Skuli Sverrisson Makes Unusual Music on "Seria II"

His last album was Icelandic Album of the Year. But Skuli Sverrisson, bassist, composer, arranger, producer, has more than a local cache. His follow-up, Seria II (Seria Music) plays on my computer as I write. And I am trying to get a handle on a description of what I am hearing.

[But first a little rant. Some designers think that type is that annoying crap that messes up the design. And I guess because it is supposed to be hip too, type on CDs has become so small as to be pretty much illegible. I have a magnifying glass in my office now so I can try and read what is what. This album is one of many such. The name of the artist and the name of the album on the front cover are nigh close to unreadable. Point size? Maybe five points. In knock-out-to-white type, and all-capitals, no less. This violates just about every rule of thumb designers were taught when I was apprenticed some time ago. It's true size-wise of the inside copy too, but at least there it is upper and lower case, black type on white. What happened to the idea that if you want someone to buy something, you allow them to know what the name of the artist and title of the album are, in legible type? The watchword for many years has been, "Oh, people won't read it anyway" in many such instances. Well I beg to differ. I do wish that some sanity is restored to graphic arts, before I become blind. Words have a function--and I fear album sales are effected when you can't read the words for their meaning. And God forbid there should actually be some sentences on the music! OK, enough of that.]

Back to a description of the music. This is mid-sized chamber music. Not classical exactly. Not exactly new age. Acoustic guitar picking often forms the foundation for the layering of instruments and wordless (sometimes synthesized?) voices. The music has a good deal of ambiance, but also a pulse. The melody ambles on in an attractive flow, without typically repetitious minimalism, but in long strands that have sequencing and mesmeric rhythmic sameness. There is a northern folkishness to the sound and some very interesting instrumental-vocal combinations.

It's music that might well appeal to those who seek new-age-ian repose or semi-trance states of conciousness. Eno? Not really. It almost has an easy-listening-in-space feel to it, but it is too new sounding, too utterly distinctive, to use a phrase that could be conceived as deprecatory.

Entrancing. Music. New. Easy. Contentful. Bright and burnished sound color. It's very interesting indeed. File under "whatever" or "new things that do not yet have an appelation."

King Crimson's Fourth, "Islands": Anniversary Edition

Fripp and Crimson followed the magnificent, window-rattling Lizard with a somewhat quieter, more introspective, often touchingly lyrical Islands (King Crimson KCSP4). The 40th Anniversary CD/DVD set which you can grab now, like the others in the series benchmarks the standard for definitive edition production. Once again the CD provides a remastered two-channel stereo remix of the album and select alternate takes; the DVD brings to your ears a marvelous 5:1 surround mix and a wealth of early mixes, different takes, fascinating early rehearsal run-throughs, live versions and an unreleased track from the sessions.

The realignment of personnel was a factor, though this particular one-off lineup continued the sound and feel of the earlier groups. Mel Collins on reeds was one of the notable presences, as was Boz on bass and post-Lake-ian vocals.

This is an album that deserves more credit than it perhaps has received. The compositions are strong, the lyrics zero in on the idea of how it feels to be isolated, island-bound in a metaphoric as well as a physical sense. You have some mellotronic onslaughts, free-playing within the song form, gentle balladic melancholies, beautiful chamber-orchestrated art song, and some excellent, sometimes subtle Fripp guitarwork.

The sound is great, the extra cuts give you a round picture of the state of the band at the time and in this case it certainly increases my regard for an album that never seemed to stick in my mind. The distinct and consistently distinctive melancholy of Islands marks it off as a singular part of the Crimson opus, ambitious and successful at it without a great deal of fanfare. Hear this edition and you'll probably reconsider what you think of the music. And the new mixes are ravishing.

Another Goodie From Wadada Leo Smith and Henry Kaiser's Yo Miles: Lightning

Today a quick look at the second recent reissue/newbie from Wadada Leo Smith & Henry Kaiser's Yo Miles! It's called Lightning (There Records) and you can get it for a good price at your favorite (legitimate) downloadery. It's a good hour of music with interesting tracks that were originally on the albums Upriver: Thunder and Lightning, Macero, and Sky Garden. Three cuts have not been previously released. One in particular, "Tsapiky Freelimo," has good contributions from the Rova Quartet. The band builds on the Miles electric sounds with jams outside of the usual riffs and heads that Miles and his various bands set down. So it is music in the spirit of this part of the illustrious Davis canon.

As I said a while back in my coverage of the companion album Shinjuku, this was & is the premier electric-Miles-influenced band. More than a tribute outfit, they expand on the free-rock-funk premises and make an original contribution. Wadada and Henry are in good form and the rhythm team gives it all the smoke.

Macroscopia: deBrunner, Silverman, Carter and Zlabinger in Avant Chamber Improv

Despite the words of a song that blazed over my radio as a youth, freedom is NOT a word for "nothing left to lose." Freedom of choice is almost a terrifying prospect, as you know if you've looked with glazed eyes at the 200-odd brands and sub-brands of spaghetti sauce in the pasta aisle of your supermarket. Sometimes you stop caring that there is freedom of choice, partially because it becomes meaningless. It's a free market thing undoubtedly, to have huge price differences, little variation in actual features, and maximum sensuous overload from the images and graphics of what's on the outside of the jar. We all know the feeling, I suspect. That's not the kind of freedom that free improvisation represents. Freedom, at least here, brings challenge and responsibility. It's serious. All the creativity, all the imaginative and technical resources of each musician comes into play. One's reputation is on the line with every passing minute. The quartet of free players on the CD Macroscopia (Metier Jazz 0403) take that seriously. Listen and you know it is so.

A drummerless quartet of bassoon (Claire deBrunner), electric guitar (Ken Silverman), reeds and trumpet (Daniel Carter), and contrabass (Tom Zlabinger) forms the nucleus of the music. Seven free episodes comprise the CD. The quartet creates spontaneous four-way melodic communications of a modern sort. The tonality tends to be expanded and the emphasis is on invention as a whole. There aren't so much solos as there are collective improvisations. This is music without the safety net of preplanned compositional frameworks, overarching rhythmic patterns or, for that matter, without a lot of energy forays.

Claire deBrunner's bassoon gives the ensemble a distinct sound from the beginning. Bassoons do that! She plays a good bit of it and fits well with what the others are doing. Ken Silverman's guitar work has subtlety and a certain amount of selflessness. He creates lines and some harmonic context with taste and restraint. Daniel Carter loosely responds to the others in ways for which he is known. Tom Zlabinger anchors the proceedings with lower register contributions that, like the others, keep the group context as its focus.

What you get in the end is a promising quartet playing a challenging set of group improvisations which move directionally. Continued future interactions could well mark them off as a free ensemble of importance. For now there is a tentativeness in the explorations, a sounding-out of some possibilities, a testing of the waters. That doesn't mean that this is not an interesting listen. It most certainly is. I wish them the best and hope they continue to blossom as a unit as they continue their journey into uncharted territory.

Broken Records' "Let Me Come Home": A Rock Sound Unto Itself

The Edinburgh band Broken Records started with some song ideas by leader-vocalist-guitarist Jamie Sutherland in 2006. A six-man band formed to put those ideas into sound. Their new album Let Me Come Home (4AD) presents the latest and most evolved version of that band sound. It has a flourish, a rather thickly textured wall-of-simultaneity that is more than just guitars-bass- drums. There's a violinist, who when needed becomes a string section in the studio; there is a well-thought-out rock orchestration at work on all the songs.

And the song-centered presentation in turn centers on the dynamic vocals of Jamie Sutherland, who has some of the rangy intensity of the singing of Jeff Buckley, Ours and No Man. Is this some kind of prog rock then? I'd say yes, only for the reason that the sophisticated art-song forms and the grandly conceived instumental carpeting give it something much more elaborated than a garagy slam. On the other hand there is sometimes a kind of Springstein-ish immediacy (without some of his pop sensibility) that is cushioned by the lushly thick, slightly dark wall of instrumentation.

Yet there is a singleness of direction that doesn't necessarily fit that mould.

Suffice to say at this point that Broken Records make some highly distinguished, rather beautiful music that doesn't quite sound like it was made by anybody else.

King Crimson Anniversary Edition of "In the Wake of Poseidon"

I reviewed the Anniversary Edition of King Crimson's first album on these pages a while back. Today it's time for the second album, In the Wake of Poseidon. Like I found on the new version of the first, this is doubtless the definitive edition of this album and a model for intelligent remastering. You get a CD with a remastering of the album and select alternate song versions, all worth hearing. Then there is a DVD with a stunning 5:1 surround mix of the master takes and a host of alternates. I will not dwell here on the sound quality; it is excellent and a very good reason for grabbing the disks.

The second Crimson confirmed the stylistic importance of the band and their ability to prevail despite periodically shifting member lineups. There are the cuts that remind one of the first album, but there are new advances as well. "Cat Food" put them in a mode (thanks in part to Tippett's skittering piano) where prog rocking incorporated free and avant elements in ways that worked on either side of the balance. "The Devil's Triangle" took a very loose adaptation of Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" (from The Planets) and made it into a long and fascinating tone poem for mellotron and virtually all the musical resources Fripp and company had available to them. "Groon," which was the B side of the "Cat Food" single (and not part of the original album, at least in the States) is an avant-rock trio making seriously adventurous music and an opportunity for Robert Fripp to further establish what his guitar style was and could be. The fair number of alternate versions of this number on the DVD shows that they knew what they were after, and each is interesting.

My point is that though it seemed at the time (due to the first side of the original record) that they were repeating the first album in some ways, in fact as is always the case with Fripp's musical vision, they were continually moving forward.

The second album continued what to listeners at the time (myself included) seemed a dramatic development on the British rock scene (and it was). Here was a group that combined a haunting lyricism with an exploratory ethos that, unlike most bands of the era, could pull off the more ambitious elements not just successfully, but with total identity. The Crimson legacy was to achieve art status in the realm of Prog Rock, and to progress from album-to-album into a vast terrain that was charted out and made use of in ways that exemplified what was possible in that realm. It served as a model for other bands to follow, not of course always with the best results.

The point is that In the Wake of Poseidon remains of prime artistic importance today for the rock music of the era; and it is as historically important as any album coming out in rock circa 1970. The fact that the 40th Anniversary Edition is definitive and unlikely to be superseded in the years to come is one more reason why it is a very attractive option for those who were there then or want to understand the development of the music scene as it unfolded in those turbulent days. Take what Hendrix had been doing and what Crimson was just beginning to do and you have the one-two punch of what was advanced about the music and what the future was to bring--again for better or worse.

Have I said enough?

Copernicus' Self-Styled Prog-Prose-Poetic Rant Redux: Cipher and Decipher

Copernicus gives you a new chapter of subatomic rants with Cipher and Decipher (Nevermore/Moonjune 2092). As with his earlier outings there is a sort of psych-prog-fusionesque jamband backing him up. Their job is not to intrude with much in the way of soloing but to give the prose-poem rant a context, and this they do well.

Copernicus starts where Jim Morrison's "The End" leaves off. Instead of "Mother, I want to. . . aaaargh," Copernicus gives out with his vision of a universe forever changed for humans with the discovery of subatomic particles. All bets are off. We don't exist. None of our handiwork, for better or worse, exists. The message is brought to you with a great deal of hubris, such that Copernicus sounds a bit like a madman.

It is not without its interest. Most will not find the need for a complete set of Copernicus rants. And so perhaps you are better off starting with one of the earlier disks, for a foundational rant. Listening to this one first is a little like starting a novel in the middle. Those who are Copernicus adherents will neither be surprised nor will they be disappointed with this new one, I suspect. The rest of us? Festivus!