Bagatellen

trio x 3

New Jazz Meeting Baden-Baden 2002
Hatology

The Hat label’s occasional recent forays intro electroacoustic improvisation have been of mixed quality, in my opinion. Though Trapist’s Highway My Friend can be singled out as a success, the Radio-Radio twofer was in my opinion a real train wreck. This summit from a couple years back was curated by electronicians Bernhard Lang, who gathered eight other musicians – turntablist Philip Jeck, electronician Christof Kurzmann, pianist Paulo Alvares, flutist Philippe Racine, drummer Wolfgang Reisinger, bassist Peter Herbert, and saxophonists Marcus Weiss and Steve Lacy – and it’s miles better in many respects. Purposefully selecting players from quite different backgrounds, Lang hopes to provoke confusion, dissociation, even confrontation, rather than familiar improvisational strategies. So Lacy’s well-refined scalar approach merges not only with the synaesthetic backgrounds generated by Kurzmann and Jeck but with the new music approach of Racine (who sounds like she’d do a dynamite version of Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis) and Alvares.

Across two very long discs (one live and one studio), Lang combines the musicians in any number of ways to facilitate different versions of his basic compositional template “Differenz/Wiederholung.” His basic interest is in having the electronicians bend and mutate the other improvisers in real time, as they together try to navigate the basic compositional form. The piece itself seems fairly dense, from what I can discern (its contours are much clearer on the studio performances), including sections of real rhythmic complexity as well as open sections of indeterminate harmony. There’s a lot of room, in other words, for the gifted improviser to interpret and reconstruct the given rules.

Two complex, multi-directional performances by the Jeck/Herbert/Reisinger trio open the disc up, but believe me: it’s a far cry from lead instrument-bass-drums. Samples, soundscapes, and unorthodox techniques create a sort of sonic blender which mixes elements together. Happily, some of the most compelling tracks in this regard are the ones featuring the largest groups: the first disc’s nonet track is outstanding, and the 22-minute closer (part solo Jeck, and part quartet with Lacy, Herbert, and Reisinger) is pretty fab too. It’s on these tracks where multiple electronic idioms (from the groove-based to the post-AMM) merge with new music and jazz-related forms of improvisation, often coming off very well. (One of the real pleasures, of course, is hearing Mr. Lacy, who really never sounds out of place in any musical situation.)

The studio disc captures the compositional detail somewhat better, though this may have more to do with the instrumental configuration (particularly the contributions of Alvares) than the improved recording quality. The largest configuration here is a quartet and, with a high quotient of flute and piano, you’d be forgiven for thinking some of these were performances of hitherto unknown late Feldman scores. There is also a gorgeous, 17-minute drone track near the end of this disc. It’s an ambitious recording, whose 2-hours plus of music don’t consistently win me over. But Lang is trying to achieve a new synthesis and there’s plenty here to enjoy.

Butt-Quaking Beast

Mastodon
Remission
Relapse

Just check the name itself. Mastodon. It immediately ranks up there with the heaviest of band names, most of which sit – like Motorhead, like Iron Maiden, like Earth or Entombed – at the intersection of the corny and the imposing. On the strength of their 2001 EP and this full-length, these fellows deserve such lofty company. And though their press, which glowingly crowns Mastodon as “the future of metal,” might seem over the top, it’s hard to listen to this record without being blown away. The band – bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, and two former members of the fabled Today is the Day, guitarist Bill Kelliher and the absolutely savage drummer Brann Dailor – specializes in punishing blend of mathcore, seriously elephantine heaviness, and raw punk edge.

In the sheer ferocity of their attack – the bark of the vocals, the tightly coiled rhythmic attack, and the textural subtlety within rage – they remind me of the late, lamented Botch. The first four tracks on this record, including the single “March of the Fire Ants,” are as strong as any heavy music I’ve heard in quite some time. For a couple months now, I’ve been pretty obsessively playing this slice of the record, at the cost of ignoring some of the album’s later jewels, which are more expressive and dynamic in many cases. The construction of the songs is excellent, with laser-sharp focus given to the tightly coiled, subtly fluctuating mega-riffs in which the band trades. With an almost fusion-like precision, they can stomp on your throat and then soar into the upper atmosphere.

As filled as these tunes are with memorable barks, butt-shuddering riffage, and occasionally anthemic moments, what really gets me every time is the drumming. He uses a small kit, with a really popping snare sound, and this combines with the outrageously tight playing for maximum impact: he’s a smart player, shifting his accents frequently to reframe the power chugging of his mates. It’s clearly in the Bruford lineage in a lot of ways, but it’s designed simply to smack you upside the head (just listen to the end of “Where Strides the Behemoth”). In some senses his style is a close cousin to Will Scharf’s playing in Craw and Keelhaul, but his fill-happy kit work also verges on swing at times (if indeed one can swing amidst crushing metal thunder). Still, this is just one element in the outrageous whole. One of my current favorite records, I can’t wait for their followup due later in 2004. And if you’re in the hunt for a copy of Remission, make sure you find the deluxe edition, which has the band slamming their way through a Thin Lizzy cover (!) and also throws into a complete live DVD to boot.

Glenn Branca - Lesson No. 1

Glenn Branca
LESSON NO.1
Acute ACT 005

This isn't the first time Glenn Branca's "Lesson No.1" and "Dissonance", originally released in 1980 on Ed Bahlman's mythic 99 Records label, have appeared on CD, but even if you did invest in the first reissue you might want to consider picking this up too, since Acute's package also contains "Bad Smells", Branca's 1982 ballet score for Twyla Tharp (originally on a split LP called Who Are You Staring At? with John Giorno on his GPS label) and a 17-minute Quicktime movie of Branca conducting (if that's the word) his "Symphony No.5" in 1984. Moreover, the music has been remastered by that doyen of No Wave connoisseurs Weasel Walter and comes with a snazzy set of liners by mainman Alan Licht. I make that four damn good reasons to get your wallet out and your earplugs in.

I've only seen Branca's band once in concert, but won't forget the experience. As the guitarists filed onstage and plugged in, the amp buzz alone was as loud as most of music that ever gets performed in Paris' genteel Théâtre de la Ville; once Branca brought his fists down and the whole band kicked in, the sheer volume was absolutely terrifying. Thank God we were sitting near the back of the hall, an excellent vantage point from where we watched well over half the packed house run for the exits, fingers stuffed in bleeding ears. Two other events from that evening stick in my mind, one the sight of Branca anointing himself with the contents of a Coke bottle, the other that I couldn't hear a fucking thing for three days. Goodness knows what they were playing, but it wasn't "Symphony No.5", because that piece starts quietly before building to its inevitable surging climax. The sound quality on the Quicktime video isn't all that wonderful, but there are plenty of shots of Branca in full swing. Literally. And I used to think Lenny Bernstein overdid it.

Back in 1979, after formative experiences in No Wave outfits Theoretical Girls and Static, Branca's music was more angular and rhythmically defined. "Lesson No.1" is defiantly tonal (well, if tonal means sitting on one major chord throughout) and rocks out. In a recent email Branca took issue with Alan Licht's mentioning an anecdote of keyboard player Anthony Coleman to the effect that the composer at the time was "listening heavily to Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" ("you can almost sing Ian Curtis' melody over it", Licht states.. well, yes, along with several Velvets, Ramones, Voidoids and Stooges songs if you give the matter some thought), but put that down to Licht's mission statement in the liners that Branca was (is?) "the first post modern composer". "Dissonance" is much more, erm, dissonant, but what became the trademark ugly clusters of late 80s Branca were still intercut with more varied rhythmic patterns, including a part for sledgehammer. As Licht points out, it doesn't quite compare to Z'ev's sheet metal bashing on Branca's "Symphony No.2" – in fact it sounds more like someone playing a contact-miked metal ashtray with a ballpoint pen – but its irregular punctuations open up the structure and make "Dissonance" one of Branca's more accessible works. Accessible, yet uncompromising. The same can be said of "Bad Smells", which kicks off with a raucous gallop sounding like a cross between Ennio Morricone and Phill Niblock. Change comes thick and fast, huge slabs of punk drum power (courtesy Stephen Wischerth) slammed into your earhole. Shame they couldn't have dug up a film of the Tharp ballet – I'd love to see this kind of thing danced – instead of the "Symphony No.5", but I'm certainly not complaining. I don't know whether I'd qualify it as "post modern", but I sure love the way it kicks ass.

~Dan Warburton

Alvin Curran/Domenico Sciajno - Our Ur

Alvin Curran/Domenico Sciajno
Our Ur
Rossbin
015

On the face of it, the teaming of Curran and Sciajno is quite enticing. Curran, the MEV veteran, has done some beautiful work over the decades although, for my taste, much of it (like the compositions “For Cornelius” and “Era Ora”) was in an avant-romantic vein parallel to that mined by Rzewski. Still, some of his more purely electronic and experimental works have been intriguing and the idea of a collaboration with the fine Sicilian electronicist (and, in the past, bassist) Domenico Sciajno, recently represented in fine light on the duo with Giuseppe Ielasi on Erstwhile as well as a wonderful solo bass album on Fringes, portended some excitement.

Expectations are only partially met, however. My suspicion is that, however diligently Mr. Curran has attempted to keep up with trends in contemporary electro-acoustic improvisation, his core lies elsewhere, no longer in a line directly from the experimentation of MEV but more in a melding of culturally nostalgic phenomena (particularly those of the Jewish tradition) with certain aspects of free improvisation as it was practiced in the 60s and 70s. Sciajno attempts to accommodate but, to the extent pieces on this disc succeed, they tend to work far better the more Sciajno comes to the fore and asserts his own conception.

The album opens with “Someone to Watch Over What”, the already aggravating title alluding, obviously, to the old standard which is interpolated throughout in brief phrases on sampled violin or piano, popping up amidst fairly harsh electronics. There’s something of a collage effect, heavy on the samples, and on the whole the piece reminds me of Curran’s off-and-on successful collaboration with ROVA from a decade or so back. The problem with the piece, the weakest here, is both the kitschy use of the theme (intentional though that may be) and the lack of commitment to really push in that direction if that’s what you want. We’re left with something that may have been fine were it to appear in the Tzadik catalog where this sort of referencing is almost the norm but is less satisfying here. Sciajno’s “Outer Cities” (utilizing samples of Curran playing his own composition, “Inner Cities”) works far, far better, a rich soundscape that grips from its opening pulsations, widens its view toward the distant vistas implied by its title and never lets the listener’s interest flag. Curran, on his own, has a tendency toward baroque levels of overkill but here he’s kept nicely in check and the piece absolutely glides from point to point, nudged instead of pushed, implications favored over declarations.

“Anatolia Centrale”, also by Sciajno, begins with layered electronic bleats, apparently involving vocal samples, migrates to a chaotic welter of strings (sounding as though one is inside a vast, metallic cello) and proceeds across diverse panoramas, balancing nimbly between arbitrariness and subtle intent. At times, the introduction of a given section seems spurious and overdone as it’s initially heard though often, in retrospect, it seems oddly apt. One suspects that Curran supplies the allusions to intoned vocals and, again, they’re a bit bothersome, feeling far more forced and spiritually hokey than one would like. As the track wends its way, attractive moments arise, but it scurries down pathways of lesser interest a bit too often. The final piece is a joint collaboration, again largely sample-based and packed to the gills with them. Here, the abundance of material, if only because its sheer density, works just fine over its much briefer stretch, an appropriately rich bit of dessert, perhaps. Overall, I can’t shake the feeling that Curran doesn’t quite fit in with Sciajno’s approach. To be fair, it could just as easily be the reverse save for the fact that the one brilliant work here is credited to the younger musician. “Our Ur” is worth it for that track alone and, of course, other listeners may be more in tune with Curran’s heady and hazy referencing. Maybe further joint ventures between the two will yield deeper, meatier explorations.

~ Brian Olewnick

Kees Hazevoet - Pleasure

UMS 234

Backstory constitutes an important component of reissues. Scuttlebutt on how a record came about can often be as edifying as its music itself. This relationship is especially robust in the case of John Corbett’s Unheard Music Series. His liner notes to titles like Spaceship Lullaby and Waves of Albert Ayler are source for some of the most instructive and entertaining anecdotes in contemporary creative music folklore. The same holds true to his recounted history of this recent repressing of a rare-as-ambergris 1970 session by Dutchman Kees Hazevoet. Corbett even goes one better by filling in front story too, chronicling the multi-instrumentalist’s exploits well into the 70s.

Long story short, Hazevoet enlisted Louis Moholo in his quintet when an inopportune bit of band in fighting led to the expulsion of his regular drummer. On this date he juggles between piano, clarinet and trumpet. Kris Wanders holds solely to alto while Arjen Gorter handles bass duties. The music feels decidedly of its era. Three tracks totaling a standard LP running time of under forty minutes work from loose compositional frameworks incorporating plenty of wooly improvisation.

Gorter opens “Moving Lady” with methodical pizzicato, joined less than a minute later by clarinet, trumpet and waterfall cymbals and snare in a keening statement of an emblematically dramatic theme. Hazevoet’s clarinet breaks ranks, chirruping across the murky rhythmic currents sketched by his comrades. Wanders’ alto, sounding off with a barrage of flinty recalcitrant notes that would make Herr Brötzmann smirk knowingly, assumes horn duties as the leader bangs out scattershot clusters from his ivories. These coalesce into a two-fisted solo, flanked by smudgy bass and jittery drum punctuations that shows a fair share of chops. Wanders resumes and there is a stretch where Hazevoet sounds like he’s playing clarinet and piano simultaneously, the latter with a powder keg burst of renal sputters.

“What Happens” works as transitional interlude finding the three men moving largely in their own insular directions. Someone (Moholo?) picks up an uncredited .vibraslap, creating echo-rich interjectory waves in conjunction with the piano’s jumpy arpeggios prior to an abrupt plummet into silence. According the instrument’s manufacturer it “appears in more recordings, soundtracks, and advertisements than any sound effect ever made.” These distinctive sonorities are almost certain to ring memory bells having been present on numerous Disco and Latin albums from the 70s. Though probably not in the same abstractionist guise employed here.

The set concludes with a twenty-minute title track. Added space affords even more breathing room for all four men as they jockey through a loose assemblage of militarized motifs, but the result feels less cohesive than the set’s shorter concise opener. The famous streak of Dutch humor is also largely absent from the band’s interplay, though the consequent seriousness is hardly off-putting. As an entertaining artifact this disc shares strong stylistic kinship to existing entries in the UMS catalog and pays off on the promise of its one word title. Whether it registers as a classic on par with contemporaneous work by European peers like Brötzmann and Schlippenbach is another matter and is likely the region of dithyrambic debate.

~ Derek Taylor

Mopomoso Solos 2002

Burn/Coxhill/Minton/Edwards/Russell
Mopomoso Solos 2002
Emanem 4100

It’s one evening at the Red Rose in November of ’02, i.e. fear no hodgepodge buffet v/a. This is improvisation recorded in order of performance. We have Russell, Minton, Minton (really, the first solo delves into the next, a brief ‘sound poem’ of the late Bob Cobbing’s), Edwards, Minton/Russell (their first recorded duo albeit abbreviated, due to the fact that no one could find Lol when it was his turn), Coxhill, Burn and finally the quintet in toto. Thankfully, Coxhill’s introduction to his performance is omitted, Dex notwithstanding.

Russell: Slashing at fresh strings, 7#9 crescendos somehow extemporaneously applied, as the guitarist has already adjusted the tuning during performance (maybe he cheats down to vastopol), it reminds me of that same tactic of Ernst’s apparent about 3:40 into the second bit off Sclavis/Reijseger's Et on ne Parle pas du Temps. . .bluesy/folk, verdant slashing, blunt blade penetrating healthy vine, introducing some different but trusted elements few in European improvisation.

Minton: the breath interludes between the wind-sprint cries, my hearty laughter when he initiates the cry then to a dumbfounded cognizance of each dimension involved, something akin to a Kaw chant I’d heard many dusks in Kansas. . .pendulum dynamics (take that, church bells). It takes about five seconds for the Saturday Night Live giddiness to transubstantiate into silent awe of how it (this man’s voice) is spliced and engineered. Several tones are produced simultaneously. He’s great crack, in entertaining form, and very much divergent from the pretense/bombast of his work with, say, GrubenKlangOrchester (enough Eliot, already). The pauses might be functional, deep inhalation and deep exhalation, but the tension created renders any of that immaterial.

Edwards’ first recorded solo is frighteningly nice; play very loud for maximum but not disingenuous effect. I dig visceral contrabass solos most. Burn’s solo equals the concentration of Edwards’. This isn’t monkfish to Maroney, but a wonderfully diverse set of experiments likened to no one.

Badminton: The quintet begins with Phil sounding as if he had been pounding vodka/prune juice the day of. And when you want to exclaim “Quiet down, quiet down!” the ensemble reduces itself thoughtfully with grace, Burn much in the background and the bassist furtively at the wheel, quiet. Each musician poses a frustrating question with the first couple minutes, only for the collective to answer as the interplay descends.

Two bullshit mantles I assume when approaching Emanems of this ilk: Burn, Coxhill and Minton don’t garner much critical deification, deification which seems abundant and doesn’t stand for anything. Next, wading shallowly, Emanem lineups seem far too incestuous and that deducts some interest out of the gate, but this one works, for the most part. Semper fidelis keeping it fresh with Pan Davidson.

~Michael Schaumann

All The Things You Could Be By Now If Anthony Braxton's Wife Was Your Mother

In reference to the work (mostly self-released at this point) of one Tyondai Braxton. Braxton's primary instrument is electric guitar, and accordnig to his bio-discography, he has played with such household names as Glenn Branca, Alan Sparhawk, Jim O'Rourke and John Zorn.

What does his music sound like? Well, according to Tyondai's own website: "His solo music consists of building 'orchestrated loops' with voice, guitar and found objects in real time and manipulating them with guitar pedals, in essence creating a self-contained ensemble." You can hear a sample of his music at Epitonic. The track is entitled "The Violent Light Through Falling Shards". I suppose the obvious touchstones here are Jeff Parker, Terry Riley, and metal once it has been sucked down the wormhole of the avant-garde -- Sunn 0))), e.g. Not surprisingly, however, Braxton fils evinces a rather different, constructivist bent; check out the way this particular performance builds itself.

eai-fu. Tantra-fu. Ghost Trance-fu. No breasts. Joe Bob says check it out.

S'lab

I'm not going to dispute the importance of Nirvana in connection with American popular music. That field of contention was always pretty fallow, yielding little musical analysis, mostly just hard, dry fruits: units shifted and concert grosses, network television appearances and tabloid rumors. (How would the band have fared in an Internet economy is something to think about.) What's important here is that Nirvana's breakthrough in 1991 made it easy for me to fully abandon even the token interest I'd maintained in "rock" music after I had really discovered jazz in the late 1980's. Sure, every now and then a buddy would pass along a Kyuss and a Jonathan Fire*Eater record, which I then would dump to cassette. I might read a passing reference to The Mountain Goats in a Mojo article. Or my brothers might be listening to Beck, The Cardigans, Gomez, Radiohead, The Chemical Brothers… while I was passing through their musical universes… say, on a December drive across East Texas, when CDs would come into play as soon as we left the FM signal for the brilliant fade-out of the blue yonder. I would counter Oasis with Coltrane's Meditations, beat back Stone Temple Pilots with Andrew Hill, and drown out Weezer with selections from the Black Saint catalog.

But there was one notable exception to my anti-pop bias in the mid-1990's, and that was Stereolab. I'm not certain I could give a rational explanation for why I let them in. Maybe it was the fact that their music was sultry yet cerebral. Maybe it was because I heard in them a subversive effort to re-introduce silly and rude noises back into pop songs. Maybe it was because they ripped-off artists I already admired -- and they have always stolen from the best: The Fall, Neu!, The Silver Apples, Krystof Komeda, Suicide, Sun Ra, Sonic Youth. Maybe it was because they made great records with great titles like "John Cage Bubblegum" and "Nihilist Assault Group". But maybe it was really because I first saw them in performance at Dallas' Trees in the autumn of 1996, and because that show is still one of the best rock shows I've ever attended. Should-a-been hits that were soothing and bouncy, candy-striped and "foamy" (as the title to one instrumental on the defining The Groop Played "Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music" EP has it) on record became psychedelic disco in concert. The band grooved -- all praise drummer Andy Ramsey -- and they jammed, too, but they substituted the abrasive, surprising sounds of collapsing MiniMoog circuits and guitar abuse, courtesy of founder Tim Gane, for the fey lyricism specialized in by the neo-noodle rockers who were their contemporaries.

Until about 12 hours ago, I had not seen Stereolab perform since 1999, when they were touring in plug of the ill-fated Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night. The show was edgy, and Trees seems a venue at odds with the music the band was trying to realize in a live setting. Things completely broke down during the encore -- the band's first single, "Super-Electric" -- as one drunken mosher began flailing his fists and boots around. Attempts at self-preservation by those standing around this individual were further complicated with the good old GA floor audience tendency to push back at those in front of you as they retreat from the violence developing at the front of the stage. A fight was inevitable; I was quickly resigned to getting sprayed with beer, and moved to put my arms around my date so she would not get carried off in whatever was about to erupt. I was not prepared for what actually occurred. The band stopped in mid-performance, lead vocalist and now young mother Laetitia Sadier furiously shouting at the crowd, "Stop it! Stop it right now!" The evening ended shamefully, with the person who was probably the most passionate Stereolab fan who sacrificed the 15 bucks for the show that night escorted in a fit of protest out of the club, but I will hand it Sadier for backing up the critical rhetoric in her lyrics with social action. In fact, Stereolab have yet to play Dallas since, preferring the posher and slightly more sedate surroundings of the Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth.

I'm not sure you could get more Gallic than Stereolab playing to the accompaniment of projected visuals -- time-lapsed footage of amusement park rides lit up and whirling away the night hours; what looked like a Levi's commercial from the 1970's, heavy on the rotoscoping; and, during "Cybele's Reverie", about the last 7 minutes of Maya Deren's Meshes Of The Afternoon -- in a converted movie house. But what was immediately striking about last night's concert was that it has taken no less than three young men manning keyboards, samplers, acoustic and electric guitars, and trumpet and French horn to take the place of the departed Mary Hansen. Counting Sadier, who now plays some sort of touch-pad analogue synth (a Buchla?) and Gane, who, as befits the Robert Fripp of indie rock, hides himself and his arsenal of effects pedals and black boxes at the back of the stage, there were now no less than 4 electronics manipulators on-stage. The set-list drew almost exclusively from the latest album, Margerine Eclipse -- a statement that I hope you will forgive, both for being obvious and initially a bit misleading. Because Margerine Eclipse is about as close as we are ever going to get to a Stereolab "greatest hits". In a very real sense, the new tunes are just new point-of-view adopted on the old tunes, and, even while these songs reference the group's "evolution" -- dicey word -- they sealed that history off within a certain distance, and not necessarily an ironic one. The new arrangements of older tracks such as "Lo Boob Oscillator" and "Diagonals" substitute oddly Vocoder-like brass figures for Mary Hansen's supporting melodies (no more "ba-ba-ba's"). It’s a little disconcerting and even sad, but, this band, which never really trotted out in old favorites, has even less incentive to do so now. Besides, a new track like "Margerine Rock" references the band's own sound circa Mars Audiac Quintet (think "Heavy Denim"). "Need To Be" sounds like an out-take from the Music For The Amorphous Body Center EP, while "Bop Scotch" is reminiscent of the kind of New Wave / Hip-Hop amalgamations that dominate Emperor Tomato Ketchup. "La Demeure" is another faintly experimental Cobra… track, and "Feel And Triple" evokes the techno cut-up style of Dots And Loops, still (IMHO) not Stereolab's masterpiece, but certainly, with its danceable, day-glo melancholia, their most emotionally satisfying record. With a band as self-conscious about producing albums that sound quite different from one another as Stereolab is, it makes sense to talk about them raiding their own past as the collective pop consciousness. What I feel the need to say, really, is that the whole concert was about Mary Hansen, about how interwoven she is into the band's life and work, and how her death, even though it was so accidental it does feel tragic, could never really change the music.

I find this fact remarkable because, album cover iconography and cybernetic song titles aside, Stereolab was never really about the past, or the future, or lapsed futurism, or smirking, glycerin tear-stained commentary on mid-20th century optimism about the utopia just over the smog-blotted horizon. Their classic music was really a construction of an alternate present, one teetering less on the precipice of millennial change, one in which the obscure and unpalatable music and ideas with which husband and wife Gane and Sadier are obsessed, instead of being marginalized, are rewarded with continuity, possess terrific currency and mass sway. Stereolab's own recognized influence over legions of post-rock musicians is thus wish-fulfillment in excelsis (or over-determined): it is a conquering of the airwaves ala Brian Wilson, it is critical canonization not unlike what the Velvet Underground received, and it is the ultimate validation of their tastes. Question: can one be completely impressionable and yet attain the status of "artist"? Answer: I keep hoping someone will tell me "yes" or "no". I still love Stereolab's 90's records, which feel so out of time -- they also got me through the first 2 drafts of my second novel -- but, if the 90's really were the second Me Decade, then those records are the quintessential soundtrack of those 10 years. Even when you have burrowed far, far inside, the chill of the outside may cling to you for a while still. However, the music Stereolab concentrated on last night, so redolent of the past, finally pointed to… hinted at… a future, and not a wholly imaginary one at that. Stereolab gave a spirited performance last night, sounding more confident than ever. They even appeared to be having fun.

Set List: Ridglea Theater, Fort Worth, TX (04/26/2004)

1. Margerine Melodie
2. Diagonals
3. Vonal Declosion
4. Double Rocker
5. "...Sudden Stars"
6. Mass Riff
7. Come And Play In The Milky Night
8. The Man With 100 Cells
9. Cosmic Country Noir
10. Lo Boob Oscilator
11. Need To Be
12. Bop Scotch
13. Margerine Rock
14. Cybele's Reverie

Encores

15. Motoroller Scalatron
16. Stomach Worm

Dogville

Still processing Lars Von Trier’s latest, Dogville. As another notch in his Dogme manifesto I suppose it works well- a morality play that at once indicts and subverts morality and without losing the pretenses of a parable. Most striking at first was the claustrophobic minimalism of the single set, completely at odds with the expositional alpine scenery. Even the eponymous animal of the title remains a mere chalk outline for nearly the entire film. The feel was strangely that of a community theatre production, the odd disconnect being the various a-list actors filling the roles. I found this tactic disconcerting at first, wondering if all three hours would transpire on the cramped soundstage with only the skeletal outlines of the tangible world visible. The narrator’s Dickensian diction and omniscient explanation of the characters intents and feelings was annoying at first, until I realized that he too was a filtering agent and not necessarily in possession of the full story.

Nicole Kidman as Grace and Paul Bettany as Tom were both exceptional. So were much of the supporting cast, dealing with at times (intentionally) stilted dialogue and the task of filling in the many sensory blanks. What appears a black and white rumination quickly incorporates grayscale shades. The emotional and sexual violence eventually meted out on Grace wasn’t nearly as shocking as I was expecting, but still no less affecting. The penultimate scene in the pick-up truck amongst the apples with Ben (Zeljko Ivanek), which leads to wholesale exploitation by the remainder of the town’s male populace, was one of the most tragic of the film, as Grace’s feeble attempts at resistance swiftly dissolve into sullen resignation.

Tom’s self-perceived purity of thought and reliance on homespun philosophy fails to rectify the flaws in both his own character and those of his fellow townsfolk. In the end he is perhaps the weakest and most pathetic of them all, a man stunted by his need for a rational order and an arrogant belief in his ability to ‘educate’ his peers. Grace’s epiphany tracks from a similar source and leads to one of the bleakest noir endings I can remember in a film, stylized, but still intensely brutal in its existential finality. The maxim about the inherent arrogance of not holding others to the standards ascribed to self rings as an especially hollow revelation.

The final overhead shot of the snarling dog materializing out of thin air was a bracing windup. But the slideshow credits of old Walker Evans photos leading into more modern imagery of the destitute & downtrodden, all to the blaring soundtrack of Bowie’s “Young Americans” didn’t sit as well. The damn thing still has me thinking though, something I would have trouble asserting about nearly all of the other films I’ve seen thus far this year.

Die Like a Dog

Still processing Lars Von Trier’s latest, Dogville. As another notch in his Dogme manifesto I suppose it works well- a morality play that at once indicts and subverts morality and without losing the pretenses of a parable. Most striking at first was the claustrophobic minimalism of the single set, completely at odds with the expositional alpine scenery. Even the eponymous animal of the title remains a mere chalk outline for nearly the entire film. The feel was strangely that of a community theatre production, the odd disconnect being the various a-list actors filling the roles. I found this tactic disconcerting at first, wondering if all three hours would transpire on the cramped soundstage with only the skeletal outlines of the tangible world visible. The narrator’s Dickensian diction and omniscient explanation of the characters intents and feelings was annoying at first, until I realized that he too was a filtering agent and not necessarily in possession of the full story.

Nicole Kidman as Grace and Paul Bettany as Tom were both exceptional. So were much of the supporting cast, dealing with at times (intentionally) stilted dialogue and the task of filling in the many sensory blanks. What appears a black and white rumination quickly incorporates grayscale shades. The emotional and sexual violence eventually meted out on Grace wasn’t nearly as shocking as I was expecting, but still no less affecting. The penultimate scene in the pick-up truck amongst the apples with Ben (Zeljko Ivanek), which leads to wholesale exploitation by the remainder of the town’s male populace, was one of the most tragic of the film, as Grace’s feeble attempts at resistance swiftly dissolve into sullen resignation.

Tom’s self-perceived purity of thought and reliance on homespun philosophy fails to rectify the flaws in both his own character and those of his fellow townsfolk. In the end he is perhaps the weakest and most pathetic of them all, a man stunted by his need for a rational order and an arrogant belief in his ability to ‘educate’ his peers. Grace’s epiphany tracks from a similar source and leads to one of the bleakest noir endings I can remember in a film, stylized, but still intensely brutal in its existential finality. The maxim about the inherent arrogance of not holding others to the standards ascribed to self rings as an especially hollow revelation.

The final overhead shot of the snarling dog materializing out of thin air was a bracing windup. But the slideshow credits of old Walker Evans photos leading into more modern imagery of the destitute & downtrodden, all to the blaring soundtrack of Bowie’s “Young Americans” didn’t sit as well. The damn thing still has me thinking though, something I would have trouble asserting about nearly all of the other films I’ve seen thus far this year.

Will Guthrie - Building Blocks/Matthew Earle, Will Guthrie, Adam Sussman - Bridges

Will Guthrie
Building Blocks
Antboy
04

Matthew Earle/Will Guthrie/Adam Sussmann
Bridges
Antboy
03

Over the last several years, I’ve been hearing more and more fine electro-improvisatory music emanating from this strange continent called Australia, a place situated, I’m told, somewhere south of China. While I’m hesitant to draw any overarching conclusions (I understand that more than several thousand people occupy this territory, after all), I do tend to hear something of a consistency with regard to both drones and a subtle tonality—rarely (so far) have I encountered the sort of rough-cut, atonal herky-jerkiness that one hears elsewhere even when the music enters the rarefied air sometimes ventured into by, say, Philip Samartzis.

These two releases on Antboy are great examples of what’s been occurring: two recordings by hitherto unknown-to-me musicians that more than hold their own with most of what currently appears emanating from the usual suspects and realms. Will Guthrie’s solo effort, “Building Blocks”, is a wonderful exercise in solo amplified percussion as well as various toys, machines and whatnot. Awash in drones, he nonetheless maintains a scrumptiously rumbling undertone, always reminding the listener that, at heart, we’re dealing with struck objects. Guthrie goes for a very full sound, something that befits his personal history as a student of Tony Williams. There’s almost ceaseless activity, constantly churning, as one has the impression of peering into some alien hive bubbling with industry. He has a marvelous ability to coalesce a wealth of seemingly casual sounds, events that have no apparent relationship, into an entirely convincing, cohesive whole, as is the case on “Eleven”, the briefest of three tracks here. This and the first piece, “Blanket” were recorded in the studio while the final selection is a live performance and a lovely spatial expansion, a gorgeous mix of dry clatter and resonant clangs, underscored by subtle drones. It’s an excellent, fascinating disc and one of the finest solo percussion albums I’ve heard in recent years.

On “Bridges”, Guthrie is joined by Matthew Earle (electronics) and Adam Sussmann (guitar, electronics). The atmosphere is somewhat sparser, a little more akin to what you might often hear emanating from the Japanese scene but still quite alive with multiple levels of detail and interaction. My closest comparison point might be groups headed up by Xavier Charles, he of the upended speakers with dancing objects thereupon. This trio is something of a high-medium-low configuration, with Earle spending much time in upper sine-based reaches, Guthrie supplying the earthier undertones and Sussmann making great use of the tense space left open in the middle. Not that it’s easy to tell who’s doing what. The trio accomplishes two essentials of improv: they’re pretty much seamless and their pieces last for exactly the right duration, never coming close to overstaying their welcome, indeed leaving the listener wanting just a bit more. They gurgle, hum and chitter with the naturalness of a bunch of loose change tossed into a clothes dryer. The pure luxuriousness of the soundfield is more than enough to sybaritically wallow; if anything, I might find myself desiring the occasional disruption, that small piece of grit thrown into the gears just to let us know that things aren’t that easy. But by and large, both of these discs are thoroughly enjoyable, very rich offerings causing Northern Hemispherians like myself to wonder what else I’ve been missing all this time.

Further info available at: www.antboymusic.com

~ Brian Olewnick

Martin Denny - The Enchanted Sea

A choice palate-cleanser after a main course of Gayle’s More Live or Silva’s Seasons, I also reach for Denny when the morning commutes to work screech to an irritating stand-still. There’s just something about Martin’s mélange that returns the discombobulated mind to a steady course. Sea is my favorite of his numerous platters, less dramatic and self-conscious than earlier albums like Exotica and Hypnotique, it’s thusly more effective at evoking a prevailing mood- that of a sleepy seaside port-of-call, a tropical paradise beyond the reach of twentieth century stressors. Julius Wechter’s vibraphone and marimba frequently take the lead on the dozen tunes and he makes luxurious use of his the former instrument’s sustain pedals. Augie Colon handles an array of Latin percusion while doing double duty on counterfeit bird calls while Harvey Ragsdale anchors the action on string bass and Roy Harte enhances the band’s rhythmic clout with a caboodle of little percussion devices. Muppet gooney birds take flight on “Beyond the Sea,” flapping directly into the sound painting that is “Off Shore.” “Sentimental Journey” is, surprisingly enough, the record’s swingest track, a chance to hear Colon and Harte trade licks with Denny’s groovy harpsichord. A faux Hawaiian vocal even crops up on “Song of the Islands”- Polynesia by way of Burbank. With “Cross Current” the leader comes on like Mantovani playing baby grand on the deck of a Spice Islands tugboat. Eerie echoes of Morricone arrive on the closing title track with its moody choir chorus, dreamy melodic whistling and a lilting beat that mirrors the gentle lapping of an evening tide. Most impressive overall is the restraint with which Denny deploys his usual trappings. Sea may not have been as popular with the blue hair crowd at Don the Beachcomber’s as a result, but for me it stands out. Original running time barely exceeds 29-minutes so Scamp’s reissue pairs it with Quiet Village for added value. Denny remains a long-standing poster boy for campy kitsch. Sadly, it’s a guise that sometimes obscures the genuine creativity he often channeled into music such as this.

Zoot Sims w/ the Joe Castro Trio - At Falcon Lair

Pablo 2310-977

The tapes are always rolling. In restaurants, bars, school gyms, residential lofts, concert stages and countless other venues both established and impromptu. The ubiquitous nature of recording technology has been a given, virtually since its inception. Consequently tapes such as those that comprise this new Pablo release really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Still, the prospect of ‘new’ music by Sims playing an instrument, which he recorded with all too rarely on, raises the expectation stakes. As is often the case with unearthed treasures the story behind the music carries an allure in common with the sounds themselves.

Recorded informally at the home of Joe Castro, a Bohemian hideout in the Beverly Hills dubbed Falcon Lair; the session was actually one of many such jam sessions. Castro was a fairly prominent bop pianist based in the Los Angeles area during the Fifties, who went on to record a date as a leader for Atlantic. His palatial digs were actually the outcome of his wife Doris Duke’s fortune as heiress to a tobacco dynasty. By most accounts Castro’s numerous jam sessions were leisurely excuses to hang out. The cover of the disc demonstrates just how colloquial the dates were with Sims and Castro clothed in the casual attire of white t-shirts. Sims sticks to alto for the entire disc, a sax he flirted with briefly in the Fifties on a pair of albums for ABC-Paramount and a single platter for Riverside. His tone on the smaller horn frequently favors a dry Konitzian flavor, light and breezy, but lubricious when weaving through the changes of the various standards on hand. There are also spots where hints of his later soprano sound seep in through an arid, almost nasally, intonation.

Castro supplies able, if fairly unremarkable support alongside Ron Jefferson, a regular gigging drummer on the LA scene who also recorded frequently with Les McCann. Bassist Leroy Vinnegar is the true blue chip of the rhythm section, his stout walking lines adding to the easy ambulatory swing of the quartet. His pizzicato solos, which pepper several tunes, trace lines coaxed by trotting fingers. “A Night in Tunisia” works as fine, if slightly wobbly opener as the four men warm to a communal groove and Castro has an early chance to show his nimble chordal approach against Vinnegar’s plump throbbing bass undercarriage. Sims is more prominent on “Pennies From Heaven” sailing through the melody and into an aerated solo that tugs playfully at the tune’s steady tempo. The set’s second half includes three Castro originals, all of which work off simple blues riffs ripe for relaxed exposition. Fidelity across all eight tracks is of remarkably high quality considering the circumstances and the source. As mentioned, Sims pretty much shelved his alto from the Sixties on. These performances show that reason behind his decision certainly wasn’t due to any naiveté on the instrument.

~ Derek Taylor

Phil-ing You In

Hey, psst. Yeah, you. Over there, on the right, just under that creepy Escher-esque archway pic. New PDF content. Might be easy to miss, but you’ll be sorry if you do. An expose on what looks to be grindcore. Don’t be afraid. Me? I’m saving it for tonight with the lights out & the shutters drawn. Thinking about changing my nom de plume to The Human Tornado too.

Slave To The Grind

It’s not often that an entire musical genre can be traced back to one album. But every grindcore band currently active (and there’s a shitload of ’em) owes its very existence to Napalm Death, specifically the 1987 album Scum. Not only the first ND release, it was also the first Earache Records product, and yes, the very first grindcore album.

Scum contains 28 tracks in just about as many minutes. Aside from album opener "Multinational Corporations," these tracks ("songs" seems generous) follow a pattern of lightning speed, ultra-repetitive guitar riffing and a drummer—Mick "The Human Tornado" Harris—who attacks the cymbals like nobody since Sunny Murray. The band’s lineup was in flux at the time, so each side of Scum features different musicians, Harris excepted. Side One features Justin Broadrick (later of Godflesh) on guitar, and Nick Bullen, who’d later partner up again with Harris in Scorn, on bass and vocals. Side Two showcases the "classic" early Napalm Death lineup: Bill Steer (later of Carcass) on guitar, Shane Embury (now the last surviving "original" member) on bass, and Lee Dorrian on vocals. This lineup would stick around for the second album, From Enslavement To Obliteration, before splitting up.

Since Napalm Death established the pattern (loud, fast, and very nearly out of control), grindcore has lingered as the wailing ultimate among post-hardcore extreme metal styles. Any genre that features two-second songs—again, a trick pioneered by Napalm with their Scum track "You Suffer (But Why?)"—has pretty much laid down a line nobody’s gonna cross anytime soon. Still, even within such a seemingly unpromising genre, there’s room for individual creativity. John Zorn was an early devotee, and two of his albums can be considered homages to grindcore: Naked City’s schizophrenic, spasmodic Torture Garden and the Ornette Coleman assault Spy Vs. Spy. (And, of course, he recruited Mick Harris to play in Pain Killer.) But such nods from the art scene weren’t, and aren’t, where the real action’s at. Two grindcore bands have lately been obsessing me, and each deserves a much wider audience—assuming innocent ears are ready for serious punishment.

Discordance Axis broke up in 2002, but they left behind three "full-length" albums and a fistful of collaborative singles, compilation tracks and EPs. All this material has been reissued by Hydra Head Records on a compilation (Original Sound Version 1992-1995) and as bonus tracks appended to their second album, Jouhou. DA were probably the most technically skilled band ever to take up the grindcore cudgel. Vocalist Jon Chang, who also wrote the reissues’ hilariously self-deprecating liner notes, had a distinctive high-pitched screech which alternated with the usual guttural, indecipherable barking to disorienting and powerful effect. Guitarist Rob Marton keeps the riffs coming fast and furious, but throws in almost-groovin’ mosh parts that last just long enough for the listener to notice them, but not long enough to actually get any pit action going. And drummer Dave Witte is simply terrifying. His utter command of the kit, and total impassivity in action, is pretty much unparalleled in any branch of punk, hardcore or metal. (They had no bassist.) DA albums usually have between 20 and 25 songs, nearly all ranging between 30 seconds and a minute, with the occasional three-minute epic padding them out.

The best way to understand DA, though, isn’t by listening to any of their CDs; it’s by watching Pikadourei, a live DVD. Shot on hand-held digital camcorders and using in-camera sound to capture the tunes, it’s edited with seizure-inducing quick cuts and plenty of digital stop-and-stutter, thus giving the ideal visual translation of the herky-jerky, roaring music. Chang catapults off the stage into the crowd at regular intervals, or simply collapses between songs, exhausted by the effort of vomiting out the lyrics. Marton stands impassively by his amps, and Witte crashes and rattles at the back. The set is only about 25 minutes long, if that, but it’s utterly exhausting. Another live document, 7.62mm, is also included on the disc. That one’s almost Merzbow-esque, because the raw video stock has been rubbed with magnets, burned, and the VCR kicked repeatedly during the duplication process, all to screw with the signal and make it very nearly unwatchable. Still, the energy of the form comes through.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed didn’t even bother trying to find a drummer who could play the relentless, spastic "blast beats" they wanted; they use a machine instead. But these are no Big Black-style whomps. ANB’s drum machine sounds like it was programmed with a random number generator—a typical track creates the impression of a guy trying to hold onto Neil Peart’s kit while falling down sixteen flights of stairs. They, too, have released numerous split singles and EPs, all exhibiting one of the blackest senses of humor in music. Their first full-length album, Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope, is just as berserk and hilarious as the title would indicate, but it’s also a staggeringly complex, meticulously assembled piece of audio art. I called it "the grindcore Paul’s Boutique," and I stand by that. It switches back and forth so quickly between guest vocalists (who shout their contributions into leader Scott Hull’s answering machine, only to have him leave the opening "Hi, it’s So-and-so, here goes" and closing "Call me when you get this message" parts on the final album) and spoken samples from anti-drug or serial-killer news broadcasts, all blanketed by the annihilating drum machine and chainsaw guitar, that the full experience of listening to its 38 songs in 33 minutes is really only recommended about once every couple of months. But it is recommended.

Sure, grindcore’s not for everybody. But nothing is. When your attention span has atrophied away to almost nothing, a 30-second burst of crashing drums, belt-sander riffs, and screeching, atonal vocals may be just what you need to make it through the day. It’s like shooting caffeine in your eyeball—sometimes, there’s no other option that’ll get the job done.

Milford Graves & John Zorn - 50²

Tzadik 5002

Digesting this disc, the sophomore entry in an ongoing series of monthly releases commemorating Zorn’s semicentennial, the dial on my mnemonic machine clicks back to the summer of 1999. Zorn and Graves played a duo set at the Vision Festival that year. It was easily the most abundantly attended draw of the entire Fest with garrulous fans crowding like lemmings into the basement of the St. Nicholas of Myra Church. I’m not sure if it was the pair’s first meeting, but the hype surrounding the event certainly eclipsed anything else on the bill.

I also don’t remember much about the music, just Zorn in one of his ‘shaggy locks’ phases, dressed in camouflage britches and black t-shirt, squealing and sputtering away on alto, hopping up and down as Graves affected much the same animated stance behind his kit. The audience went wild, but I remember equating the aural experience with eating a handful of those old Zotz!™ candy balls I loved as a kid. A sweet hard shell broken by sharp teeth to release a sudden fizzing blast of sour, mouth-puckering flavor. Or maybe Pop Rocks™ are a better confectionary analogy. Quick, kinetically charged sugar kernels that have a half-life measured in seconds. At any rate, the show was a lot of fun, but not necessarily for the musical reasons, which soon after began to fade from memory.

In the interim between now and then Zorn and Graves have collaborated more often, both in performance and on recording projects (ie. the Zorn produced pair of solo records Graves waxed for Tzadik). Couple this with the mutual admiration society Zorn and Graves are members of and their team-up for the Birthday series makes sense. These two have come a long way together from their Vision encounter without sacrificing the sort of reckless spontaneity that made that earlier communion so entertaining. The explosion of sensory flavor is still there, but it’s laced with to ensure a heightened shelf life. While the former date was an unapologetic blowout, a bellicose assault on the senses, this new one shows more nuance and dare I say, maturity. Zorn still reverts quite often to piercing upper register overblowing over a steady torrential tide of cymbals toms and snare as on the invocational “Inserted Space” but pieces like “Smooth Interaction” balance out the monochromatic sound and the fury with pockets of contemplative texture.

“Looping Journey” dips into the friends’ Old World grab bag, with a braiding muezzin alto line and choppy spray of Spice Trail rhythms that in collusion is at times downright lyrical. Graves’ nasalized chanting takes center stage on “Calling to Proceed” bracketing a sparse martial twining of drums and ululating sax. His rambunctious free-associative singing also fuels a protracted solo on “Deep Within” and elsewhere. Listeners’ lusting after inveterate fire spitting won’t be disappointed either as the duo scares up enough racket to easily annoy the neighbors. Precedence for this sort of configuration may be pervasive, but Graves and Zorn possess more than enough improvisatory capital to make it feel fresh. There’s also a nifty mint milano color-scheme matching calendar included that documents each day’s concerts and in so doing hints mouth-wateringly at upcoming releases.

~ Derek Taylor

Sophie Agnel/Olivier Benoit - Rip-Stop (In Situ)

With a systematic approach to improvisation that may well define a new subset of music in the continuum stemming from AMM, this new offering from France's In Situ imprint is as beautiful as it is addictive. The duo of piano and guitar has been done time and again, the possibilities being endless for two instruments capable of multiple octaves, endless single note runs, and every chord under the sun. Agnel and Benoit exploit the lesser explored sonicities inherent in those instruments' physical construction, adjoining familiar sounds with electronics and mechanical effects. Comparisons to Keith Rowe and John Tilbury are bound to spring up, given the areas Rip-Stop works in, but the likenesses are few in the matters of sound and delivery. The disc's heaviest moments are laced in Agnel's sustain pedal and copious reverb from the guitar, the music sounding as if recorded in a moist tunnel. It's a gorgeous disc and its four long tracks (each over 12 minutes) are diverse, while essentially thematic. Agnel and Benoit are a huge find for anyone needing a break from the usual suspects in improvised music.

James Finn - Opening the Gates

Cadence Jazz 1170

On this disc, his debut date as a leader, saxophonist James Finn shares publishing rights with his partners Dominic Duval and Whit Dickey under the ASCAP cooperative Voluble Horn Music. It’s a fitting catchall phrase for Finn’s up close and personal approach but due to the demo fidelity of half of the disc’s eight tracks, slightly less applicable to Duval and Dickey in places. Still, the sound is far from mediocre and both men usually surmount the minor audio handicapping.

Upon hearing the source tape, made in Finn’s living room, producer Bob Rusch encouraged a second session to fill out the disc. He also signed Finn to a CIMP date at The Spirit Room (a possible shared affection for ‘living room’ acoustics here?). Heeding Finn’s phrasing and tone it’s easy to hear why he earned Rusch’s enthusiastic approval. All eight collectively improvised cuts are birthed from the rich lineage of post-Coltrane free jazz that forms the root of Rusch’s vast catalog. The titles convey congruous metaphysical referents with labels like “Falling Blossoms Rising Moon” and “Spinning Pyramids Propelled” accentuating the intangible nature of the music on hand.

“Stone Birds’ Northward Helix,” the set’s opener, holds a typically illusory title with hard music within. Finn’s declamatory entrance makes it abundantly clear as to just what sort of artistic repository he’s drawing from as shades of Ayler and Sanders alight in the crevices between his exclamations. Throwing the figurative sluice gates open with fluttering legato lines that leap from the tenor’s bowels skyward he rides an undulating tide of cymbals and Doppler arco bass. The title track starts with Finn in isolation, stretching a melodic kernel like a piece of taffy through a series of vertical permutations. Dickey’s compartmentalized stick rolls eke out a choppy undercurrent and push the saxophonist into a rush of lambent upper register squeals. Duval is left to pluck away absently from the flank and it’s here where the recorded acoustics him a disservice.

Finn is obviously very serious about his chosen vocation, but rather than resorting to poker-faced histrionics he treats his horn as a means of reified emotional expression. A strong logic underlies each of his solos and the team of Duval and Dickey respond to his concentrative delivery with responsive work of their own. Finn may be the obvious front man for the trio, but he makes ample room for his friends. Dickey gets things rolling on “Starlight Extensions” with a patented beat-parsing display; Duval holds similar cardinal clout on “Spinning Pyramids…” plucking at his strings as if they were a nest of tautly stretched rubber bands. Finn’s ensuing solos on each make abundant use of false register whistles and whinnies, but calm creeps into his creations as well, no matter how raucous they seem on the surface. “Truth Exiled in Paradise” shows a more dulcet side, Finn’s tenor flirting with the fringes of an alto’s range, caressing a melodic motif through the tender exhalations of notes. With two more sessions already in the can and set to pop there’s no doubt in my mind that Finn is already a voice to keep ears tuned to in 2004 and well beyond.

Note: despite dilligent googling I came up empty on a cover shot. A pic of the man in action will have to suffice as substitute instead.

~ Derek Taylor

Marhaug/Courtis - North and South Neutrino

Ilios
Old Testament
Antifrost afro2017

Marhaug/Courtis
North and South Neutrino
Antifrost afro2021

The Barcelona-based Antifrost (a Greek label, ahem) is among a small consortium of European labels that have cooperative relations in terms of distribution and a relatively short, unintrusive promotional philosophy. Each of their releases is devoid of supplemental information, aside from who's making the racket and when the sounds were put to tape. Word of mouth is largely relied upon in the niche music they feature, and an appreciative press seems to almost unanimously praise their work. These two releases from musicians of differing, separate approaches make a fine point of entry for those interested in investigating, and here's why.

Old Testament is neither dud nor masterpiece, but it's well worth a listen, and certainly to get acquainted with the bold work of Ilios. The Greek-born experimentalist is best known for captivating live performances that incorporate dance, visual arts and computer-generated multimedia, and often leaves audiences scratching heads in disbelief – one such occasion featured laptop music with the artist performing from inside a 2-man camping tent. Old Testament is his fourth release for Antifrost, not including appearances on compilations, and the music is downright unsettling: driven from cross-connects of samples, drone patterns are intermittently intruded upon by percussive, soul-shocking sound bites, creating a worrisome system of sounds hell-bent on alarming the unwary listener. It’s broken music, really, and Ilios puts steady faith in the idea that schizophrenic post-production can be as vital to the experience as comprehensibility and finesse. Where there’s beauty, it lies in the utter tangibility of the sounds and the manners in which the segments are spliced and patchworked together. Ilios doesn’t want you to get comfortable, he wants your attention, and the initiated are bound to have their curiosity raised. This disc is evidently the first in a series of “Testament” volumes, and it’ll be interesting to see what becomes of music that already appears resurrected.

Where the Ilios disc is rowdy, Lasse Marhaug and Anla Courtis’ North and South Neutrino is simply euphoric. Reynols fans should be familiar with Courtis (Argentina), and Lasse Marhaug (Norway) is an unsung colonist of the Scandinavian noise scene. The rumors are true, Neutrino is a production the two had undertaken over a period of five years(!). A single piece, the track is as breathtaking as anything to come out of "experimental" music, though the textures sound anything but thrown together. Ultra-slow transitions are steered over its 45 minute course, from high-pitched whispered fizz to low, shaking resonances, often overlayed to form a sensible junction of the field recordings used. There is an evolution to the music which Marhaug and Courtis apparently designed without any inclinations to shock, but rather to delicately craft their selected materials. It’s ultimately a step in the direction away from the anything-goes mentality that is sometimes more evident than necessary in new music.

~Alan Jones

Ilios - Old Testament

Ilios
Old Testament
Antifrost afro2017

Marhaug/Courtis
North and South Neutrino
Antifrost afro2021

The Barcelona-based Antifrost (a Greek label, ahem) is among a small consortium of European labels that have cooperative relations in terms of distribution and a relatively short, unintrusive promotional philosophy. Each of their releases is devoid of supplemental information, aside from who's making the racket and when the sounds were put to tape. Word of mouth is largely relied upon in the niche music they feature, and an appreciative press seems to almost unanimously praise their work. These two releases from musicians of differing, separate approaches make a fine point of entry for those interested in investigating, and here's why.

Old Testament is neither dud nor masterpiece, but it's well worth a listen, and certainly to get acquainted with the bold work of Ilios. The Greek-born experimentalist is best known for captivating live performances that incorporate dance, visual arts and computer-generated multimedia, and often leaves audiences scratching heads in disbelief – one such occasion featured laptop music with the artist performing from inside a 2-man camping tent. Old Testament is his fourth release for Antifrost, not including appearances on compilations, and the music is downright unsettling: driven from cross-connects of samples, drone patterns are intermittently intruded upon by percussive, soul-shocking sound bites, creating a worrisome system of sounds hell-bent on alarming the unwary listener. It’s broken music, really, and Ilios puts steady faith in the idea that schizophrenic post-production can be as vital to the experience as comprehensibility and finesse. Where there’s beauty, it lies in the utter tangibility of the sounds and the manners in which the segments are spliced and patchworked together. Ilios doesn’t want you to get comfortable, he wants your attention, and the initiated are bound to have their curiosity raised. This disc is evidently the first in a series of “Testament” volumes, and it’ll be interesting to see what becomes of music that already appears resurrected.

Where the Ilios disc is rowdy, Lasse Marhaug and Anla Courtis’ North and South Neutrino is simply euphoric. Reynols fans should be familiar with Courtis (Argentina), and Lasse Marhaug (Norway) is an unsung colonist of the Scandinavian noise scene. The rumors are true, Neutrino is a production the two had undertaken over a period of five years(!). A single piece, the track is as breathtaking as anything to come out of "experimental" music, though the textures sound anything but thrown together. Ultra-slow transitions are steered over its 45 minute course, from high-pitched whispered fizz to low, shaking resonances, often overlayed to form a sensible junction of the field recordings used. There is an evolution to the music which Marhaug and Courtis apparently designed without any inclinations to shock, but rather to delicately craft their selected materials. It’s ultimately a step in the direction away from the anything-goes mentality that is sometimes more evident than necessary in new music.

~Alan Jones

Evan Parker/Stan Tracey - Suspensions and Anticipations

Kenny Wheeler Song for Someone Psi 04.01	Evan Parker & Stan Tracey Suspensions and Anticipations Psi 04.02

With each release to come out of Psi's ever-spinning turnstile, Evan Parker garners more credibility as a record producer. It was a wonder at the label's advent two years ago whether or not the label would simply serve as an outlet for temporarily shelved dates from Parker and his associates. I'm glad to report that Psi's discography is shaping up in such a way as to become a healthy organism that breathes out a worthy, unique reissue program and new releases that are far more often hit than miss.

One of Psi's latest reissues is a session that has been buried for over 30 years now, since its 1973 release on Incus. At the time of Song for Someone's recording, Kenny Wheeler was on the rise as a very capable trumpeter and composer in some of Britain's various improvised music circles. His early 70s music was at a point not yet fully reconciled with its influences, but distinctive enough for fans to know they were onto something special. Such is the case with the big band-ish Song for Someone, which, while stirring among the shadows of Bill Holman and Gil Evans arrangements, bears many of the traits of Wheeler's later near-continuous string of jaw-dropping records. "Toot Toot" swings mightily, while the balladesque "Ballad Two" straddles a line dividing melancholy and hopeful perseverance, Norma Winstone's vocalising establishing itself as a key component to bring further animation to the larger group numbers. Alan Branscombe's electric piano is welcome in the mix, aligning itself with that instrument's worthy incorporation in some of the Mel Lewis/Thad Jones groups. Perhaps most interesting is the inclusion of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker on two tracks, as part of the effort to "…get special musicians from and into different areas of jazz to play together…" to quote Wheeler's brief liner notes. Bailey's guitar and Parker's not-yet-refined soprano sound utterly rebellious in their contributions, almost as if they are along to crash the party, but Wheeler's written transition from these introspective wanderings to the structurally sound is, in a word, seamless. It's been a long wait, but once the shock of this record's timelessness has softened, it'll feel like an old friend that's been around forever.

Were Psi a reissue-only label, it might be just as well, but Evan Parker has repeatedly shown that his own new music is still as inspiring as it was when he first learned to circularly blow arpeggios into oblivion. Suspensions and Anticipations is a record designed for Parker nuts who pine for more recordings of his tenor work. Not since Chicago Solo has Parker provided us with a better demonstration of his improvising talent on the instrument than this unlikely pairing with British jazz piano vet Stan Tracey. Apart from a small handful of solos (two from Tracey, one from Parker), S & A is an exceptional series of "what-if?" duos that result in a single, "of-course!" -Tracey's piano provides a multitude of harmonic foundations, from improvised low-register rumblings to sparing swing and stride motifs, which are embellished (and often undercut) by Parker's tenor. The numbers' development is hardly predictable, though; the music is the product of two musicians from adjacent fields of activity whose techniques and ways of departure turn out to be uncannily complimentary. The disc's resolve ultimately comes from a study of the three solo numbers, whose presence lend a world of insight to the collaborative processes of the duos. It's a set of music that will frustrate and mystify, and perhaps best suited for those who believe Parker's trick bag was zipped shut back in the 90's.

~Alan Jones

Kenny Wheeler - Song for Someone

Kenny Wheeler Song for Someone Psi 04.01	Evan Parker & Stan Tracey Suspensions and Anticipations Psi 04.02

With each release to come out of Psi's ever-spinning turnstile, Evan Parker garners more credibility as a record producer. It was a wonder at the label's advent two years ago whether or not the label would simply serve as an outlet for temporarily shelved dates from Parker and his associates. I'm glad to report that Psi's discography is shaping up in such a way as to become a healthy organism that breathes out a worthy, unique reissue program and new releases that are far more often hit than miss.

One of Psi's latest reissues is a session that has been buried for over 30 years now, since its 1973 release on Incus. At the time of Song for Someone's recording, Kenny Wheeler was on the rise as a very capable trumpeter and composer in some of Britain's various improvised music circles. His early 70s music was at a point not yet fully reconciled with its influences, but distinctive enough for fans to know they were onto something special. Such is the case with the big band-ish Song for Someone, which, while stirring among the shadows of Bill Holman and Gil Evans arrangements, bears many of the traits of Wheeler's later near-continuous string of jaw-dropping records. "Toot Toot" swings mightily, while the balladesque "Ballad Two" straddles a line dividing melancholy and hopeful perseverance, Norma Winstone's vocalising establishing itself as a key component to bring further animation to the larger group numbers. Alan Branscombe's electric piano is welcome in the mix, aligning itself with that instrument's worthy incorporation in some of the Mel Lewis/Thad Jones groups. Perhaps most interesting is the inclusion of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker on two tracks, as part of the effort to "…get special musicians from and into different areas of jazz to play together…" to quote Wheeler's brief liner notes. Bailey's guitar and Parker's not-yet-refined soprano sound utterly rebellious in their contributions, almost as if they are along to crash the party, but Wheeler's written transition from these introspective wanderings to the structurally sound is, in a word, seamless. It's been a long wait, but once the shock of this record's timelessness has softened, it'll feel like an old friend that's been around forever.

Were Psi a reissue-only label, it might be just as well, but Evan Parker has repeatedly shown that his own new music is still as inspiring as it was when he first learned to circularly blow arpeggios into oblivion. Suspensions and Anticipations is a record designed for Parker nuts who pine for more recordings of his tenor work. Not since Chicago Solo has Parker provided us with a better demonstration of his improvising talent on the instrument than this unlikely pairing with British jazz piano vet Stan Tracey. Apart from a small handful of solos (two from Tracey, one from Parker), S & A is an exceptional series of "what-if?" duos that result in a single, "of-course!" -Tracey's piano provides a multitude of harmonic foundations, from improvised low-register rumblings to sparing swing and stride motifs, which are embellished (and often undercut) by Parker's tenor. The numbers' development is hardly predictable, though; the music is the product of two musicians from adjacent fields of activity whose techniques and ways of departure turn out to be uncannily complimentary. The disc's resolve ultimately comes from a study of the three solo numbers, whose presence lend a world of insight to the collaborative processes of the duos. It's a set of music that will frustrate and mystify, and perhaps best suited for those who believe Parker's trick bag was zipped shut back in the 90's.

~Alan Jones

my man so-and-so

In discussing the Night and Day box and its sonic parallels to Shelly Manne's Blackhawk recordings, I was reminded of the heaven-reaching runs my man Richie Kamuca achieved in every number of the Blackhawk's five volumes, which then brought me back to a discussion we had here a week or two ago about certain Mingusites, the merits of Charlie Mariano on Mingus' Impulse! records, to be exact. Like Kamuca in Manne's quintet, Mariano's finest moments arguably reside within the Black Saint and the Sinner Lady and Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus sides, and then perhaps as a distinct result of the impulses and directions of their respective leaders.

These instances stand then for what could reasonably be called "unrealized talent", in that certain innate capacities may lie completely dormant until initiated by extra-musical impetuses, such as the performing environment or group chemistry. If you think that's bullshit, like I'm inclined to, then maybe we can settle for "circumstantial greatness".

Other examples are welcome, if not in vain, because there is no other Richie Friggin Kamuca. I'd be happy to bring any other theories up front, maybe to formally prove why Ken Vandermark and Paul Lytton should never again play together.

Resurrection Show

Last night the William Parker Quartet played to a very full Tractor Tavern in Seattle's Ballard district. It was the kind of show you want to attend with friends: lively tunes with catchy hooks and energetic soloing by players bound to make you smile. Parker has many configurations he works in, so for clarification, this was the "O'Neal's Porch" group, with Rob Brown (alto), Flip Barnes (tpt) and Hamid Drake.

A quick rundown:

I was pretty disappointed that the majority of the material was over three years old, but I won't go into my quarterly riff about the importance of concrete working bands. The old music remains quite strong and I still think that if Parker is ever going to establish himself as a composer, he should follow up on the infectious melodies and harmonies of "Purple" and "Sun". The band was great; I've never witnessed Hamid Drake when he's anything less than mystifying on the kit. Brown and Barnes appeared 100 times more relaxed than when playing with this group with singer Leena Conquest (with whom the 4tet just wrapped an extensive European tour). The crowd was ultra-enthusiastic, never missing an opportunity to give it up for the drummer (they always give it up for the drummer) and there were many hypnotized by Parker's concealed weapon, Flip Barnes. Parker himself could have done without the Viagra he apparently took before each of his overdrawn solos, and I would have loved for Rob Brown to just come undone... he only appears reserved, and takes names with his eyes closed.

I'm ok with the old tunes, and they are great ones that provide for stellar improv, but a band like this that has it's shit so together needs to be working with more than a couple of pieces of fresh material. I'd still recommend them to anybody.

The Budapest String Quartet - Beethoven String Quartets: Op. 127; Op. 131; Op. 132; Op. 135; Minuet From Op. 18, No. 5 (Sony / Columbia Masterworks Heritage)

Hey, let me try my soft sell out on you, OK?

You're alive now, right, in the year 2004? You're a listener, too, correct? You prefer the designation "sound artist" to "musician"? You've got the ducats and the cajones and the erudition; you dig Deerhoof, Lightning Bolt, Philip Jeck, Scorces, Iannis Xenakis, Ami Yoshida and John Butcher, to name but a few. (The litany will resume after a brief message.) And you prefer vinyl, audible textures, wrinkles, the item secreted in a dark corner or at the bottom of the pile, the oversight, the slightly fetid yet somehow soothing reek of the past? Yes, you, my friend. Switch off the iPod for a second and browse through my picks rack. I know, nothing here you haven't seen or heard before. Some of the same old bullshit, sure, bourgeois sentiments and pastimes. Some things never worth puffing out your lips with a "whatever" over in the first place. Hmmm? No sir, it is a deliberate inclusion. Absolutely. I promise no one has a grip on your chain.

See, Little Alex, if you care at all about music, and if at all value what, for the purposes of this transaction, you and me can here coin as "transcendental style", from Melville and Mishima to Burning Man to Bresson to Scelsi to Barnett Newman and Rothko and Bernhard Günter, then you need to own at least one recording of poor old deaf Ludwig Van's 15th String Quartet (In A Minor, Opus 132). The third movement, the "Canzona di ringraziamento. Molto adagio" is perhaps the most exalted quarter-hour in the entire (and still accreting) canon of Western music. The composer's own inscriptions on the score (completed in 1825) provide enough backstory... I mean, assuming you've never heard this piece. With reference to the adagio, "hymn of thanksgiving to the Almighty, in the Lydian mode, offered by a convalescent"; as a combination instruction and explication of the theme (in D major) that alternates with the hymn itself, "feeling new strength".

Now, this particular recording your holding has some virtues in addition to featuring this particular golden oldie. First, it is in lavish monophonic sound, here restored using Sony's trademark Super Bit Mapping technique. I know you're no audiophile, but surely you can appreciate how these recordings possess a unique hue, grain and luster. Secondly, this recording will also give you some exposure to the work of the Budapest Quartet itself. By 1942, the year these readings were "waxed", as they were wont to say in those days, the members of the Quartet were not Hungarian but Russian, and leadership of the ensemble had been assumed by 1st violinist Josef Roisman. Trust me, you'll want to learn of this; you're getting it for a bargain right now. The Budapest Quartet was renowned for its Beethoven interpretations, several recordings of which were made until the group's dissolution in 1967, the idea being, I suppose, that each new generation of listeners needed its own version of these works as understood by the Budapest Quartet. This, then, it where it all began.

And, more than that, The Budapest Quartet was the most influential chamber ensemble of its time: the Arditti's and Takács' and Emerson's of our day owe something to Roisman and company. The Budapest Quartet set the standard for technical accomplishment, for impeccable (i.e., not excessively ornamented) phrasing, for a certain individual and collective astringency of tone, for rhythmic "snap", and for an unfailing and intrepid sense of tempo. Their music, however, does not lack warmth, and to call describe the group as being "Modern" in their conception is not to offer a euphemism for "clinical". It is just that the emotion is not rendered so intensely that it crowds everything else out of your mind. And, if you expect a Romantic icon such as Beethoven to fold before a group of perfectionists, though, think again. The "Molto adagio" benefits immensely from the Quartet's meticulousness as well as the subtlety of their detachment allows one to appreciate the order slumbering within and slowly awakened by the music itself. This 15th does not grant me, as it did Beethoven, rebirth, but it does lead me to an utterly fresh and invigorating and even, if I'm very fortunate, a cleansing receptiveness to a truth with which I have long lived. It is a truth whose complexities I think music, more so that just about any other art, can bear and can clarify. A cycle, the nature of which warrants an experience of it that is itself repetitive. Not unlike a compass needle floating in its medium, the listener orients his or her listening self within purlieus of reoccurrence, routine, regularity. Of course, this observation is descended from common sense, they share common alleles, and Darwin, even showing the utmost kindness, could not give it good odds. I should correct myself: I speaking of the, you know, that cycle... that thing that is the most rara of avis to be spotted in the pages of The Wire. Although a hardy species, and by now quite widespread, its coloring renders it one of the great challenges in all of birding; it nests in dense, thorny foliage, but its mating song is very distinctive, piercing as well as peculiarly pleasing to the ear. Yes, that form of flight. You know. Mortality.

Be sure to keep your receipt.

Sin City

I first read Frank Miller’s creation while working in a bookstore back in 93’. I was into comics as a kid & familiar with Miller’s run on Marvel’s Daredevil as well as his influential revamping of Batman via The Dark Knight Returns. The scope & look of Sin City is reminiscent of those earlier projects, but magnified through a powerful misanthropic lens of noir atmosphere, attitude & violence. Stark & striking b&w visuals tied to characters that take hardboiled stereotypes to harrowing & at times hilarious extremes. It definitely made an impression.

Word has it that there’s now a film version in the works. Robert Rodriguez (Mariachi trilogy, From Dusk Til Dawn, Spy Kids franchise, etc.) is at the helm, sharing directing duties with Miller himself- a decision that led to the formers resignation from the Director’s Guild of America- and reportedly, Quentin Tarantino. The plot involves an arc tying together the comic series’ first book with later potboilers That Yellow Bastard and The Big Fat Kill. Even more intriguing is the cast either slated or already on board. Mickey Rourke has the lead, playing the sociopathic, but noble-hearted anti-hero Marv. The beefed up, plasticine-looking physique he’s sporting these days, along with his weathered acting chops, might fit the role perfectly. Also supposedly on the payroll: Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, Benecio Del Toro and Johnny Depp. Could be a good one, though Rodriguez’s penchant for accelerated production times & covering nearly all bases of the filmmaking process himself could cut either way.

Paul Hood - cplastsics

Paul Hood
cplastsics
Twothousandand
2++8

“cplastsics” is a collection of eight improvisations by London-based turntablist Paul Hood, some live, some in studio. Not dissimilar to the general attack utilized by Martin Tetreault or (when in turntable mode) Otomo Yoshihide, Hood tends to set up a rough rhythm through the rotation of various pieces of vinyl and, one assumes, other objects, laying something of a matrix over and through which he layers and interweaves feedback moans, rattles and various effluvia. In common with several of his label-mates (including Michael Rodgers, Anthony Guerra and Joel Stern), Hood almost always has lurking somewhere underneath a decided melodic sensibility. No matter how arcane or abrasive the surface aspect of the music is, there’s a certain smoothness, a calm relaxedness that leavens the pieces very attractively and adds to their cumulative power, especially on surging tracks like “Press Hold”. But he keeps it in check. When he veers dangerously close to cloyingly sweet organlike chords on “Career System”, Hood wisely tosses in casual handfuls of harsh static; no space-outs here. Not all the pieces are so successful and there’s a run of tracks late in the disc that more or less treads water (though not without interest, simply lacking the spark of the first several). Here, he turns things down a notch or two and has a little bit tougher time dealing with a more restricted palette; that ol’ fashioned sparse improv, she’s a hard one to tame. While the next to last selection, “Large Country Building”, seems to be something of a brief, retrograde nod to the ancient, dimly remembered tradition of the Marclay school of manic scratchitude, the disc closes out quite beautifully with “Hospitality”, a delicate and loving exploration of the interstice between controlled feedback and barely grazed vinyl that churns and builds wonderfully.

A touch uneven, “cplastsics” at its strongest is very enjoyable and engrossing and is well worth a listen (and arrives in a bright orange sleeve sporting a superb photo by Rodgers). I’m very much looking forward to hearing further work by Hood, including a soon-to-be-released trio with Guerra and Stern on Paradisc.

~ Brian Olewnick

Music From The ONCE Festival, 1961 - 1966

I can see them coming into Ann Arbor, Michigan -- a white, howling city -- mere weeks after the highly decorated groundhog who is as much a member of the "East Coast establishment" as the most remote member of the Kennedy clan has predicted six weeks more or less of winter. February, the amputee month. Not a month in which you slumber under blankets of adipose tissue; it is a month in which the wind is a hard, long-nailed slap across your face, of snow now a cement of stalled smoke and urban moraine, of frigid sky as opaquely white as an atmospheric cataract. February is daze. Who would come so far North in winter, in a month like a mealy bone whose marrow has been blanched out, much less try to bore some warm cubbyhole of life into its hard heart?

But arrive they do, from all over the discontinuous Union. America, the land of amicable borders -- the white picket fence, the county line, the interstate. It's easy to overlook cultural divides when highway sights are dictated by the seasons rather than blandishing coordinates. Driving or being driven is the way to come in. By bus, braking with a soft sigh and a hushed squeal. By car. Chevrolets, Plymouths, DeSotos, Pontiacs, Fords. Cars you can measure in terms of tons and acreage. The cars are returning to the frigid state, if not the precise plants, of their birth. The cars -- idling in front of the Unitarian church as overcoated figures bend (at the waist, little give in the knees) into backseats to extract broad, flat oblongs of cases and crushed costumes -- look as if they are jumping in place. Or maybe they fly in on small planes that aren't landed as much as they are piloted along a vertically oscillating trajectory into a slow, graceful skid. They are the serious young artists with cigarettes inserted between thin, if not exactly bloodless, lips (for some reason, Gordon Mumma's small blonde moustache, one which makes his smile seem more gregarious and that reinforces a slight resemblance to Martin Mull, catches me by surprise). They are outfitted in the conservative dress of the day... the black needlecord or wool / synthetic blend suits, the skinny matte ties and Oxford cloth button-down shirts, the razor-narrow lapels, the trouser legs drawn down to a tight circle around the ankle... but with some aspect of personal appearance just out of skew ...the length of hair, scuff on the shoes, an upturned corner of a collar, the imitation tortoiseshell of the spectacles. They are the devotees of a new autonomy, and the framers of a new meritocracy.

How so? From page 28 of Leta E. Miller's ONCE And Again: The Evolution Of A Legendary Festival:

"By 1958, the Ann Arbor scene was ripe for a major undertaking. Karlheinz Stockhausen lectured at the University [of Michigan] that year and urged young composers to assume responsibility for performances of their own work rather than relying on institutional support."

So the mobilization that began to lace up and march forward years before has made good time in this youngish decade. CORE and SNCC are in the thick of it. Both Mario Savio and Timothy Leary still have campus gigs. McLuhan is riding the carousel of the UHF dial. Godard is catching his breath. Dylan is popping pills and, wasted by his own vigor, is tearing down the great edifices of the new American sincerity, ego by ego. But there is a stillness here in Ann Arbor that feels less like tranquility -- much less peace -- and more like a manifestation of sublime aloofness. Stomping the freeze off as they march up and down between garage levels, these young composers also carry zippered attaches that are stuffed with untried music, music heard, if heard at all and not just guessed at, only by a solitary inner ear. Their scores, often employing new systems of notation -- the five runic lozenges of Robert Ashley's Quartet (1965), the imaginary stellar navigations of George Cacioppo's Cassiopeia (1963), the super-saturated yet abstract color projections of Donald Scavarda's Filmscore for Two Pianists (1962; not documented here) -- are akin to patents that have yet to be modeled in more than two dimensions.

If only these inventions could be manufactured in mass quantities and made to appear "as advertised", we all might experience revolution in our very own living rooms. But aren't revolutions long-term projects? Revolution is not to be found in revolutionary violence. Those convulsions soon subside, or, more to the point, propagate, their frequencies stretching into the most red of spectra: the future. What happens to music that is only ever premiered, that is only ever played one time? (I know, I know... all instances of music are, really, singular events, even when multiple performances of the music itself do exist.) The music flares up more in the manner of a rebellion that never manages to secure enough guns or numbers. Its impact is muted and resounds only faintly, locally; the music cannot reach the larger order of things that is its target. Such music becomes a sensational rumor, like the noises cranked out by Luigi Russolo's intonarumori, an anomaly, a "report" in scholarly works. (I first heard about this ONCE music by over-hearing discussion about it.) In the minds of those who witnessed its performance, the lasting impressions made by such music twist like some mobile in which the wires from which each bauble depends are meant to be invisible. Such music could also grow over the years into a massive yet indistinct allegory; individual instances of unheard music become composite characters in a cultural melodrama about things set free only to be lost. Or the music can be rediscovered, revived, even restored to audibility, as these works, suddenly, are. "Live recordings taped during the ONCE Festivals and ancillary ONCE events by WUOM, University of Michigan Radio. The tapes are archived at the Northwestern University Music Library ONCE Festival Archive and are used with their kind permission" (136). These are broadcasts once released to the celestial and now brought back to earth and terrestrial complications after many years wandering in realms ethereal: many of these compositions are now branded with a 2003 copyright date. Nothing is more novel these days than the latest anachronism. Which is not to say that this box set functions merely as a curious period piece. Works such as David Behrman's Track (1965) and Donald Scavarda's Matrix For Clarinetist (1962) are more contemporary -- in terms of design, assuredly, each piece sunk deep in its chosen foundations but still, ultimately, friable (in a lovely manner derived from Webern); more to the point, in terms of sound, that noun here intended to glisten with as much sensual connotation as possible. i.e., not necessarily aiming to say "in the way they sound"... -- than a two year-old threnody (or symphony, or tone poem...) that has already been accepted into the literature. Is already in heavy rotation. This ONCE music is more insidiously "new" than the rough mixes of the latest Timbaland production making the rounds on the peer-to-peer networks that have sprouted in the hinterlands of the adult world.

As aesthetic referents, of course, "new" and "passé" -- what has not existed before and that which refuses to grace us with passing from existence -- are governed by laws of relativity. This is groaningly obvious, I know, but it is worth reiterating at many turns because the problem of the "new" in art is too commonly confused with the dilemma of "taste", which isn't rational by definition anyway. Your own acknowledgement -- withheld or whatever -- that Mahler is considered and treated as an innovator, not just in his explorations of chromatic harmony but, more germane to the point I wish to make, in his almost collage-like approach to symphonic construction is not significant in that said acknowledgement may, as if by magic, render you able to sit through a performance of his 8th or 9th without fidgeting, yawning, or stoppering your ears. On the contrary; the historical facts of Mahler career have no real bearing on your most private appreciation of the music. But the fact that other composers have acquiesced to Mahler's "genius", and have created their own music within these confines, is something that is very, very useful to have a grip on this one hopes to strengthen one's tastes and make real opinions out of them. History, above all cultural history, isn't very rational either, I'm afraid. But what is more important about cultural history from this point-of-view is that it can put on a very convincing show of its credibility, and even its own ineluctability.

Meanwhile, the preferences of a minority -- say, the predilection for non-narrative, non-representational cinema shared by ONCE composers such as Gordon Mumma and Donald Scavarda -- start to resemble a mode of dissent. And such tastes, once they find a sympathetic audience, are transformed into veritable causes, programs, missions. This process, in which an establishment, whether in the form of grotesquely fleshy figurehead or an outlandishly robotic schematic of financial, political, prudish and nepotistic forces in conspiracy, is endowed with a generous portion of whatever power the movement itself has so far amassed, can be seen playing out in cases as diverse as the "Bach revival" and the rock critic sanctifying of the greatest example of "negative theology" we have in rock music, The Velvet Underground. All of which puts me in mind of one of the issues of high culture around which the literary research of the Oulipo (the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle) -- something else that "happened" (qua Heller) in the 1960's -- cohered. As poet and mathematician Jacques Roubard wrote: "the first sonnet, at the moment of becoming a sonnet, is not a sonnet but a Sicilian variant of the Provençal cobla. It is only with the thousandth sonnet (or more or less -- in any case after many sonnets) that the sonnet appears." ("Mathematics In The Method Of Raymond Queneau", 1977) Or as Oulipo historian Warren F. Motte, Jr. has stated:

"[Raymond Queneau's combinatoric Cente Mille Milliards de poèmes] responds amply to the 'analytic' intent, the desire to recuperate and revivify traditional constraining forms. If the sonnet is a far less ancient form than, say, rhopalic verse... it imposes nonethless a multiplicity of constraints that are, of course, arbitrary at the outset but become highly codified through use (and it is precisely this 'use' that separates the normative text from the experimental)." [emphasis mine] (Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature; 4)

You might take exception; these are profound if less than dazzling observations. Experience instructs me that "form" is actually less an attribute, resilient and traceable by the eye, than it is an act of retrospection, itself easily confounded or, perhaps, even forgotten.

You weren't there, were you. (Question mark optional.) Unless, maybe, you are one of the "unknown" brides or grooms and / or mourners in the still from Mary and Robert Ashley's 1965 Happening, Combination Wedding and Funeral (see page 107 of the accompanying booklet). Can you help me conjugate this "ONCE" Festival? The component events are never truly, fully repeated, though they may be repeatable. Yet the outline of the festival itself recurs annually, regularly, within the purview of expectations. More than once. I have no evidence that each subsequent festival took any sort of theme, assumed any sort of distinctive title, or was assembled out of any desire by the organizers to better, to best, the prior festival's "wow factor". I can see that they saw the concert series as being more indispensable to their work and their methods of collaboration than any sort of infatuation with agenda or "progress" than any of the above insinuates. The ONCE Festival was not a sort of World's Fair. The movable city displaces the movable feast. It is easy to scoff at squatters and their rights, especially when you are playing to the squatters' heels as they flee, trailing a red-and-white checkered tablecloth and pans black with frying. ("Beautification" almost invariably entails displacing homeless populations.) Hurry, hurry, come and see the amassed wonders of human civilization, one of the chief wonders being this prefabricated, swiftly erected setting, too transient ever to suffer decay or know posterity, that can contain all the world' wares. Don't be fooled by imitations; this is not your standard-issue microcosm. This is a visitation of the future upon your very present condition, your misery, your hopes, your -- yes indeed -- your apple-pie ennui. This, my friends, is what will be accomplished for you. And so the walls are pulley-ed up and the diagrams are printed and the souvenirs are unloaded, crate upon crate of them, inflating this skin of wishes and speculations with even more tokens of immensity. ONCE was not connotatively festive, though I'm sure the more theatrical among its participants might have enjoyed the idea of having ONCE barkers (William S. Burroughs would have been splendid choice for such a role), a ONCE midway, ONCE funnel cakes and corny dogs, ONCE pavilions enshrining, if temporarily, the marvels of modernity: the elevator; the washing machine; the stereoscopic camera; the tape recorder.

I've decided that the ONCE Festivals whose characteristics and achievements I gather together in my mind so far after the fact -- if the 1960's were indeed factual in form -- were much more akin to professional conferences. Each discipline and each industry has its own gathering that is neither wholly work nor utterly holiday. So that, as much as these convention-goers have presentations to present and bombshells to drop ("Did you hear what Roy Tennant said at the keynote address this morning?"), they also assume the hardships of attendance in order to congest the foot traffic from one performance to the next with excitable talk of solutions to shared problems. Or, at the tables set for pre- dinners and post- parties, proposals are passed from seated hand to seated hand along with a jug of wine and the basket of bread. Here is Gordon Mumma:

"The composer and visual artist Donald Scavarda invited me to compose a soundtrack for his short film titled Greys. Admiring his compositions, I followed a characteristic of his work: limiting my sound materials and developing them with restricted but complex procedures. Thus, my electronic music for Greys employs very few sound sources but develops with an overlapping process from an unusual tape-recording technique. I disconnected the tape-recorder 'erase-head' function, combining the sound sources with magnetic-overlapping rather than the standard 'mixing.' Donald and I had not discussed our individual creative procedures for Greys, and knew nothing of what each of us was doing, except for an agreement on the duration of the piece. It wasn't until after the premiere, when I asked him how he had made his mysteriously hypnotic light-images, that our unknown parallel thinking was revealed." (119 - 120)

The work documented here reveals its grubby, impoverished-fringe birthright somewhat in that the piano, the box orchestra accessible to these students and former students, is so central to the early works; the 1962 disc is all but dominated by piano literature. Simultaneously, then, ONCE (the Festivals judged individually as well as collectively) was a masterpiece of shoulder-rubbing. John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, LaMonte Young, Pauline Oliveros, Luciano Berio, Lukas Foss, Bertram Turetzky were all invited to participate in ONCE programs, and did. There is no direct corollary, however, between one's musical significance and the size, shape, and vertical alignment of one's shoulders. The idiom makes requisite a certain equivalence in stature, and delineates a sidling motion. On page 75 of the box set's accompanying booklet, Gordon Mumma is pictured in conversation with Morton Feldman. Mumma appears to be sitting, quite literally, on the edge of his seat (one of those metal folding chairs that populate just about every grammar school auditorium across the nation), turned out on the lever of his outstretched arm to address Feldman, who reclines, his hand in mid-stroke just under his mouth. This is the Feldman of Guston's famous impasto caricature, sans cigarette. Here is that elongated and bloodied ear on the colossal block of his head, from jaw to upswept hair, yet with little of his face (generous nose, nearly voluptuous lips) visible. It is the very picture of Midwestern eagerness cornering East Coast sophistication. Mumma had a relationship with Feldman's ideas long before he ever had a relationship with Feldman; Feldman, in turn, had, by 1964, only met a few young people who had, in any demonstrable way, allowed his ideas to care for them in any capacity. It is a casual snapshot that feels nevertheless as if it contained in its planes -- Feldman's white hand, plump but not ungraceful against the here-and-there bunched black rod of Mumma's coat sleeve -- and angles -- shoulders not adjacent but occupying the same line (and a knee, or perhaps it is the underside of a thigh, raised by crossed legs, floats at the bottom left-hand corner of the image; the joint could belong to either man) -- some pivotal exchange. A transference enabled by listening.

"Friction" may be a portable description of the active space that exists between charged bodies in proximity. Meanwhile, "trend" is not an arrow pointing one way, but a circle along whose single contour the overturned "V" of the pointer has been copied many times over by revolving's rate. Stop anywhere on this circulation, and blades will appear to be bearing down upon you while you yourself are that much further from your chosen vanishing point.

"Trend" is a process of reciprocation. The mandarins cannot sustain themselves entirely; they always subsist, in part, on the debasements they inspire -- their own works being the first debasements, of course. Deliberately so; the secret is that the expression of a significant idea is the withholding of an even grander conception, ravishing and paradoxically pristine in its disuse. Original works and the original works they inspire murmur commiserations to one another... "yes, in order to preserve that, we will build this, here..." Of course. You never quite hear the celebratory timbre of this plotting and engineering, but it's there -- an overtone, not a subtone.

If I try to convey just how oddly restful a sunny Saturday afternoon spent in the company of this music is, I'll make a complete hash of it. Sample, if you have the time and the inclination, the richly textured drones of Robert Sheff's -- aka "Blue" Gene Tyranny's -- Diotima (1963). Anne Aitchison's flute sounds alternately pillowy and obdurate, calling to mind downy feathers, crumbly, dryly aromatic (like a creek bed exposed to the sun) sticks of blackboard chalk, an open book whose pages are alternately corrugated and smoothed by the breeze, tap dancer's sand, empty green glass bottles. Knowing that Diotima was inspired by a Socratic dialogue I'm prompted to say that she's an Aeolian Ben Webster. Yet broad bands of silence -- or of drastically reduced musical activity at the very least -- effect the pace of these moods Sheff assigns to his heroine, thus altering, in a strict sense, their sequential significance. The composer's stated intent is that each tape-realized section of the piece "erase itself", not literally, but, I suppose, by having its thematic interdependencies obscured by the passage of time as well as of "dead air". These silences, much as they do in so much contemporary improvised music, break the wheel of comparing. But love, the theme of Plato's Diotima, here neither grows nor diminishes. Rather, love is only accumulated, the way one accumulates memorable encounters with total strangers. It is relativistic love, each experience of it as circumstantially valid as it is contradictory of other, equally valid experiences of itself. Naturally, such sensualism is seeded with melancholy. In keeping with his piano repertoire, which can almost be called Jarrett-esque, Sheff's Diotima is delicious noise, but that makes the piece neither very notable nor at all ennobling. For noise is always ripe, even "austere" noises like test tones and the sound of coins striking the stomach lining of a piggy bank. Noise is juice and pith: sugary-grainy, glistening, flowing. Over-stimulating. Let me mull mingling identities again: the music, the day of the week, the weather. Diotima is a haunting piece of music, sure, animated as much by doubt as by confidence inspired by affection (as Mississippi Fred McDowell said), but I think Saturday is always a queasy quiescence. If you will.

Perhaps I have been deluded all these years, years I have thought some lesson. Perhaps music alone can no more communicate truths about the human condition than a seashell whispers descriptions of the ocean no matter if it is cradled next to an ear or whether it proceeds to sink, tide by tide, into the sand. There are those that believe nature is proof of a divine imagination. Music is certainly evidence of imagination active in the world. (I subsume intelligence within imagination.) Yet music is not mere nebulous potential. Music is an event and, as a result, has configurations both internal and external. The problem may be how rapidly and even perniciously those external configurations tend to proliferate. Hence I detect among some fellow listeners a nearly desperate longing for music of great purity, of "organic" character, of an almost alien "unheard-of"-ness -- in short, of radical emptiness. Never before in my life have I felt misanthropy elevated to the level of aesthetic virtue. Music that, as Lawrence J. Steefel Jr. has written of Duchamp's rotoreliefs, "rotate[s] elliptically without ultimate gain or loss." ("Marcel Duchamp and the Machine"; 78). Blankness, numbness are extremities, and have to be attacked in order to be achieved. And I feel this rising desire for music rather facilely purged of the human element as a pressure. Of course, I should not chastise this attitude for an obstinacy it itself cannot apprehend.

This ONCE music is, despite all the freedoms it dispenses, a music of prohibition, as all composed music must, in one behavior or another, be. What is rather new in the ONCE music is that one of the prohibitions is against the relinquishing of the standard of "rules". For so many of these ONCE composers, any conceptual parameters, whatever symmetry or asymmetry those parameters are founded on, and no matter how the figures of those parameters are transmitted, "make" a score. Paraphrased as performance instructions, these scores exceed themselves. That is, however much these pieces bend back towards their origins, they always fall short of that goal -- which, after all, is only another digression. So Gordon Mumma's Mographs (the Large Size Mograph [1962] is heard here, played by pianist Larry Leitch) take their "rhythmic figures and durational sequences" (Miller, 60) from seismographic maps. These pieces are, like Charles Dodge's pioneering computer music piece Earth's Magnetic Field (1970) or some passages from Janáček, a revelation of the musical potential of natural processes which occur on scales and within spheres remote from us by virtue of our biology. But, from another, equally valid perspective, the Mographs are a fractious dialogue with the implements of Cold War surveillance. The vibrations recorded (doubly so) are representative not just of continental evolution, but of underground nuclear blasts: devastation both real but slow to anger, and simulated but monstrously swift. In Fives (1963), Robert Ashley purifies Bartok-inspired numerology, but in doing so he discloses a truly oppressive madness.

"[T]he score would be impossible to play... I wouldn't touch the [number tables on which the piece is based] myself today... For the ONCE Festival performance I could tell the players only to 'play what you can play, when it occurs in tempo,' and the result will be a version of one realization of the piece as though heard through a very coarse on-off filter." (111-112)

Roger Reynolds' A Portrait of Vanzetti (1963), while a much more self-consciously ideological, anti-war work than the Mographs, is more remarkable for being a prescient electroacoustic composition in the sense that it is not imperative for the listener to know what the sources of the individual sounds actually are. What is crucial is that contrasts of tone, texture and dynamics within the ensemble have been united in a larger struggle to lend urgency and new resonance to the words of one of the United States' earliest political prisoners. "Portrait" here means much less formally than it seems. For in Reynolds' Portrait the entire "system" -- that image of modern life so familiar from the fiction and cinema produced during the 1960's -- cooperates in the expression of human dignity: self-involved, threatened, and relentless. On the other hand, George Cacioppo's Bestiary I: Eingang (1962) in effect extracts the meter from a poetic text (Rilke's) so it can be juxtaposed against the anti-rhythm (effectively) insinuated by the natural decay of instrumental sounds, mostly percussive in character -- "brittle" (54) in the words of our annotator. Upon first listen, Rilke's spiritual concerns do not hover over this performance; rather a question of dramatic definition is strung around it's neck. When is a cantata not a cantata? But as one listens again, the interrogatory stretches out, shifts... what conduct identifies the sacred, identifies the secular?

All the same, the composers decidedly not memorialized with this box set's release adamantly refuse to go away. They have asserted and continue in current works to assert themselves and the major events of their lives, their methods, their errors and hesitations. Their very heterogeneity. Their assertions are arguments in opposition to Irrelevance. Consider this long, parenthetical insert from the ever-quotable Robert Ashley concerning his in memoriam... Crazy Horse (symphony) (1964):

"[The symphony] is one of a group of four pieces (a quartet, a trio concerto, a symphony, and an opera) that I hoped were pure and accurate abstractions of those musical forms as I understood them from the European tradition. (Each of these forms was given the name of a 'New World' hero from different times in our history, because it seemed from my reading of European musical history and American social history that there was a remarkably curious coincidence between the emergence of a musical form in Europe with the emergence of a 'similar' social idea represented by the American hero. It was as if the same 'idea' happened on both continents at the same time, but had to be represented differently in the two places, because the form of the idea had to come from what was available to be changed: in Europe, in music; in America, in social organization.)" (112)

Granted, Crazy Horse may be the denoted hero. But the connoted hero is the musical form Ashley is describing as a persona of the composer. This becomes more apparent as Ashley continues with a description of the symphony's essential construction:

"When I started working with graphic notation, I learned a simple but important (at least to me) fact: One kind of music could be notated only in a circular graph; another (the other) kind of music could be notated only in a linear graph of synchronous events (like an orchestra score). in memoriam... Crazy Horse (symphony) is of the circular kind, with 64 points on the circle, each point with a notation indicating how to play ('relate') as a member of a four-piece ensemble (of which there can be any number over five) and where to go (to what point on the circle) next. The circle is divided, in agreement among the four members of the ensemble, into two equal parts. If your assignment takes you to a point on one part of the circle, your job as a member of the ensemble is -- starting to play without knowing what any other member is going to play -- to distinguish yourself as completely as possible from the other four. If your assignment takes you to the other half of the circle, your job -- again, starting without knowing -- is to make yourself as indistinguishable as possible from the other members of the ensemble... There are 32 different performance parts for four-piece ensembles. Thus a minimum full orchestra of 128 players is in a constant 'process' of adjustment towards an idealized goal. This is not aleatoric music in any way that was understood then -- as I have tried to explain to many interviewers. It is purposefulness to an almost impossible level of achievement... A peculiarity of the score, much too difficult to explain, but coming from the fact of the circle having 64 points, is that within less than eight 'moves' -- changes of assignment to different points on the circle -- every ensemble gets into a repetition of moves -- that is, to a repetition of moving from one point on the circle to another. In short, repeating what one has been doing for, say, the first five moves. At this point, the piece becomes a set of giant 'wheels' (ensembles) all turning in synchronization. This is the point at which I think the fun might begin." [emphasis mine] (112-113)

In performance, here taken at a medium-slow tempo, in memoriam... Crazy Horse (symphony)'s constrictions make for quite an experience. An ordeal? It becomes a kind of allegory of empire-building. Out of an incessantly modulating groan from strings and what sound like "home" electric organs (they could also be accordions), brass and woodwinds erupt in drunken blurts or spike with shrill piping. Silence is conquered pretty quickly as positives and negatives pounce upon one another, but Ashley's reduction of arms leads only to reprisals of increasing penetration and tenacity. The appearance of sustained melody -- a simple three-note French horn lick at about the 11-minute mark -- in this context cannot help but be disconcerting, even upsetting. The orchestra's instrumental identities churn in and out of recognizability like human faces in a surging throng, but those melodies are like the imploring face of a loved one glimpsed in one long moment, only to disappear once more into the mayhem. This is not exactly the Robert Ashley who has become a sort of Garrison Keillor of the musical avant-garde -- Midwestern, colloquial, fond of parables -- or even the Ashley of the morphophonemic liberation he discovered for himself in Automatic Writing.

Art can be a horror, a terror, an anguish; it has that capacity. I want to say that it is perhaps best for us all if tyrannical impulses are played out in art rather than in the "real world". What may be good for "art" may be disastrous for society; we have a name for the problem as it plays out, actually, and that name is "fascism". But I also know that imagination cannot be fully erased from reality's surfaces without rending the basic fiber of reality itself. There are many turns of phrase with which to make an accounting of the multi-media drive of many of these ONCE productions. In some instances, the many facets the work turns to the audiences of the time -- if not us mere listeners in the year 2004 -- are evidence of a division of aesthetic labor among the forms. Integration, sublimation, synaesthesia... these affects are less vital than the actual interfaces that can only crystallize once the forms themselves have been broken, or, at least, fully admit to their insufficiencies. This tenet, if it is such, is very much in line with the philosophy of the Oulipo, even if those artists confined themselves to a single (if bifurcated... prose and verse) "discipline". Besides, Perec, Mathews, Calvino, Queneau, Arnaud, et. al. have no authority over the unleashed forces binding each writer's work to another. I would argue that the Oulipian enterprise is predicated upon two intertwined and indispensable propositions.

1. Creation can draw its energy from even the flimsiest excuse. Generative power is latent in many, many unsuspected sets of circumstances. (This is not chaos theory.)
2. Artists need more creative guidance rather than less. Forms exist for this purpose. Inspiration, being as volatile a fuel as it is, tends to dissipate before it can be expended. Forms, especially very tight forms, in turn fasten a kind of vacuum around inspiration. (This is not inertia).

Oulipian literature is not just about lipograms (subtractive), rhopalic verse (additive), and all forms of alphabetical and semantic algorithms (such as Lescure's S + 7 method, "in which each substantive in a given text is replaced by the seventh substantive following it in the dictionary" [Motte, 201]). Oulipian literature is also concerned with the manner in which linguistic arrangements -- frames however screw-loose -- enclose perception. Whether "analytic" (employing established if derelict forms) or "synthetic" (positing innovative forms), "form" does not assure the writer of an escape from consciousness. Oulipian texts venerate the virtually inexhaustible potential of the transmigrating artistic consciousness.

(What we can more than likely never learn from merely listening to recordings of these ONCE works is: are there moments when the players violate the agreement to the new arbitrariness and play above the law? Sun Ra: "I tell my Arkestra that all humanity is in some kind of restricted limitation, but they're in the Ra jail, and it's the best in the world.")

I know my allegiance is to apparent complexity, not apparent simplicity. I have made peace with the fact that the void is, for me, not something to be attained, but only something to pause before, and then -- rubato -- to begin to fill. These authorial assertions I've noted, then, even if they are assertions merely of the freedom to interpret, urge the humanist in my closet (behind the coats, sitting on the shoes) to champion the composer's art. "We require an affront to the changing rules of posterity."

I'm leaning hard into the closet door, against the pounding coming from the other side. The jamb is splintering, and my temple has been bruised by the violent repetition of ajar versus shut; I don't have the strength or the time to inquire of myself whether comprehension is inevitably a form of complicity.

I will speak of my setting-out hopes that ONCE was an acronym. I will tell you that I read in vain through the 130-plus pages of the ONCE booklet (is this branding getting to you?) for the words curled up, like spatial dimensions in a shape known only to the most advanced geometricians, in each uppercase character. In this context, I thought ONCE might be a simple string of letters resembling by chance... felicity, really... a common, monosyllabic word. If ONCE was a word, then, it was extra-dimensional. As so it would be ill-served by being plunked down into sentences and paragraphs. ONCE could not elucidate when seen represented in that way. ONCE has to either to be magnified, or I had yet to discover the exceptionally delicate tools that would allow me to uncouple these letters. Pry the emblem open and pull out the collective meaning.

O =

N =

C =

E =

Each character as a variable in an equation I could solve. ONCE and it's significant other, the better half moving about in the kitchen, brewing and roasting, but not yet naked to the eye. Or perhaps ONCE as a rebus: each letter is acting out a pantomime, only with gestures that resolve so quickly to stillness I was prevented from perceiving them.

But the truth is that ONCE, unlike AACM or IRCAM, is not the sturdy handle on a somewhat unwieldy textual valise, one that, like all shorthand, needs to take well to conveyance. Think of the space that opens in a record review, or a musical history, or a biography, or -- stretching a bit here -- a grant application as soon as you hit one of these acronyms. Acronyms operate according to the principle of synecdoche. Yet there is little poetry any given acronym even as it is a manifestation of those same principles. Yet, clearly, an acronym can transform an obstacle into an aid. More importantly, an acronym has the authority to represent the interests of many individuals by stepping forward into its own identity. It is disappointing to me that ONCE does, ultimately, mean nothing. The fact that a good majority of the ONCE participants revel in the field of possibilities that separate signifiers from signified makes this fact even harder to accept.

ONCE = formerly. ONCE = a single occasion. ONCE = by a single degree or step. ONCE = as soon as. If this last, then ONCE refers not to something singular, but something potential, thus multiple. Many "onces" within this lone ONCE.

Let me backtrack. I'll place this ONCE box set, black and yellow, one alongside my mighty AMPLIFY02: balance box and just groove on the vibrations called forth by their proximity to one another. I can see the distance now as the thing I've shortened, as if inadvertently. But history bears me out. The free improvisation community has fashioned a means of cultural and financial support by looking down the fatter tube-end of the telescope back at ONCE's own interpretation of the festival. I don't mean to come off as some sort of irredentist. VisionFest, Freedom of the City, Victoriaville, the Total Music Meeting, among others -- those festivals showcase music that differs radically in theory, practice and sheer sound from what you will hear on the ONCE set. (However much it is true that an essay on the similarities between ONCE music and contemporary improvised music is waiting to be written.) No, the festival ideal is to be found in the extra-musical but work-centered self-sufficiency and self-policing the ONCE artists advocated. The independence from officialdom. Overthrowing institutional patronage and reinstating collaboration with artists active in other media (in ONCE's case, the Dramatic Arts Center and the Space Theatre). Emphasizing that all aspects of the festival are to be considered works of art. Utilizing publicity to show solidarity. Utilizing publicity as a mechanism for legitimizing the artists' individual endeavors. Creating a new, open yet still exclusive, tradition that has antecedents predating the tradition itself. This last is what the Oulipians, in their inimitable Francophone way, called "plagiarism by anticipation".

These days, we might use the parlance of entrepreneurship to parse the ONCE phenomenon. ONCE was a "brash start-up". They operated under a "radical business model." They were trying to thrive on the slim pickings of the "bleeding edge." Paradigms were shifting. Does ONCE have a "killer app"? What "deliverables" can we expect? Where will you be in five years? Where do you want to go today? Ask me and I may tell you, "Heaven." And marketing, marketing, sure. You can always market a product into being if you have to. To a more than modest extent, by keeping admission prices nominal, by picking a fallow and thus very opportune time of year to stage its events, the ONCE artists influenced the cultural economics of their time. And they understood the value of basic cunning in economy. They also knew the value of a good promotional gimmick. For their 1964 poster, they employed a "nekkid" model, playing coy on a lunch counter, her head resting on a cash register, a dollar sign painted on the cake dish situated right over her hips. Standing over the model, composers Gordon Mumma, Donald Scavarda, George Cacioppo and Robert Ashley are decked out like cosa nostra hit men: black fedoras, black suits, white ties, grim countenances. (Manet's Olympia as re-staged in Kienholz’s The Beanery just as some extras from a Ben Shahn illustration are coming in for a quick bite.) The scene is truly that of an underworld, forbidden and crass, actually several underworlds in one, complete with lamia and furthermore familiar to the rock fans who are now familiar with graphic artist Kozik's poster and flyer iconography. And, above and beyond all this, ONCE provoked frothing, totally befuddled but unmistakably negative reviews. A review that vents such antipathy and outrage only casts a purplish light of allure on the target of its disgrace. ONCE is also a reminder that there is no such thing as art without commerce, that, in fact, art is one of the strangest but most graceful bases for barter ever established. Because the ONCE proceeds went into planning initiatives for additional events, concerts, festivals:

ONCE = next

The cultural economy from which the ONCE artists emerged was more or less under the sway of dividing and collating, invisible hands. On pages 90 - 1 of the exhaustive book that accompanies this music, we can read:

"[Gordon] Mumma characterizes the ONCE organizers as 'renegades', and the Festivals as a controversial endeavor reflecting a tumultuous social and political climate: 'Joseph McCarthy, the civil rights movement... a wonderful crazy time. And annual military parades in the streets of Ann Arbor. I refused to play in military bands, even [more to the point, probably, 'especially'] for money. Instead we'd set up loudspeakers in the windows of the apartments along the parade route and try to drown them out. Their marching became a mess; they'd get lost. Talk about street theater!' [Robert] Ashley disagrees. 'ONCE was not controversial,' he says. 'It was new. It became famous overnight because there was nothing like it in the whole country. It was like inventing penicillin, or the hula hoop.' In some sense, however, opposition is inevitable with any newness. The solution, wrote Reynolds in 1961, is participation: 'The acceptance of any new approach to or in art eventually becomes a public concern. The basic problem in unfamiliarity and the best solution is personal involvement.'"

A weak currency is a wall ripe for the toppling. I have to construe Ashley's reference to fadism not as any sort of diffidence about what ONCE was all about, but, in his own laconic fashion, an admission that, even if ONCE was not "controversial", it was a contagion in the imaginations of those who were exposed to it -- ONCE was a craze, if you will. Of course, artists aren't the only ones who study psychological vulnerabilities. Know your enemy. One of the lessons of war delivered by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, one of the true architects of the 1960's in the United States, in the recent film The Fog Of War is "empathize with your enemy." I guess it holds true as much for artists as it does CFO's and generals.

Roberto Gerhard, the spiritual inspiration (the man who had patience for them; all artists need such individuals) for the ONCE achievers, wrote in 1960 (the article? "Is New Music Growing Old?"), "[i]t would seem a poor show if an epoch does not manage to its 'contemporary' ideas fully in all directions, to the utmost limits of contradiction." (33).

I envy anyone who can listen to all this ONCE music -- 5 CDs each nearly 80 minutes in length -- without bending under the enormous burden of even one iota of information about the Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music, The Space Theatre, the Speech Research Institute, Allen Kaprow, Situationalism, musique concrète, Cageian indeterminacy, Varese's heartbreak, Nono, Pendericki, the military-industrial complications of American academia during the 1960's, the cultural monopoly of the coasts in American culture (the excluded, nearly autistic middle that is middle America), the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, the mainstreaming of psychoanalytic principles in American life, the New Frontier and the Great Society, Haight-Asbury, Joseph Beuys. It's just so much rattle between the ears. Like keywords that seem to construct some pattern but are only a scrambled hierarchy of "concepts" to be injected into HTML META tags, the footholds of web robots, this list obscures tangents and relationships, healthy and otherwise... tape pieces, serialism -- recall that this term encompasses not just the of organization of tonal intervals, but, by the late 1950's and early 1960's, the subjecting of just about any form of musical information, for example, tonal durations, to permutational procedures whose rigor nevertheless does not eclipse the composer's own judgment -- Happenings, alea, early minimalism, choral works, solo instrumental pieces, free improvisations, works such as the Scavarda Groups for Piano (1961) that could be several of these things but whose most prominent feature -- its radically short length; at 57 seconds, it is a mere hiccup of music -- entails some other designation of what, damn it, it is. Nobody ever promised that stupidity would be lovable, but, my, it is as quintessentially human as anything else. It is universal. Ignorance is, at its core, a yearning that has never had a mirror held up to it.

A survey, even a cursory one, of this set's contents... yes, lay them out like that, scatter the component CDs to "laminal" states, let "1961" overlap "1963-64" , but pin it under "1962-63", slice the pages out of the accompanying booklet and, as a diviner would yarrow stalks, toss their sense to new coordinates. The box now a bed not in the way the place where you cradle your bones down to sleep is, but a bed, a wet, loamy place where flowers and edible roots can take purchase. From a purely historical perspective, this box set clarifies how a transitional period was the primary means by which the distinctions between "structure" and "process" in experimental American music were effaced. The more I listen, the more my convictions stiffen, thicken. The ONCE artists, all of them, those in residence such as Mumma and Ashley and Scavarda as well as the visitors, were out to revolutionize musical performance itself: the internal dynamics of the performing ensemble (including the conductor); the relationship of the composer to performer; the relationship of the audience to both composers and performers; the relationship of the audience to the work itself. One of the raw, component materials in any new form is a plastic substance we can call "listener expectations"; you can think of John Cage's contempt for Western harmony -- he deemed it "obnoxious" -- and his avioidance of its precepts in this light. New forms thus always propose new kinds of interactions. This is espcially true of music, which is innately abstract. With so many of these ONCE works, the audience may now, and, crucially, may now deliberately be included in whatever system of representation a given work elaborates. Laughter from the audience does not disrupt Mumma's Meanwhile, A Twopiece (1962); in a very real way, that laughter is inbuilt. That laughter, unscripted in the sense of not being predictable, was nonetheless probable, and a direct result of the score itself. Although the audience is not laughing at the music itself, they are laughing at the fact that the musicians behave more like contestants in some game than serious concert performers. Moving from instrument to instrument -- "station" to "station" -- as directed by mere slips of paper... it's all a bit absurd, isn't it? Perhaps not outrageous; I mean, any hep person knows that the musicians are always subject to... But certainly there's something comic is this particularly exaggerated helplessness before the anonymous stipulations of the performance itself.

"The audience may now, and, crucially, may now deliberately be included in whatever system of representation a given work elaborates." For once, the adverb is key. So much of what was staged at these ONCE Festivals -- and, involving dance, film, physical props, etc., cannot be presented with this box set release -- took as its setting that densely charged field that is the interface between performer and observer. Self-conscious gestures of inclusion, if only through overt confrontation, inaction or "surrender" of the artist being perhaps the most insidious and most effective means of assault (were Vito Acconci and Chris Burden in Ann Arbor with their notepads?); a refusal to settle for polite interactions; an emphasis on "connection" and "discovery" rather than the narrative unities supported by both programmatic and absolute music: these strategies helped the ONCE artists avoid the substitution of a new kind of escapism for the old. Think about it; with a few alterations, the Megaton for William Burroughs (1964) Miller describes on page 72 of the ONCE booklet could be a Universal Studios "ride." It is more than likely too much to claim that the ONCE composers and musicians were trying, with some collective push, to awaken their audiences (and themselves) to the paradox that is being attentive -- passively alert, actively acquiescent. Yet a work such as Scavarda's Sounds for Eleven (1962) compels me to think about this music in precisely these terms. Sounds for Eleven installs sonority as a metaphor for contemplation.

"By 1961 Scavarda had become interested in the expressive possibilities of sound itself, devoid of all extraneous associations such as melody, rhythm, and gestures. In Sounds for Eleven he expunged these elements in order to permit the discrete sonorities to be heard for their own intrinsic beauty. Unique timbres evolve from the interaction between instruments with natural decay properties and those capable of sustaining sounds such as the woodwinds. Scavarda sought a plastic form, freed from the chains of meter. Percussion sounds are simply permitted to decay to silence, while durations of woodwind sounds are determined by specified size of the breath intake." (130-1)

Scavarda (referring to himself in the third person for reasons I don't quite understand) may be boldly outlining one of the central concerns of the American musical avant-garde in the days prior to the ascendancy of minimalism, but he might as well be discussing yoga. Here we have another exaggerated and not deflated figure of the musical composition as will, as discipline, as injunction and prescription, as opposed to law -- the determinism that arches over so much early Reich and Riley. This intellectually nuanced but clearly audible difference is more conspicuous as soon as one notices the very careful mediations introduced by the conductor whose involvement is necessary if the music is to be played at all. In Sounds For Eleven, the exaggeration is accomplished via an insistence on the primacy of voluntary respiration in the creation of any musical "self". Vibrato, dynamics, pitch, and dissonance are all honored here -- and all are overturned. The piece begins with real immediacy: two jolts, the first from piano and guitar, the second from what sounds like the piano, the strings now strummed in the manner of a harp, and vibraphone. And Sounds For Eleven continues -- for about 11 minutes, as it turns out -- in this manner, until the silences that punctuate the individual "movements" themselves become the source of what is startling. A relationship binds contemplation and shock. The state of being absorbed is like a protracted shock. Or, alarming, painful events induce a variety of contemplation, an immobility, if not a composure, that is a necessary aftermath. A settling. One adopts an apprehensive attitude that serves as a prosthesis. Part of whatever one grasps is now that gap, insensate, that lies between oneself and the objects of one's fancy. Yet to be absorbed in something, to contemplate it, to project oneself into a time that would be, is also to leave one's perceptual defenses thinned by the effort and one's concentration more than a little susceptible to intrusion and disruption. "Shock" is an epithet, in such instances, for imposed discontinuity. Here's the rub: both shock and contemplation are operations by which we align and re-align our views of the world. And, contrary to the expectations we hold even after we have survived the stresses of either, shock dilates the passing of time where contemplation condenses it. Sounds For Eleven, candidly examining evanescent sounds as embodiments, must be occupied both points-of-view; Scavarda manages to get his composition to do just that, to inhale and to exhale, with stunning results that oblige the listener to give the piece multiple auditions.

Many of the works on this box set creep, or recoil half again as far after each advance. Bruce Wise's Music For Three [1964], for two pianos and taped accompaniment, is particularly glacial. This is not completely a criticism of Wise's dexterity, as the performers themselves choose whether the two halves of the work remain estranged or are united, that is, are played in sequence, or in simultaneity. Other works stagger or waver between lurching and leaning. More akin to Sounds For Eleven is Roger Reynolds' Wedge (1962), which offers even more broadly scattered tonal disparities and jarring, drawn-out collisions of timbres and dynamics. The form of the work is not that of a single tapered block, latently utilitarian, but of the action within a duality. Masses of wind and percussion instruments converge only in the process of passing by, and, ultimately, through each other. Wedge, then, not as a noun, but as a verb. An impression of objects functioning and perhaps malfunctioning, if not exactly of human characters climbing over each other up a treacherous slope of drama, is also key to the one utterly improvised piece to be heard on the ONCE box, Pauline Oliveros' and David Tudor's Applebox Double (1965). The title, presumably abstruse, is actually literal. According to Miller, this version of the piece "is an extension of a solo work in which [Oliveros] tapped, struck, scraped, rubbed, banged, and bowed various objects attached to an amplified wooden box. Typical items included springs, metal tongues, "Halloween crickets", and car curb scrapers. For the ONCE presentation, Tudor prepared his own box, hence the name..." (83-84). Although the instruments (which, like Paul Lytton's junkyard drum kits, must have been impressive assemblages) are already open in that they resonate, I would argue that Applebox Double is not about filling a discrete space, but rather, as much as the improvisation is about anything, is occupied with prying, breaching, venting, spilling out. But these boxes do not open easily. Wood jointed and pressed against wood, acoustically nailed and latched "shut", the boxes resist the performer's tools, and so the sounds that unleashed are mostly the sounds of pressure and strain, and of like substances vibrating against one another. Squeaking, creaking, screaming, whimpering, grunting, braying, howling... indeed, the prepared material -- the boxes themselves -- of Applebox Double almost cannot help but cajole Oliveros and Tudor into the production of noises that are suggestive of the human voice. The sounds of the performers' efforts at opening displace the sounds of what they hope to release. The homology that binds these containers to expandable / contractible "box" -- the accordion or squeezebox -- with which Oliveros customarily works becomes more and more apparent, as well as more complicated, as the performance proceeds. It is as if there is no escape from the formalism inherent in the mere act of breathing (into a reed, in vowels, across the waters). A kind of tautology is situated at the heart of Applebox Double, a tautology not just of physical realities -- lumber, metal, electronics -- but also of musical strategies, if you think in terms of what forces are being "unleashed" by these two Pandoras. So, despite the fact that it is very likely the one work here most relevant to a contemporary audience for improvised music, Applebox Double is only intermittently interesting.

The works documented here that do plunge and swerve, such as Philip Krumm's proto-minimalist Music For Clocks (1963) or Ashley's The Fourth Of July (1961) are more rare, and tend, at least on first hearing, to be more "experimental", more memorable. This is due, in part, to the fortunes of cultural chronology. The late 1950's and early 1960's, as Miller's notes indeed point out, were also a great era for experimental cinema in America. Film-makers Milton Cohen and George Manupelli were important members of the ONCE circle, and, as has already been mentioned, composers such as Donald Scavarda and performance artists such as Mary Ashley inserted film into their own work, which was otherwise relatively traditional in terms of it adherence to the properties of their chosen media. The Fourth Of July is certainly more analogous to a short film such as Stan Brakhage's Desistfilm (1954) than it is to other pioneering works in electronic music like, say, Varese's and Xenakis' Poème Electronique (1958) or Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge (1956). (There are matters of scale to consider here as well; The Fourth Of July is almost 19 minutes in length.) Both Brakhage and Ashley take a party as their subject, and proceed to alter and edit their record of the proceedings until the quotidian is completely obscured by the overt artistic gesture. Both Brakhage and Ashley eventually leave the party, Ashley for the stratosphere of pure electronic tones, Brakhage departing into archetypes of union achieved through sex and violence. And like Brakhage's frame-defying Mothlight (1963), Ashley's The Fourth Of July very much faces forward. Had Ashley, as in his more "mature" music, introduced narrative, with its logical sequence and grounding in some past, would only produce a feeling of reaching, however tenuously, backwards and not the sensation of steadily accelerating away from an (arbitrary) starting position that is so integral to The Fourth Of July. Consciousnesses, intimated by the initial presence of human voices in conversation (a piano is also playing in the background), is only transitory here, perceived only as long as it is deformed within reasonable -- i.e., not utterly random -- parameters. At some point, The Fourth of July somehow overloads and manages to exceed consciousness: that of the artist, and of the audience.

"The plan of the piece was to make a large number of tape loops mixing five sine-waves at different proportional frequencies (mathematically determined, but not in any of the conventional tuning systems). Then there was a grand plan to layer these loops in a hierarchy of different speeds, durations, repetitions, and sectional groupings. The plan was much too ambitious for the technology. The tape noise buildup and the sheer audacity of the number of stops and starts, fades, and other ingredients in the plan made it clear to me -- after I had built the tape loops -- that I couldn't do the piece. But I had the loops. So I just started playing around with them on the three machines [tape recorders] -- a few weeks of 'free improvisation' -- until I had something that I almost liked... Meanwhile, I was experimenting with a parabolic microphone (which trades the distance the microphone can 'hear' against the microphone's frequency response). On the afternoon of the national holiday I heard a party starting in our neighbors' backyard (which was about 50 feet away). So I pointed the microphone toward the party to hear it on my own system. I recorded about an hour (so that I could listen again later)... Listening to the party tape later (many times) I realized that the frequencies of the microphone were amazingly like the sounds I had on my 'free improvisation' tape, so I simply mixed the two together..." (109-110)

Contemporary, and nearly exclusively digital, electronic works usually feel much, much different than The Fourth Of July, which nevertheless lies within a scope we can call "antecedent". An album such as Oval's Ovalprocess (2000) or Matmos' A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure (2001) are much more about alienating entire "known" genres (pop music, dance music) by making the source of the samples utilized in a given piece a commentary or even a critique. The term "absolute music" has no application and very probably no significance here. (I never thought Eddie Condon would be germane to this discussion, but, "we called it music", indeed…) Yet this critique is not quite re-contextualization, or even transformation. It is, rather, very much in the spirit of Dada: the outrageousness of the "real" cannot be held at bay indefinitely, representation itself bursts, and neither nostalgic nor futurist sentiments can survive for very long in the music. If musique concrète is, in a virtually heretical paraphrase, part of a never-ending search for new musical resources, about the depletion of old resources and the restoration of the musical enterprise itself via an infusion of previously unheard sounds, "glitch" and "micro-sound" are more concerned with how the musical enterprise itself is exhausted, that the last hope is that, with more sophisticated tools and a healthier attitude towards oneself and one's fellow "subjects", those sonic resources can be made to disclose new truths about themselves and the process of creation itself. The universe of personal, interpersonal, and social relationships suggested by the best of contemporary electronic music, specifically, improvised electronic music, is, in the final analysis, probably as vast as some of the music's amanuenses have argued. But that universe is also still, in large measure, tilted on an axis of the personal. I'm reminded suddenly of Sachiko M.'s 1:2 (2003) on the A Bruit Secret label: 20 minutes’ worth of a single “test” tone, deviations from which are irregular, perhaps due to some defect in the musician’s “empty sampler”, in nature and can only be measured by an oscilloscope, in fractions (.5 hertz). The actual perception of the diversity within this same, however euphonious that same may be, it is equivalent to a "Eureka!" moment, isn't it? Some musical formalists, the kind who equate music appreciation with pattern recognition, would hold that the musical experience can nearly always be reduced to just this type of enthusiasm or, to make it sound slightly more poetic and, heaven forbid, noble, "discovery". But aren't we just delineating a form of self-congratulation? The listener may feel as if he or she has wrested himself or herself free of some obsession, has pulled through to insight and even true resolution. But the more prosaic truth, I maintain, is that one's attention has not been instrumental in making some "external" sublimate, but that the object of attention has merely shifted, away from the "external" and onto the listener's own attentiveness. Narrative does not require only collision and "change", whose life anyway depends on interpretation. Narrative is conflict, and, for my purposes anyway, what I have just described does not qualify as such. It is a simulation of narrative, just as Markus Popp's digital clicks and skips, though actually painted on or inscribed into the myriad of compact discs that have been incorporated into a single Oval (or Microstoria, or So) compact disc, emulate House and Industrial beats.

The early, maybe even primitive, tape pieces on the ONCE box do possess a unique mobility, internal as well as ideological, regardless of whether they feel awkward, herky-jerky and / or quaint to us. The Fourth Of July is a piece I feel I should, on the one hand, take to task for the banality and ugliness of its inconsistencies, and, on the other, that I must praise for the manic, esoteric vitality of its incongruities. There's an over-abundance of conflict here. As there is in George Cacioppo's surprisingly nocturnal -- dark but not heavy, counter-intuitively transparent -- Advance Of The Fungii (1964), for male chorus, French horns, trombones, clarinets and percussion. Actually, there is no advance, and no text; these are sonic events in which momentum and resolution are stunted. Glissandi, convex and concave sounds intersect, but the lines do stop. Here. Here. And here. Advance Of The Fungii is a collection of non-sequiturs. It is brilliantly pointless, or, better, brilliant and pointless. Or, better still, its brilliance is assured by its pointlessness. No reconciliatory action in the piece can conjure up redemption. If this is true, does that mean that damnation does not exist? It is a terribly leading question. A tendentious one at that. Aesthetically, centers and peripheries have been declared obsolete. We have been informed that the moral fact of a work of art is no longer to be found in the work's inner character but in the miracle that, in our broken world, the work exists at all. This is what the void looks like from an optimist's perch, which is never as high as the optimist thinks it is.

In the end, and in spite of the fact that contemplation and "readings" can, all on their own, be constitutive of civil disobedience, listeners are always listeners. Freedom in art for the appreciator is invariably "shown", encased in the possible ("fictional"), thus vicarious, and most vicarious when the experience feels most powerful. Real freedom as it is situated in any work of art is only activated once one leaves the work and returns to other conceivings, which, I suppose, is another way of saying that one never really departs from the work at all. The artist, on the other had, can take full pleasure in freedom. But pleasure, as Keirkegaard wrote in his Journal, is its own adulteration. Could it be that, after all, listeners -- those "observers" I mentioned earlier -- are privileged, in that they are, -- we are -- freed somewhat from the torment that is change? Artists, no matter how ingeniously they apply themselves, can never outwit change. So the "performer", stepping sideways, becomes the "agent provocateur", then, making one leap, assumes the responsibilities of the "demonstrator" or, making one further leap, those of the "activist". The question in 2004, now that we can say we are at a kind of terminus of, at least a relative hiatus in, the revolution carried forward by these artists, is: "how bad were things, really?" How hazardous; what was being leaped over? What prompted these musical reactions? Were they seen, if only in hindsight, as necessary? What perniciousness were they hunting down? The resolution that the ONCE works serve as metaphors for changing personal and social realities... better, interpersonal realities at small and large magnitudes... of the 1960's is a very seductive one. ONCE was explicitly anti-academic and yet implicitly anti-fragmentation and anti-cultural segregation; pro-peaceful cultural coexistence, polymorphously perverse detente. ONCE prefigures our own contemporary shift away from categoricalness, generality, and glue. After ONCE, what has "improved", what has not? Is quantifiable aesthetic "change" a real measure of aesthetic success? Or is the extent to which a work is self-contained enough to weather the eroding forces of time and taste a better testament to its value? Could the ONCE recordings have been seen as an extraordinary "treasure trove" until now, 40 years later? If so, what excuse for our extraordinary oversight could we give? Who is to blame? That is we, as listeners who are aware and, to an extent, proud of our awareness of the political (corporate, state) thread wound within every sound, have some duty, if only a minor one, to ask ourselves why this box set has appeared now. To inquire as much is not necessarily to impute nefarious motives to New World Records -- or anyone else, for that matter. Certainly, a revival of both critical and popular interest in the music itself, neither wholly composed nor entirely improvised, accounts for the set's arrival in 2003. As the "one big" digital medium continues to fuse the differences between media, too, I am sure there are those artists -- Kaffe Matthews, perhaps -- who have happily anticipated being able to look back at the ONCE activities in order to appraise the pluses and minuses of that fusion. The higher profile of some of the ONCE participants, Ashley and Roger Reynolds (an excellent compilation of his post-ONCE works is now available on the Pogus label), also has something to do with this music's grand presentation. Overall, then, there is a need, an old one, to understand how and why we got where we are. ONCE has re-appeared in answer to this need. But my suspicion is that the answers ONCE gives might be disappointing, infuriating, irrelevant, and, I hate to resort to this diction, "hokey" from this point-of-view. I fear that the ONCE will be consigned to the same historical ghetto as those challenges it sought to overcome. I can envision the rejection, without compunction or any tempering admission that we did, after all, ask, of ONCE's answers. A corrective -- that is one of the things I hear when I play these compact discs.

François Le Lionnais, "Lipo: First Manifesto" (1960): "Should humanity lie back and be satisfied to watch new thoughts make ancient verses?"

I am not listening to the ONCE box set as I write this. I have stopped it's spinning. Right now, now's the time... I am listening to Pavement's Slanted And Enchanted (1992), My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (1991), and Slint's Spiderland (1990; my freshman year at college). By such accidents are the muses summoned, and I am no longer injured by the possibility that I will repeat myself.

I am no longer initiated to the post that I must repent myself. No more inhibited by the postmortem that details how I shall repine myself.

A pang; invariably similarity attacks my articulation.

Yet I resolved no longer to worry on the bone of echoing one's own words.

Louis I. Kahn, the great American architect who, with an irony that is fitting in its absence of leniency, was prevented from carrying out his plans for his home city of Philadelphia, is quoted in the recent film My Architect to, roughly, the following effect: art is proof that man can make what nature cannot. At Yale University in 1963 Kahn closed a lecture whose humbler beginnings are to be found in a discussion of the dual problem of the client and the budget in architectural design with customarily lofty insight:

"Architecture is what nature cannot make. Nature cannot make anything man makes. Man takes nature -- the means of making a thing -- and isolates its laws. Nature does not do this because nature works in harmony with laws, which we call order. It never works in isolation. But man works with this isolation..." (Essential Texts; 167)

Kahn could have just as easily said "within" as with. Nothing truly creative thrives, much less exists in isolation. Kahn understood this too; he understood the work as a something small, a motion waiting to be received (that is my belief, anyway). Yet, when it comes to music, we often listen alone for concentration's sake -- and for concentration's satisfaction. And yet (doubling-back, almost) it is the work that lasts, not our solitude.

Humans actively make lives as much as they "passively" live them. The ostensible subject of My Architect -- a documentary directed by Kahn's estranged son, Nathaniel -- is one man's, Louis Kahn's, rather awful prolificacy with the "means" (his words) of life. The film is a psychological kaleidoscope of Kahn's interpersonal relationships: a wife, two mistresses, two "illegitimate" children, various other family members and associates who did and did not know of Kahn's several "lives". Yet the minute one of Kahn's uncannily intimate monuments appeared in the film, I felt fully cognizant that, against my wishes, the life of one these structures is more precious, more potentially tragic as well as triumphant, than any one person, no matter how brilliant or misshapen (Kahn was both). The buildings as such impressed me like facts, captured on film regardless of the director's / son's intent. For me, the most striking of Kahn's projects is Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, a frankly amazing complex situated on the shores of a lake in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. This city within the city was "hand-built" -- i.e., erected without the benefit of much modern industrial equipment -- over the course of 23 years, while the country itself was engaged in a battle for its own independence from Pakistan. The very fact that the building continued through war and famine and Kahn's own death in 1974 and God knows what else is alone expressive of a desperate hope. And, although Kahn never saw his work completed, the people of Bangladesh did attain their future. For those Westerners among us seeing it today -- this huge, somehow Kubrikian, still very Eastern honeycomb of fenestrated concrete interiors and exteriors -- Dhaka cannot help but evoke wistfulness for the passing of the visionary from our own culture. Contemporary architects in America, their buildings often slapped together like so much post-modern gingerbread, would never dare to sully their hands with aims of uplift. Here at Dhaka, looming gray and majestic, is our discarded future. Without a doubt, this is a mysterious kind of future shock. As one of Nathaniel Kahn's "subjects" tells him near the conclusion of My Architect, indeed, Louis Kahn may have been a weak man and a poor father, and he may not have given young Nathaniel the filial love that the boy longed for, but Kahn loved in other ways. Tears welling in his eyes (literally), this man tells Kahn that his father is primarily responsible for making possible his entire country's future: a functioning democracy whose citizens have at least a measurable standard of living must pivot around some axis, and Kahn gave the Bangladeshis that center, those radii, those diameters. You have to understand; I'm not endorsing the ideology of the individual genius. True, we cannot separate "ideas" from "men", but I look upon Sher-e-Bangla Nagar and see an idea that was so generous it very nearly built itself. The idea needed Kahn, perhaps, only for coherence and transmission. And as soon as the Bangladeshis understood what this American -- an immigrant, a Jew, an adulterer, a scientist, an artist -- had communicated to them and committed to its realization, all I can say to you is that the idea really did enter the realm of the inexplicable. "Genius" as the character or spirit of a place... a nation... you see, there are, occasionally, these real-world examples that stop one's skepticism cold.

For added contrast, there is future we have obtained in the United States. Precisely what have we forged, what have we earned, especially here in Middle America? Plushophiles and "smushies". Survivor and Average Joe. Tom DeLay and Michael Moore. Mannatech. Microsoft. Welbutrin and Paxil. Strip malls. Britney Spears and the ICP. Call centers. The savage American energy that gave us figures like Ives and Whitman has, in large measure, been turned away from art. The incredible wherewithal we Americans have at our command to better ourselves and out fellow human beings has been depleted in the fashioning of shinier, more hulking, instantly obsolescent tools of self-destruction. I don't intend this to be a cri de coeur for modern America, or yet another pastoral lament for the good old days. But I do have to wonder why the future has, in this country, become such a fearful shadow. Perhaps because loneliness stalks the land in a new guise, enraged, vindictive, bloody-handed.

Meanwhile, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar embraces and nurtures many lives. Devotional lives, commercial lives, artistic lives, lives of service to national, and, more to the point, socially responsible goals. Is the city also home to pollution, murder, poverty, disease, corruption? Absolutely. There is no utopia to be portrayed here. Perfection is not my claim. Is the city also an expression of a higher ideal? Absolutely. Does that ideal belong to one man? Absolutely not. It is not simply that the people of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, individuals all and not mere incarnations, like Animatronic mannequins, of "culture", are free to pursue their happiness in some arena, an empty elliptical expanse, but that, as huge as the capital is, each person still have to shrink themselves and allow their will to wither just enough for their to be room for all to live there in harmony. The residents of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar do transform their personal spaces, without question, but, in doing so, they agree to the initial composition of those spaces -- not Louis Kahn himself, who, after all, is a neighbor first, a builder second.

"I was given a program of about twenty-five pages, and that wasn't even a full program since the program was speaking about the assembly building. It said the requirements of the assembly building were something like this: THE ASSEMBLY BUILDING: TEN ACRES. That was the program! And a few other things which were really funny like, 'hostels should have closets.' Anyway, this is twenty-five pages of very meaty and serious requirements. The third day I was there [Bangladesh] a fellow with a good idea said why didn't you bring it all together into one unit. And the idea stemmed from this thought. That after all, an assembly building is a transcendent place. A place, no matter what kind of rogue you are, when you go into an assembly somehow you may vote for the right thing. Now I thought that it had transcendent qualities, and so I observed that the [Bangladeshis] pray five times each day and very earnestly. So I thought of this preposterous idea of having a mosque attached to the assembly. I thought the mosque should be answerable to the assembly, and the assembly answerable to the mosque... I think that if you were to judge the city as if it were an institution of man, and that the nature of connection is very vital in architecture. [emphasis mine] The sensitivity of the emergence of new institutions, even out of the old, seem to want to branch from it. The sensitivity to what may be willing to be an institution of man, and the spaces around it which it could express itself are almost a first requirement." (203-204)

I have faith in the idea that a work of art can accomplish much the same thing. I recall a couple of beautifully complementary descriptions Joseph McElroy has graciously given me of his towering, mostly unread "novel" Women And Men: as a fictional world, it is "a multiple dwelling set in motion"; as an experience for readers, "a book to dwell in." And, just think, music, by virtue of its mathematics, is much closer to architecture than literature is...

The ONCE Festival... this abandoned but intact city; because people had fled it, time ignored it. Its unforeseen solidity, the utility of its inner workings, the delights of its plazas and gardens and streets and markets, they all posit some forgotten future. It is a future that, because it has always existed in an always-later age of wisdom and dotage, belongs even more to the past than those remembrances with which we are all swaddled.

"In the process from conception to application, however, simplicity [of constraint] engenders complexity." (Motte; 12)

Banish Michigan from your mind. Raze the homes, plow the university under, swing the the ball into the facades of the shops and diners. Slash and burn the last stands of forest. Wall it in with white, wall it off in black. There is no surprise latent in location. Timing is just coincidence seen from more than one point of view. And we're trying to escape point of view. Forget the connections that thrum in gray sinewy Möbius strips between Ashley's The Wolfman (1964) and The Stooges' Funhouse (1970), reverberations of which can be felt in the noise generated by other Michigan-based experimenters Destroy All Monsters, Griot Galaxy, Carl Craig, and the extended Universal Indians / Wolf Eyes family. Get it all out of your head, these details like a swarm of ants over a dollop of honey. Break the wheel of comparing.^TM

"The goal of potential literature is to furnish future writers with new techniques which can dismiss inspiration from their affectivity." (François Le Lionnais, 1961)

ONCE upon a time in America. Another morning, another spring, another cup of coffee and jog around the track. Days duplicated one after the other. Days churned out down through the generations until all that is left are tattered blurs that have no innate movement, no direction, only a corona of gloom that symbolizes what used to be present. Once upon a time in America, when I was young, I had friends like you would not believe. They things we used to say to one another. The amusements we used to force upon one another. The troubles we courted. You see this scar? Ah, but you have noticed my trophy, you're curious about it, aren't you? The times we won, the times we tasted dirt. The brothers and sisters we made. The places we boasted about soaring off to. They are not laid flat on any map, nor roll-called in any directory. Lost in the dreadful mists are the heights from which we jumped... and from which we fell.

By all means, have a seat. I can take your shoes, your coat; there's blankets in that cupboard just over there if... I know there's a draft, and the light in here is pretty feeble, but try to make yourself as comfortable as these modest accommodations permit. And let me tell you about it.

~ Joe Milazzo (January - April, 2004).

Kahn, Louis. Essential Texts. Edited by Robert Twombly. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. 2003.

Steefel, Lawrence D., Jr. "Marcel Duchamp and the Machine." In: Marcel Duchamp. Edited by Anne d'Harnoncourt and Kynaston McShine. New York and Philadelphia, PA: The Museum of Modern Art; The Philadelphia Museum of Art. 1973.

All quotes relating to the ONCE Festivals and the music presented at said festivals are drawn from the accompanying booklet to the 5-disc boxed set, Music from the ONCE Festival, 1961 - 1966. New York: New World Records. 2003.

All quotes relating to the Oulipo have been drawn from: Motte, Warren F., Jr. OULIPO: A Primer of Potential Literature. Lincoln, NE: The University of Nebraska Press. 1986.

Hardly Anonymous

Every so often we Baganauts juggle ideas about new content & features. Tinkerings & monkeyings designed to keep the site ‘cutting-edge’ while still remaining streamlined & web-worthy. Awhile back I hatched the hare-brained idea of a section devoted to the trumpeting of unsung maestros from each of our personal pantheons of ‘artists.’ Basically brief biographic blurbs and more intimate musings on why a particular so-and-so matters. The idea was wisely torpedoed by my comrades, but I’ve found myself mulling over again and again the folks on my own ballot that don’t ever seem to get the fair slice of consideration they deserve.

Chief among them for me, at least today, is the guy in the photo above: Cleveland Chenier. Next month marks what would be his 83rd birthday as well as the 13th anniversary of his death. Cleveland spent essentially his entire career hunched in the shadow of his younger brother Clifton, the widely touted King of Zydeco. He even played ‘second-fiddle’ to Clifton’s son C.J. when the lad took over leadership of his dad’s Red Hot Louisiana Band. Frottoir just wasn’t deemed a lead instrument, I guess.

Clifton might have held the marquee name, but to my ears Cleveland was every bit as important to the band’s success and longevity. His raw hypnotic rhythms shaped from thimble hooks scraped in syncopated patterns across his corrugated metal vest are one of the signature elements of Zydeco by my estimation. Instantly recognizable and transfixing in their precise, yet loose-sounding ability to braid around whatever’s going on in the band. Arhoolie holds the rights to a huge chunk of his recorded work (just like that of his brother) and on the dozen or so discs on which he appears, I’ve always been inspired by the quality and consistency of his contributions. In a walnut shell, he set the standard by which all other rubboards players would be and are judged. Much the same way that Jerome Green revolutionized the role of maraca playing in rock music on Bo Diddley’s early records for Chess/Checker.

I realize that in the larger scheme none of this really means a damn, but Cleveland, wherever you are, thank you for the music! As in so many other cases, Jackie McLean’s old adage: “give them their flowers while they’re still with is” seems apropos here. By extension, I’m still curious what sorts of picks others might come up with. Care to share?

Key of Z

Get Yer Chomsky On

For me, at least. Been getting to know this writer in small doses over the past couple of months, and now am working my way through Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Suffice to say I've come across a few blanket statements regarding the situation and its history (this is the 1999 re-ed.) but overall I'm interested in (read, not aligned with) Chomsky's views of the controversial and downright suspect relationship between Israel and the US. A vocal guy, he.

But I know little about the author. The group here is what I'd hardly call conservative, though I'd be interested to learn which way the biases run regarding NC.

Edit 4/9: Direct link to Chomsky's new blog.

BAGCOMBANSPAMEX, rev. 1

As Brian pointed out in another discussion, there is an interesting sub-string of minor activity going on here at the site. Guerrilla spamming, I think he called it. What happens? Apparently Google offers spammers more than just data, photo and news searches. Niftily, Movable Type offers an IP banning function and hey, we have our first exilee. Lord knows I've wanted to use it before but our tolerance is greater than that, strapping out somewhere just short of Russian banking and gay teen sites (the two are independent of one another for you adventurous residents of Minsk).
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In other news, been listening with big ears to the new For4Ears disc with brother Tomas, Yoshihide, ErikM and Nakamura. Tres fab! Still trying to figure out who's who, but that's only a small part of the fun. Truly great music, get some.

Hey! Give it a couple a days and I'd bet if you Googled "Amplify Guerrilla Korber Russian Teen" you'll come up with a Baglink! Ain't the internet a bitch?

now playing: Curtis Mayfield - Curtis/Live!

Robert Pete Williams - Poor Bob's Blues

Arhoolie 511

Music, like life, is full of sobering what ifs, turns of fate that had they not transpired we would all be the worse for it. What if Ellington had followed his father into a career in the butler trade? What if the Beatles had never been in a position to ‘invade’ America? What if Dylan had never gone electric? So many prominent temporal twists and turns to choose from, but one that most people probably don’t ponder- what if Dr. Harry Oster had never become a folklorist and started the recording label Folk-Lyric? One possible outcome- the record buying public would likely never have been exposed to the music of Robert Pete Williams. Oster’s recordings of Williams, taped in variety of locations including Angola State Penitentiary, form the bulwark of the bluesman’s existing discography. Without them we wouldn’t have the detailed evidence of Williams’ artistry that we do.

Arhoolie’s been instrumental in returning these performances to circulation and this latest two-disc collection (priced as a single) supplements the cache even further. Nineteen cuts: one acapella, one a spoken nine-minute story, the rest accompanied by Williams’ own Spartan guitar. Several songs overlap with earlier Arhoolie releases, but the beauty of the set is that their stark improvisational nature makes them quite different from previously available versions. Williams’ method of, as he termed it, sculpting music out of the atmosphere makes for tunes that often staunchly resist blues formalities of bar patterns and rhymed verses. The selections originate from a host of sources and locations, both in front of audiences and in isolation. As such the set runs a gamut in terms of fidelity, but is never less than listenable.

The opening field holler “My Mind Wandering Around” establishes an early apex for the set as Williams’ rough hewn, keening voice travels on a melodically charged free-associative trek toward a more hopeful, imagined future. “Cane Cut Man” tells the tale of a sharecropper’s existence toiling for another man’s gain over a splintery, chugging guitar rhythm. The string-popping angular boogie of the title track is perfect for stomping and strutting, yet another side to Robert Pete’s unexpurgated style. Three examples of his singular slide work appear in the form of “No More Sweet Potatoes,” “Things All Wrong With Me” and “Poor Boy, Long Way From Home.” The latter two cuts draw on familiar blues couplets and find him tooling these found conventions to his own eccentric agendas.

One downside to the set is Arhoolie’s unfortunate decision to include a marketing blurb by Milo Miles of the New York Times declaring Williams “the most avant-garde blues performer ever recorded. No punk rock band has ever matched the jagged, acerbic fury… No rapper has approached his ability to evoke the torment of life in prison or bend language to cast an eerie spell over a chance encounter with a seductive woman.” He needs no such aggrandized endorsement and I fail to hear the fury of which Miles purports. To my ears there’s more of world-weariness to Williams’ art along with a preternatural wit apart far removed from the usual braggadocio of most blues. Plenty of period photos in the sleeve notes offset such missteps in the packaging and these reveal an uncanny instance of happenstance. Williams’ visage holds a remarkable likeness to that of Joe McPhee, so much so they could be brothers. I had a chance to give Joe a copy of Williams’ self-titled 1970 album (reissued by Fat Possum) recently at the ACME Festival and he seemed to agree. You be the judge.

~ Derek Taylor

Milt Buckner & Buddy Tate - Them There Eyes (Black & Blue)

Jimmy Smith held the trump cards of bop and timing. He wasn’t the first jazz organist, but he’s still widely reverred as the most idiomatic. It’s a bit of a pity considering the pool of talent that preceeded him. Waller, Basie, Doggett and Buckner- each of these guys had distinct swing-grounded styles that were subsumed when Smith hit the scene, salubrious Blue Note contract in hand. Once domestic record dates dried up Buckner spent a lot of his time across the pond, touring and recording for Euro labels like Black & Blue and MPS. This seven-tune set, taped in a Paris studio in the winter of 67’, has all the earmarks of late evening club date and much in common with Illinois Jacquet’s Comeback (Black Lion) from 71’, another session teaming robust tenor with Buckner’s organ and a drummer. Here as there, Buckner routinely plays the part of mad ice rink organist, leap-frogging between notes like the famous bouncing lyric ball. Gruff hiccups, gutteral scatting and swaggering shouts of self-encouragement dapple his steady grooving fills and flourishes. The vocal histrionics make Keith Jarrett look like a monosyllabic milksop. Tate plays it straight for the most part, swinging hard and blowing smooth, striking a cool contrast to his partner’s ebullient gesticulations. Odd thing is, Buckner’s almost ceaseless hand-waving never gets old and ends up being a lot of fun. There are also exceptions to the arrangement and Tate is goaded into a more aggressive, overtly preaching stances on occasion by Buckner’s strenuous comping behind him. Such is the case on the 10:29 rundown of “Margie” where a string of ruddy choruses spills from his tenor’s bell, pocked by Buckner’s syncopated exhortations. Largely unassuming, drummer Wallace Bishop sketches plumb bob rhythms behind the soloists, content in his peripheral placement in the presence of two strong personalities. All in all it’s a healthy dollop of good time jazz with nary a bum note heard.

We're Breaking Up - Here and Above

Admittedly, I’m a total sucker for this sort of thing. Drones, I mean. Thick, juicy, dense, ropy, surging drones. We’re Breaking Up is electronicist Michael Rodger’s nom de musique for this particular incarnation of his creative output, having previously released the excellent “Long Distance Endless Endless” on the same label last year. There are two tracks, both over 25-minutes long, that I’m going to guess are entitled “Here” and “Above”. I could be wrong.

“Here” begins with a low, throbbing hum, churning and uncoiling, dark and oily. It soon grows in volume and concentration, fixating on something of a tonal center, becoming the central spine for various appendages layered so densely that it’s difficult to pick out individual strands, easier to hear the apparent echo of something just gone by than to recognize it at the moment. About nine minutes in, things splinter, lubricants threaten to run dry and we begin picking up snatches of conversation, a young woman glimpsed through jackhammers and sheared metal. There’s a rhythmic surge that, combined with the blinding cacophony, recalls the more ecstatic moments in primo Branca. After several minutes of this raging torrent, things even out into a still-strong but smoother flow, the earlier tonal element corralled into a single, oscillating line, buffeted by low, molten growls. A wire pulls loose and flails across the floors, shooting sparks, as the massive engine reluctantly winds down and blinks out. A wonderful piece.

After a minute of silence, “Above” bursts into existence, all hisses and static possessing a subtle vocal quality. There’s more grain here, more whine of metal against metal and a quicker pace, the gears cycling somewhere over 120 rpm. Again, around nine minutes in, steam valves begin cracking and leaking under pressure, injecting foreign elements into proceedings, sandy grit and keening whistles, the thrumming dynamo straining to keep up, losing cohesion, regaining it, losing it again. The air crackles, ozone-saturated. A rush of white noise all but masks some jittery, high-pitched rubbings, blurring the sound field before subliming into random patches of static detritus, the earlier roar now a faint echo, far away. Grinds to a halt.

“Here and Above” is yet another fine, fine release from this superb label. Check it out.

~ Brian Olewnick

Three by Cage on OgreOgress

Three 2/Twenty-Three/Six/Twenty-Six
OgreOgress

One 6/One 10
OgreOgress

Four 4
OgreOgress

These three discs represent the first recordings (at the time of their release) of several of Cage’s later works, the so-called “number pieces”. The pieces were conceived by Cage as an analogy to the sort of anarchistic society he held as an ideal, one where individuals’ actions wouldn’t be coerced by a governing authority, but one in which the dichotomy between individual and common good would be obliterated, where social interaction would be cooperative based on generally agreed upon norms, in this case, as Cage put it, “what time it is”. So, Cage developed the idea of “time brackets”, durations within which a given performer would be required to begin and end a sequence. It’s sort of like recognizing that a job has to be done but being totally at liberty to decide exactly how to do it.

The first disc listed above, in some ways the most satisfying of the three, interweaves two works for percussion ensemble and two for large string ensembles (both achieved here through overdubbing). A feature in common to all of the pieces on the three discs is the utilization of extended tones. With the percussion works, this generally means lengthy washes of cymbals, cascades of small bells and a prominent use of ringing, flex-a-tone kinds of sounds. “Three 2”, performed by Glenn Freeman in three increasingly short portions, typifies this approach. For all its surface attractiveness, it’s a difficult thing to get a good grasp on, the sequences of percussion passing by in seemingly random stages; I had a little bit of an impression of watching particularly mellifluous cars driving slowly by, different models or colors represented by different instruments. “Twenty-Three”, for massed violins, violas and celli (Christina Fong on the first two, Karen Krummel on the latter), is a gorgeous lattice of densely layered drones occupying a very small note range but varying widely in intensity of attack. Here, as in the other string pieces on this and the second disc, Tony Conrad’s music inevitably comes to mind, but there’s nothing that remotely smacks of science experiment here (not that that’s a bad thing about some of Conrad’s work). More, there’s a surprising (for Cage) amount of palpable, human striving and emotion. In fact, I sometimes found myself hearing it as an ungodly but luscious melding of Conrad and Gavin Bryars. It also contains something of a brief coda after the 21-minute mark, a slight but lovely mood shift away from the urgency express previously, more toward an uneasy acceptance. The short “Six” (which, unlike the other pieces whose durations in minutes are indicated by their titles—read “Three 2” as “three squared”) lasts but three minutes and, not dissimilarly to the first track, consists of a series of bowed cymbals, jingle bell shakes and tympani rolls, sliding segmentally across one’s field of hearing. It a rather strong work though, with an odd, alien kind of power, as though one is observing some baffling procession of unknown purpose. “Twenty-Six” is something of a counterpart to “Twenty-Three” save that all the parts are for violin and, perhaps simply due to Fong’s persona, the emotional intensity is ratcheted up a notch or two. Again, I find myself drawing comparisons to music that one doesn’t normally associate with Cage, in this case to some of Penderecki’s writing for string orchestras from the 60s; there’s something of a similar raw, naked vibrancy. It’s a marvelous, searing performance, capping a very fine recording that should be far more widely heard than it’s likely to be.

The second disc contains “One 6” and “One 10,” performed by Fong on violin. “One 6” is a fairly harsh work, largely consisting of single, minutely varying lines held for 20-30 seconds interspersed with silent periods of similar length. In addition to Conrad, I was reminded by their austerity, of some of Lucier’s more rarefied compositions although, again, these performances are less disinterested in emotive qualities. The three movements are pitched slightly differently with a lower, grainier attack in the first contrasting with a higher, more liquid approach in the second. The third, longest movement combines aspects of both and also ups the intensity level. “One 10” is structurally similar but pitched higher still, injecting an airy, sometimes flute-like quality. One feature that holds here (and in the following disc) is that the stretches of silence are not “live” time where the performer just stops playing but are portions of dead air. This can be a little off-putting as the listener clearly loses the room ambience although, I suppose it can be argued, it thrusts you into the sound world you’re actually occupying with extra force. The astringency of these pieces sets them off against the relative lushness of “Twenty-Three” and “Twenty-Six” but provides its own unique kind of reward insofar as making you hyper-aware of your surroundings.

“Four 4” was Cage’s last work for percussion and is here presented in a massive, 72-minute performance by Freeman. Like the two pieces from the first disc, the sounds employed are of long duration: rolls, runs of bells, brushes or strokings of cymbals, etc. The major difference is the relatively extreme lengths of the silences between portions, sometimes extending for several minutes. In a sense, this is a very difficult recording to enjoy and appreciate but, I think, that’s in large part because of the demands Cage’s music places on the listener, something that, all these years after “4:33”, can still be a tough row to hoe. There’s a tension between the music played (and one’s natural instinct to listen to it for various “musical” qualities) and it’s character as an element in a sound field that equally co-exists with silence, not so much as “music” but as space occupier. In other words, it doesn’t really matter how deftly Freeman handles a given sequence (he does so, certainly), but how that sequence fits with what came before and what comes after and how much the listener distinguishes between the two, if at all. The first time I listened to “Four 4”, my wife was down the hall playing some Satie piano music at a fairly high volume, enough that it encroached on this music during quieter moments and filled the listening space during the silent stretches. For a little while, I was annoyed but soon realized how entirely appropriate this was. Whereas, by now, most of us can deal with “4:33”, I think coping with extensions of that idea, where the same notions are in effect but the space is less pristine, can cause problems. Good problems, to be sure.

These are all fine, difficult releases, performing the valuable service of continuing to challenge ideas about how one perceives music, how one perceives perception.

~ Brian Olewnick

Uchiage, punk'd

Uchiage? What is it? Wayne Spencer attempts to answer that question in this month's Paris Transatlantic. The article is plenty interesting for those looking to hinge upon one man's opinion on the music he heard, but it does little to define the event itself or any interrelatedness of the performances. Definitely worth a read at any rate.
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Where was I six years ago? Completely oblivious of Refused, a Swedish post-punk unit that has recently knocked me on my ass with The Shape of Punk To Come. With cover art inspired by heydey-era Columbia records and liner photos that include a rustic rehearsal space complete with a poster of Coltrane's Blue Train, the disc is a catchy little item that detectably attempts to redefine the punk aesthetic while infusing a wild string of influences.
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Who would make the better king? Harry or William? VH-1 is seeking a decision on that nail-biter right now and I feel like a tool for indulging it. While we're in confessional mode, I might as well admit to having watched an HBO special on Vegas showgirls, three episodes of MTV's "Pimp My Ride" and an infomercial on loofah alternatives. The foresight to bring some review discs on travel would have been handy had I known I'd be laid up all day with a serious sunburn.

The Shield's on!