Tom Djll - Smudge/Birgit Ulher, Damon Smith, Martin Blume - Sperrgut

(not! CDRs)

So I received some discs from Bags contributors Djll and Smith (thanks very much, gentlemen), two from the former, four from the latter. Djll’s offerings are both solo recordings so very much his own whereas Smith “merely” appears in various ensembles, all of them free improv and, ergo, only partially his responsibility. I had been, as near as I can recall, essentially ignorant of their work; I think I’d heard Tom buried in this or that ensemble but I’m pretty sure I’ve never encountered Damon’s playing. And, in the interests of full disclosure, my relatively limited exposure to the SF/Oakland improv scene over the years has been less than rewarding. I realize, of course, that it’s ultimately absurd to generalize about music emanating from a given geographic location, but I’ll admit that somewhere in my noggin there circulated the notion that either the creative music from that neck of the woods wasn’t as strong as elsewhere or, more likely, that the avenues being explored (again, as far as I was aware, which is certainly not anywhere near fully) were simply not those in which I had an abiding interest.

To some extent, these prejudices were borne out but not entirely so. I’ve chosen to write about the two discs, one from each, that I largely enjoyed. The others (Djll’s acoustic solo “Bellerophone” and three Balance Point Acoustics releases, “Zero Plus”, “The Happymakers” and “Cruxes”) work, I think, perfectly well for their chosen areas; they’re just not working in areas I feel comfortable dissecting. This despite the fact, in Smith’s case, of the appearance of several musicians I generally enjoy in other contexts such as Joelle Leandre, Serge Baghdassarians and Boris Baltschun.

Djll’s “Smudge” includes three pieces recorded from 1988-91, set between four others of recent vintage. We’ve heard solo trumpet discs aplenty in the past several years and it’s long past the point where so-called extended techniques became a virtual given. Those techniques, of course, were never (or should never have been) the focus of why a particular recording succeeded or failed. I take it for granted that Djll has been using these attacks for a couple of decades at least but in “Bellerophone”, spare as it was, I didn’t get the feeling of “poetic sound placement” (for lack of a less awkward term) that I wanted to hear. By augmenting his sound with electronics, it almost automatically fills out the space so that the concern becomes less the positioning of sounds in silence than the weaving of a rich fabric from them, more laminal than pointillistic, and I find the results much more engaging. The earlier tracks use analog synth as well as digital processing and the trumpet source come through fairly clearly: “Flake” beginning with a flurry of aggressive splatters before subsiding into delicate wheezing whereas “Schizy” generates a lush drone harboring small plosive blurts. On both tracks, the electronics have something of a dated, moog-y quality, but still the overall effect is attractive and intriguing. Djll is a bit of a channel-switcher here, lurching from this treatment to that and back again, an approach that could annoy but by and large the choices he makes here are worth it, including “Schizy”’s descent (ascent?) into Hendrixian chaos. It’s the remaining four tracks, recorded between this year and last, where the real payoff occurs, at least to these ears. “Oxide” starts with a thin, slightly rattling drone (all trace of “trumpetness” pretty much obliterated), gradually expanding into adjacent sound fields, adding strata fractionally higher and lower. The piece stays on point, tapering to a feedback-like moan, eventually accompanied by hollow tones like some ghost-ocarina as well as a little bit of itchy nattering to rasp the general smoothness—very nice. “Split” does so at the very beginning: after several seconds of whirling electronics, multilayered, deliciously coarse brass drones take over for about four minutes, exploring the cavern inside your ears. Then, quite suddenly, another divergence as enhanced, throbbing pulses echo off the walls, sizzling at the touch here and there, ejaculating the odd cry or whimper. That too subsides, rather too soon for me actually, replaced by purer trumpetry, burr-laced held tones and (apparently) interactions with thin pieces of metal. Split tones, indeed. Switch over to a high, almost whistling line, fragmented, sharing time with baser buzzes, eventually exiting on an ultra-low hum. “Split” ends up being something of a catalog piece, but an oddly effective one. Following the brief, lovingly considered “Covalents” comes the most striking gem of the date, “Patina”. It’s at first eerie, windswept, desolate and beautiful. Several minutes in, a few subdued bleeps mark a transition into a fuller sound as though the listener just entered a tunnel. Harsh lighting flickers off and on, disturbing the somberness, strident beeps precede a bleak, fluorescent hum which in turn reduces to a single, pinging gnat-buzz. Near silence, a few crackles and then one emerges into a mechanical, surreally carnivalesque dimension, replete with rhythmically sputtering gears. Djll’s trumpet appears in surprisingly natural guise for a few Milesian moments, before the bleats take us out. A wonderful piece.

Djll’s website, djll.com, should be up and running soon. In the meantime, those interested in this (or the other!) disc can contact him directly at td@djll.com.

Balance Point Acoustics
BPA 009

The specific meaning of terms migrates over time. “New School” inevitably becomes “Old”, not that the phrase should necessarily take on a pejorative aspect. The three other discs featuring Damon Smith’s playing could, I think it’s fair to say, be described as post-Parker/Bailey improv (Evan and Derek, not Charlie and Buster), music that’s relatively active and given to short flurries, pointillist rather than spatially oriented. It’s also characterized, to an extent, by something of an insular quality, much more self-referential than outward looking, for instance tending not to incorporate sound/music from without the free improv ambit. Absolutely nothing wrong with this, of course, and I’d strongly encourage those for whom that area holds general attraction to check them out, but some listeners, myself included, prefer hearing such music produced when the very notion carried with it more of a sense of explorative excitement. Smith, in his writing, has shown himself to be quite open to various other modes of improvisational expression, but it was only on “Sperrgut” that I received a sense of this being translated into sound. To be sure, it’s not a decided break from the previously mentioned discs but there’s something—one assumes it might largely revolve around the presence of Ulher—that breathes extra life into this session, that expands it well beyond any whiff of hermeticism. As seems to be the rule on these releases, the tracks are shorter than normally encountered in this area, here nine spread over about 50 minutes, but unlike elsewhere where I often wanted to hear ideas expounded upon at greater length, the durations on “Sperrgut” feel just about right. Ulher brings out the more liquid side of Smith’s and Blume’s playing largely by dint of her own deliciously wet sound as the trio slides and slithers through the pieces (all titled with what appear to be measurements for some arcane purpose, e.g. “0.30 x 1.60 x 3.25m”) with abandon, the stops and starts possessing a great sense of being embedded in an underlying continuum rather than sputtering in isolation. The three work together beautifully, percussionist Blume actually providing a good deal of the more “melodic” content, allowing Smith to salt the brew with some needed, more astringent palate cleansing, though he works in a good deal of lovely, rich, low arco in several of the tracks as well. Although they’re actually quite varied, the improvisations feel very much of a piece, excerpts from an ongoing conversation. There’s not a weak performance in the bunch; an excellent effort.

balance point acoustics