Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Blog

Al Di Meola, "Morocco Fantasia" DVD

2012-01-27T05:07:00.000-08:00

Guitar virtuoso Al Di Meola and his World Sinfonia made what can best be termed a triumphant appearance at the Mawazine Festival in Rabat, Morocco recently. The concert and surrounding musical sidebars were well recorded for posterity and now appear in crisp visual and excellent 5:1 sound on the DVD Morocco Fantasia (inakustik).

Di Meola's World Sinfonia comprises Al on acoustic and electric guitars, a second guitarist, accordion, percussion, drums and bass. For this concert they are joined part of the time by some excellent Moroccan musicians on oud, violin and percussion.

It's a very interesting concert, with of course Al's pyrotechnic guitar styling, here mostly acoustic, some very interesting compositions and, especially for the segment where Moroccan musicians are involved, a fascinating and moving combination of folk-fusion and Moroccan musical forms.

In addition to the main concert segments we get Di Meola jamming with local musicians at the marketplace bazaar, and additional rehearsal, soundcheck and concert footage. The DVD goes on for a generous two-plus hours.

Very much recommended for world and fusion fans.

Corroncho: A Fascinating Excursion into Latin-Spanish-Gypsy-Mideastern Fusion

2012-01-26T08:11:00.000-08:00

Corroncho is a collaborative effort by Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzera and the Colombian visual artist-sculptor Lucho Brieva. Fused magico is the order of the day on their self-titled album (Expression Records).

It's an interesting mix of Latin-American sounds with a touch of flamenco flavoring, gypsy echoes and mid-eastern musics. There are dance-oriented elements and a host of guest appearances, including Robert Wyatt, Crissie Hynde, Annie Lenox, and Cuban pianist Aldo Lopez Gavilan, among others.

It has a vocal orientation ... otherwise it is rather indescribable. Quite interesting though.

Belly Full of Blues, Jukin' with de Blues, Catbone Unreleased Kicks Off Its Anthology Series

2012-01-25T05:50:00.000-08:00

The blues are back. But then again they never left. Catbone Unreleased has compiled a bunch of anthologies of classic blues and today we take a peek at one of them, Belly Full of Blues, Jukin' with de Blues (Catbone Unreleased 2004-2). Now the label name would lead you to suspect that all the cuts here have never been released, at least in the takes given. I am not entirely sure of that but it is excellent music either way. The sequence of cuts listed on the back cover is out of order, but at any rate there are some gems by John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Little Richard and Tina Turner, and some cuts by lesser known blues persons or persons not primarily associated with the blues these days (Peter Frampton), or things that aren't quite the blues (Jack Millman's "Polka Dots and Moonbeams". "Sweet Sixteen" sounds like it's BB King and not Howlin' Wolf as the back cover states. There are a few other glitches as well.

What's great here is great! There are few that are less great. The good (great) outweighs the lesser though...

Michael Schenker, "Temple of Rock," Guitar Shred in the Spotlight

2012-01-24T05:38:00.000-08:00

Michael Schenker? The Scorpions, UFO, his own bands, he's been around for years, establishing street cred as a premier hard-rock guitarman. So here's his new album, Temple of Rock (INAK 9103). It's hard edged with plenty of good guitar moments. Singer Michael Voss is onboard throughout. I have not gotten used to his style. Sorry.

As for the rest, the songs and the shred, it's good. Very good. A high point is the final track, with a "Three Generations Guitar Battle" between Schenker, Leslie West and Michael Amott.

Hard rock/metal guitar-shred fans will dig what Michael is doing here.

Shirley Crabbe, "Home": Some Singing Going On!!

2012-01-23T05:43:00.000-08:00

Singers. Remember? We cover them here as well as all the other things. There are lots of singers out there in the "jazz" realm. Some aren't quite up to snuff. Others you hear and you KNOW. You know that they are an instrument of the music. I knew that from the very first opening moments of Shirley Crabbe's CD Home (self released). She has it all--the phrasing, the fine tuning of inflection, the delivery of lyrics and that something that takes real artistry--a variability, a variational knack.

Well now here she is with a mid-sized group with some good soloists, even Houston Person on a couple of cuts. She chooses songs that aren't overdone, "Not While I'm Around" from Sweeny Todd, Oscar Brown's "Strong Man," "Detour Ahead," Carol King's "So Far Away." And she obviously does them because Ms. Crabbe has something to contribute to them. And so she does.

Here's a singer to appreciate, doing songs she obviously loves, with a band that's cool. That's enough for me!! Check her out.

Neptune, "Silent Partner"--Call It What You Want!

2012-01-20T05:23:00.000-08:00

Robotic electronics, insistent drums and percussion, ultra-postshred guitar work, attitudinal vocals, Neptune is up to something that is not easily classified, and all the better for that. That is, on their album Silent Partner (Northern Spy). It's electric, somewhat industrial, obsessive, truculant, and salvage shop space-aged, scrap metal for a Blade Runner world. This is the future arrived, in ways that Eisenhower and Kennedy did not forsee. You know about that future. You are in it. Here's its music.

So what more is there to say? There is originality.

Andrea Centazzo-Henry Kaiser, "Infinity Squared," Live in Los Angeles, 2006

2012-01-19T04:23:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago we looked at the Andrea Centazzo-Elliot Sharp duo recording. Today it's Andrea and Henry Kaiser, Infinity Squared (Ictus 152). This one was caught live at Cafe Metropol in Los Angeles during the summer of 2006. Like the Centazzo-Sharp duet this one has atmospheric sampling-electronics, Andrea's beautifully melodic battery of drums and percussion, and adventuresome guitar explorations, this time Henry Kaiser in a spacey mood. Once again it's not a hot licks exchange, but rather a successful attempt to create a live soundscape of varying moods and textures.

Gongs and cymbal washes, backwards guitar, some energetic freestyle drumming and guitar soundsculpting are in order. In this context the percussion and drums have a pitched relevance that plays off of Henry's scrambled but no less pitched guitar poetics. Of course if Andrea is on vibes, that is a matter of course. The whole battery however is an extension of a tonality, which cannot be said for many avant percussion practitioners that come out of the improvisatory area. A surprise is "A Similar Thang" when Henry breaks into the chord sequence to Muddy Waters' "The Same Thing" and Andrea takes some nice vibes rides, then Henry turns in a blistering scorcher of a solo while Andrea comps. From there it gets way out there but with space a major factor. It's not so much a barrage as it is an essay in periodicity. Lots of two-way contrasts and empathetic listening is going on between the two artists.

"Eternal Current Anew" is a long motif reminiscent of the one on Zappa's "Watermelon in Easter Hay" and Henry gets quite lucid overtop of the ostinato percussion and guitar loop. There are some rocker-outs and a big spacescape to top off the album.

It's a very fruitful encounter. The two connect in multiple musical circuitry, in ways that envelop the listener in dazzling sound color. Space cadets, seek this one out by all means.

Christopher Lapina, "Eclectic Eve:" Too Good to Be Called "New Age?"

2012-01-18T05:16:00.000-08:00

When you accidentally stumble across a review as you are trying to find cover art, it can be off-putting. I try not to be influenced. Unfortunately as I was scrolling through the net I brushed against some kind of review--that is, of the CD at hand this morning, Christopher Lapina's Eclectic Eve (self-released). It confidently put this music in the category "New Age." Well I've heard this CD five times now and it is NOT new age. It's instrumental, and it's not jazz exactly. It's composed, arranged with some amount of improvisation but not a lot.

Christopher Lapina plays various keys and wrote the music. He surrounds himself with various instrumental configurations, different with every piece. So it ranges from just Christopher to duos to choir with combo.

The music has occasional world music aspects. It's tonal, has a little of a rock inflection much of the time, features some very nice guitar solos now and again, and more besides.

The point though is that the music is rather good. There are no vapid banalities to lull the listener into catatonia. It is music to be listened to, with some amount of seriousness. But of course I suppose it could also serve as music to ignore music by, but it's too good for that.

Certainly interesting. Perhaps not extraordinarily profound. It may be a hip equivalent to the space-age bachelor music that is making its comeback. Or perhaps not?? Or maybe it's mellow jamband? I don't know. It has a slight veneer of the smooth but it isn't after that crowd either, I don't think. And it has spacey elements. You decide for yourself what it is. Or forget that game and just listen.

"From Straight to Bizarre: Zappa, Beefheart, Alice Cooper, and LA's Lunatic Fringe" DVD

2012-01-17T06:43:00.000-08:00

Frank Zappa with his business partner Herb Cohen embarked on an ambitious label venture in 1968. By the mid-early '70s it was gone. From Straight to Bizarre (Sexy Intellectual SIDVD 568) documents on DVD the story of the Straight and Bizarre labels, and the non-Mothers/Zappa releases that came out over the years of operation.

We get the story of the creative relations between Zappa and the artists, the music itself and its production, and the overall ethos of freakdom that the music in part represented. Essra Mohawk (Sandy Hurvitz), Wild Man Fischer, the GTOs, Alice Cooper and of course Captain Beefheart, among others, are discussed and what they did during this period.

There are talking head interviews of some of the key participants, commentary by selected critics, a cohesive narrative and selected music excerpts.

It's an important overview that is not perfect. There is less interview footage from Zappa himself than would be ideal, no commentary from Beefheart or Cooper, and perhaps less musical examples than one might want. The coverage of Captain Beefheart is not as comprehensive as his importance demands. Of course an entire DVD could easily focus on the Captain in his Straight Records phase, arguably his most seminal. Gary Lucus, guitarist and later Beefheart band member has been giving presentations on the life and importance of the Captain. And BBC has done an interesting documentary on Beefheart's entire career. So there is alternative coverage. On the other hand band members such as Drumbo (John French) have insightful things to say on the DVD about the living-creating situation of the band and how the music was put together during this period.

All-in-all one is left with a vivid picture of the commonalities the artists shared as part of the Zappa orbit and some of the wonderful music that was made--as well as some oddities that were more important as socio-cultural documentations of the freak scene.

It's a good introduction to the subject--entertaining, informative, and fascinating. It may not be perfect but it will no doubt be well-received by the Zappa aficionado and anyone with an interest in the counter-culture and music of the era.

Zs, "33": Brooklyn's Insistently Idiomatic Trio Logs in with a Double Seven-Inch EP

2012-01-16T05:41:00.000-08:00

Brooklyn's trio Zs are a thing apart. Not just noisemeisters, not a simply free aggregate, they go their own way with a certain insistency. The double 7" EP 33 (Northern Spy 016) gives guitarist Ben Greenberg (who we recently discussed in the context of his solo opus Hubble Drums), tenor saxophonist Sam Hillmer, and drummer Ian Antonio a chance to shine in miniature. They respond with four brief slabs of anarchic cohesion . . . with structure in amorphosity, order in formlessness.

This is music of the lineage of AMM, MEV, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Il Gruppo and other sound-oriented a-rhythmic improvisational ensembles. It is brutally brief, compact in extremis, telegraphically concise, an Occam's Razor slashing the sound to bits. Yet they manage to say four things that speak in abstractiveness, utter meaning in incoherency, find logic in the irrational.

That's something.

Moe, "What Happened to LA LAs?", 2012, Jamband Gets Distilled in Concentrated Song Form

2012-01-13T05:18:00.000-08:00

Any jamband the caliber of Moe rests much of its reputation on the extended live set. They are revered by their followers for the inspired appearances and where they take the audience. In the studio the audience and night-of-music expansiveness isn't a factor so much. It's a different challenge and not all jambands have been able to capture the spark in such environs and translate it into a more compact form.

Moe has. They have on their latest LP What Happened to the LA LAs (Sugar Hill 4080). It's a collection of very solid songs, played with the energy and excitement of their live act, but compressing the extended digressions and extensions that the live situation spawns. There's an abridgment, of necessity. When the jams hit, though they are a get-in-and-get-out-quickly affair, they DO hit the right spots before driving back to the songs.

It works because they are hitting it hard and there is a tight-looseness to the feel of the band that comes out of long togetherness and marathon touring.

Nice music, good tough-tensiled tracks, nice audio presence...this is Moe at their best.

Macy Chen, "After 75 Years" Fuses Jazz Vocals with Chinese Elements

2012-01-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

Macy Chen is doing something unusual, and doing it well. Her recent CD After 75 Years (Twinz) gathers a small jazz-oriented ensemble to set off her vocals and the unique repertoire presented. And that repertoire is what sets the music apart. Six are Shanghai pop-jazz tunes from the '30s, then there are a couple of jazz standards sung in Mandarin and a couple of originals.

The resultant program wears well after many listens. Ms. Chen is in good voice, and the jazz artists expand the late-night tone with lots of nicely done obligatto.

The 75 years in the title refers to her grandfather's career doing jazz in Japan. Seventy-five years later Ms. Chen steps forward with another take on the Asian-jazz nexus.

The CD comes with an elaborate, well-conceived scrapbook-like booklet.

This is different. Different and very well-done.

Elliott Sharp-Andrea Centazzo, "Snowplow:" Tapestries of Electronics, Guitar and Percussion

2012-01-11T05:36:00.000-08:00

If you haven't been paying attention for the last 30 years, you may have missed the development of Elliott Sharp as one of our era's most original avant guitar stylists. Similarly Andrea Centazzo has helped redefine what percussion/drumming can be in improvisatory music. They both think as composers when they improvise, because that is what they are.

Put those two factors together and you realize that a duet between the two artists is a very good idea. How does it work out on the ground, however? Sharp-Centazzo's Snowplow (Ictus 154) is the answer. And it is a lucid one. The album is the result of a fruitful meeting of the two in New York, 2009.

A battery of percussion, Elliot's guitar set-up, and some sort of sampling-filtering software were the raw elements. The improvised duets capture a overall approach, like Jackson Pollock's paintings that continue from the center to the edge of the canvas. The music is full-frame sound painting.

It's not so much a situation where the two get virtuoso hot licks going, two at a time. It's more of an orchestral psychedelic texture going on. And it goes to various good places in ways that make you sit up and listen.

Two titans meet. The sparks fly. Your ears hear. Your spirit soars. That's what this is about.

Boris Savoldelli, "Insanology" Rereleased on Moon June Records

2012-01-10T06:02:00.000-08:00

Boris Savoldelli's Insanology was the vocalist's first, originally released in a limited edition by the artist himself. It has now come out on Moon June Records (042). I wrote a very favorable review of the album when it first appeared, so I will not dwell at length on its many bright moments.

I will say though that is one of the most exciting group vocal efforts of this decade. Boris creates all kinds of sonorous musical events by overdubbing various vocal parts that he creates with care, resulting in magical Boris vocal orchestras that seem a combination of Bobby McFerrin, Brian Wilson. . . and Boris Savoldelli.

It's 32 plus minutes of something-else-ness. And now it will be easy to grab a copy.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, "Mirror Traffic," A New One from the Singer-Songwriter-Bandmember

2012-01-09T05:54:00.000-08:00

Well alrighty then. Monday. In times of economic and non-recreational misery that I, my family, and countless others are currently enduring, it is good to hear something with an elemental song-based sincerity to wash away the many scores of pretentious pop-star plastic presences that glut the television and radio airwaves. Such straightforward no bs songwriting can be found on the new disk/download by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Mirror Traffic (Matador).

It's rock/alt directness you get on this one. No bull, honest lyrics about the world we occupy, catchy melodies, and enough of a rock edge to keep things honest. I'd say something about Green Day here, but only in the sense of the youthful sound of the vocals. Well I just did, so.

I cover so much stylistic diversity on this blog that I am not sure Mr. Malkmus will appeal to the same crowd as, say, people who would like, say, Hubble Drums. What do they have in common? Guitars, melody, a lack of bullcrap....and I hope for an open stance from readers, too. Don't limit yourself. Everybody else will want to do that so why make it worse for yourself?

And so we continue...and good luck to us all getting through the winter, eh? And thank you world events if you can manage to keep the cost of heating oil low enough and thank you nature if you can make sure the temperatures stay reasonable enough so that I can remain where I am and continue to review music. Ay-hay-men.

Dave Tarras and the Musiker Brothers, "Tanz!", A Klezmer Classic from 1955

2012-01-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

Dave Tarras, one of the Klezmer clarinet immortals, cut a disk of updated arrangements in 1955, Tanz!, which fell flat sales-wise at the time but has wisely been reissued on CD (Epic Legacy 86320).

It's Dave and his (presumably) working ensemble, doing classical Yiddish Klez, with the accent on Dave's beautiful and lively clarinet work.

That's what it is; that's great; that will not disappoint you if you know what Dave was all about; and for those who like to take chances and don't know what this could be, give it a shot. I think you'll be very pleased if you let the music work its way into your world.

Johnny Winter "Live at Rockpalast," 1979, Now Out in CD Version

2012-01-05T05:43:00.000-08:00

I reviewed the DVD version of this several months ago (see earlier posting). so I'll just mention today that the CD version of Johnny Winter Live at Rockpalast (MVD 5185A) is now out. It sounds great, has most of what's on the DVD and gives you some very fine Johnny in a peak period. Enough said!

Hubble, "Hubble Drums:" Ben Greenberg's Trance-Drone Psychedelia for Electric Guitar

2012-01-04T05:11:00.000-08:00

It is interesting to trace the advent of drone and trance in modern music through the initial influence of Indian music on the psychedelic electrics of the classic late-'60s. From that has come many things, and the "soundscape" today is one of them. This is not the place to name the particulars, but it does serve to introduce today's musical selection.

We have guitarist Ben Greenberg as Hubble and his 40-minute album Hubble Drums (Northern Spy CD or LP). Don't let the title fool you. This has nothing really to do with drumming (though some electric drums can be heard in the mix on occasion) and everything to do with electronic drones and guitar.

Ben has been the guitarist with Zs and Pygmy Shrews. For Hubble Drums he goes it alone. The music owes much to Fripp and Eno's landmark recordings of the '70s and what has been dubbed Frippertronics. Like their No Pussyfooting, Hubble Drums takes a trance-repetition-drone minimalistic soundscape approach. Where Fripp and Eno were spaciously sprawling, Hubble is more terse and busy. Most musical moments are filled with rather dense, noteful cycles of energy. The result is not as spaced as it is manic. The guitar work is well thought-through. Each piece relates to the others but simultaneously carves out a distinctive note cluster cycle and pace of its own. And there are times when classical psychedelic guitar leads come to dominate, in a repeated and chopped sort of way.

It's quite engaging music, consistently so. Shredmaster Greenberg has managed to come up with his own take on this kind of soundscape, with impressive results.

Northern Spy and Ben Greenberg have been kind enough to upload the track "Nude Ghost" for you to hear. Audition it at http://soundcloud.com/northernspyrecs/01-nude-ghost-hubble/.

Toronzo Cannon, "Leaving Mood" for New Chicago Blues Electricity

2012-01-03T05:41:00.000-08:00

I used to think the blues was dead or dieing. It isn't. Among other things there have been some Delmark releases in the last couple of years that tell us Chicago is spawning a new batch of the real thing. Today's CD is a good example. It's Toronzo Cannon, his soulful vocals and his blazing lead guitar, on Leaving Mood (Delmark 817).

It's the hard blues, the electric blues, the soul blues. It has some of the heft of rock and soul. Toronzo is backed by a grooving band and Carl Weathersby joins him on guitar for a couple of cuts, but it's Toronzo all the way in essence. The original tunes are solid and have that something. Toronzo wrings all the feeling out of them onto us. He is a communicator and a bolt of soul lightning on vocals. His guitar has a post-Buddy-Guy sizzle. He's got it and he lets in loose on us in fine fashion.

This is real-deal blues. Get with it and you'll get what you need.

Andy Fite, "Farewell Forever:" A Melange of Multi-Guitar Orchestralizations

2011-12-30T09:33:00.000-08:00

Guitarist Andy Fite has been working on getting most if not all of his self-produced recordings available again, principally as downloads. We've covered a few on this blog (do a search in the window at the top of this page for the reviews) and they have been quite stimulating and stylistically multifold.

Today we note a short but excellent piece of music, the seven-minute "Farewell Forever." It's a multiple-track universe of acoustic and mildly electrified guitars playing some very interesting harmo-melodic sequences that are part pre-arranged, part improvised. It's a very engaging string soup of multiple Andys, almost a "Descent into the Maelstrom" (Tristano) for today and for guitar. But it is also something different than that. Or at least it SOUNDS very different.

If you want to get a kick then grab this cut and dig. Mr. Fite should be heard. He has a wicked left hook!

David Maranha and Gabriel Ferrandini, "A Fonte de Aretusa", A Freeform Duet for Organ and Drums

2011-12-29T06:05:00.000-08:00

Based in Lisbon, Portugal, hammond organist David Maranha and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini have something to say, judging from the live vinyl LP release A Fonte de Aretusa (Mazagran MZ002).

It's 40-some-odd continuous minutes of the duo droning, psychedelisizing and freely traversing a quietly dense soundscape that resembles an expanded explosion of what Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt might have done in an early Soft Machine performance. It has that sort of rhythmically open, interestingly distorted organ tone and flippy pulseless drumming that was known to come about for a minute or two in the course of a long jam by the Softs.

Of course there's a bit more to it than that. There is staying power generated betweeen the two. It goes in various directions, creates variations on the variations of the deceptively static overall sound, and never gets boring.

I find myself drawn to this one for reasons that do not have a cognitive logic. It's well mapped spontaneity on a trip without a literal map, a sonic journey that thrives from its simple premises.

Not everyone will be drawn to this one. But I think if you have read the description you will know if it is going to be you. . . or not. Play on players, dream on dreamers.

Ron Jackson, "Flubby Dubby," Guitar-Organ Trio Soul for Today

2011-12-28T05:34:00.000-08:00

I can't spend my whole listening life in the rarified clouds. Every so often I have to come down to earth with something rootsy and soulful. That something is amply supplied by guitarist Ron Jackson today with his down-home organ trio and their CD Flubby Dubby (Roni Music 0700).

This is caught live and swinging. It's Ron on electric guitar, in a sort of post-Benson mode, Kyle Koeler doing the funkified organ thing (reminding me a little of Don Patterson), Otis Brown III heating it up on drums, and a guest sax section on a couple of cuts.

Ron plays quite well in the gutbucket boppin' and burnin' mode. He's is well on the way to mastering the tradition and I suspect the next step will be to add a personal touch bit-by-bit. As it is this is very nice, hard hitting and bluesy trio doings. There are some standards, including a nice version of the Beatles "Winding Road", and some solid-groove originals.

That's what it is. That's where it is. You like that tradition, you will dig this. They kick it.

Bruce Arnold and John Stowell, "Sonic Infestation," 2008

2011-12-27T05:38:00.000-08:00

Today a look at the last of the series of CDs by guitarist Bruce Arnold that we have been covering (see previous posts), namely, Bruce Arnold and John Stowell's Sonic Infestation (Muse Eek 149). The album is subtitled "Electroacoustic Guitar Improvisations," and that is what we have here. These are a series of multilayered, acoustically manipulated duets for acoustic and/or electric guitars.

Sonic Infestations finds common ground in the musical space between players like John McLaughlin and Ralph Towner without actually straying on the usual turf of either artist. There are 11 fairly short sequences that total in an EP-lengthed playing time of 33-odd minutes. The electroacoustic manipulation often provides a third voice-texture via its interesting transformation of guitar sounds.

In the end this is an always-captivating venture into improvisational and transformational brightness. Arnold and Stowell play interesting dual improvisations and the electroacoustics complement the stringed immediacy with a dimensional depth that I find quite appealing. It is a good listen.

Benjamin Duboc, "Primare Cantus," an Achievement for Avant Contrabass and Supporting Instrumentalists

2011-12-23T05:46:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Duboc has an ambitious program of sound, noise and tone production that he realizes on the three-CD set Primare Cantus (Ayler 98-99-100). It all centers around Duboc's contrabass and the various sounds and tones he coaxes from it, covering a pretty wide range of conventional and unconventional sound producing techniques and interacting with a series of sympathetic musicians: Jean-Luc Petit on baritone and tenor sax, Didier Lasserre on snare drum and cymbals, Sylvain Guerineau on tenor, Pascal Battus on microtonal guitar, Sophie Agnel on piano, and Christian Pruvost, trumpet. It has an avant noise element going for it much of the time; other times there is more conventional note production that sounds more in line with the sort of "standard" free improv happening today. It's challenging music that will be appreciated by avant music aficionados, less so by others I suppose.

The long first disc bass solo provides perhaps the most difficult listening experience. Low bowed noisy sustains are punctuated by percussive clicks and taps for an entire CD. It is exhilarating once you get used to it, puzzling before that.

Disk two expands the music by bringing in Guerineau, Lasserre and Petit for varying portions of the program. It starts with aeriated long tones on reeds and string punctuations that make full use of the colors and sounds of the contrabass. It has an improv and ambient feel. For part two bowed harmonics and reed harmonics provide long continuously droning and gradually shifting legato sonics. Part three has more movement with bass and sax sounding some fundamental tones and harmonics. Part four brings in light brushed drums and some more conventionally expressed bass improvisatory sounding excursions. Part five appears to make use of bowed cymbals and bowed bass harmonics (?) for a long wash of sound color. Part six is a more "conventional" free duet between bass and brushed drums. There is a kind of ritually reverberating attention to fundamental bass tones there--double stops and ruminative phrasings. Part seven gets into a still more active duet between tenor and bass, freely articulated. Seven continues the bass-tenor interaction, getting closer to something Rivers and Holland did back in the day, but going at it in their own fashion. It continues and builts in density on eight, then returns to a slightly more quiescent conclusion on the final track of disk two.

Disk three brings in three new players to interact with Duboc (Agnel, Battus and Pruvost). The first longish section has an ambient noise element, produced with rumbling machine-like bass continuity and continuously sounding higher pitched soundscapes (on microtonal guitar?). A short middle section has to do with white noise hiss, quiet and at times nearly silent. The final 20 minutes indulge in bowed three-way harmonics and unconventional trumpet and piano soundings that would not sound out of place as produced by the Acting Trio of BYG days, or MEV, AMM or il gruppo. It changes and transforms...

This is a sometimes stark, always rather provocative presentation on the edge of avant music today. Duboc impresses with his controlled unconventional contrabass; the supporting musicians turn in sounds and tones that interact with Duboc in ways that are completely idiomatic and appropriate. It's purist avant of a thoroughgoing sort. It may not generate a huge following but it is worthy of the time and effort required to understand and appreciate the matrix of sounds the musicians put forward so imaginatively.

Bruce Eisenbeil, Carnival Skin, 2006, with Robinson, Evans, Greene, Kugel

2011-12-21T06:20:00.000-08:00

Carnival Skin (Nemu 003) has it. It has the free exuberance that sometimes comes about when some excellent improvisers get together and let it all out. The compositions, one by each group member and one collective collaboration--provide a good springboard for the solos and group improvisations that follow.

This is a choice pairing of five burners and they show some beautiful chemistry here. Bruce Eisenbeil goes at the electric guitar in an outside way with great control and judicious note/cluster choices. (Check the article listings on the right for several more reviews of his recordings on Gapplegate Guitar.) He sometimes executes rapid, rolling dissonant clusters, something that Sonny Sharrock did so well. However Eisenbeil's voicings are different than Sharrock's. Bruce gets into various ways of out-articulating; his phrasing is accomplished and poetic. Perry Robinson, THE towering exponent of improv clarinet, gets some tremendous energy and torque throughout. Young trumpet firebrand Peter Evans is in great form as well. Together the three front-liners kick up a good deal of dust. With the addition of Klaus Kugel on drums and Hilliard Greene on bass, both potent players who know what to do in this sort of context, the picture is complete.

Together the group generates some wildly exciting free music. This is one kick-tokas session!