Man, Brian, you are ever the news portal! I dig your paragraph on the Ulher/Robair disc, but I have to say that just hearing that such duets exist is more than enough to make me drool and I can hear the music immediately just thinking about it! Well, I've only seen Ulher once (as part of UNSK last year) but she was a stunning lowercase trumpet deconstructionist and I'm greatly anticipating the four days of High Zero performances I'll be attending in about two weeks with her on the roster. And Robair—all I can say is that I seriously doubt the existence of a non-masterpiece Robair release. Hot Damn! I'm craving this disc! I'll probably be able to get one from Ulher in two weeks and report back here below!! Damn, Creative Sources on the pulse again!

BTW, catchy review title! :-)

Yep, CS does love Birgit Ulher' trumpet.
They already got four releases with her (Tidszon, Kunststoff, Sputter & Landscape) and two more upcoming (Nordzuker & Scatter).

Sputter's definitely the best thing she's done for the label. I was distinctly underwhelmed by the Zerang Mallozzi Uhler trio Landscape (even more so after being blown away by Mallozzi's work in Punctual Trio with Zingaro and Lonberg Holm) and I didn't find much to enthuse about in the new Axel Dörner release either. There's a lot of mumbling going on about CS lately round these parts, to the effect that Ernesto's really putting out too much stuff and the quality level is dipping down: I'll wait until the next batch before passing judgment, but I'm worried. Anyone else out there OD'ing on Creative Sources releases?
MEANWHILE Sputter is great fun: Robair's on fine form. Wish he'd come to Europe to play.
Thoroughly enjoyed the other two Umbrellas too - very fresh, unpretentious, surprising, risk-taking.. everything I like about improvised music..

It's hard to keep up with Creative Sources releases unless one has incredibly deep pockets or is on Ernesto's list of promo-receivers - neither of which applies to me. But being bombarded with promos is, to my mind, more often a hellish torment than a reason for unbridled joy. (I'm glad, for example, to have finally slipped off Leo's list, a label of diminishing returns.) Nowadays, in experimental/avant-garde/improvised musics, quantity swamps quality to a degree we wouldn't have thought possible a decade ago. Most concerts are recorded nowadays, high quality home recordings can easily be made, and the means of production are cheap. If, as 'the mumblers' are suggesting, CS is pitching lesser material into the marketplace, that's unfortunate, but it's hardly surprising - truly wonderful music is rather rare. If record companies only issued the finest musics, likely they'd limit themselves to a couple of releases every year or so.

As planned, I bought Sputter from Ulher a few weeks ago at High Zero (review in progress, I promise), and I've been playing a track or two here and there, but I have to say I've been very disappointed with this CD overall. I think it would be a real chore to play it straight through. Maybe about half the tracks seem like pointless peck-and-rumble improv.

Nowadays, in experimental/avant-garde/improvised musics, quantity swamps quality to a degree we wouldn't have thought possible a decade ago.

And yet, somehow, the ratio of highly favorable (not to say rave) reviews to all others, surely by 1995 already at least 10:1 in every publication I'm familiar with, print or online, has continued to grow.

Michael: "I've been very disappointed with this CD overall. I think it would be a real chore to play it straight through. Maybe about half the tracks seem like pointless peck-and-rumble improv."

Having said this, Michael, there seems little point in writing a full review. Move on to something better.

Hmm, surprised you didn't dig Sputter, Mike. I thought Gino was on fine form there. It's the other one I find disappointing

Oh, Brian, I see the ambiguity in what I wrote—the review is the High Zero review. I wasn't specifically planning to review that disc, though maybe I will eventually. Too many higher priorities though. But on a conceptual note, I do like the idea of reviewing things that reveal the boundaries of what I enjoy. Also, some of the passages on the disc are as great as I hoped for.

To say one quick, meaningful thing about Sputter, though, I noticed that it's Robair's acoustic manipulations of objects that I find extremely exciting in general, whereas his electronic sounds (heavily featured on the disc) don't elicit my passions, even though they are good, whatever that means.

In that case, Michael, move on to something worse. ;-)

Another 8 Creative Sources discs have just arrived here. This is getting serious - especially since all I feel like doing right now is blasting my fellow Parisians to kingdom come with NO NEW YORK (finally reissued hooray but with liner notes in RUSSIAN)

On any given day, a handful or more free improv performances happen around the world. Often the music is experienced to be worthwhile by the audience, to the extent they'd want to hear the music again or at least share it with others who weren't there. For every such recording that doesn't get released, it's an essentially arbitrary injustice for that recording and good fortune for the ones that were released. The distribution of recordings is primarily driven by arbitrary socio-economic conditions, and secondarily musical value, a radically relativistic phenomenon to begin with. My conclusion is that more releases give people more choices to make personal decisions about what they wish to invest their evaluative attention in, hence compensating more for the inherent incompleteness and inadequacy of existing technological and socio-economic models for the distribution of musical information. No single person will ever be able to listen to everything, and will always have to make irrational and arbitrary choices in their allocation of experiential resources. The resulting frustrations and dilemmas we all experience cannot be blamed on people (e.g. CS) who release more music than other people. They are not releasing too much music; they are simply offering greater compensation for the inherent and vast shortcomings of our aesthetic ecology.

A simpler way to see why something like CS deserves praise instead of criticism is as follows(not to say that you, Dan, are criticizing them here, but others have done so and it's to any such criticism I direct my objections). If label releases N discs and you feel that it's too much music and that only G/N (for G less than N) of their releases are worth releasing, simply observe that each of the G discs you find worthwhile and valuable and are possibly thrilled silly to have released could have went unreleased in favor of one of the (N - G) other discs if the label in fact followed your normative injunction to release G discs instead of N discs. An extremely simple observation I hope more people take to heart.

Yeah, but maybe they could have released 3G if they didn't release all that other non-G crapola.

It's up to you critic types to make 'em understand the difference.

Mike, your reply reads like the text equivalent of an Evan Parker solo soprano album: very pretty, but why play seven billion notes when a couple of hundred would do just fine?
"The distribution of recordings is primarily driven by arbitrary socio-economic conditions, and secondarily musical value, a radically relativistic phenomenon to begin with."
Meaning what, exactly? I'll release your album if you pay me to, even if it's not as good as what I was releasing a couple of years ago? Whatever happened to value judgment? The whole bloody point of a label as opposed to a fileshare website, it would seem to me, in my dumb Lancashire way of thinking, is to release quality music and not just passably good music. Before we go further I don't want to imply that Ernesto Rodrigues, for whom I have great respect as a musician and a label manager, is releasing stuff willy nilly without paying attention to what he's doing - but I have to say (yes, Walt, it's for "we critic types" - you were one once) that I've been disappointed with some of CS's recent releases.
"No single person will ever be able to listen to everything, and will always have to make irrational and arbitrary choices in their allocation of experiential resources."
So how do you decide what to buy, then? From reading a rave review? Word of mouth of a friend?
"They are not releasing too much music; they are simply offering greater compensation for the inherent and vast shortcomings of our aesthetic ecology."
I wonder what Messrs Abbey and Oger would have to say about that.

I'm keeping my mouth shut.

Jon,

Can we guess that you want to produce CD-Rs in the future ? :-)

[Dan] Mike, your reply reads like the text equivalent of an Evan Parker solo soprano album: very pretty, but why play seven billion notes when a couple of hundred would do just fine?

[Mike] Well, I only belabor obvious points when others have missed them. It's like an exercise--tedious, but justified.

[Mike] The distribution of recordings is primarily driven by arbitrary socio-economic conditions, and secondarily musical value, a radically relativistic phenomenon to begin with.

[Dan] Meaning what, exactly? I'll release your album if you pay me to, even if it's not as good as what I was releasing a couple of years ago? Whatever happened to value judgment?

[Mike] Meaning many things, but, for example, that hundreds of people have discriminating taste and an awareness of a certain special pocket of musical activity that deserves to be documented as much as anything else, but only a small percentage of such people will have the money, time, social role, desire, etc to release music. These factors are arbitrary with respect to the value of the music itself.

As far as value judgment, the question is always "Who's value judgment? And why is that person's judgment more worthwhile than others?" and so on, an obvious point, but essentially the point that I get the feeling Walt misses if I read him correctly here and elsewhere. Walt, your comments often imply that you believe in aesthetic criteria that transcend individual taste/experience. I'm certain such criteria don't exist. In this case, it's just obvious that when we're dealing with radically unconventionalized art like a lot of free improv, one person's "crapola" is another's masterpiece. I would be shocked if anyone with an active interest in such art would disagree with this platitudinous statement. That was the point of my second paragraph in the above post. Different people pick a different set of G discs.

[Dan] The whole bloody point of a label as opposed to a fileshare website, it would seem to me, in my dumb Lancashire way of thinking, is to release quality music and not just passably good music.

[Mike] But see, here's an example of why I'm justified in these labored and precise expressions of very obvious points that will likely cause many readers to say "well, duh, why does he bother to explain something as obvious as the radical relativity of aesthetic value?". Your statement here is essentially vacuous because what's passably good to you might be the highest quality to the record producer. All this is just trivial.

[Mike] No single person will ever be able to listen to everything, and will always have to make irrational and arbitrary choices in their allocation of experiential resources.

[Dan] So how do you decide what to buy, then? From reading a rave review? Word of mouth of a friend?

[Mike] Well, I didn't say I had a solution to this problem. I just acknowledged that the problem exists inherently and emphasized that it's not the fault of people who release a lot of music. In practice, there are dozens of informational mechanisms that interact to determine a person's choices of what to consume among the vast set of possibilities. Some are systematic, intentional, and meaningful, while others are random or irrational. Would you rather have this complex system of interacting factors finely tuned and improved through each person's personal informational pathway, or would you rather have the whole joyous shebang pre-empted by the particular tastes and informational milieus of the small group of people who release music?

Well, I uhh, wanted to talk about how much I like the Ulher/Robair disc (just received a large order I placed with Ernesto) but now it feels weird to try and place this in the midst of this capitalistic distribution/desire discussion. I don't feel that things are any different now for me than those halycon days of the early 80's when I would go to Oarfolkejokepus in Mpls and stare at the rows and rows of new hardcore singles vying for my limited punk dollars. Thank god for Maximum rock and roll to divide things into "77 Punk" (mid-tempo melodic) and thrash (fast incomprehensible) and lyrical content as "personal" or "political". At least then you had an idea what it sounded like. Which I guess is what's being said here:

Mike:
"In practice, there are dozens of informational mechanisms that interact to determine a person's choices of what to consume among the vast set of possibilities. Some are systematic, intentional, and meaningful, while others are random or irrational. Would you rather have this complex system of interacting factors finely tuned and improved through each person's personal informational pathway, or would you rather have the whole joyous shebang pre-empted by the particular tastes and informational milieus of the small group of people who release music?"

So I guess what you guys are worrying at is the fabric of whether labels release too much and what criteria defines "too much"? That is a sticky wicket and as always the complex web of desire and obligation is something for cultural critics to gnaw on ad infinitum. I guess I used to think that I made informed decisions about my purchases but realize now that Micheal is correct. No matter what I put into it, there will always be an element of the arbitray and irrational, as no matter how much I think someone agrees with my taste, I might buy a lame CD on their recommendation. And I do admit that cover art, and various arbitrary psychological factors (having recently listened to AMM might influence me to buy a CD with Keith Rowe on it when I was actually on my way to buy a CD by someone else) play a role as well.

That being said, I think the most salient point here is the inherent need to bitch that is part of human nature. So whether or not CS is producing all diamonds, someone is going to scream "coal"! And we all instinctively start to hate any team that wins 4 superbowls in a row. The vagaries of this process render most of this discussion as interesting as the time that we all feel is worthy to invest in it to while away the time until we take that final gasp.

p.s.
I really like that disc. I didn't realize that call and response, like heroin, was so passe. Funny, because someone at Erstquake told me that the reason they liked the Garcia/Unami set was for the perceived call and response of it. I guess that I enjoy it though I find it a rich tapestry and not so divisive. There a varied nice exploration of sounds within a similar range moving between the electronics and trumpet and love those drones as well. The recording quality is excellent and makes for an intimate exposition of the edges of the dialogue. This is a disc I've enjoyed very much. I only have about a dozen CS discs and like them all though I haven't spent that much time with some of the ones I've just received. I guess I'll just have to get more till I find those duff ones. However that Axel Dorner one is not one that I think lesser like someone posted above. I find that an excellent disc and I guess that puts us right back with Mike's assessment of the varying opinions about these works........

As far as value judgment, the question is always "Who's value judgment? And why is that person's judgment more worthwhile than others?" and so on, an obvious point, but essentially the point that I get the feeling Walt misses if I read him correctly here and elsewhere. Walt, your comments often imply that you believe in aesthetic criteria that transcend individual taste/experience.

I don't know what you mean by "transcend," but, I take it that no one has any but his own responses to use as a basis for making aesthetic judgments. But that doesn't seem such an impossible situation to me. It can be thought of as only apparently disabling when one considers that we also have only our own responses with respect to every other perceptually based judgment we make. If you believe I think otherwise, maybe you've misread me. (Or maybe I've been wavering....or maybe unclear, contradictory, etc.)

I'm certain such criteria don't exist.

It's nice that you're certain about basic aesthetic principles--so few others in history have been. I congratulate you.

My own contributions are, unhappily, more modest. Eg, my point on this thread has been only that I don't think it's optimal for consumers (or, I suppose, labels) to get nothing but favorable reviews. And, pretty much all they get nowadays are raves.

Well, Walt, in your Cadence days you'd get random packets of discs, including crap, and have a sort of obligation to review them in a "consumer guide" discourse context, wherein negativity is very valuable and acceptable, but for most of us these days it makes more sense to just ignore the stuff we don't like and only talk about things we want to rave about for the sake of celebrating, analyzing, discussing, and recommending to others. That's the way I feel about it. I enjoy offering negative feedback as an inherent part of the process of discrimination and self-understanding, but I only offer it in a context where a pre-existing positive and supportive relationship to the musicians exists. That is an ideal situation for me, a net positive response that includes detailed and honest identifications of the parts that are aesthetic failures for me. It's often observed that it's a waste of time to trash music in public that's already marginalized in the worst way and may very well be deeply enjoyed by others with the suitable aesthetic disposition.

Letchhausen, thanks for your remarks on Sputter; I really enjoyed reading that thought about call-and-response, something to really think about...

...for most of us these days it makes more sense to just ignore the stuff we don't like and only talk about things we want to rave about for the sake of celebrating, analyzing, discussing, and recommending to others.

I can buy that, but, FWIW, I think it'd be more useful if this contempo shared-celebration reviewer would at least tell us limited-resource shoppers what else they've heard--then it would be easier to draw some conclusions about what it might make sense for us to buy. Without that info we don't know what to infer from the silence surrounding some unreviewed disc.

Yeah, good point, I think the way to go with these things is for people to have their own personal casual "listening blogs" where you can just spend like one minute saying stuff like "I played this disc once in the background and I don't think it's interesting enough to bother with again because life is short and the kazoo solo was out of tune so fuck these losers". I'm planning to get into that zone sometime eventually when I have time to set it up satisfactorily. Quick, offhand, informal responses including unfairly hasty dismissive attitudes are very useful indeed. In this scenario if there's a disc a person is interested in for which serious reviews are unavailable, they can google and find random people's personal quickie commentary in blog format (like "here's the ten CDs I played today with a sentence or two about each..."), possibly having enough context about the commentator to gauge their taste, etc... Yes, let a thousand discourse formats bloom... I mean this sort of thing as a supplement to, not replacement for, current discourse practices... Just an idea whose time is surely near, if not already begun...

Besides having a place for inconspicuously and unpretentiously (meaning not doing so under the banner of some "publication" representing anything more than just one person, like magazines) trashing discs one doesn't like, it's nice to have a quick "holy shit, I just played this new disc and it's amazing!!! [one sentence summary of the content]" type remark available instead of waiting weeks or months until a "proper" review of it is done or for stuff that a person has no plans to write about more than that.

"they can google and find random people's personal quickie commentary in blog format (like "here's the ten CDs I played today with a sentence or two about each...")"
This is presumably what you call a soundbite. ("Bite", by the way, is French slang for the male member.) Why take the trouble of writing "a sentence or two" (I'm amused at the idea of a Michael Anton Parker two sentence review.. like a Milazzo haiku)? Just give it a bald mark out of ten and have done with it.

Back to new CS cds - "Aérea" is perfect.

M. A. P. "Quick, offhand, informal responses including unfairly hasty dismissive attitudes are very useful indeed. In this scenario if there's a disc a person is interested in for which serious reviews are unavailable, they can google and find random people's personal quickie commentary in blog format (like "here's the ten CDs I played today with a sentence or two about each...")"

Usually , that's most of what I looking for in a review--although who plays on it is nice too....and maybe a comparison with somebody I might be familiar with.

Dan W: "Just give it a bald mark out of ten and have done with it."

I can live with that as well.

Come on, guys, let's be more sophisticated. How about marks out of 1,000?

1000? That's far too big for the London scene ;-) How about 100..

I also do like "Glotosifres". Can anybody write about Nush Werchowska ?

Give me some time to listen to the albums & maybe I will - unless you want to, Mr QQQQ (whoever you are!)

Of course I'll read your reviews with graet pleasure, Mr Warburton, but first I'd like to know something about Nush Werchowska. I did like her playing on "Glotosifres". I haven't listened anything else she had recorded before (did she anything ?, maybe you know Mr Warburton, she's probably from France), but after that disc I want more.

As for CS i don't have any problem with them releasing so much stuff and i don't think Ernesto is loosing it's edge w some releases that may not be of same quality as some previous ones. After all regardless if musicians are paying him for releasing their music on CS, the label can be seen also as a media that serves as an opportunity for lesser know musicians to present their work. I heard a lot of crap also on Bags and elsewhere bout too many improv albums beeing released /.../ how nowadays everybody has his own label (presumably cd-r one) and every fucking improv gig is getting recorded, but i think this picture is not the right one. Ok so anybody with a little will and money can produce the cd or cd-r but what next- stick it up his/her ass? Thru labels like CS who support their music by releasing it (and i do think all of the releases do get Ernesto's approval) they can get to propper distribution so some ears of interest can at least hear them ...

As for my little crappy label i have a critieria that may look heretic thru Dan's statement ''Whatever happened to value judgment? The whole bloody point of a label as opposed to a fileshare website, it would seem to me, in my dumb Lancashire way of thinking, is to release quality music and not just passably good music''.

I contact the musicians of my personal interest or i get material or proposition by them. So sometimes i don't know what i am going to get but already i decide i'll run it. I do belive that one of the main things that makes me admire the ''improv scene'' is hard self criticism as sort of an ethos so so far everything i've got and released tottally pleased my eardrums. And i am releasing Dan cd this month and didn't hear it before i've decide to go with it ...

and to end all this i agree w qqqq on "Aérea" is really perfect, a nice turn after the trio formation of I Treni Inerti- for a 1st listen sounds quite ''structured'' ...

[Dan] (I'm amused at the idea of a Michael Anton Parker two sentence review.. like a Milazzo haiku)? Just give it a bald mark out of ten and have done with it.

[Mike] I took your remark as a constructive challenge, and wished to show that concision is part of my repertoire, though thankfully not its extent. But instead of being gimmicky and artificially limiting or twisting it to two sentences, I put content first and stretched out to three. Just posted in the Bags review slot.

As far the "bald mark", c'mon, a number by itself is a copout. A tiny bit of content goes a long way. I just spent one-minute writing a review that I hope supports this observation.

"Of course I'll read your reviews with graet pleasure, Mr Warburton"
Aw shucks, darlin', just you call me Dan, Mr Q :)
"I'd like to know something about Nush Werchowska."
Not much on Google (a few concert reviews, in French) - maybe our man Jacques Oger can help out. I know & have played with Mathias and Sebastien Cirotteau.
"I did like her playing on "Glotosifres"."
As I said, I'm looking forward to listening to it. It arrived in a batch of 7 in a week where I already got about 20. Right now it's the new Erstwhiles and the Gordon Mumma on New World that are getting airplay here. Will attack the CS discs on Saturday.
"the label can be seen also as a media that serves as an opportunity for lesser know musicians to present their work."
Yes, and the discs are carefully produced, well packaged and attractive.
"And i am releasing Dan cd this month and didn't hear it before i've decide to go with it ..."
To be perfectly honest if you'd heard it and not liked it and decided not to run it, I don't think I'd have minded - Tom and I would have submitted something else. As it is, I'm delighted it's coming out on L'innomable. (Enough idle flattery, ha!)
"i agree w qqqq on "Aérea" is really perfect, a nice turn after the trio formation of I Treni Inerti- for a 1st listen sounds quite ''structured'' ..."
Yes, this is the one I'll be listening to first!

About CS, I rather agree with Lukaz's statement. I know that many young musicians need to release CDs on labels that can give them visibility. And these CDs help them to get gigs too.
About Nush Werchowska, I've met her a couple of times, but never heard her.
As far as I know, she is violonist Mathieu Werchowski's sister.

Thanks for information about N. Werchowska.
btw: I have to stop listeninig to CS discs too, because "Invisible Pyramid: Elegy Box"(Last Visible Dog) had just arrived and owned my cd player.

Yeah, yeah, but how about that Jimmy Ghaphery/Jason Bivins/Ian Davis
Impermanence record? I just got around to listening to it last night and dug it, muchly.

Sometimes it seems we'd all rather talk about another guy's commentary than about music.

Yes indeed - anyone out there want to give us more background info on Ghaphery? (Biv, you out there?)

Sir, yes sir! Seriously, glad you guys dig the record. Jimmy is a wonder, isn't he (and one of the nicest cats you'll ever meet)?

As I mention in the liners, we met him in 2002 on the Family Vineyard "God damn this fucking tour" Tour. He played in Hotel X for a long time (!) but other than that has mostly been a local Richmond player, although obsessed with Fela, Jimmy Lyons, and Braxton (among others).

Hmm, gotta get that trio on the road . . .

Saweeet, I love Hotel X!

I played Impermanence last week one time and I was immediately sucked into it for the duration, an excellent disc with a fantastic subtle textural opening passage that went on to change styles without losing me. I'm keenly looking forward to a serious re-listen soon. A left-field gem from the American underground.

Oh man, you should hear Hotel X now. They're like a 12-piece Fela band. This spring the Unstable Ensemble played with them at a sports bar (misleadingly titled the "Upper East Side Jazz Lounge"). One of the all-time worst gigs, I loved it - there were so many stuck-up yuppies giving us the stinkeye when we started (quietly, with high-pitched sustained tones) that we immediately shifted into high-volume "fuck you" mode and cleared the room. Excellent.

Thanks for the kind words re. the disc, by the way.

Amen - review to come soon chez moi

Baltimore has a majorly happening Fela tribute orchestra these days... Hotel X should get on a bill with them... You can get the contact info from me privately...

Dear Unstable Ensemble,

So glad you enjoyed Hotel X that night, as well as our former favorite club, the now defunct Upper East Side and our stuck up yuppie friends that also double as musicians, artists, writers and dancers. I am very apologetic for their giving you the dreaded "stink-eye". No Artist should ever have to endure such a punishment from even an ungrateful bunch of savages. I would like to add a warm thank you for the "high-volume 'fuck you' mode" that "cleared the room. Excellent."
I can't wait to do it again.

sincerely and best wishes,
Ron T. Curry
www.hotelxmusic.com

sooner or later, everyone mentioned unfavorably in any way on Bags shows up due to the wonders of Google. it only took two months for you, Ron, congrats!

Ron's still got a long ways to go on response time though, Jon. It usually only takes you a matter of milliseconds ;)

damn right! :)

Interestingly, I didn't say anything negative about Hotel X, whose music I enjoy (and one of whose members, Tim Harding, is a good buddy). Ron, you can't seriously think talking over a band that's playing is defensible, can you? I don't give a shit if those doing the talking are "artists," that sucks (as does leaving a bunch of televisions on, but I think I left that out initially). Come off it.

Best self-Google Bags appearance since Joe Morris.

Incidentally re: Mr Morris, check out the letters page on Paris Transatlantic this month.....

Nate, I think the sentence of yours in question, "his guitar work tends toward verbosity", is the very pinnacle of journalistic vacuity, idiocy, laziness, and smugness. I admire Morris for responding to something so insignificant because it shows attention to detail and committment to rigor. It really bothers me that you would try to squeeze the odd shape of music into the same lexical hole burrowed by language. Musical verbosity? Sorry, that metaphor doesn't compute. Journalism at its worst, and a perfect example of the common tragedy wherein content is sacrificed for catchiness and concision. It's nice to see a musician speak out against that kind of self-satisfied slicksterism.

While you seem to think Morris is suspect for being so outspoken, I think it's other musicians who are suspect for not expressing themselves that way. If more musicians took as much as care as Morris we'd see refinements to discourse via a peer-review effect that would reduce the delusions of authority among "critics" and force them to report their subjective experiences more transparently.

Also, vast acquaintance with someone's work certainly isn't required to have an opinion about it, but it's definitely required to make a valid generalization about it, as in "his work [predicate]".

"the very pinnacle of journalistic vacuity, idiocy, laziness, and smugness."

the very pinnacle, huh? seriously, do us all a favor and tone down everything you ever write by a few levels of hyperbole. gadzooks.

that wacky old MAP. Joe Morris cuts his nuts off and now months later, MAP is taking a stand for him and all aggrieved musicians! protect them, defend them--from the likes of..uh...well...MAP! hilarious stuff, happy new year.

Hm, I'm sure you could find far more vacuous & smug statements in my work if you combed through it; happy hunting!

If you don't fathom why "Has Nate Dorward heard all of the recordings I've made on guitar?" is probably the most ridiculous & self-important rhetorical question I've ever been asked in my life, then I really can't help you. As my answer makes clear, I've heard him play twice, have (or have had at some point) about nine or ten of his records, wrote one review in the past which discusses his playing in detail, & so, yeah, I thought I'd given him a fair shake & had plenty of grounds for a passing generalization.

Oh, I agree with you Nate that Morris' "all the recordings" line is ridiculous too. Obviously generalizations don't require 100% familiarity, just close enough ("vast"). Quantification in human language tends to be vague. The truth about the validity of generalization is somewhere in between what you and Morris said.

It's not this general issue that interested me, but rather the specific generalization at hand.

----------------------------------------------

Jon, yes I really did mean "the very pinnacle"; it wasn't hyberbole. I try to avoid this kind of meta-discourse because I'd rather spend time (catching up on) writing about the music itself, but Nate's line pegged my meta-discourse meters to the red and provided an ideal opportunity to express my opinion.

good fuck, I wish the writers here would stop gabbing about writing so much.

happy new year

Al, your use of the term "good fuck" is confusing, vacuous and unnecessarily (not to mention verbosely) hyperbolic....

I don't have the faintest idea what was in your glass yesterday evening Mike, but if I were you I'd give it up. I'm beginning to have serious doubts about your sanity.

I meant it as in "good lord", and you'll find that in my writi--- hey, wait a minute

Strangly enough, I have no trouble whatsoever understanding what Nate meant by "musical verbosity." I actually find the phrase to be a pretty incisive and intelligent way of communicating a particular quality into a language that I, as the reader, understand. Maybe other readers didn't understand, but screw 'em.

I agree with Walto about the problem of having all these rave reviews all the time. Maybe the ratio is greater than 10:1, but as imbalanced as it is, whenever I see a bad review now I usually assume, "Man, that disc must really suck ass if somebody was actually willing to slam it in print."

When I read reviews I don't really look as much for thumbs-up, thumbs-down assessments. I'd rather the reviewer attempt to describe what he is hearing on the disc. Aside from that, I tend to stick with labels that I know value quality over quantity. The sheer volume of Creative Sources releases makes me hesitant to try to pick any out for listening. I've ordered from them before, and may do so again, but I think the overload will hurt them in the long run.

http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2006/01jan_text.html#4

Might help you decide. If I had to pick just one of this latest batch it'd probably be Drumming.

Dan, are you really sure ttaht those titles aren't palindromes ? "luz azul" = "luzazul" and "era male mare" + "eramalamare". "Drumming" is a very good disc, but "Aérea" and "Diafon" too.

Bloody hell you're right - my old composition teacher Bob Morris, who used to amuse himself by trying to invent the world's longest palindrome - would be ashamed of me. Damn! Anyway, I've duly changed the review - thanks tadk! The wonders of Internet publishing.. one click of a button and it's

gone