Category: Tracks

Take Out The Geek

Perhaps for the very first recorded piece of music I’ve ever written about that has no tangible physical object associated with it, it is fitting that I write about a piece called The Invisible Guy. A piece specifically created for the web that might be to program music what the comic book is to the novel, The Invisible Guy is the brainchild of L.A. based totalist composer and California EAR Unit percussionist Art Jarvinen whose two commercially released CDs sit happily on my shelf and happily wind up in my CD player from time to time. The Invisible Guy website seems to imply that all of this will wind up on CD, and it can definitely work that way—this is not an interactive Web-based music requiring the Internet like William Duckworth’s Cathedral project. Personally, I’ll be happy when it does. I’m a bit of a luddite as far as the whole MP3 thing goes and if I had things my way it all would come out on vinyl. That said, Jarvinen’s chain of MP3 URLs are a great place to visit online and for now the only way to hear his skewed music which is somewhere between Captain Beefheart and avant-lounge music.

—FJO

Verzahnt

I can’t help it. When I pick up a disc that has a drums-bass-sax line-up, I immediately think, “Another one?”. This Detz/Wagner/Stuart offering is anything but another Wednesday cocktail jazz band, however. The improv, recorded live at Dizzy’s in San Diego, is angular throughout and lets a lot of light in. The last track, a brief whiff of a conversation, capitalizes on the “what other sorts of sounds can we make with these instruments” technique of generating new creative dialogue. Plenty of intensity on exhibition here without threatening anyone’s earpans with displays of machismo. You can’t dance to it, but all the same, it kind of grooves.

—MS

Aurore from the Crowd

Composer/guitarist Bruce Arnold’s adventurous comprovisations, which straddle the line between jazz and so-called contemporary classical music, have led him down the path of uptown serialism in the past, e.g. a series of 12-tone heads on the appropriately titled trio CD A Few Dozen and even covers of Webern with the group Spooky Actions, although neither are your parents’ Darmstadt. On a new duo disc, his talents are paired with more downtown leaning Tom Hamilton, who for years has been responsible for the live sound processing of Robert Ashley’s music and whose own fascinating electronic compositions include a musical re-interpretation of a trading day at the London Stock Exchange. The results of this exciting collaboration, which pairs Hamilton’s synthesizer wizardry with Arnold on guitar and SuperCollider (a computer program for real time audio synthesis), yield music ranging from classic Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center soundscapes to grooves that share a remarkable kinship with the more spacey European prog-rock of the mid- to late 1970s—think Heldon or the trippier moments of Tangerine Dream. I know that Holger Czukay studied with Stockhausen, but I’ve always wished that Mario Davidovsky, Bulent Arel, and company would have hung out with Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, and John Cale—at one point they all were living on the same island after all—but it was up to the fertile creative minds of a subsequent generation to make the connection.

—FJO

Sperry and Foil

Here’s a gem of a download from Donna Summer, uh, I mean Jason Forrest. Despite the fact that “Sperry and Foil” has been kicking around the Cock Rock Disco site for a while now, as well as appearing on Forrest’s latest EP titled Lady Fantasy, the track is still available as an MP3 in its full 7½-minute glory. For an artist classified by Pitchfork as breakcore techno, it’s surprising to find Forrest in chill-pill mode, restraining himself from his usual glitzy blitzkrieg. Inspired by, and likely sampled from, krautrock legend Neu!, Forrest gives the geeks the odd-meter rhythm orgasm they crave by throwing in some lovely 16-beat chunks that have a catchy 7+9 groove. The track is so atypically conciliatory in comparison to Forrest’s usual fare, you might even get away with playing it at your next cocktail party without freaking anybody out—depending on who your friends are of course.

—RN

O/Radio

Though he’s no stranger to the studio, this is the first disc of Damon Holzborn’s to come my way. On this outing, the founding member of the experimental/improv Trummerflora collective abandons his guitar for the world of solo electronic manipulation. From a video game in hyper drive to what could easily be mistaken for closely mic’d kitchen appliances, he crafts sounds into what even the electronics-skeptical might identify as music despite themselves. Though his compositional pedigree includes Frederic Rzewski, Brian Ferneyhough, Will Ogden, and Rand Steiger, I couldn’t help but imagine a closer alliance with the work of Nicolas Collins while listening to tracks like “O/Radio.” The piece is a ten-minute struggle to tune in not this week’s Top 40 hits, but more likely the communications of extraterrestrials or maybe even God. Regardless, John Cage must be smiling down and maybe even phoning home.

—MS

three trains

Known simply as Quiet American to most, sound artist Aaron Ximm has been instrumental in shining a spotlight on field recordings, minimal sounds, and digital music that melds these strategies together though his successful Field Effects series in San Francisco. His website is a treasure trove of information about the artist, the concert series, and even tips on field recording techniques. “three trains” (yes, apparently Ximm ascribes to the lowercase aesthetic), the first track from the 1999 album vox americana, is available as a downloadable MP3 along with the rest of the album along with lots of bonus material. Created from recordings captured in Ba Cah, Vietnam, “three trains” is a hypnotic journey of phasing rhythms, clanging bells, and voices. As you might expect, Ximm sites Steve Reich’s Different Trains as an inspiration for the piece, but Ximm’s abstracted approach is infinitely more subtle.

—RN

String Quartet No. 2

Eschewing more traditional, Italianate nomenclature for movement titles like “Chaser,” “Plucker,” and “Grinder” is but the first indication that Nathaniel Stookey’s String Quartet No. 2 is a decidedly 21st century sort of composition. Add to these stylistic references to video arcades and some of his favorite pop songs and you have Musée Mécanique. His working title, Five Gadgets, reveals a bit more of the thought process behind this work. As each movement unfolds the machine grows into a big “Mixer.” Keep an ear out for the nod to the artist once again known as Prince…

—MS

Broken Cries

I’ve always been a sucker for cello ensemble pieces. There’s something really appealing about having a big group of people all playing the same instrument, and it works more effectively with cellos than most instruments—tons of flutes are cool but there’s only so low you can go and a bunch of pianos are cool to look at but usually guarantee a muddy texture, and I haven’t even taken practicality into account. David Liptak’s Broken Cries, composed in the summer of 2001 (month not specified), sounds like much of the music created by Americans either immediately after 9/11 or eerily right before it. Slow mournful music gradually grows turbulent and uncertain.

—FJO

Chicken Jiggler Peady

I became an instant Blevin Blectum fan back when she and Kevin Blechdom performed a concert in a Mills College bathroom. Since then, she’s continued to tweak sampler knobs and laptop trackpads, coaxing extraordinary sounds and frenetic beats into a whimsical, self-referential landscape that never sits still. I ran across an excerpt of Blectum’s “Chicken Jiggler Peady” on the webpage of fellow Bay Area electronic maestro Wobbly. A quick listen will give you a little peak into Blectum’s sideways, stuttering, arcade-inspired sonic living room.

—RN

Sleep

Craig Hella Johnson & Company of Voices

I’ve never understood people who could throw a CD in the stereo and go to sleep. Even at my most exhausted, my ears will not disengage from the sound long enough to let my mind wander off to dreamland. Still, as a veteran insomniac, I’m always on the lookout for music that might become my adult lullaby. To that end, Eric Whitacre’s Sleep couldn’t have sounded more attractive. The four-plus minute setting of a poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri is delivered here as a powerful hymn by the Texas-based Company of Voices. It would be a very worthy accompaniment to a well-deserved rest, but I don’t think I’ve found my aural sleeping pill here. Silverstri offers a poetic explanation: “A thousand pictures fill my head/I cannot sleep, my mind’s aflight/and yet my limbs seem made of lead.”

—MS