Bevel – “Down the Puppet String, Mario ” – [Jagjaguwar Records]

mitch   8/30/2006   A Library, CD

Via Nuon (MANISHEVITZ, CURIOUS DIGIT) dips backward and
forward for his third solo release (following 2002’s masterpiece,
‘Where Leaves Block the Sun?, mainly with some work began as
long ago as 1998, remixed & upended with the able assistance
of Michael Krassner (piano, etc.), Gerald Dowd (drums) & the
mournful sounds of Deanna Varagona (baritone sax). Included
here is the DONOVAN cover meant originally for the
tribute compilation ( # 2) and five other most afferent fragments
heavy in Day Residue and a memory of a dream-day still immersed
in its own construction. Nuon’s sense of avoided trauma is, as
always, heightened by his first line of defense mechanism, which
is an unfailing sense of melody in the service of art (could Varagona
sound more like a cellist?) where colors and textures subdue the
most rampant of fears manifest in his musical subconscious, and
therein lies the secret – of a gentle soul whose perceptual powers
address a kinesthetic imagery of tracked thoughts (people & places)
and tasty guitar licks that are ever >outro in a life of farewells – sad,
denuded and somehow out of the reach of fantasy or primogeniture.
Flashing with simple beauty like the purest of gestures, BEVEL is a
most subtle and inspired genius in his own right. Noncancomparesville.

MITCH December 2003