Richard Pinhas Rules My Stereo with "Metal/Crystal"

From the first snarly bass riffs and a killer space rock groove to the very end, French guitarist-electronician Richard Pinhas more than just fills two CDs, he rivets the listener to his/or/her chair (or even "its" because your pets will no doubt notice too).

Metal/Crystal (Cuneiform) is what I refer to. Richard mans the electric guitar (and electronics) and he gets some big collaborative input from two heavy electroacoustic noise titans: Merzbow and Wolf Eyes. There is bass and drums too, as I've noted, especially at the beginning and middle of the first CD and the end of the second, and the playing is very right for what's happening.

The results are nothing short of beautiful. There is a thick blanket of supercharged acoustic-electric poetry that begins a few minutes into the first CD and slowly evolves over the course of the two-hours-plus of the program. The music is noisy. yes, but in such a musical way that you begin to experience the wonderwall of sound tapestry as something otherworldly, as a music of tone and noise where the two work together in the best sort of way.

It has the same ear-grabbing qualities of Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting, only it goes for a more orchestral sonic ambiance. There's less emphasis on loop motifs and more on horizontally unfolding landscapes that drone and layer in complex ways.

The sound design is enthralling as is the psychedelic guitar work. The two fit together beautifully.

I'd venture to say that this is one of the most invigorating and astonishing examples of psychedelic soundscaping I've ever heard. An instant classic? Only if people listen to it. If you want your mind blown this is the music to check out. Oh, yes, I am not exaggerating!

Michael William Gilbert Paints Aural Soundscapes of Beauty

According to what I read Michael William Gilbert was taken in his formative years with the music of Varese and Pierre Henry plus the music of India, Africa, and Japan. Since the '70s he has been forging his own brand of electronic music, culminating in his latest CD I Can See From Here (Gibex 006). The early influences are embedded somewhere in his approach, but there is a decided contemporary, post-previous sound to what he does in 2010.

These are rock-inflected soundscape pieces that are aurally rich, melodious and almost visual in their immediacy. Guitarist Peter Kaukonen puts in a nice appearance on one of the pieces. The rest are Mr. Gilbert performing feats of musical wizardry by himself. That does not imply that the music has a "solo" sound to it. On the contrary this is a full ensemble of musical voices. The sources are electronically generated or sampled; they are transformed in quite imaginative ways.

This is music where world and rock grooves underpin the melodic envelopes, and that factor should help make the music accessible to a wider audience.

It is a fine outing. The music is engaging, lush and cavernous in ways that put you into another zone. Kudos to Michael William Gilbert for that!

Bassist Jack Curtis Dubowsky and his Ensemble

The Jack Curtis Dubowsky Ensemble plays an unusual, conceptually rigorous form of instrumental music. Their second album Jack Dubowski Ensemble II (De Stijl Music) has a unique style compounded from Dubowski’s electric bass, often playing recurring riff patterns, and his analog synthesizer manipulations; Fred Morgan’s drums, frequently setting up a back-beated groove; and Hall Goff who plays trombone as processed through an analog synthesizer with a vocal effects device.

Dubowski is a present-day composer in addition to his performances in the ensemble. The album has composed elements, presumably the product of Jack Dubowski’s musical imagination. Then there are improvised elements, partially resulting from the settings and note values assigned to the synthesizers, partially what Hall Gull is doing on the trombone, partially the overall group situation and those free-er moments that occur throughout the set. No one overplays and there is a kind of appealing spaciousness to what they do. It is not so much music that tries to go to endlessly different places as it is music that sets up shop in a certain place and creates musical meaning within the defined parameters of the pieces themselves.

It is a band that finds a niche and then presents eleven relatively short works to explore the ramifications of the conceptual idea. The sort of four-tiered sound of secular drum rhythms, bass motifs, an independent synthesizer line and Gott’s altered trombone sounds is the cornerstone of the set. After a few listens I felt that this kind of rigorous limitation of roles as assigned and musical universes explored was actually a positive element. The music goes its own way without any frenetic sense of urgency. It unwinds its various laid-back grooves and allows the electronics to generate the unpredictable.

This is not music that is easily classified. I suppose you should think of it as electro-acoustical music that draws on rock and jazz elements and resituates them into a highly singular new music matrix. This is slowly developing music that over time is quietly rewarding and without a doubt worth hearing.

Originally posted on May 24, 2010 at www.gapplegate.com/musicalblog.htm.

Keiji & Tatsuya's Musical Alchemy: Everyday Metal Turned Into Gold

January 27, 2009—We come to the final installment in our latest survey of recent Tzadik releases. Today’s is part of Tzadik’s New Japan series and it is brash, uncompromising, yet exciting music. Multi-instrumentalists Haino Keiji and Yoshida Tatsuya team up for Uhrfasudhasdd, a second installment of their fearless assault on the senses.

This is a vibrant music of metal-derived loops and longer cycles using electric guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals and found sounds in various stages of electronic transformation. It is like a bracing dip in an ice-cold stream—not everybody will welcome the initial discomfort, but those that do know they will feel the better for it afterwards. I did.

Over the Top with Brown Wing Overdrive

Originally posted on January 12, 2009

Enter the world of Brown Wing Overdrive’s CD ESP Organism (Tzadik) and you find yourself on an electro-acoustic planet that transforms the jaw harp, vocal sounds, percussion, kalimba. electronic tones and world noise into a 45 minute collage that is over the top. It’s a trio of electro-acoustic sound weavers. The transformations of the organic sounds can be pretty simple—echoes, loops, filters, distortion, abrupt splices. It is not a virtuostic kind of sound tapestry. It is rather nutty, though, and there seems to be a certain sense of humor involved.

Disks like these are not for those seeking the peace and solace of cosmic tones. It can be jarring and it does not aim to provide a soporific backdrop to a new age cocktail party. Far from it. It’s a kind of “bad boys play with noise” music, and that can have its attractions. In the dismal season of storm and flood their refusal to cover it all up with pleasantries fits in with the harshness of the climate. Well so it is. Try this one if you want something that participates ever so slightly in another mad world, perhaps not this one. Or perhaps it is, if you follow the news (there's never a shortage of issues to cause concern). Perhaps they are a creative transformation of what is insane in the world right now.

Electro-Acoustic Music From Maryanne Amacher

Originally posted on November 11, 2008

We make a seemingly wide leap from yesterday’s Teddy Bears to electro-acoustic composer Maryanne Amacher. Her latest CD Sound Characters 2 (Tzadik) constructs sprawling landscapes of electronically altered sounds. The disk contains the long work “Teo.” At least part of this was generated through the acoustical properties of a cavern deep underneath the ancient Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan. It is ambient sound without much in the way of melody or conventional tones, but it’s less harsh than some of the pure noise pieces being created today. What’s interesting to me is that the entire piece holds together with its own internal logic, like some intelligent space alien that is attempting to communicate with humanity in a language not understood.

There’s something about it that seems reasonable and sensible, and yet the meaning component is elusive. I especially like the intensity of the final section, which drones and undulates like a chromium hornets’ nest. If you listen to metal or jambands or whatever, you will find this pretty much of a jar out of your usual ideas of what you should be hearing. It is more of what is happening TODAY in the world, and a good example of it at that. You can ignore it, hate it, embrace it or disdain it, but it is not going away. It is a party where if you don’t like what’s going on YOU are the one that has to leave. Ms. Amacher will stay. And to me she is most welcome to do so.

So what does this have to do with guitars? Nothing. Everything. It is all connected. We are in a period of post-whatever-went-before. A musician should be aware of what comes after what-already-has-been. There never could have been a Dark Side of the Moon without Stockhausen and Cage. And the same sorts of things are true today.

Anthony Pateras Presents His New Music

Originally posted on November 4, 2008

Who is Anthony Pateras? He’s from Australia, is pretty young, and he composes contemporary music for ensembles and electro-acoustic music, which combines natural musical and extra-musical sounds and alters them electronically and/or simply juxtaposes them in different ways. He has a new CD, Chromatophore (Tzadik), and it gives the listener a good idea of what the new Post-Classical concert music can be about. It probably would not appeal to someone looking for the familiar and safe. It’s avant and so one must be prepared to open one’s ears. What it IS should be listened to by anybody wanting to know what’s going on at the edge.

There is a percussion quartet that emphasizes sound as direct sensuality and also other works that present interesting combinations of instruments, voices, and electronic and natural sounds. This is music. It is good music, appealing even, if one opens one’s mind. On Election Day, one’s thoughts and hopes open up to the future. The future will begin to arrive by the end of the day but this music brings the future to you at this very moment. Like it or not, that future will not go away. We must act and embrace it, and by doing so help shape it. Listen and vote.