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Audio
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Kyle Brenders - Section 8
Ways (Porter)
Kyle Brenders’ Ways is another album of modern compositions from Porter Records. Soprano sax, trumpet, Korg MS-20, cello, contrabass, and percussion is what you’ll find creating sound. It’s got a darker, almost sylvan quality to it. Some of the instrumentation involving the Korg synthesizer on this record also reminds me of Animal Crossing. But, y’know, weird. Most of the record is sparse, and I think the idea is to really take in each individual sound, and its relation to the rest of what’s going on.
My favorite piece was “Section 5,” but that’s twenty minutes long, so I’ve put “Section 8” up, which, with its swelling drones and seismic rumblings is also an interesting experience.
The record comes out March 16th, by the way.
Audio with 2 notes
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Shining - 21st Century Schizoid Man
Blackjazz (Indie Recordings)
Imagine a collaboration between early King Crimson, Graveland, and Peter Brotzmann. Sounds fucking amazing, right? Well, listen to Shining’s Blackjazz and be amazed.
The guitars move from droning chords to wailing tremolo leads, the drums are thudding and tremendous, the vocals are screaming and intense in the industrial-metal style, with none of the hilarious heavy-metal growlings a la Deth-klok that you find so much in metal. And the saxophone… yeah, there’s sax. And it’s fucking great, in full free-jazz style, reminiscent of Mats Gustafsson or Ian McDonald.
Right from track one, “The Madness and the Damage Done,” Blackjazz is overflowing with power and energy. Their cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” is the only one I’ve ever heard which rivals the original in aggression, intensity, and musicianship. And I can easily imagine zombies rising from the grave and slowly consuming the town before ripping me to pieces to the song “Omen.” Those tracks, along with the sax face-melter “Healter Skelter,” stand out, but I think the whole album is fantastic.
The record drops on January 25th, and that’s when you should get it.
Link
Check out the new Strange Boys Song →
I mean, we already know you like the Strange Boys. But now they’ve added in some dirty sax, so you should really check out the latest (and only) song they’ve got up on their MySpace. The chick spittin’ flames out of that thang was in Mika Miko (who I already miss dearly), so we know she knows what’s up. I’m actually getting really excited about her addition to the group; the way she’s playin’ on this cut turns it into a melding of garage rock and noisy, free-jazz honkin’ - two of my favorite things.
Thanks to Corey for lettin’ me know about this.
Audio
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Axemen - The 2-Bit Star
Scary Pt. III (Siltbreeze)
Siltbreeze reissued Axemen’s Scary Pt. III record on vinyl in July, and a promo copy arrived at WMUA earlier this week. Strange timing, but I can’t complain; the thing’s awesome.
Axemen were/are an art-punk group formed in New Zealand in the early ’80s, and Scary Pt. III was a 1989 release originally only to be found on cassette. From what I’d heard of the group, I was expecting something less weird, but I found myself comparing them to just slightly less out-there Residents. This 2-LP record is all over the map, ranging from negated-pop tunes in the vein of the Residents, to straight noise tracks, to synth-dance, to synth-punk. You’ll hear guitars, drums, bass, and vocals, like you’d probably expect, but also samples, drum machines, and effected ambient noise. It’s a difficult listen, but so is some of the most interesting music out there.
I’m still processing most of this record, but while I do, check out “The 2-Bit Star,” one of the more accessible tracks from the set.
Photo
This season of Solos and Duos came to a truly epic conclusion tonight, as Tyshawn Sorey packed two hours and fifteen minutes full of solo percussion, piano, and trombone improvisations that were both humorous and mind-blowing. The previous two performances, both fantastic in their own rights, lasted a healthy seventy minutes, in comparison. One can easily imagine how a solo performance this long could get tiresome, but anyone at Bezanson tonight should have no doubt that Sorey, so full of talent and creativity, would have had no problem continuing further.
He began the set with a piece on the piano, sparse and disonant, contrasting the higher and lower registers of the instrument. Sorey seemed to utilize a motif of one specific chord, which he would strike, sustain, and then suddenly choke, only to repeat it a moment later. This motif was something to which he would return after moving into areas of greater action, made so much more intense by their usual absence. During the less busy moments of the piece, the hall was so quiet you could hear your neighbor’s stomach cooing, but when he became more urgent, a story started developing through the piano; the sounds became more and more kinetic, and the lows started actively pursuing the highs. It seemed as though a dramatic chase was occuring, in which the final outcome was not clear, but the nimble highs had quite a time escaping from the predatory lows.
Next, Sorey went to the drums, which he played standing up, having set them up in an interesting fashion, placing a bass drum face-up on a table. I’ve heard that he’ll often set up his drums differently, just to see how it comes out. The man seems to be known primarily as a drummer, and he’s truly an explosive one. Throughout this first set of percussion, he kept one cymbal ringing frequently, creating an image of industrial steam rising from beneath the street, but also perhaps natural gases emitting from a subterranean volcano.
Next, he went to the trombone. As he played different growlings, elephant farts, and out-phasing tones, he walked over to the drums, and began playing into the snare-drum. It created the same effect as windows shaking in their frames during heavy thunder.
He then returned to the piano, playing a much busier and fuller set, displaying more technical virtuosity than the previous set, but the same heavy use of disonance, creating certain effects of resonance which effected not only the sounds of the instrument, but also the movement of Sorey himself, who could be seen swaying in a circular fashion throughout the piece.
After that set, he returned to the drums, this time taking a more experimental approach to things, placing cymbals on top of the drums, ringing them softly, creating low gong-like effects, and scraping his sticks across the edge of other cymbals, creating a sort of muffled scream, and the more subdued moments were punctuated by cannon blasts from the bass drum. At one moment, he placed a cymbal upside down on a tom, and began playing it with a mallet, creating a swirling, windy tone, which soon turned to a fierce snow storm, as he began playing the china cymbal louder and louder, until he would silence it, in order to ring a few soft bells.
At this point, Sorey took a drink of water … I thought. But once he picked up the trombone, and liquid came splashing out of it, I realized I’d kind of been had. His backwash came spraying out of every orifice of the horn, which gurgled and percolated throughout much of the set, eventually drying out enough to leave just the occasional pop or crackle, giving it a warm tone, similar to an old record. It gave the audience a good laugh, but I wonder how the owner of the borrowed trombone felt about it. I’m sure he had a good sense of humor.
Finally, Sorey closed out the night with a thunderous performance on the drums, utilizing all the techniques he had shown throughout the night. The performance started at 8:00 p.m., and ended just past 10:10, and though some with lesser constitutions had left earlier on, those remaining delivered Sorey a much-deserved standing ovation.
Tyshawn Sorey’s latest album, Koan, can be found on 482 Music.
Audio with 1 note
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]tUnE-yArDs - Sunlight
BiRd-BrAiNs (4AD)
Merrill Garbus recorded the debut tUnE-yArDs record, BiRd-BrAiNs, using just a Sony digital voice recorder and Audacity. It’s quilted of weird sound, sometimes simple folk bits, sometimes mashed together snippets of disparate noise turned into sweet jams (think a less aggressive Black Dice). Sublime Frequencies have been mentioned in comparison with the record, and I can understand why; imagine driving through the woods in the dark, flipping through the stations while on some kind of psychedelic-tranquilizer. This record is what you should hear. Children laughing and screaming, ukuleles, wind chimes, and fat, distorted crunches. Creepy, awesome stuff.
Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to mention that Garbus has a nasty set of pipes on her. ”Real Live Fresh,” the last track on the record, gives her a chance to really wail the shit out of things. Highly recommended.
P.S. Typing that alternating-case stuff makes me feel like I’m an eleven-year-old girl sending IM’s to her boyfriend circa 1997. Really emasculating.
Audio
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Katherine Young - Elevation
Further Secret Origins (Porter)
Katherine Young is a composer and bassoonist based out of Brooklyn, who’s performed with such nobodies as Anthony Braxton. Her new solo debut album, Further Secret Origins, is a set of seven tracks of solo bassoon composition, making use of an interesting array of extended technique; she’s able to keep time, play out of time, and drone all at the same time. Most of the stuff on this record is played in a sort of noise-trance-improvisation, but there are other moments, like the track “Some People Say That She Doesn’t Exist,” which are sort of duets-with-herself… I can appreciate both, and the contrast works well. After hearing this record, I’m interested to see what she does with her other projects, including, according to her website, punk and pop bands.
Further Secret Origins comes out next Tuesday, November 17th, via Porter Records. I’d give it a spin, if I were you.
Audio
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]White Denim - Say What You Want
Fits (Downtown)
The new White Denim album is my first experience with the group (though it came packaged with the previous release, Exposion, which I’ve given a spin and look forward to spinning again). This record has range; people who like Zach Hill & the Holy Smokes, as well as fans of Dan Auerbach’s solo work can find things to get behind here, but I have to say the former stuff (the crazier stuff) is more interesting to me. Frenetic, to say the least.
The flack’s description of Fits describes it as “an album made for vinyl, with a clear distinction between sides A and B.” That’s accurate; side A is the gnarled, cracked-out prog-punk side, while side B is the country, jazz-rock side. They’re both good, but like I said, I like A better.
Give this one a spin, post-haste. It’s superfly.
P.S. “Oh Regina” sounds like “Oh Vegeta,” to me, because I’m retarded.
Video
Just got back from the Yusef Lateef / Adam Rudolph duo performance at Bowker Auditorium. The two have been collaborating for over 20 years, but I went into the show almost completely unaware of their history, their library, their sound. So this was heavy. They both played dozens of instruments, Rudolph sticking mainly to percussion, and Lateef primarily on wind instruments. But neither held exclusively to one type of instrument, and they both seemed to employ an extensive range of extended techniques with a variety of tools - Rudolph was bowing everything, and Lateef sort of … made out with his saxophone at one point.
There’s something really soothing and maybe even hypnotizing about seeing a couple of older gents completely destroying an hour and a half set while looking like they were just messing around with several dozen instruments. They traveled from ambient sounds, to ethnic music, to traditional blues and jazz, to tribal war marches, to more tribal hunt music. At one point, when they’d been in a particularly heavy “free” area, Rudolph just stopped playing his drums, and I realized Lateef had actually been doing a pretty traditional “cool” (in the beatnik sense of the word; very 50’s feel to it) jazz riff on the sax. With both men playing at once, you wouldn’t be able to tell, but when isolated, you can pick up on some of their influences; they range from all over time and space (blues, jazz, beat, Afro-Cuban, tribal), and they combine it quite interestingly. The effect is something that, while definitely rooted in traditional music of the past, is completely new.
Favorites instruments were Rudolph’s coffee can and Lateef’s slide-whistle (with which he used just his finger as the slide).
Least favorite part was the guy taking pictures with his loud-ass camera the whole time, getting right up in front of the stage like a prick. Hey buddy! Guess what? STUFF YRSELF!
This was the second Solos & Duos concert of the season, the first being the Evan Parker / Ned Rothenberg performance from last month. The last one is next month, Tyshawn Sorey, the only solo performance of this season. If the first two concerts of the series are any indicator, it should be nasty.
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