Very curious to hear this one.

sounds good, looking forward to it!

Did you guys check out the clip from this that is available here?

I really was turned off by the piano playing in this clip and had just written this piece off. After reading Brian's review maybe I'll give it a listen now, but I just don't know if I can get past that piano.

and by here I mean here:
http://www.absinthrecords.com/clips/aa012.mp3

(dunno what's going on there)

Thanx for the link. And I second the opinion. Although a single bell stroke suffices to suddenly make things beautiful for a fleeting moment, it's hard to stomach the drab piano noodlings that, though heavily milked for overtones, are just shallow murk.

Ah, I very strongly disagree with those who have criticized the playing on this clip. I think all improvisation is in some sense "noodling" so the question for me is not, "Is it noodles?" but "Is it good noodling or bad?" What attracts about the very low register of the piano is the pitch uncertainty, especially with the damper or sustenuto pedals down. IMO, Wastell very nicely here combines almost total unpredictability with extreme restiction of his resources. When the minimalists do this, the "near repetions" I usually find boring, but Wastell doesn't repeat or nearly repeat phrases. And the sounds he lands on are lovely. Also though it's in the ballpark, it's not pure Feldmaniana (for a change).

Vive la pasta!

I guess I can understand people having a certain amount of difficulty with the piano as such (though I didn't), but it seems clear to me that this piece should be judged in its entirety, the memories of the earlier sections effecting the perception of what occurs later. There's a certain amount of dark-to-light progression to be heard, though I don't think it's that overt or linear. If I listen to sections "individually", there are of course portions I enjoy more than others, I just think that's the wrong approach to take with works like this. There's been a bit of discussion on "Aso" along these general lines and the same applies there, ie, it's less a matter of thinking the earlier pieces don't work as well as the later, more seeing how the disc as a whole functions.

Of course, if you just don't like the music period, that's another issue, no problem.

That's true, I haven't heard the whole thing. What's more, thinking about my really positive reaction to every stroke of the bell, the whole thing probably would work for me as a composition, from your review this would be perfect, in theory. So it boils down to what might be the problem with the piano. What bothers me there? I've thought about it and have come up with remembrances of myself as a child, standing at the family upright, foot on the echo pedal (as i thought of it then), hitting the low notes, swallowing up the sounds... I could even imagine that this is a rather appropriate reaction (while of course I'm now disqualified, to be taken seriously I should try to objectify). Then the question for me boils down to: is Wastell up for that kind of situation/remembrance. Is there a sense of wonder at the sound of a piano? No, there is not. There is knowledge about overtones and how to mike them and how to enhance them electronically. Well, if there is no wonder, you really better have the touch of John Tilbury to still create magic. You won't do it by noodling... (which is to say: i would very much like the music period, but for completely idiosyncratic (maybe not so, maybe not so) reasons it fails; haven't even heard the whole thing, but it sets the thing between me old ears going... which says: it's not that easy. Work some.

I don't listen to clips if I know it's something I want to hear, just like I try not to watch previews of films I want to see.

Agreed. It makes about as much sense providing a minute long clip of a full length album as it does showing about ten sq cm of a Rothko. Sure, in a lot of free jazz and noise releases there are always some nice bits you can take out of context (and I've done so myself - though to the best of the knowledge there aren't any soundfiles on my site anymore - they'd been there for ages, nobody downloaded them and they were way out of date), but in music such as Mark's it doesn't make much sense.
As far as noodling goes, sure, there are good and bad noodles - choose your restaurant carefully - but by and large the word has a rather pejorative connotation (at least it does the way I use it, most of the time). I can't speak of this particular album because I haven't heard it yet - it's on the menu for tonight as a matter of fact - but from what I know of Mark's words, there ain't no noodles in sight. A few bare bones strewn around, occasional twigs and clouds of various colours, perhaps. Very autumnal. But that's probably only because it's a grey miserable rainy day here in Gay Paree.

fwiw, this was a recording that grew on me substantially with additional listens. First time through, I had no particular impression one way or the other, but I've listened more than a dozen times now and (I think) have a reasonable grasp of the whole and, what can I say?, find it a very moving work.

A dozen times! You lucky bugger, Olewnick! How many hours are there in the day where you live (and how many CDs in your letterbox?)?!

Two things helped: 1) It's relatively short (34 minutes, I think) and 2) I liked it a lot.

We played an 11-minute chunk on our last show, taken from about 15 minutes in to where there is about a minute's silence (or near-silence) in the track. Alas, the recording of the show's not available yet, but will be soon.

While the longer excerpt (carefully chosen to span the different parts of the composition) helps to give an idea of the piece, it's by no means a substitute for the whole thing which really does need to be heard in its entirety. I think it's a great CD. Brian's pinned it down well.

(Richard and I believe that there should be some kudos directed towards Graham Halliwell's mixing, too.)

We played an 11-minute chunk on our last show, taken from about 15 minutes in to where there is about a minute's silence (or near-silence) in the track. Alas, the recording of the show's not available yet, but will be soon.

While the longer excerpt (carefully chosen to span the different parts of the composition) helps to give an idea of the piece, it's by no means a substitute for the whole thing which really does need to be heard in its entirety. I think it's a great CD. Brian's pinned it down well.

(Richard and I believe that there should be some kudos directed towards Graham Halliwell's mixing, too.)

I like clips and previews.

Man, the smugness. A Rothko is in space, not in time. And this isn't like watching an edited preview of a film, it's like watching the first damn half hour of a film. You guys all reserve judgement? OK, the acting's atrocious, but that could be part of the plot revealed at showdown? Wastell touches the piano like he knows the recording will save his ass, and to you it does, and to me it's cheap, and that is that, regardless of what follows, and as I've said, I'm really positive I would be drooling over the second part that follows, it's just that: if you play piano like a child, record it plain, don't try to cover it with digital gold dust(or analog whatever it takes). I have listened to this excerpt seven times in a row, it has intrigued me for what it could have been (Wastell has done great things), but it it fell flat--why is it so atrocious to form an (dare I say informed? no? ok, thought so)opinion? This is balderdash period.

"This description doesn’t by any stretch do justice to how wonderful a piece of music this is."

Don't sell yourself short, Ollie! I think you're on q roll here:

"The first half is taken up by troubled, brooding notes (and the occasional bell) from the depths of the keyboard, kind of a pared down version of what John Tilbury did on the Cathnor release from earlier this year. There’s a stumbling quality in the sense of someone walking down a dark, uneven pathway, too deep in thought to pay attention to his footing. About halfway through, the piano begins to cede space to the tam-tam and, later the tubular bells. The tam-tam is played with a soft touch (probably Wastell’s hands) and a fairly regular, fast beat, forming a drone that becomes hugely deep at some points, and its sonic interaction with the bells--the overlapping interference patterns I imagine--creates some breathtakingly beautiful moments. It reminds me a little bit of that gorgeous, early Gavin Bryars recording, “Hommages”, on Les Disques du Crepuscule. We reach a pause, then quiet, isolated taps on the tam-tam usher us out, somewhat less troubled than we were on the way in."

Foggy: [if you play piano like a child, record it plain, don't try to cover it with digital gold dust(or analog whatever it takes). I have listened to this excerpt seven times in a row, it has intrigued me for what it could have been (Wastell has done great things), but it it fell flat--why is it so atrocious to form an (dare I say informed? no? ok, thought so)opinion? This is balderdash period.]

Reading above I'm not sure anyone said that forming an opinion was an atrocious thing foggy. I think you recognise that you are not forming an opinion of the CD release, merely the first few minutes of it as that is all you have heard. That's fine.

I'm sure that anyone that has heard the full disc would agree that the clip is not representative of the CD as a whole and IMO we would be better off without it. I've really been enjoying this disc a lot today after my initial impressions (just from that clip) were not so enjoyable. For this reason I personally would recommend you listen to the disc in full.

I'm not sure why it would be considered smug to compare listening to only one portion of a piece of music to only viewing one piece of a painting, that seems a perfectly reasonable comparison to me FWIW. In both cases you get one portion of a piece of art that you have to judge on its own merits without being able to understand how it sits within the work as a whole. I'm not sure how the space/time comparison makes any difference to that.

I'm more concerned about your belief that the piano should be "recorded plain". I'm pretty sure you will find there is no digital or analogue "gold dust" involved and it is indeed "recorded plain"
You seem to be more bothered about the musician's skill at the piano than the resultant music that is created. For me, this record is about far more basic primal human traits than the ability to play the piano to some acceptable level of skill. Perhaps the piano is being played in a "childish" manner, but it works for precisely that reason. The slightly off-centred, awkward piano playing gives the disc something extra that a more polished approach would gloss over. The fact that I cannot really explain that 'something extra' is one of the intriguing things about this recording.
The music has a dark and unsettling power to it that I really am struggling to come to understand let alone put into words, but I will happilly agree with Brian that this is one that grows massively with every listen.

"I have listened to this excerpt seven times in a row"
That would seem to indicate the music was sufficiently interesting to draw you back. Or maybe you're like the woman in the Fawlty Towers Waldorf Salad episode who thinks the prawns are off but eats half of them "just to make sure"

Besides, as I explained above, the piano playing on that excerpt is actually quite lovely.

People with kids might recognize the truth in the scene in "Six Degrees of Separation" in which the art critic is wowed by the paintings in a pre-school class. For most human beings, I believe, the best artwork they will ever make they've made before they turn six. Any adult who thinks it's easy to either make finger paintings as beautiful as their preschooler's or to play the piano after the manner of Wastell in this clip (as I described above), should certainly do so immediately! The world will be better for it.

If y'all pardon me, I'll try once more.

I listened repeatedly because a) I loved what the sudden beauty of the bellstrokes did to me, and b) because I had to know exactly why I still didn't like the thing, a badly played instrument doesn't usually put me off, and yes, I'm slow in the head.

When I think: awkward piano rumblings and then tam-tam drone and bells opening things up, sudden beauty, that's such a great concept. And in a way it works, and you could say that the surrounding sounds resurrect a childish sense of astonishment at being able to produce shimmering sounds (the overtones etc) from a beast one doesn't understand. (You will say I'm reading too much into this, granted, but it doesn't affect the argument, because:)

The awkward piano noodlings of a usually supremely nuanced musician are beautifully recorded. And that's the problem. If he'd banged away on his upright at home and recorded the whole thing on a dictaphone, I'm sure I would melt in ecstasy. You know, it's a psychological thing, even if this wasn't digitally enhanced, the recording still is "precious", it's noodling given the gilt frame. (Think Marie Antoinette. Wait, please don't. And I'm sure that film's trash without even having seen a preview.) And that's what was bothering me all the time and I couldn't pinpoint it until the motha had spun long enough. And the rest of the record can't do away with it.

As for the excerpt of a painting vs. music thing: you're of course right as long as you do not listen. If you discuss in terms of composition, theory etc. Listening to this excerpt means: it is the real thing for the first 8 minutes or so, you're experiencing it as if it were the real thing (of course I shouldn't put in on repeat). Part of a painting is not part of the experience of the real thing, that really should be obvious. The excerpt failed for me, the only thing that would prove my fawlty ears insipid is if the recording would stand my presumptions on the head later on. (Silliest version: somebody playing virtuoso piano recorded on a speed-shifting ramshackle cassette player.) If that doesn't happen, I have a point.

Except this playing isn't really awkward, and the pejorative "noodling" is nothing more than another way of saying you don't like it. To repeat: this playing is NOT awkward, and "noodling" is a way people commonly deride freely improvised music that they don't like. Baroque music is often similarly dissed by calling it "scrubbing."

However...You'd prefer to have had this excerpt badly recorded on cassette. Fine, to each his own.

* "Every child is an artist. It's a challenge to remain an artist when you grow up."

* "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

Listened to this three times last night. There's no noodling about it - the piano work is subtle and excellently recorded. For the bloke above who "can't get past the piano" I feel sorry, as the instrument features in well over half the 33 minute piece. This is some of Mark's best work on record.
"Nobody ever called Pablo Picasso an asshole."

Yes! And it was recorded on my birthday.