Music Reviews

Constructive Engagement [coll] – [Screw Music Forever]

Max Level 1/25/2006 A Library, CD

NY pirate radio station Free 103.9 puts out a series of audio ‘dispatches”. Many of them feature sound-collage artists. This dispatch is a barrage of urban sound bits and bites, recorded at protest/ demonstration sites in NY, LA, etc. Listen for crowd chants, sirens, police whistles, and construction noises. Also loopy repetitive stuff and dub grooves. Ironic cameo appearances by Hall and Oates, Golden Earring, and Ronald Reagan. There’s also an excellent 8-minute secret track about pirate /micropower radio. Definitely worth a listen!

Bittova, Iva / Vaclavek, Vladimir “Bile Inferno” [Indies Records]

Thurston Hunger 1/23/2006 A Library, CD

“Bile” here means “white”, and is probably pronounced more
like “Bela” (as in Belarus..if not maybe Bela Bartok ;>).
I remain smitten by Bittova, ever since I first heard a
solo recording of her work. Hearing Vaclavek and other folks
here working so in step with her, proves that she casts her
spell on many. One of them here is Tom Cora (RIP), his cello
is often plucked and plucky, to me everyone sounds so barefoot
on this! Iva’s sister, Ida Kelarova included! Are they really
daughters of a gypsy fiddler? More than raising two talented
musicians, he’s raised two who have preserved their eternal
child. The songs feel like they could be sung to games of
hopscotch or jump rope; even the slower numbers are filled
with the light of kindergarten wondergarten. Her voice always
sounds like she’s absorbed in fun, throwing scream echoes,
doubled in chirping choirs, buzzing like a fly, whispering
secrets, getting that wordless scree that sounds like her brain
is feeding back. Musicianship throughout is top-notch, and
always lock-step in the dreamdance that has Iva leaping from
note to note like a kid trying to catch a butterfly. Didn’t
decipher ying/yang black/white, but a noble lyric translation
can be found at
http://www.etherdrag.com/articles/bittova.html
White comes in snow, ocean foam, tree bark, bones, clouds,
spider webs. Her music feels like all of these things, just
a part of nature. -Thurston Hunger

If Thousands “I Have Nothing” [Silber]

Max Level 1/22/2006 A Library

Fine drone-based compositions in bite-sized pieces (nothing over 5-1/2 minutes) on this, the second Silber release by this duo. Waves of sound ebb and flow, ranging texturally from soft and meditative to thick and crushing. A human touch is added by way of guitar on #1, 2, 7, & 9, and what seems to be bass clarinet and trombone appear on #12. Elsewhere it’s keyboards, accordion, bowed bass, electronics, and any number of other things from which a droning sound can be coaxed. My favorite is #3, with its huge saturated tones and then tiny little glitch noises at the end. #13 is a goofy little keyboard ditty. #15 features banjo strumming by Paul Metzger, whose playing seems to assure us that everything is going to be OK. All instrumental.

Stronen/Storlokken [Rune Grammofon]

Max Level 1/22/2006 A Library

Supersilent’s Storlokken (keyboards/electronics) teams up with fellow Norwegian Stronen (drums/electronics) for some nutty abstract jazz-rock, all instrumental. (you want nutty? check Track 5.) The tight interplay between the two musicians is amazing, considering this material was supposedly all improvised. Storlokken uses odd keyboard voices to send out lines that are jazzy but in a weird fractured way. While Stonen’s drums definitely groove, he often seems to be whacking everything within reach, just for the sake of variation. At times it seems that his drums are also triggering programmed sounds and patterns. A wonderful mixture of blurting electronics, moody downtempo atmosphere, and crazy hyperfunk.

Bittova Iva – Cikori – Indies Records

Thurston Hunger 1/18/2006 A Library, CD

Czechs and imbalances. Sonic sprite Iva
Bittova manages to maintain all the quirks
and intimacies of her solo voice and violin
voyages with this five piece acoustic group.
Springy steel-string guitar from Vladimir
Vaclavek that mostly steers away from simple
strumble in favor of little jigsaw cycles.
Excellent use of dischord, even when he
breaks down and uses chords. Solid pop
requires an active, inventive bassist and
Jaromir Honzak delivers. Trumpet accents
from Frantisek Kucera give this some nice
polish – but Iva’s savage charm is not
overly restrained. Her voice can purr and
caterwaul, bark and bite, tease and chase.
It skips like stones over water, while I
miss more of her violin playing (there is
some here, plus kazoo on the closer!),
this release is fantastic fun. -Thurston Hunger

Daniel Menche and Kiyoshi Mizutani “Garden” [Ground Fault Recordings]

Krzton Drda 1/17/2006 A Library

Music concrete sunny side up takes you to visit a garden in the summer time. Insects, birds, wind, are all extensively layered to make this work. One track goes all the way through. Around seven minutes in there is a gong noise and within a few minutes of the end a helecopter can be heard thumping far away. Daniel Menche is credited with low sounds and Kiyoshi Mizutani with the high sounds. This was recorded in Japan in 1996, mixed in 2002 and released in 2003. Joyful yet restive.

Mori, Ikue – “Labyrinth” – [Tzadik]

Krzton Drda 1/17/2006 A Library, CD

Experimental laptoppery with a sound that is constructed, smooth, and articulate, kind of like playing aggressively with glass without breaking it.

Akron/Family & Angels of Light [coll] – [Young God Records]

Thurston Hunger 1/13/2006 A Library, CD

Young God is a consistently vital label, but when M. Gira
takes it upon himself to join the fray as he does here, you
can bet something special is at play. The result is like
the battle hymn for an eventual gypsy uprising. The songs
have that epic/ancient flavor, as though they’ve been passed
on from campfire to campfire across history, across continents.
When the Akron/Family gets everyone in full throat, it is
hard not to feel your own blood surge. It’s not the harmonies,
it’s just the sense that each voice is so much stronger when
in unison. Muskateers of music! And when they join their sonic
swords and guitars with Gira, the result is as coherent as the
light coming through the window the first time you find yourself
in a mortuary. Songs of love and destruction, of hope amidst
swirling chaos. The Gira section, which starts with a Dylan
cover is more reflective, and lets the lyrics wander ahead of
the music. Love the close-up mic’ing of Gira’s rich voice.
His work is elegant, but the froth that the Akron/Family lays
down, well it just raises the dead. Fans of order, don’t let
the 50 seconds of frenzied chaos on “Moment” scare you away
from a song that is as big as the plant. Again, those voices
rise up, caught in a series of brief and very live studio
rampage recording. Proof of successful breeding in captivity.
There’s plenty of interesting guitar noodlery as well as
percussion ruckusery. No less than soul stirring.

Major Organ & the Adding Machi – “” – [Isota]

Thurston Hunger 1/13/2006 12-inch, A Library

My first thought : What is this, Caroliner Elephant Sixbow?
A puzzling fuzz thing from some cluttered nutters, indeed
there is a mangled Mangum rolled in mix here. A whole lotta
sloppy poppy joes, when the bass rises up it tries to choke
the onslaught off, but fortunately it fails. Yessir this is
archival material from a range of the Elephant Six-pack but
the start with tape burble and then the oddball “When Father
Was Away on Business” makes you think you’ve found a lost
colony of slipperman! High praise! Through the album we’ve
got ganglion vocals, the sound of someone sawing Grandpa’s
favorite rocking chair, Elfs over Powered by more gremlin
glory. Skeletons are tickled on their xylobones, we get an
open night at the Conet project, fluid saxlines swoggle
in to interrupt a French class. A negativland-like sample
politely iritates… A barrage of body parts gets artfully
splashed on the vinyl screen: lungs, mustaches, jawharps and
the omnipresent, ever-watchful moonpie eye! Don’t wait for
a chance to catch your breath, this snapshot of art-becoming
will snatch it away. And oh, whimpering fanboy, does it help
if I tell you that this is *better* than “In the Aeroplane
over the Sea?”

Riley, Terry – “Olson I I I” – [Cortical Foundation]

Krzton Drda 1/11/2006 A Library, CD

This is a live performance at the Nacka School of Music with Terry Riley directing using Soprano Saxaphone.

Swarms exhibit behaviors that extend beyond what individuals or small numbers can achieve. One voice, one violin, one sax can be enchanting. Here many build something together more complex and constructed that chaotic. Layers, syncopation, transitions that slide throught many measures. There is a quick, stable backbone rhythm throughout that gives the piece a feel somewhat akin to dark techno. This mixes well with a wide range of sounds and works as fill or punctuation. Audience involvement can be heard especially toward the end.

Starting is slow with low wandering for the first fifteen minutes, then voices and strings phase in and out and back and forth. At fourty one minutes in there is a crash and rising tension. At fourty two minutes there are vocalizations, then shouts and warbling from the audience which rise to meet the end of the piece. At fifty two and a half minutes there is a loud buzz that sounds like a production problem, and shortly after this the piece ends to screams and applause and random horn sounds.