped guitar string, for instance) of all substance, wiping the remaining viscera across his aural lens like vaseline. Twilight fogs parse across windless plains; guitar detritus is cast out into brittle landscapes that suck them into their immense magnetic fields. Brashy yet balmy, Meissner’s done something of a three-sixty from records previous, jettisoning the stuff of Eno-esque dreams, tossing “traditional” ambience right into the Kompaktor. Klimek also figures on the label’s annual Pop Ambient 2008 compilation. His contribution, “The Ice Storm”—whimpers of whipped strings and cymbals timestretched across the sampler’s infinite domain—conceivably portends new directions for the series, a digital 21st-century classicism, if you like. This supposition is quickly dashed, however, for as couched in typically minimalist lushness as the compilation is (populated by the usual suspects Markus Guentner, Triola, Ulf Lohmann, Popnoname, The Field, et al), there nags the sensation of ambient-by-the-numbers: gorgeously executed, frustratingly predictable.

Hey fellas, how ‘bout a bit more pop to enliven these circumstances? Heaven forbid those wildflowers sprouting on the CD cover should die on the vine. ✹ SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 107

THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD Jason Bivins digs metal, doom and heavy music in all its permutations.

Electric Wizard Hipsters celebrate Sleep’s mighty Jerusalem as the most essential stoner metal record since Sabbath.

Great as that one is, Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone is better still. Happily, the British band (now a quartet, with only singer/guitarist Jus Osborn left from the original trio) have released their best album since that epic, Witchcult Today (Rise Above CD / LP). Though their shaggy riffs are still unpretentious and insistent, the band now favors a denser, thicker sound. They keep the horror movie samples, but they add to this layers of spooky organ and more melody in the vocals (though Osborn’s anguished howl is still there under the surface). All this enhances the disorienting feel of the record. The demon shuffle of “Duwnich” is great, with waves of noise swirling around the doomy riff. And while sometimes the band just pummels away (for pure riff-tastic heaviness it’s hard to beat “Torquemada 71”), the best tracks are those which—like “Black Magic Rituals & Perversions”— tread deep in the cathedral of doom or which—like the closing “Saturnine”—are embraces of the void (“tomorrow’ll soon be here, time to die”).

It might be reductive to refer to Philly’s Rosetta as just another Neurosis/Isis knockoff, but it wouldn’t be wholly off the mark. However, with Wake/Lift (Translation Loss TL23-2 CD) they certainly take a few cues from Mono and Mogwai in fusing elephantine riffs with expansive cosmic filigree. It’s actually a pretty damn fun combination, and the three-part “Lift” works compellingly, with Mike Armine’s vocal bark sounding like the heart of a spacey machine. One of the more genre-straddling releases of this batch, Rosetta plays trippy, groove-heavy music with emotional undercurrents. This is probably the one for readers who aren’t sure they “like metal.”

Time of Orchids are a New York quartet playing the kind of dizzyingly multi-referential music— everything from Popul Vuh and early Crimson to Swans and Shudder to Think—heard in groups like 108 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

Mare and Kayo Dot. I appreciated their Tzadik debut more than I enjoyed it, but their sophomore release Namesake Caution (Cuneiform Rune 257 CD) is a dilly. These aren’t so much tunes as long, dreamlike processionals, with keyboard and guitar textures wrapped around the twin vocals that sit at this music’s center. It’s harmonically and rhythmically quirky too, resistant to settle into anything but still demanding attention. “Darling Abandon” ought to be a pop hit in some alternate universe (“In time your weapon grows for you”). Sometimes their kaleidoscopic neopsych recalls the Olivia Tremor Control. Amidst the staggered sound and dense polyphony there flash occasional fragments of dreamy pop, and the closing “Entertainment Woes” is a gorgeous melodic fever.

France’s Blut Aus Nord have been crafting postindustrial, post-Godflesh metal (they’ve been called “the black metal Big Black”) for some time now.

And with Odinist—The Destruction of Reason by Illumination (Candelight 179 CD) they’ve perfected their sound. Drum machine blast beats, cavernous guitars, and hissing vocals, all with a slightly crazed, opiate sound. Things don’t vary too much, and the 38-minute disc has some real force to it, relentless and insistent. The dark melodies of “A Few Shreds of Thoughts” will please Opeth fans.

Agua de Annique’s Air (The End TE-090-2 CD) is the solo debut of the Dutch siren best known from The Gathering. Poised midway between the downtempo introspection of Chris Cornell solo records and recent Jarboe, with a beautiful melancholy shot through the subtle music, this is for fans of The Gathering and bands like Battle of Mice (whose superb record on Neurot should be heard). Some of it sounds a bit throwaway (“Day After Yesterday”), but the urgency of tunes like “Witnesses” (combining the singer’s gift for lyricism, intense heaviness, and sonic detail) is winning.

Sculptured’s Embodiment (The End TE-087

CD) is a quirky genre-hopper that seems to bear a distant debt to symphonic black metal—in the demonic growls and keyboard swells—but also has a jittery, post-rock feel and a sense of introversion that cuts against the long, episodic compositions.

It’s a confounding record, filled with data but without any moments that stand out. At times the organ and multi-tracked vocals seem barely to conceal a love of Boston and Queen, while elsewhere the band erupts with mutant circus-core that wouldn’t be out of place on a Mr. Bungle record.

Sol is the (mostly) solo project of misanthrope Emil Brake, and Let There Be a Massacre (Ván 10 CD) consists of plodding, dense drones/riffs entitled, e.g., “Centuries of Human Filth” or “Where Angels Rot.” Heavy, claustrophobic production, choked howling, and long wafts of sustain and feedback. There are some change-ups: at times the sound nods to early music, or (on “Boginhi”) to military marches with accordion. The music rides on the same progressions and intervals throughout, making it a bit more monotonous than other albums of this ilk.

Of great interest to fans of Mogwai, Godspeed, and Explosions in the Sky will be Long Distance Calling’s Satellite Bay (Viva Hate VIVA 009 CD / LP).

Dreamy, druggy, and expansive, this is a fetching suite that comes across like a more metallic Mono or a shoegaze-influenced black metal record. It’s heavy on rippling arpeggios, muttered lyrics that sound like lonely radio captures, and long-developing dynamics that culminate in chugging heaviness.

Tusk's latest is The Resisting Dreamer (Tortuga TTG 035), where the long-standing ensemble (comprised of most of Pelican: guitarist Trevor de Brauw, bassist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, and drummer Larry Herweg) are joined by two exceptional vocalists, former Breather Resist guitarist Evan Patterson and Kayo Dot’s wunderkind Toby Driver. Somehow the recent textural breadth and experimentalism of Pelican works better here (in a group that started out doing grind and doom) than in the home unit. Highlights include “The Everlasting Taste of Disguise,” which flashes with the misanthropy of Jesus Lizard even as it leans outward to psychedelia; the slow, elastic, power drone/riffing on “Cold Twisted Aisle”; and the intense noise and feedback flames on the long “The Lewdness and Frenzy of Surrender.” Throughout, there’s lots of elastic time, washes of sound, and quirky structures. A definite winner.

Japan’s metal polymaths Sigh are back with Hangman’s Hymn: Musikalische Exequien (The End TE-084 CD). Unlike some of the neck-breaking genre hops of previous records, this one is squarely in the symphonic black metal vein. With tolling bells, maniacal vocals, orchestral keyboards, and knives-out riffing, it’s a fantastic example of the genre, poised midway between Conspiracy-era King Diamond and recent Dimmu Borgir, between carny music and faux medieval choral music. Overblown, technically fierce, and highly theatrical, Sigh is a distinct pleasure.

That a pop-loving record like Pet Genius’ eponymous record should be issued on Hydra Head (HH666-138 CD) is no surprise. It’s not just that Hydra Head is unusually eclectic in the general idiom of Heavy, but that this is the pet project of Cave In songsmith/vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky (joined here by former Cave In drummer J.R. Connors and Octave Museum bassist Johnny Northrup). One part psychedelic pop, one part Cave In’s Tides of Tomorrow, and a lot of raunchy guitar and power riffs.

The garage swagger of “Doomsday” works better than the winsome “The Visiting Dynamiter.” While it’s far from a perfect release, Brodsky’s got a strong arranger’s touch, and the well-crafted, misanthropic “Walls of Etiquette” is winning.

Wildildlife’s Six (Crucial Blast CBR 64 CD) is a fun amalgam of ‘70s sparkle-fuzz (think Blue Cheer and Hawkwind), stoner metal revivalism, and the shimmering psychedelia of Ghost by way of Skullflower.

Pounding rhythms, weird mewling vocals from the bottom of the sea, and some honest to God hooks.

The long pieces are mostly crushing but with just enough dynamics and textural asides to please. Robot insects chirp as they drift into space on amplifier hum. The Sonic Youth of Bad Moon Rising spars with Neurosis on “Whooping Church.” And the album rides out on a long, trippy vapor trail.

Richmond’s Souvenir’s Young America work a relatively similar territory, but on An Ocean Without Water (Crucial Blast CBR 61 CD) they play with an expansiveness less indebted to 70s sources and more reminiscent of Isis. Very dynamic, the music breathes a lot. And they use vibes, organ, and other instruments (like keening slide guitar) very effectively, giving this record range and scope beyond its pummeling kin. The groove-based closing tracks aren’t quite as effective, but this is good stuff overall.

Guitarist M. Gallagher from Isis delivers an ominous, brooding, instrumental solo in Wavering on the Cresting Heft (Conspiracy core056 CD). Slow and textural, he favors gentle repeating loops as the music dissolves pleasantly. Sonic ripples lead to long rolling feedback chords, giving birth to arpeggios that have a Floyd-like melancholy (shrouded in feedback and electronic frippery). A limited palette, perhaps, but an affecting one.

San Francisco’s Grayceon (Jackie Perez Gratz on cello and vocals, Max Doyle on guiar and vocals, and Zack Farwell on drums) dive into a similar melancholy on their self-titled debut (Vendlus Vend 021 CD).

Some of the woody somber tones recall not only Gratz’ other band, Amber Asylum, but PNW black metal vets Agalloch. It’s a fresh sound, with a heavily improvisational approach that doesn’t compromise heaviness or intensity (the elastic time of “Sounds Like Thunder” is very effective). Check out the quasiBalkan metal of “Song for You” and the insistent chromaticism on “Into the Deep.”

Southern Lord have served up a mighty important reissue, Crippled Lucifer (SUNN002 CD x 2 / LP), two discs featuring the collected recordings of influential doom band Burning Witch (originally issued in 1998 by the then-fledgling label). With one foot in a past populated by Trouble, Obsessed, and Pentagram, and one stomping into a future where bands like YOB and Graves at Sea carried the torch, Burning Witch sound more of our time than the mid-1990s when most of this was recorded. Their deliberate, plodding, down-tuned, and heavy songs, with Edgy59’s tortured howls (Khanate, anyone?) and Stephen O’Malley’s pared-down riffs (a nod to Eyehategod) overflow with nasty attitude. Like few bands in this idiom, Burning Witch is actually frightening.

Another important reissue is Hydrahead’s packaging of one-man black metal act Xasthur’s A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors (HYH-150-2) and an extra disc of promo material called A Darkened Winter. As ever, it is seriously misanthropic, combining lo-fi recording, claustrophobic basement dynamics, grinding Burzum-like guitars, and Euro black metal synth flourishes. Big sheets of sound give this music density, but the singularity of focus gets wearying.

Particularly enjoyable is Crucial Blast’s re-release of Skullflower’s IIIrd Gatekeeper, (CBR 63 CD) a lovely stomp of a record midway between Swans and Earth. The brainchild of guitarist Matthew Bower, this is noisy, nasty stuff. No mere super-drones here, this is varied stuff both sonically and rhythmically, and a pretty essential release for anyone interested in the intersection of heavy metal, noise, and psychedelia.

Spain’s Orthodox play a spare, moody, multi-instrumental type of heaviness on Amanecer en Puerta Oscura (Southern Lord SUNN84 CD). Melancholy guitar and clarinets suggest a Kayo Dot and Grails influence, and it begins with promise. While there’s lots of space and dynamics, the instrumental passages aren’t convincing. The riffs aren’t top notch, and the improv sections are fumbling. A noble failure. ✹ SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 109

REISSUE REDUX

Bill Meyer surveys the season's key reissues.

Bill Smith

Taking a Chance on Chances: John Cage

“In the future, the weather will always be the same.” With one line from “In the Future,” David Byrne blew his chance to be the next Nostradamus. But The Knee Plays (Nonesuch 303228 CD), the album from whence it came remains one of the odder and more rewarding one-off entries in his diverse and decidedly patchy discography. An artifact of Byrne’s collaboration with Robert Wilson on a massive, never completely staged theater piece (only the part that Byrne worked on was ever staged), the soundtrack LP was originally released

by ECM in 1985. Then and now, its combination of deadpan recitations and brass band music inspired (but not performed) by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band is the sort of head-scratcher that could give postmodernism a good name. But what keeps me coming back are Byrne’s robust melodies and the purity of the brass band’s sound, especially on the gorgeous, minimalist-inspired “Winter.” This reissue comes packed with extras, including demos, some Kabuki-inspired, Residents-like first drafts that featured percussion instead of brass, new artwork that finally has something to do with the music, and a DVD slideshow of the play set to music.

NYC-based Fluxus artist Yoshi Wada was even less inclined to confine himself to one sphere of activity than Byrne, so his discography is pretty slender—just two LPs, both from the early 80s. Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile (Em 1074 CD), the first one, originally came out on India Navigation, a mostly jazz-oriented label that really ought to be the subject of a comprehensive revival. But if you can only get one piece, this is a pretty swell one to have, and Em have done their typical bang-up job with great liner notes and art, not to mention digging up the original tapes and restoring pieces that were cut to fit on LP sides to their original half-hour length. Wada was less a musician than a sound artist. On the first track he used 110 | SIGNAL to NOISE #49

his voice to test the sonic properties of a drained swimming pool that he’d first lived in for 24 hours — the better to get to know it, don’t you know?

The singing done, he did the same thing with a wall of sound generated by set of a homemade, air compressor-driven bagpipes. If you take your drones seriously, you seriously need to hear this.

Now if only Em could reissue Wada’s second LP on FMP, and the rest of the India Navigation catalog, the world would be a better place.

John Cage may be more aggressively documented than Wada, but he still has plenty of music that hasn’t made the jump from vinyl to CD. The Complete John Cage Edition: Atlas cllipticalis with Winter Music (Mode 3/6 CD x 4) was originally a four-LP set released in 1986 that contrasted two different realizations of the two pieces, each conducted by Cage. Since enough is never enough, Mode has added a third, digitally recorded performance of each piece from 1988. The newest version of “Winter Music” is performed by 20 pianos instead of three. The substantial, attractively laid-out booklet gives “Atlas Eclipticalis’” checkered history (Cage once protested a performance of it

by Leonard Bernstein because Lenny characterized its chance elements as improvisation), which in turn offers one a chance to ponder Cage’s complicated relationship to human will.

Karlheinz Stockhausen may have departed, but the work of his students lives on. Two of them co-founded Can, the best little old space-garagerock-improv-disco-musique concrete-ethnographic forgery band to come out of Germany. If you don’t know about Can’s looming influence on the semi-popular musical landscape, there are books that can help, but Anthology (Mute 69374 CD) is a swell place to start. Originally compiled in 1993 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Can’s formation, it survey’s their career from start to finish and is now

the final release in the band’s campaign to properly remaster their entire catalog. If you happen to have original versions of the CDs and thin wallet, you might not want to hear Anthology. I know I’m bummed at how many records I feel obliged to re-purchase, but also excited to hear the increased brilliance, presence, and clarity on display here applied to the rest of Can’s oeuvre. Or to paraphrase Malcolm Mooney, their original singer — third time around, They Doo Right.

Last issue I paid profuse tribute to the Young Marble Giants. YMG architect Stuart Moxham’s next project The Gist has never rated quite as highly because, you know, lightning rarely strikes twice; honestly he’s not as great a singer as Alison Statton, although his modest croon certainly has it’s own appeal. Still, the reissue of their sole long-playing release Embrace The Herd (Cherry Red 339 CD), which originally came out in 1983, is well worth seeking out. It is at once more overtly quirky and closer to pop than the Giants. Having already done austerity, Moxham used keyboards that were then cutting edge but now sound vintage to layer and brighten the sound of his jaunty, Eno-like instrumentals and swooning, slice-of-everyday-life pop songs a bit. Cherry Red has bulked the original album up with four b-sides outtakes, and demos, and printed Moxham’s remembrances in the booklet.

Like the Young Marble Giants, Pylon has enjoyed the dubious status of being an enormous but uncompensated influence on countless other bands. Anyone who paid attention to REM when they first came out should recall the praises that Athens, GA’s mayors-for-life sang regarding their town-mates. But Pylon’s ultra-simple, nothing-extrabut-everything-essential dance pop was at once totally direct and utterly abstract, and perhaps too elemental to connect on a mass level. But they still have lessons to teach, especially on their earliest, purest material. You can find it all in one place on Gyrate Plus (DFA 2181 CD), adds their first two singles to their first album Gyrate. One of those extras is the monumental “Dub,” whose pounding drum pattern and can-opening guitar shards are still unstoppable 28 years after they were recorded.

Speaking of dub, the well of reissues has not run dry, and I can’t seem to stop myself from buying the stuff. Nuh Skin Up (Pressure Sounds PS53 CD) dubs Keith Hudson’s From One Extreme To Another LP in a moody style; it’s stripped down and not too heavily treated, but as is often the case with Hudson, darkness seems to seep from the same unseen fissures that sucked out the other sounds.

The Soul Syndicate’s backing is supple in the valleys, hard at the peaks; it boggles the mind to realize that the reggae market was already starting to view stuff like this as old hat in the face of early dancehall. Pressure Sounds does its usual solid job on the presentation; the record sounds clear and heavy and a simple but appealing artwork and some atmosphere-setting liner notes. The CD has a bonus track that isn’t on the LP, but if you’re a vinyl partisan, you’re not missing out on much – while pleasant, it’s a good deal goofier and glossier than anything on the original album, and doesn’t really fit the prevailing mood.

The Deep City Label is one of the best entries in the Numero Group’s Eccentric Soul series, so it makes sense that they’d fashion a follow-up. The Outskirts of Deep City digs up twenty more cuts of

late 60s Miami soul culled from 45s by the likes of Betty Wright, Helene Smith, and the magnificently named Nasty Dog Catchers. Overall this collection isn’t as strong as its predecessor—what sequel is?

Even the best material has a derivative quality, as though it had been made by someone who had scanned the dial to try and figure out how all those people on the radio made their hits. That said, Wright’s “Mr. Lucky,” with its in-your-face gunfire intro and monster movie organ riding a shamelessly stolen Sam and Dave groove, is a must-hear. Heading further north, The Dells’ Sing Dionne Warwick’s Greatest Hits (Dusty Groove 469083 CD) shows the Chicago vocal group focusing on the work of one songwriter, and his name wasn’t Dionne. The quintet dig into Burt Bacharach’s melodies like a church group digging into the basement buffet after three hours of sermonizing with no breakfast first; unfortunately their enthusiasm plays up the melodrama where Ms. Warwick underplayed it.

But if high-calorie early 70s soul is your thing, this’ll definitely fill your plate.

Shout Records has dug up two Vee Jay releases

by Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker that were ur-documents in British blues circles during the preInvasion days. Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall was, in title, a scam, being neither a live record nor even really recorded at Carnegie Hall. But that doesn’t really matter, since it stands as a very substantial collection of Reed’s sparse, low-velocity, well lubricated, and (at the time) immensely popular music.

All the Brits sped his tunes up when they covered them, but you can argue that they all missed the point; this is music for leaning back, not pepping up. I’m John Lee Hooker, which was recorded in 1959, is split between steaming outpourings of unalloyed libido that are backed by Reed’s band, who sound liberated by the chance to pick up the pace, and more primal solo numbers on which Hooker’s only back-up is his guitar and his foot stomping time on a piece of wood. Neither record suffers from revisionist mastering; either will illuminate its creator’s virtues if you’ve never heard them.

Would you really expect Sun Ra’s version of the blues to follow a conventional orbit? Of course not. Some Blues But Not The Kind Thats Blue (Atavistic UMS 265 CD). Aside from the marvelously murky title track, he sticks to the piano and plays jazz standards on this 1977 recording with a smaller than usual band. Akh Tal Ebah’s trumpet adds pungent spice to a version of “Black Magic,” and it’s a real treat to hear what John Gilmore take “My Favorite Things” in a direction at once more wayward and gentle than Coltrane did. All is not mellow; Ra subtly derails things with unpredictable shifts between stride and rumba on that same track, and the way the flute players assail the boundaries of prescribed tonality on several others in ways that seems much more dramatic and confrontational on standards than it would in the midst of a full-on freak-out. With swanky packaging and three previously unheard bonus tracks taken from other 70s small-group sessions, the set lives up to Atavistic’s usual high productions standards. But even better is Disco 3000 (Art Yard AYCD01 CD), a double-disc recreation of an early 1978 concert in Milan, Italy

by Ra and just four other musicians. If you ever wanted to hear him stretch out, here’s the place, and it’s all the more remarkable because he devotes most of his exploration to testing the limits of a Crumar Mainman synth. Ra drops the instrument’s programmed rhythms into the midst of swirling improvisations, and elsewhere drops dirty noise bombs that scatter Luqman Ali’s frantic drumming like a giant playing soccer in Liliput. The sound is clear and detailed, especially for Ra, and the original LP has been expanded to two CDs that include the entire concert. If you’re ever inclined to travel the space ways, you need this one.

But if you’re just looking for some blues, the kind that are deep blue and wild at heart, seek out Baby Face Willette’s Face To Face (Blue Note). This 1961 session was released as a limited Connoisseur Series CD ten years ago, but it didn’t stay in print long, and even a casual listen shows why. This Rudy Van Gelder Edition sounds a bit brighter and bigger, but not offensively so, and the new notes shed a smidgen of extra light on the organist’s shadowy biography. Willette and his band are simply spectacular; tenor saxophonist Fred Jackson peppers his solos with crowd-pleasing effects, Grant Green plays with more fire than usual, and Ben Dixon keeps things brisk. But it’s the leader’s aggressive blend of Saturday night and Sunday morning sounds on the B-3 that make this a marvel. Also fresh off the RVG assembly line is Takin’ Off, Herbie Hancock’s Blue Note debut. It shows how pop-attuned his ear was even then by opening with “Watermelon Man,” which Mongo Santamaria had already made into a hit, and following it up with five more catchy tunes.

But any session with the young Freddie Hubbard and the mature Dexter Gordon promises some sweet soloing, and this one more than delivers. Two Lee Morgan titles offer glimpses of the trumpeter from vantage points situated ten years apart. The ghosts of Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown exert as much pull over Indeed, which was recorded in 1956, as the rather intimidating sidemen. The kid recorded his debut with Horace Silver and Philly Joe Jones—you can tell he was already being groomed for stardom, and Morgan’s fluent solos show why.

1966’s Delightfulee is a decidedly bipolar affair. It is split between a quintet date with Joe Henderson on tenor and McCoy Tyner on piano that uses early 60s Coltrane as a touchstone for some performances that are pleasingly light on their feet and an Oliver Nelson-led orchestral session that includes a cover of the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Even at the time, the Nelson session must have seemed like a limited success; you can hear for yourself now that the half an hour of material that wasn’t used at the time has been appended to this record. When Morgan and Wayne Shorter trade solos, it’s swell; certainly Morgan has acquired gravitas and lost none of his fluency. But the rest of the band sounds a bit too bulky.

Speaking of serious mood swings, what do you say when a record trumpets the presence of members of both Bread and the Electric Prunes, and turns out to sound like late British invasion pop?

I suspect that no one said anything at the time, because the self-titled debut by Richard Twice has

taken 38 years to make it to CD. Led by two singersongwriters named Dick, the group acquired some cachet for being totally commercial, and yet a total flop. They probably didn’t deserve to bomb, but in the vernacular of their milieu, it’s nice, but I don’t hear the hits. Still, if you’re the sort who would rather listen to the Hollies’ deep catalog than “Bus Stop,” here’s your chance to get deep.

Depth probably wasn’t Lynn Blessing’s objective when he made Sunset Painter (Fallout FO2075 CD) the previous year. More likely the vibraphonist was just trying to figure out how to survive in a market that was no longer being particularly kind to people like Martin Denny. The solution? Make a record of country-tinged, vibes-led pop instrumentals, throw in a few hits, and see it’ll stick. It’s not weird enough to attain “incredibly strange music” status, not slight enough to be a throwaway, not really bad at all. But do you think you’ll ever want to hear “Pinball Wizard” with twangy guitars, vibes, and a rather mildmannered free-form break in the middle? If you do, be aware that Fallout does the music no dishonor, but you’ll need a magnifying glass to make out the back cover’s crammed, LP-era details.

If you like unearthing the past on a budget, check out the Collector’s Choice label’s deep catalog and low prices.. I just wish they’d stop putting their logo on the front cover of every CD they release; have some respect for the original art, please! But every record comes with erudite, context-setting notes, often by former Option editor and celebrated author Richie Unterberger, and the presentation isn’t totally bare bones. The 5th Dimension’s records come paired two LPs per CD, which isn’t always my favorite way to present an album, but in the case of this singles-oriented band means that you get at least two breezy hits per disc.

The Young Rascals’ self-titled debut, Groovin’, and Collections all come with complete mono and stereo versions. Collector’s Choice has also put out their later records on Atlantic when they were simply known as The Rascals. These document their efforts to get more ambitious, utopian, and meaningful, man, as the hits ended. Two forgotten gems well worth exhuming are Badfinger’s post-Apple LPs Badfinger and Wish You Were Here. The former shows startling range, from the McCartney-esque ballads and punchy, heart-baring pop they’d already taken to the top 40 to heavier rock fare; the less said about the R&B pastiche “Matted Spam,” though, the better. The latter is astonishingly good, with ambitious production and memorable tunes. I bet Kelley Stoltz has worn out the grooves on a copy of this record; now you can use it to wear out your laser. Ed Sanders’ post-Fugs LPs on Reprise are for more specialized tastes. How many people in 1971 were ready for an anti-Nixon, pro-sex and drugs country and western record?

Not enough to save Sanders’ Truckstop from the cutout bins, although it oozes woozy charm now. Its successor Beer Cans On The Moon fares less well on account of much slicker production and weaker writing. Maybe Sanders was saving it up for his Manson chronicle The Family, which was completed between the two albums and redirected him to a career in letters for many years. ✹

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BASEMENT VALKYRIES

David Cotner scopes out 7” records, 3” CDs, cassettes and other odds and ends.

Growing Given the past lives and résumé of power electronics musician Jonathan Canady (Deathpile, Torture Chamber, Blunt Force Trauma), it’s always an amusing experience to see his newer records bedecked in white sleeves holding white vinyl with pure white labels. His Angel of Decay Radio Brain Damage 7" (Bloodlust! B!055) boasts just three instruments: Moog Prodigy, microphone and Ensoniq DP2. Side A comes off like a cross between an interpretation of the cover painting of King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King LP and the imagined anguished wail of Luigi or Mario as they fall headlong into the GAME OVER abyss. Side B is a more metallically soothing level of washes and howls. This is by no means a bad thing. Get it if only because you have so few deceptively clean-looking records in your collection—because it’s very clean.

Slightly more complex is O Du Fröhliche the latest 7" on Meeuw Muzak (mm034) by Ditterich von Euler-Donnersperg. Ditterich, otherwise known by his secret identity Uli Rehberg, has for the past 25 years operated the Walter-Ulbricht-Schallfolien label, the conduit through which so many learned about SPK, Laibach and Werkbund in the halcyon pre-Internet days for which we are so tearfully and understandably nostalgic. O Du Fröhliche is part of Meeuw’s annual Christmas release schedule; the vinyl comes as plain black, unlike previous Meeuws that competed with Drone Records to expose your eyes to some of the most beautiful colors ever committed to lathe. The record itself is a bit skippy, so here we review the record at 16 RPM, as there is no indicator on the packaging proper as to the speed at which it is to be played. Imagine slowly sinking in a quicksand made completely of downers until the liquid fills your ears with a final drone and you’ve more or less heard what’s on the record in the theater of the mind.

That it’s of the Christmas season is ultimately immaterial; besides, that spirit is supposed to be year-round and so, too is this record for listening to at any time.

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A magical experience to say the least—but more so when one takes it, changes it a bit and makes it one’s own.

Moving right along: the Growing Disconfirm 7" (TSR058) on the peripatetically priapic Social Registry label shows Joe Denardo and Kevin Doria trafficking in gently warbling, shaking loops of sound accompanied by the cosmic whirr of comets trailing alongside. “Horizon Drift” is a lightly damaged approximation of the heartbeat of Woolly Willy after a jog around the block a few times. It’s over entirely too quickly—and in case you were trying to divine a quotable positive passage from all this journalistic white noise—that was the one. No, the second part.

The Metabolismus Snowy Meadows 7” (TSR052A) presents a tentet of musicians, mostly German, playing an actual pop single in which piano, jawharp and tambourine configure nicely and the effect is not unlike an interstitial scene in a Wes Anderson film.

Oh, and horns! Deeply, deeply pleasant and well worth your dollars but not your connectivity speed.

Metabolismus gotta eat, too, you know. “Somnia”, the flipside, is a sweetly cooing singsong passage in which Metabolismus loses no amount of import because there are no words – it’s like lying in bed with your lover at 5 a.m. before she has to go to work and your eyes are open and hers are just opening and she sees you and thinks she’s still dreaming.

Some introductory words from MediaRights about free103point9: “free103point9 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media arts organization focused on establishing and cultivating the genre Transmission Arts by promoting artists who explore ideas around transmission as a medium for creative expression. These investigations include practices in AM and FM radio, Citizen’s Band, walkie-talkie, generative sound, and other broad and microcasting technologies utilizing the transmission spectrum.” So there. The Radio Ruido False Rosetta double 7” (free103point9: Audio Dispatch 032) is propulsed mainly by Tom Mulligan on field

recordings, radio and words, which are in turn spoken by Marie Losier, Kee Koo, Lene Berg, Magda Trebert, Jean-Babtise Cardon, Alex Mendizabal, Tali Hinkis (of Brooklyn multimedia duo LoVid) and Reto Pulfer. The labels are all done up in Morse code. It’s a bit like those EVP records except the voices are alive (and shall forevermore remain living because of this release). There’s static aplenty as the metal drags itself through dead fields of languages unlearned and misunderstood. It’s an intensely lonely and lost series of recordings that seem more and more cavernously remote with each loop of the grooves; slow processions that lead into the eternity of space where all radio waves ultimately go.

Latitude/Longitude’s Solar Filters 7” (free103point9: Audio Dispatch 031) shimmers along like a Popol Vuh outtake from the “Aguirre” era with vocals from Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” era and the effect is not altogether unpleasant. It, too, has an unmistakable air of remoteness that perhaps lives as a paean to the spectral, sepulchral static of late-night radio, through which any idea or spirit might issue forth into the real world. In this way, the vinyl becomes an extension— with every pit and each crackle—of the radio station and in this way it succeeds in becoming itself. It’s a transcendent state of being and is much a worthwhile listen as the sound of blood rushing into your ears when you’re alone and you don’t have to look proud.

Conversely, Tom Recchion’s The Incandescent Gramophone 78 (Poo-Bah Records 78-001 LP) is the very soul of pride when it comes to presenting something emblematic of the apparently irrelevant and obsolete disciplines the world at-large sees as defining experimental music. “All sounds heard were generated by 78 RPM records, either played by multiple 78 RPM needles through Styrofoam or cardboard at the same time, .mp3s of 78 recordings stolen from the Internet and as an object played in real time—in real space, then recorded and miked through various processes then miked again to achieve a desired result... Please do not transfer this record to any analog or digital device or format.”

The record comes in a brown cardboard sleeve and the labels are that special shade of 78 blue; the only thing that prevents it from becoming endlessly authentic is that it’s not made of shellac. Recchion, longtime Los Angeles Free Music Society member and sleeve designer at EMI, produced the record in association with the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Office(!) and Poo-Bah Records, a record shop that’s been in business over thirty years and functioned as the unofficial hub of the LAFMS through the ‘70s and ‘80s. So what’s it sound like, seeing as you likely have no Newcomb, Califone or Telex four-speed record player handy? It’s a work of art and it sounds like the past dragged beautifully backwards through a hedge, that’s what it sounds like. You won’t hear a record all year that is at once this romantic and this doomed. Just think of what Recchion feels like when some jackass bumps into him and then turns around and says, “Wut yo’ problem, muhfuh.” He thinks, “Fuck... I’ve resurrected the dead and I still have to put up with this fucking asshole.” ✹ Send 3” CDs, vinyl measuring between 4” and 11”, and other assorted nonsense, to Box 1211, Ventura CA 93002. As with most fair-and-balanced / overworked-and-underpaid journalists, no promises on coverage—but, I shall try.

SIGNAL TO NOISE @ SXSW 2008

Jandek Nameless Sound Youth Ensemble under the direction of David Dove Space City Gamelan Christina Carter and Shawn David McMillen Weird Weeds

Central Presbyterian Church Austin, Texas Saturday March 15th, 2008 7PM SIGNAL to NOISE #49 | 113

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