Joe McPhee (Part III)

By Gary Chapin

Flow Trio & Joe McPhee - Winter Garden (ESPDisk, 2021)

The liner notes for this one explore the beginnings of “free jazz” and namecheck Guiseppei Logan’s eponymous 1964 ESP album. It’s an apt shout out because listening to Winter Garden I felt it was almost a platonic ideal of a free jazz record. When I find myself thinking, “I’d like to listen to some free jazz, now,” this is exactly what I’m talking about. Everything I want out of free jazz is present. The Flow Trio is Louie Belogenis (soprano and tenor), Joe Morris (bass), and Charles Downs (drums). Add Mcphee on tenor and you would be right to expect intricate, knotty, cracked, and entangled saxophone lines. The music is entirely extemporaneous and, for the most part, seems joyful and extravagant. In the moment composition happens, as in the piece “Recombinant,” where Mcphee starts with a very brief and simple ostinato. It becomes an anchor for Belogenis’ soprano for two minutes, when the bass picks it up and the drums come in. It’s strikingly lyrical.

In a group like this, I think it’s natural to organize the sound in your head as horns and rhythm section. Maybe it’s the nature of physics and sound? All four are equals on Winter Garden, and when the horns drop out, the bass and drums deliver improv as complex, intriguing, and compelling as any.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Joe McPhee & Lasse Marhaug – Harmonia Macrocosmica (SmallTown Supersound, 2021)

The shift from Winter Garden to Harmonia Macrocosmica is jarring. The two contexts are that different. It’s not surprising if you’ve spent any time with Mcphee’s catalog, but sometimes it can catch you unawares. 

Harmonia Macrocosmica is a collaboration with Marhaug setting a scene of electronics, industry, and dystopia, which Mcphee’s horn inhabits. I don’t usually go right to the programmatic interpretation of a piece—what movie would this be the soundtrack for?—but with pieces titled “This Island Earth,” “Gravity Check,” and “Two Lost Worlds,” I feel comfortable saying this is a storytelling set of music. The stories may not be articulated, but they are evoked. The deep hums, scrakity buzzes, moany screams, skittering horn, and murmured conversations in no language you ever heard take us to a place of dread, suspense, and anticipation. It’s only 35 minutes, but you come out the other side changed.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

By Stef Gijssels

Paul Lytton, Joe McPhee & Ken Vandermark - Prime Numbers (Catalytic Artist Album, 2021)

Prime Numbers is the 38th release in the Catalytic catalogue, and it presents a performance of Joe McPhee on tenor and soprano, Ken Vandermark on tenor and baritone sax, as well as Bb and bass clarinet, and saxes with Paul Lytton on drums. The concert was Recorded at the 7th Annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music in 2003. The concert consists of three lengthy pieces, two with great and dynamic free jazz interaction between the three improvisers, with an unexpectedly quiet and calm free improvisation in the middle section. 

Despite the many years of listening to free jazz, the magic of three virtuosi co-creating a common sound and even harmonies without prior agreements, whether in the ferocious or the the more sensitive moments, remains a wonderful surprise.  

The album is released in the Catalytic Artist Album series, and only accessible to subscribers. 

Joe Morris & Joe McPhee – ERA (Catalytic Artist Album, 2021)

Another Catalytic Artist Album is available without having the subscription. It is duo recording of Joe McPhee on tenor and alto with Joe Morris on drums. We all know Joe Morris as a guitarist and bass player, but not really as a drummer. In the liner notes he humbly accepts his limited experience on the instrument, even though it's already his fifth album on the instrument, but he rightfully thanks Joe McPhee for the opportunity: "Joe McPhee is one of the few musicians I’ve known who is totally open to making music in any situation, with anyone. It seems to me that his main criteria is camaraderie and artistic credibility, simply put, a kind of “let’s do our best to make it sound good by working well together and helping each other” approach.. There’s never a weird burden of any specific technical demand, except maybe “please don’t box me in” and more :" At 80 years old he has an almost boyish enthusiasm and willingness to be open to new things and especially to the surprise that happens with the best improvised music. He often follows a gig or session with an email saying “Thanks for letting me relive my childhood.” I think I speak for every musician who has played with him and every fan who listens to him when I say that I have never heard him do the same thing twice. Sure, he has a sound on saxophone and trumpet, but he repurposes them for every performance. The only way to be that unpredictable is to have a mastery based on employing very particular material in spontaneous response to the moment you are living in. True openness."

We could not have said it better, and it's nice to close the overview on new McPhee albums with this quote. 

This album consists of five fully improvised tracks, recorded in May of last year at Morris's own Riti Studios. The playing is good, as is the interaction, with lots of variation despite the limited line-up. "ERA One" is exploratory, "ERA Two" is more uptempo, "ERA Three" is subdued and calm, "ERA Four" switches dynamics frequently, and "ERA Five" is a great closing of the album, with a short drum solo by Morris. 

The title is explained in the liner notes, and refers to the corona virus pandemic, "the end of an era and the start of a new one". 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Martin Küchen - Lieber Heiland, laß uns sterben (Sofa, 2017) *****

By Gustav Lindqvist

Martin Küchen knows how to pick titles. It already starts with the title of the album; “Lieber Heiland, laß uns sterben” or in English: Dear Savior, let us die. 

Küchen has furthermore selected titles for the tracks on this album with great care for choice of words and with a seemingly poetic intention. 

The Cathedral in Lund (small city in the south of Sweden, 20km north-east of Malmö) was consecrated in 1145, however the crypt which is considered to be one of the ‘oldest rooms’ in Sweden and the recording place of this album, was actually in use already in 1123, and built in 1121. The crypt is pretty much intact since its construction. I’m hoping to one day return to live there as the years living in this culturally and academically rich city was some of the best years in my life. 

You can walk around in the crypt ‘virtually’ if you head over to this website.

Reedist Küchen and sound engineer Jakob Riis went in to the crypt of the cathedral on an evening in May to make this album. It can be summarized as a journey inwards. It’s a calm space and a haven from a world that doesn’t have answers to the big questions of life and meaning anymore, yet seems to have no patience for the spaces in between words spoken. I feel that Küchen and Riis with this album opens the door to a room for reflection and with what’s heard on the album I’m offered time for contemplation and perhaps also thoughts about the big questions. The perishability of life is ever present, and accepted. Cheese and wine needs time to become tasty, interpersonal relations also need time to deepen and to become multidimensional. The sounds, screeches, breathing – even the ambience heard from around the cathedral – all fit into this concept of sounds happening there and then, but created in a historical context that is about 900 years old. I’m sharing my personal thoughts about how feelings I get while listening to this album. 

The album starts off with the title track ‘Lieber Heiland, laß uns sterben’ which immediately sets the tone for this album, with breath meeting a sacral melody line. It’s then followed by ‘Music to silence music’ which also has almost congested breaths moving alongside clicks and notes. The droning sound effects in ‘Purcell in the eternal Deir Yassin’ is calming and soothing. There’s an anticipation of something that I can’t put words to, it’s hard to explain. 

I first had a part in this review about how Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir Herr Jesu Christ” (I call to you…) meets “Küchens Ruf zu mir Bezprizoni” (Call me…) but when editing and re-reading it, I found that this was mostly a conversation in my head. Küchen manages to get me to drift off in thoughts about how songs, music, sounds and titles fit together and what that means.

But in the last song ‘Atmen Choir’ (Atmen means to breathe in German) the cathedral bells start to ring, and I realize it’s not for me to draw lines between titles, historic facts and feelings. I’ll leave that to you. And pick this one up, it’s a fantastic release from Küchen.

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Saxophone Round Up, Part 2: Nick Mazzarella / Dave Rempis / NoahPreminger / Jonah Parzen-Johnson

Nick Mazzarella Trio - Ultraviolet (International Anthem, 2015) ****

By Paul Acquaro

From the opening moments of Ultraviolet you know you are listening to something special happening. With an approach not unlike mid-period Coltrane in tone, Nick Mazzarella plays with a fearsome intensity. “Neutron Star” kicks off the album with a four note melody that is repeated, transposed up and down and then opens up into some solid free playing.

The Chicago based alto saxophonist's trio here includes bassist Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly, two players we’ll meet up with again very soon. The stripped down trio is everything you can want - agile, powerful, and exciting. Mazzarella is a powerful player, his tone is focused and precise, and really digs into the grooves.

Rempis Percussion Quartet - Cash and Carry (Aeroponic, 2015) ****½

So, here we have some interesting overlap, an earlier version of the percussion quartet included aforementioned bassist Anton Hatch and Frank Rosaly in the line up along. On Cash and Carry, Hatwich is replaced by Norwegian powerhouse bassist Ingebrit Haker Flaten, while Rosaly and percussionist Tim Daisy remain with saxophonist Dave Rempis.

Recorded live in 2014 at the Hungry Brain in Chicago, there are only two tracks - “Water Foul Run Amok,” clocking in at 39 minutes and then “Better than Butter” at a mere 15:30. “Water …” starts off with a kick in the teeth.  There is a quick count off by one of the drummers and then Rempis’ just explodes. A short theme is repeated a few times and then breaks into an impassioned solo run. Haker-Flaten’s precise pizzicato plucking is powerful and propulsive. However, it’s the percussion that gives this trio both its name and purpose. The two drummers, who can be heard on the the left and right separate channels (not sure whom on which) stay out of each others way while working together to create a dense latticework of rhythms and pulse.

“Better Than Butter” starts differently - the clatter of percussion is joined by the bass in an abstract dance. The space between the sounds is the exact opposite from the first track, and when Rempis joins, the approach isn’t full gale force, but rather approachable melodic.

We covered Rempis' Chicago Reed Quartet back in the summer, and this fantastic release deserves equal attention.

Noah Preminger - Pivot: Live at the 55 Bar (s/r, 2015) ****

Saxophonist Noah Preminger treat of an album was recorded live at the classic Greenwich Village jazz haunt, the 55 Bar. Preminger, whose previous albums seem mine a more modern jazz vein, has opted here instead to deconstruct two old blues: Booker T. White’s 'Parchman Farm Blues' and 'Fixin to Die Blues' in a style that tips it hat purposefully to the harmolodic approach of Ornette Coleman.

The first track begins with an invocation, a yearning blue note laden melody shared between Preminger and trumpeter Jason Palmer. The recognizable blues form is soon is stretched out and in the interactions between sax and trumpet one can hear echoes of Coleman and Cherry. The rhythm section is Kim Cass on bass and Ian Forman on drums and they do an absolutely commendable job in keeping the fields tilled and fertile.

The root in the blues and traditional jazz makes the adventure that the musicians go on over the next half hour both accessible and utterly enjoyable. I'm not sure if you can call it blues any more but it sure does become some pretty classic sounding free-jazz.

Jonah Parzen-Johnson - Remember When Thing Were Better Tomorrow (Primary Records, 2015) ***½

Remember When Thing Were Better Tomorrow is an unusual and absorbing solo album by Jonah Parzen-Johnson. Recorded live on baritone saxophone and analog synthesizer, there are no loops or overdubs, just the sounds of a lone cyborg.

Parzen-Johnson opts for simple elongated lines that interact with the pulsations and textures from the synthesized tones. For example, the second track “If You Can’t Sleep, Just Shut Your Eyes” the waves of synth gives the saxophonist a basis to build, with just basic pieces, a hopeful tune. “Never Stop Counting,” the follow up, begins with a more biting sound from the synth. Again, it’s simple building blocks fused with his baritone sax that create the unusual textures. “Eyes Like Paddles” follows, and after a long solo introduction, his accompaniment gets heavy and mixes with his forlorn melody into a dark and moving track. Parzen-Johnson ends the album with a Neil Young song, “On The Way Home” - stripped of it’s chords and rendered on Barri sax, it sounds like a spiritual.

I find myself coming back to this one.

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Lotte Anker & Jakob Riis - Squid Police (Konvoj, 2014) *****

By Stef

There are musicians whose impact is immediate, merciless and merciful. Lotte Anker is one of those musicians. Her tone on the saxophone is all her own, an incredible mix of conflicting emotions : powerful yet fragile, warm and shrill, expressive and controlled, intimate and expansive. I love her sound and her music. So, readers, be warned. She has received raving reviews by me in the past (four 5-star ratings to be clear), and this is again one of those.

And even if I am not a fan of electronics, her collaboration with Danish compatriot Jakob Riis is magnificent. Together they build a slowly developing dance of shimmering sounds, yet in stark contrast to many electronics, this one touches a deep nerve in your body. It is human. It generates emotions like few musicians can, making you wondering how the chemistry works, what magic is casting its spell here.

Anker's sound is somewhere between full voice and overtone with a strong vibrato, a kind of in-between sonic experience that is hard to place, and Riis repeats this, amplifies it, gives it depth and additional color and even more fluidity than Anker's core sound. This fluidity is essential, and reflects the album's concept of evokating underwater life in all its beauty, elegance and ferocity.

As a listener, you are drawn into universes of peace, agitation, nervousness, calm, mystery and harshness ... and often all of those at the same time, while adding emotions that are beyond words. Of all the tracks, "Daggertooth" is the most compelling, a gutwrenching and heartrending piece.

The music was recorded in 2009, and is the first official release of the duo, who performed together on the animation by Malene Bach, which can be downloaded for free here in case anybody might hesitate to buy this album and would require a sample first. My opinion: trust me. There is no need for a sample. This is one of the best albums of the year. Good that is now available.

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Blaise Siwula, Harvey Valdes & Gian Luigi Diana - Tesla Coils (2014) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

When live electronics are well done the results are often unique and rewarding, which just so happens to be the case with exciting electro/acoustic trio Tesla Coils. Comprised of sax, electric guitar and laptop, these skilled and daring musicians bring to life the brilliant Tesla coil metaphor. Like cool blue lightening bolts trapped in a glass sphere - painless to touch but alarmingly responsive - the trio creates a contained tempest together.

Between the freely improvised interactions of the trio, Blaise Siwula's melodic saxophone lines, Harvey Valdes' crackling textural guitar playing and Gian Luigi Diana's thoughtful live sampled remixing, the music grows in the most unusual ways. Listening alone to Siwula, you can imagine a classic free jazz blowing session, to Valdes you hear noise improv and rapid fire single note lines, but mix it in with the laptop and you have a new thing altogether.

Highlights on the album abound but what is most interesting is how Diana creates a third instrument (or more!) through the juxtaposition the other two instruments. Listen closely in 'Secondary Coil' at how around the 5 and 1/2 second mark there now two saxophones bouncing off of each other, or the brittle crackle of the guitar at the beginning of “Discharge Terminal’. Through out the 3/4 hours of the album there is hardly a dull moment. If you get a chance to hear them live you won't be disappointed either - this is a crackling group.

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The Rempis/Marhaug Duo - Naancore (Aerophonic, 2014) ****

Dear Paul,

Some time ago I told you that my girlfriend didn’t like free jazz but she had accepted and tolerated my love and affection for this kind of music. Whenever she enters my apartment and she hears this music she usually ignores it and waits until I turn down the volume or put on something else. But when she arrived at my place after a long drive from Munich recently and caught me listening to Dave Rempis’ and Lasse Marhaug’s Naancore she actually almost screamed: “What the hell is this? How can you listen to something like this? Turn it off!”

I guess her hostile reaction results from the fact that Naancore is real noise in a sense Okkyung Lee once described it: noise are “sounds that are not wanted, to be abandoned, don’t quite fit in, not supposed to be there and which are not  necessarily pleasant to ears and even “wrong” at certain times”. So, on the one hand Naancore really hurts (especially listeners who are not used to such music).

On the other hand the album presents another chapter of the Scandinavia-Chicago-connection which has had a certain tradition if you think of Fire Room (Vandermark/Nilssen-Love/Marhaug), Ballister (Rempis/Lonberg-Holm/Nilssen-Love) or the various collaborations of Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark (just to name a few). Here Marhaug's relentless and wild combination of noise and pure lust to destroy conventional structures crashes into Rempis’ musical approach which is deeply rooted in blues textures and classic free jazz. Both have developed a highly personalized musical vocabulary utilizing noise and jazz to explore each other’s sonic universe and find a common intimacy while improvising. There nothing predetermined, both have to rely on themselves and the contributions of their musical partners. The result is a steaming, snarling, growling, and squawking inferno, Rempis’ alto sax cries are lost in distortion whenever Marhaug’s attacks him fiercely with his merciless electronics. It’s like a soundtrack for an experimental horror movie.

Well, Paul, to cut a long story short - somehow I can understand my girlfriend, this record scares the hell out of me too. The whole thing sounds ugly, hideous, dirty and evil – yet, there is a certain beauty under the surface because the music makes you feel alive as well, it makes you feel real if you commit yourself unconditionally ….. but it is not for the faint of heart!

Sincerely,
Martin Schray

---

Dear Martin,

So nice to hear from you. I'm sure you are well aware that your girlfriend is right, there is nothing sane about listening to this stuff. These are the types of sound debated by lawyers when probing the legality of torture. In fact, you may recall that you, my girlfriend, and I bravely sat through some of the more adventurous moments of the A L’Arme Festival in Berlin last summer, and all that seems melodious compared to the electric mayhem that Mr. Rempis and Mr. Marhaug cook up on Naancore.

Would you agree that Mr. Rempis, who we all know as a fine and adventurous musician to be possessed in mind and body by some otherworldly spirit to even conceive of this recording? What else could explain how a Chicagoan saxophonist, enmeshed in free jazz and steeped in jazz tradition, would find his way to the studio of Oslo's Lasse Marhaug and his mad array of electronics?

When they launch into track one, Skinning the Poke, it’s pure pain. High pitched manipulated tones conspire with electrical pops and fizzles, like a heated argument between peeved electrons more than a musical duet. Rempis is on fire too - I fear Mr. Marhaug may have thrown some jumper cable clamps on him and started running some current! I imagine him playing all those melodic lines as lightning bolts flow through him. Then, I see his a sax become a twisted piece of metal with keys flapping wildly as it falls from his grip to the ground, and yet it keeps on playing. Heck, it’s almost like they are personally coming to light my house on fire through extended technique!

Before I get to side 2 - entitled Strategikon - let me ask, did you ever have a Commodore Vic-20 computer? Regardless, you could enter a command like  "POKE 36877,1" and the little critter would emit a high pitched squeal and not stop until you switched it off. My point, I think, is that there is something very primal in how the duo uses the electronics to rebuild, brick by 8-bit brick, my house that they burned down in the last paragraph, and it's rather amazing.

So, Martin, I am in the end compelled to agree with you, this is indeed tough stuff to listen to, but like you say, once you’ve made it over the threshold and let the duo raze any of your preconceptions of music or comfort, and then let them reassemble things, there is something utterly compelling and, dare I say, enjoyable about it?

Yours,
Paul Acquaro

Naancore is available as a 180 g limited vinyl version (including a download) of 300 only.

Available from Instantjazz. 

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Fire! with Jim O´Rourke: Released! -- Looking from a different perspective?

As you can imagine we (the team) all get to hear the same records, and who reviews what basically works out as 'whoever fancies writing a review .... is welcome'. This of course means that you can get beaten to the post by another reviewer. As happened with me once, Stef was so interested by what I wrote he listened to the album and wrote a second review, which he then posted next to mine. It was an interesting experience to see two (more or less same) opinions, or one could say looking at the same thing from two viewpoints! Here, is a second, no third take on the 'Fire!' record with Jim O'Rourke.

Fire! with Jim O´Rourke: Released! (Rune 2011) ***

 

Reviewed by Joe

A short review of this small offering from Rune Records which could easily slip by without anybody noticing. This 10" EP (I think it's a very limited pressing!) with music by the undefinable Jim O'Rourke is 11 minutes of uncluttered (improvised?) music that passes you by within the blink of an eye. I'm not sure what the story behind this recording is but it's a shame there's not more of it, or at least I wonder what would of happened if they'd developed it a little further. To my mind it sounds like a sketch for a larger project which it is, and that's what makes it (for me) a slightly 'unfinished' sounding record. The group as you'll see below is a classic quartet line-up, however the music isn't easily classifiable. On 'Certainly those older and released...' (Tk1) you get to hear sampled and manipulated sounds mixed with guitar, minimal repeated bass riff and simple drum fills which develop gradually into a mournful melody played on sax which leads us out. On Tk2 'Particular local and plastic wrapped' the group builds in intensity with Gustafsson leading the troupes into battle over a repetitive bass riff with the other instruments following on gradually building in intensity, subsiding only as the sax steps aside. In fact you could sum up the basic idea of both sides of this EP as music which pulsates over a simple harmonic base.

There's not much else to say about the music as at the very moment it starts to take off the track runs out, or should I say the record stops. But what is here is quite interesting, it's just there isn't much of it. I guess if you're a Jim O'Rourke or Matts Gustafsson completist you may want this one in your vinyl collection, otherwise I'd pass this one over and wait for a fully fledged recording, which I hope will materialize one of these days.   

The Group : Mats Gustafsson baritone saxophone, fender rhodes, live electronics, Andreas Werliin drums, percussion, Johan Berthling electric bass, Jim O'Rourke electric guitar, synthesizer, harmonica.

Just to add to the fun here's the other two reviews (it seems we all reviewed it!) ....
Review (March 2012) - This is Paul's take on the record. As you can see he reviewed with a bunch of other records in the Matts Gustafsson section, always a good thing (name) to start a discussion!

Review (June 2011) - this is a review of the original album that has the rest of the material from the above release. I hadn't done my homework and only read this review after writing mine. However, I imagined that there was more material and of course there is. Read the Review March 2011 for more info.


Buy from Instantjazz. 

© stef

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John Butcher and Toshimaru Nakamura - Dusted Machinery (Monotype Records 2011) *****

 By Joe Higham

Although a bit a of a late review this has to be one of my favourite releases from the end of 2011. John Butcher and Toshimaru Nakamura show how man can meet machine, an almost perfect blend (and also quite a feat), something I wouldn't of thought about when talking about duets. I should probably explain that for those not in the 'know' - and I wasn't either - that Toshimaru Nakamura's instrument is a no-input mixing desk(*). As there's no-input he doesn't mix other people, just himself, reacting with either his own sound or another player, in this situation the sonic palette of John Butcher, for me one of the most revolutionary sax players to be found at present. In fact the combination and collaboration couldn't be more well suited.

So, sax and no-input mixing board react together in a perfect blend of sound - squeaks, crackles, screeches, hiss, and other such noises. John Butcher's style blends beautifully with Nakamura's sound world and there are many moments when one really wonders who is responsible for which/what sound. Of course this has no importance as the record is heard not as two instruments but a blanket of sound that comes from somewhere inside your hi-fi system. It's almost as if the circuit boards were able to talk between themselves, singing away as resistors, capacitors, inductors, relays and diodes all happily finding a prefect harmony. In fact it's quite amusing to find that you're sitting totally transfixed listening to the hiss of a mixing table, something that one normally wouldn't associate with musical sound, yet you wait and see what the duo will conjure up next. Like Nate Wooley's solo record Dusted Machinery makes one question the pre formed ideas on traditional sound and instrumental technique in music. Of course John Butcher's saxophone does come out clearly (as a saxophone) at moments, yet somehow it's as if he's able to commune in complete synchronicity with Nakamura's mixing board and make sense (and music, even if sound based) out of what could be seen as an abstract association.

This is certainly not a record for those looking for melody in the traditional sense. Even if the four tracks have names - Leaven, Maku, Knead and Kobasu - there are no tunes as such, this record makes a fine balance between free improvisation and the world of noise. However it is, for me at least, a record with a constantly hypnotic quality which draws you into the two improvisers sound world, which is totally original. A very successful collaboration and one that asks the question where they could go from here?   

Buy from Instantjazz.

Buy from Monotype Records

* = If you wish to know what a mixing desk is then look it up on the web as it might take up a little too much room here to explain what it is, and of course how it works.

© stef

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Sax and electronics?

Jean-Marc Foussat & Sylvain Guérineau - Aliquid (Leo, 2010) ***½

Most albums with electronics have the tendency to work on my nerves more than anything else. So does this albums at moments, but you (I) need some courage to go beyond these first prejudices and to keep listening, because it leads to some rewarding moments.Yes, I was irritated at times by the a-musical sound of the analog synthesizer, by its industrial hardness, or its cheap 70s sci-fi television series imitation. But once you go beyond this layer, the end result is often quite powerful, and to a large extent the result of Guérineau's creativity and emotional power on tenor, driven forward by the electronics and forced to go beyond its natural language. So do the live electronics, building on the sax sounds, replaying them, altered, in loops, darkened, lowered, distorted, .... creating sonic nightmares, often in the background, sometimes agonizingly piercing its way to the forefront. It is weird stuff, not always easy to categorise, not easy to fathom either, but nonetheless, adventurous in a world I would not naturally go myself. Thanks for bringing me out there. It was worth the journey.

Tasos Stamou & Ilan Manouach (Absurd Records, 2009) ****

In a more minimalistic setting, Greek musicians Tasos Stamou on a variety of objects and electronics, and Ilan Manouach on soprano and sopranino sax, bring music of a weird beauty. The sounds of the objects create a repetitive pattern as the slow and almost inobtrusive background, over which the sax blows sound ripples, repetitive and moving outward. The whole thing becomes quite hypnotic, drone-like, but it has an inherent musicality that is usually lacking in the genre. The soprano does come across quite discernably, and it sings beautifully, often as a shining light in a dark electronic universe. At other times it conjures up images of endless agony from which there is no escape possible. Either way, it won't leave you indifferent ... and the album ends with some shamanistic flute-playing. Intriguing.

© stef

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