Sunday, February 12, 2017

Mini Reviews: Four Recordings from SIMF

I picked up these four recordings featuring Seattle-area (and other) artists during the “merch-mart” last weekend at the Seattle Improvised Music Festival.


Seattle Phonographers Union: Building 27 WNP-5

The Seattle Phonographers Union improvises ambient music entirely with unprocessed field recordings. On this vinyl album, they join the ranks of Stuart Dempster and Pauline Oliveros (“Deep Listening”), Etsuko Ichikawa (“Echo at Satsop”), and Paul Horn (the seminal “Inside the Taj Mahal”) exploring the acoustics of “natural” (i.e. not electronic) echo chambers with striking beauty and subtlety.

There are two long tracks. The first was recorded in “Building 27”, a decommissioned aircraft hangar, the other in WNP-5, an unfinished (and unused) nuclear cooling tower (the same place where Ms. Ichikawa made her recording). Both produce massive, though slightly different, echoes. The pieces themselves feature ocean sounds, birdsong, hollow didgeridoo effects, machine noises, crows and human speech transformed into huge walls of sound (a startling, even frightening, effect).

My major question is the choice to release this on vinyl. Vinyl reproduction of sound is premium, particularly for the deepest bass notes; but due to the nature of this music, any surface pops or clicks stand out sharply and distractingly. Other than that, I would recommend this album to anyone interested in stretching the boundaries of what music can be, and to anyone interested in fascinating excursions into pure sound.


Lori Goldston (cello), Konako Pooknyw (drums), Karl Blau (bass) and Dave Abramson (percussion): Talking Helps

A 7” single that includes two untitled tracks (and no “A” or “B” side), this is an exploration of slow, improvised rock. One of these is melodic, the other more of a wall of sound in which Lori’s electric cello recalls Hendrix’s guitar but with dark "heavy metal” deep bass distortion. The other instruments are understated; the percussion, as opposed to the drums, is barely audible. Both tracks (or sides) are short ("pop" length, under four minutes) and I’d like to hear more.


C. Spencer Yeh (violin) and Paul Flaherty (sax), with Greg Kelley (trumpet): New York Nuts and Boston Baked Beans

Any record of free improvisation featuring a saxophone is expected to have at least one wild rip-snortin’ screech-and-honk fracas. It’s almost a stereotype of the genre, and it’s somewhat ironic that a style that is supposed to supersede all styles has produced this recognizable style. And, guess what, this entire album is one giant shrieking, snarling, squealing, squawking, caterwauling commotion. But as you listen, you realize that this is not by any means a bad thing. Within that rather narrow confine, the artists produce a surprising amount of variety. There are deep drones. There are vocal sounds against silence, then against a harmonica. There are impossibly dense clouds of noise. There are snippets of jazz standards and pop tunes. There are scintillating high violin tremolos, some possibly played in the manner of the Chinese pipa. There are unexpected hints of the blues. There are shimmering microtones. There are are the two women on the front of the CD (and one on the CD itself) who apparently don’t exist, unless they are C. Spencer and Paul in drag (there are drawings of three men in circus costumes on the back cover; they are not the musicians who are playing either.) Unexpected, unexplained, and yet somehow exactly expected. Fun.


Masashi Harada Condanction Ensemble: Enterprising Mass of Cilia

Conducted large-ensemble improvisation has been around since Bernstein led the NY Phil for a set on the 1965 LP “Music of Our Time” (and again in 1972 for “Pluto, the Unpredictable” on a Young Persons’ Concert TV show). This Masashi Harada CD continues the tradition, though the ensemble is decidedly non-classical. Basically the CD is an exploration of instrumental textures, ranging from nearly silent skitterings to massive waves of chaos. Any performer is permitted to, at any time, break with what is being conducted and interpose their “own” material; this results in some startling juxtapositions (for example, a series of repeated notes that begin on a violin but take over more instruments and soon declare war against the atonal jumbles that are still occurring). Most of the CD is a lot of fun, though I would have preferred to have a few more solo passages here and there, or a break from the emphasis on texture to include something more “compositional” or even melodic – this is possible to do when improvising.

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