Cristina - Doll in the Box

Recently I posted ZE Records' marvelous label anthology Mutant Disco, which features a generous handful of songs by disco diva Cristina Monet, more commonly known as Cristina. As a followup of sorts, I'd like to shift the spotlight now to her debut lp, Cristina (ZE, 1980), reissued here as Doll in the Box (ZE, 2004) with bonus material that expands the original seven tracks to a handsome twelve. The wife of ZE co-founder Michael Zilkha, Monet was a Harvard graduate, a Village Voice critic and a devoted Brechtian who briefly became the shining star of ZE on a whimsical suggestion from her husband. As Kurt B. Reighley notes in his article "Is That All There Is?" (featured on ZE's website):

In 1978, Zilkha was keen on starting a record label that married punk with disco. Towards this end, he had purchased the publishing to "Disco Clone," a ditty by a fellow Harvard undergrad thespian of Cristina's, Ronald Melrose. "When Michael bought 'Disco Clone,' I said, 'That is, without doubt, the worst song I have ever heard,'" recalls Cristina. "'It is so bad that the only way you could record it would be as Brechtian pastiche.' And Michael said, 'Do you want to give it a shot?'"

Following the success of "Disco Clone", Cristina recorded her first lp for ZE, a self-titled album produced by August Darnell, aka Kid Creole. The album was a fabulous mix of soaring orchestral backgrounds, faux-ditzy vocals, and parodic, brazen lyrics. "Disco Clone" boasts over-the-top string arrangements with Cristina's chirpy falsetto, claiming that "I'm a disco clone, disco clone, disco clone, disco clone! / And if you like the way I shake it / and I make you want to make it, / there's plenty just like me to go around! / Now nobody has to spend the night alone." Alternating with Cristina's chorus is a man's deep, sleazy voice that narrates how he entered a club looking for action and was shocked to find a dozen nameless, faceless girls at his disposal; reminiscing about his bedroom success, he laughs the night away while Cristina continues to sing the repetitive refrain, as if she were incapable of articulating anything else. A highly gendered critique, "Disco Clone"'s message would continue on Cristina's next singles: utterly unique covers of The Beatles' "Drive My Car" and Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" that firmly established her persona as a sex-charged, ultra-femme fatale who consistently détourned her own gender stereotypes.

Cristina would follow her debut with Sleep it Off (ZE, 1984), an album produced by Don Was of labelmates Was (Not Was). Three years in the making, Sleep it Off is far more ambitious in its range and, in my opinion, not nearly as good as the music here on Doll in the Box. "Jungle Love" begins the album with Lizzy Descloux-esque tropicalism, while "Don't Be Greedy" defines what was to become the signature ZE sound: thumping beats, jazzy saxophones, polished backing vocals and a dash of punk sass. Sometimes playing the role of the promiscuous disco queen, at others telling tales of weariness and neglect, Cristina uses dance music as a form of internal critique, at the same expanding its artistic possibilities and deepening its message. "Everytime I want a kiss, you put a cigarette between your lips, oh why?" ("Don't Be Greedy"). The epic "La Poupee Qui Fait Non", a Michel Polnareff cover, matches winding horn lines with some solid cowbell and Cristina's best pouty-lipped cooing. A classic breakdown three minutes in makes room for some razor-sharp electric guitar, light synth flourishes, and male-female call-and-response vocals (complete with ever-so-slight moans). Other high points include "Mamma Mia"'s squiggly keyboard- and brass-propelled madness, the dance-downfall narrative of "Blame it on Disco", and the longer version of "Disco Clone" titled "Ballad of Immoral Manufacture" (after Brecht, of course), doubled in length by extended instrumental interludes.

After the financial failure of Sleep it Off, Cristina retired from the music scene entirely, convinced that her talent was a mirage conjured up by her husband Zilkha. However, it's somewhat of a truism that, as time goes on, we forget about the work's content and look only at its form. Thankfully, Cristina's innate musical talent eclipsed what began as a sociological experiment and left us with this utterly wonderful lp, historically fascinating but -- and this is probably more important -- eminently groovy.

Cristina - La Poupee Qui Fait Non.mp3 (220 kbps VBR, 12.1 mb)
Cristina - Doll in the Box (ZE, 2004)

More great album art and information here.

And for those of you who thought I was joking last week: TGIFF

(That means, Thank God it's Feline Friday!)


Vera Watter rests after a long day of knocking things over and attacking her companions

Related posts: Mutant Disco (ZE)

Vision Festival, 6/22/07: Pt. 2

Continued from Vision Festival, 6/22/07: Pt. 1:

With a concert series as massive as Vision Festival, even a single night takes multiple articles to describe with any pretense of accuracy. Hosted in the Lower East Side's Angel Orensanz Foundation, the inside of the abandoned temple turned cultural center gave the night a sacred aura that must have effected even the strictest non-believers in the crowd. It's no use denying the divine aspect so often noted by seasoned improvisers: the rare ability to communicate almost telepathically with those around you in a spontaneous creative act. The theme of the holy is strong in jazz history, reaching as far back as Louis Armstrong and his trumpet's ability "to make the angels weep."

After the very spiritual music of Roy Campbell's Akhenaten Suite, soaked as it is in the legends of ancient Egypt and with its performers mostly dressed in traditional African garb, it was striking to see the young Matthew Shipp enter the stage in jeans and a t-shirt. But, appearances aside, the pianist quietly sat down to a beautiful Steinway and delivered an uninterrupted 40-minute solo performance of an intensity equal to that of Campbell or anyone else that night. The crowd must have been restless after two hours of music, as almost everyone in our row had left to mill around -- quite annoying, as those of us who couldn't see very well were denied the pleasure of watching Shipp perform from a clear vantage point. Eventually we moved over to borrow the vacant seats, though the low murmur in the crowd still dampened our enthusiasm.

I've never been a huge fan of Matthew Shipp -- as a friend once said, he has incredible technique but often uses it to play far too many meaningless notes. Nonetheless, I didn't remember him having such a muscular sound, and it really came through in the movements of his body. With forehead creased, veins tensed and eyes locked on the keys, Shipp's hands moved to and fro, bringing his torso with them; the fluid movement of the performer's arms resembled that of a drummer much more than a pianist. Really working the lower registers of his instrument, Shipp filled the room with incredibly dense clusters of bass notes and much more delicate excursions on the piano's right side. Melodically, I think the set lacked enough variation to keep the audience spellbound for such a long running time, though it picked up significantly toward the end with the reintroduction of the theme. Shipp's best moments were the ones that displayed the most economy, the somber emotional tone sounding very much like his recent work as Declared Enemy (Salute to 100001 Stars, Rogue Art, 2007). Poet/host David Budbill told the audience that Shipp had spoken to him earlier of his lack of inspiration that night, the feeling that he "had nothing new to say." Perhaps the artistic expression was a bit wandering and confused, but there's no denying that he played with enough fire and passion to keep us in the palms of his hands.

Next came the night's intermission, an extended period including art pieces by Amir Bey, Jo Wood Brown, Katie Martin, Kazuko Miyamoto, Phyllis Bulkin-Lehrer, and Lili White installed around the performance space, as well as a series of performative dance numbers titled "A State of Mind", organized by Patricia Nicholson with backing music by Lewis Barnes, Rob Brown, William Parker, and Hamid Drake. Distracted as I was by the variety of music vendors placed strategically on the same floor as the drinks, I did pay attention to what I could see of the dancing, the highlight of which featured Julia Wilkins straddling the second-floor balcony to the sound of Barnes' trumpet. As for the rest of the performance, I could take it or leave it; I found myself mostly unimpressed by their style of modern, expressive dance, which seemed to me surprisingly lifeless in spite of all the video projections, dangling sculptures and spotlights that accompanied its presentation. An arching of the back here, a twisting of a hand there... I was anxious for Fred Anderson to take the stage soon so that I could see the entirety of his set and still make the 12:10 train up to Poughkeepsie that night.


Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake as seen between the backs of heads (photo by Seth Watter)

Thankfully, the program continued for the most part on schedule, and the Chicago-based Fred Anderson Trio took the stage at 10:30. Composed of Anderson on tenor saxophone, Hamid Drake on drums, and Harrison Bankhead on bass, the group played another lengthy, uninterrupted piece which I believe is called "Timeless" from the trio recording of the same name (Delmark, 2006), but don't quote me on that. No introductions by the band were given, and none were needed. Anderson simply began with a beautiful unaccompanied solo, which wound its way around our ears for three or four minutes before the leader nodded to his bandmates to join in on the fun. Drake and Bankhead enthusiastically responded and the three launched into an improvisation with so much energy than an hour later it was still running on the same steam. Bankhead's propulsive bass and Drake's dazzling, Africa-meets-free jazz drumming kept Anderson good company as he continued to weave knotty, inspiring phrases around his partners in crime.

Eventually, the tenor player took a vow of silence to allow Drake and Bankhead to take their own extended solos; the accomplishment of all three musicians made any question of who was the leader a mere formality. Perhaps the highlight of the night, Bankhead took an incredible bass solo of a power I've never heard before, exploring the entire range of his instrument with lightning-fast plucking, strumming, and bowing that turned this generally rhythmic tool into a singing, breathing, awe-inspiring hydra head. Bankhead gave the signal that he was finished with a single long, reverberating note, but launched into at least two more sections of his solo when prompted by the smiles of his fellow performers and an off-stage voice calling, "Go on ahead, Harrison." Hamid Drake, a powerful drummer who puts almost anyone else to shame, took over from Bankhead with unflagging energy in his trademark style of neverending drum rolls that groove along dazzling cymbal work, before buoying the rest of the group up with his semi-structured, time signature-shifting rhythms. The fabulous group interplay that closed the set dragged out the melody of Anderson's composition to ever-expanding territory, until the point that 10 minutes after the first repetition of the theme the audience was left more exhausted than the barely-sweating musicians seemed to be. Definitely the performance of the night, the crowd exploded into cheers and whistles they had barely kept under control, having previously limited themselves to swaying, head-nodding, and, in one elderly man's case, ridiculous arms-and-legs-in-the-air dancing in the darkened area to the left of the concert space. The unbridled passion exuded by Anderson, well into his 60s, was enough to make anyone feel old that night.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Vision Festival XII took place on June 19-24, 2007 at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, 172 Norfolk St., Lower East Side, NY.


Julia Wilkins dances with trumpet accompaniment by Lewis Barnes (photo by Faith Holland)


Left to right: Fred Anderson, Hamid Drake, and Harrison Bankhead (photo by Faith Holland)

(Unfortunately, I have no decent pictures of Matthew Shipp.)

Plastic Bertrand - An 1

Plastic Bertrand, aka Belgian musician Roger Jouret -- though AMG seems to think he was Quebecois -- made it big in 1977 with the international hit single "Ça Plane Pour Moi", the second ever French-language song to crack the Billboard Top 100, peaking at #39 in America and #8 in Europe. Following the massive success of "Ça Plane Pour Moi", and its accompanying lp, An 1 (Sire, 1978), Plastic Bertrand proceeded to fall off the face of the earth until MTV titled him the "Most Wanted Comeback Artist" in 1998. Interest in Plastic Bertrand continued as late as 2006, when a court ruling finally confirmed that Jouret did indeed perform the vocals on all of his songs, as opposed to being ghost sung by producer-songwriter Lou Deprijk. So much for the historical approach.

"Ça Plane Pour Moi" was unique for fusing the energy and simplicity of punk rock with a developing new wave aesthetic, carrying Jouret's childlike lyrics and jaunty vocals with the power of its two- to three-chord approach, with plenty of saxophones and "woo-ooo-ooo"s to round out the mix. The song, thought to be sung mostly in French argot, has been roughly translated here, though one doesn't need to be multilingual to recognize the origin of Bertrand's nickname, "you are the King of the Divan!", which would serve as the title of EMI's 2003 best-of collection. Not interested in the political content of the punk he was absorbing at the time, Jouret's lyrics seem to choose their words based almost entirely on sonority as opposed to meaning -- perhaps what drew him to cover "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" for his next single, though by that time the world market had grown tired of Plastic Bertrand. Even his name was chosen for the sole reason that it sounded funny. Either way, "Ça Plane Pour Moi" (roughly translated as "this life's for me", "I'm on a roll" or "being high works for me") was a far cry from "Rock the Casbah".

Thirty years later, the music here is still quite exciting, bubbly and infectious, from the opening guitar chug of "Le Petit Tortillard" to the rock'n'roll inflected "5-4-3-2-1", from the honking saxophone on "Pognon Pognon" to the lilting reggae rhythm of "Dance Dance", though who could forget the ape and chicken sounds made on "Wha! Wha!" And despite the fact that it's frowned upon to mention Plastic Bertrand in the same breath as The Buzzcocks or The Clash, Jouret's early singles ranked up there with the best of them. Clocking in at barely half an hour, An 1 is an enduring record for two reasons: speed and exuberance. Sometimes, that's all you need to make great music.

Plastic Bertrand - Pognon Pognon.mp3 (160 kbps, 3.5 mb)
Plastic Bertrand - An 1 (Sire, 1978)

He also has an amazing official website.

Donald Lambert - Giant Stride

Donald Lambert is perhaps the most faceless of all the great stride pianists. Aside from a short period of residence from 1932-1936 in Harlem, Lambert spent most of his life in New Jersey, avoiding the recording studios and avoiding, above all, publicity. Nicknamed "The Lamb," the piano player seemed to be a very modest personality, without the flair of a Willie "The Lion" Smith or a Fats Waller, honing his technique for years in Orange, NJ's High Tavern, "a nice, homey, neighborhood bar, but scarcely a spot for national exposure" (liner notes). However, in the summer of 1960, Rudi Blesh of Solo Art Records managed to convince Lambert to perform with Eubie Blake and The Lion at the Newport Jazz Festival for a stride piano showcase. That recording led to a string of releases in the early '60s before his premature death on May 8, 1962 in Newark, NJ. Those albums include the earlier Harlem Stride Classics (Pumpkin, 1959), Meet the Lamb (IAJRC, 1960), Classics in Stride (Pumpkin, 1960), and Giant Stride: Donald Lambert and His Harlem Piano (Solo Art, 1961), the last of which I'd like to share with you today.

After a year or more of looking for Lambert's work online, I finally gave up and bought Solo Art's 2005 reissue, and I must say it was worth the price. The recording is clear and the playing is brilliant, offering surprises even for seasoned stride listeners. Of course, Giant Stride includes a number of fast-paced, two-fisted stompers ("Trolley Song", "Rose of the Rio Grande"), but Lambert also has a penchant for the slow, the lyrical, the ballad-esque ("Sophisticated Lady", "If I Could Be With You"), often perferring to include both traditions within a single piece ("Linger a While", "Liza"). "When Your Lover Has Gone" is quite unconventional for this style of playing, with its swelling opening notes and tender phrases that conjure up images of lonely late-night reveries, like a scene from Casablanca. The variety of moods show Lambert to be a gentle giant, with a powerful technique in one hand and a serene disposition in the other -- one of that rare breed perfectly content to practice their art in private, for friends, family, and lovers perhaps, past and present.

Donald Lambert - When Your Lover Has Gone.mp3 (192 kbps, 6.2 mb)
Donald Lambert - Giant Stride (Solo Art, 1962)

Related posts: Luckey Roberts & Willie "The Lion" Smith - Harlem Piano

Vision Festival, 6/22/07: Pt. 1

This past Friday I had the great pleasure of attending night four of the 12th Annual Vision Festival, hosted this year in the Lower East Side's Angel Orensanz Foundation. A renovated synagogue located on 172 Norfolk, the space was an unconventionally beautiful setting for a jazz concert. With much of the original façade intact, the musicians performed in front of what appeared to be a former Holy Ark, bathed in the warmth of blue, purple, green, red, and orange lights. The breathtaking scenery only helped amplify what would have already been a very special night for those present at New York’s great free jazz event. This year’s Vision Festival highlighted the talents of personages no less than William Parker, Joe Morris, Cooper-Moore, Marc Ribot, Henry Grimes, Marilyn Crispell, Joe McPhee, Bill Dixon, Rashied Ali, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn, The Ganelin Trio, and Louis Moholo – to name only a handful from the spectacular week-long program. Based around the memory of the late Revolutionary Ensemble violinist Leroy Jenkins, Friday night began with a tribute titled “50 Violins for Leroy Jenkins” (in actuality only 39, and not all quite violins), organized by Jason Kao Hwang and conducted by fellow string player Billy Bang. The rest of the evening included sets by Roy Campbell’s group, Matthew Shipp’s solo piano, the Fred Anderson Trio, and a “Spindrift for Leroy Jenkins” that I didn’t have time to stay for. An epic show lasting at least five hours, each night of Vision Festival requires a lot of time and patience to be savored – as well as an apartment in New York City or a car with which to help catch those late-night sets, that is, without having to spend the night asleep on a subway bench.

For a group composed of 39 string players, the tribute to Jenkins was far less dissonant than I had imagined. I was expecting some kind of Penderecki-like madness, but the ensemble played through one of Leroy’s compositions fluidly and coherently, with great concentration and unity. Roughly a half-hour long, the performance explored every facet of the violin’s sonic capabilities. Leading without a baton, Billy Bang used a style of conducting that I believe he said was derived from Butch Morris, using the hands to conduct in a more natural, almost colloquial way; a tapping of the head seemed to signal “pick up your instruments,” while the rapid flipping of a pointer finger meant “transition from bowed playing to plucking.” A fantastic conductor to watch, Bang led the group through the knotty turns of Jenkins’ score while allowing room for improvisation, the performers seeming to be at his mercy in the event that he called on them for a solo. At times, Bang would point to a series of as many as four people in a row to play an eighth note each; during another of the movement’s highlights, the conductor pitted the violins against the other half of the stage composed of cellos and standup basses, creating a furious call-and-response dialogue between the band’s two tonal extremes. Above all, with 39 violins at his disposal, one had to admire Bang and co-coordinator Hwang for their restraint in this beautiful eulogy.

Roy Campbell followed up with the debut of his Akhenaten Suite, which apparently derives its style from the culture of ancient Egypt, the Pharoahs and the Nile. An excellent group of musicians including Campbell on trumpet, Billy Bang on violin, Bryan Carrott on vibraharp, Hilliard Greene on bass, and Zen Matsuura on drums, the ensemble got the crowd heated up with fiery solos and wonderful group interplay. Sounding very much like Charles Tolliver’s work of the 1970s, one could say that Campbell’s group was somewhat behind the times, following a tried-and-true style with a long history of success. Generally beginning with the theme, Campbell would take an initial trumpet solo before dropping out of the mix, handing the reins over to Bang’s violin, who also proceeded to sit out while the rhythm section took turns soloing before again returning to the theme; or, occasionally, the group would start out rather minimally before Campbell gave the signal to launch into funkier post-bop territory. The lack of variety in terms of approach gave one the impression that this was fairly conventional for free music, with lingering remnants of bop in the head-solo-head structures. Nonetheless, the performance was truly excellent, each musician accomplished in his own right and taking a number of impressive solos, with Carrott being particularly intense. I also enjoyed the way that Campbell would explore the full range of his instrument, sometimes emitting a shrill, wavery trumpet blast, at others moving closer to the microphone to blow his way through a series of gruff, cavernous notes. Definitely a group to keep an eye on, Campbell will hopefully keep perfecting his new suite before once again making his way to the studio.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Vision Festival XII took place on June 19-24, 2007 at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, 172 Norfolk St., Lower East Side, NY.



Photographs by Faith Holland, excluding the first image, taken by Seth Watter

Hector Rivera - At the Party

Hector Rivera made a splash on the burgeoning New York Latin soul scene with this hit, 1966's "At the Party", which was actually something of a crossover success on the R&B top 40. It isn't difficult to see why, as the music on this reissue of At the Party... Plus (Ace, 1966/1994) is some of the tamest salsa you'll ever hear, coming nowhere near the hardhitting, inventive fusion of Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers or Ray Barretto's Acid (Fania, 1968). Still, if you can get past some of the schmaltzier tunes that populate this lp, you're in for some damn good party music. The title track really swings, with its feel-good piano line, congas, fat horns, and hand claps that sway beneath David Coleman's soulful voice. It's not terribly sophisticated music, but who can resist a hot rhythm and the lyrics: "Bring your records everybody / don't you be late to the party / don't you be late, 'cause I can't wait / 'cause I'm anxious to get started / time's a wasting, so get moving / we'll be dancing, dancing and a-grooving..." And, true enough, Rivera's single was one piece of wax sure to be making the rounds at the city's clubs until its grooves were thoroughly worn out. Ace's reissue features the classic hit as well as the titular album, with the "... Plus" to denote the five bonus tracks included (some of which are early/unfinished cuts from the original sessions).

Online information about Rivera is scant -- though one website seems to think that the name was merely a pseudonym for salsa singer Ray Pollard. A keyboardist and sideman to legends like Johnny Pacheco and Joe Cuba, Rivera here takes on the duties of arranging and conducting his band, which includes in its ensemble the wonderful Cachao on standup bass. While "At the Party" shows Rivera's great pop sensibility, other tracks more fully display his talent as a bandleader, from the classic boogaloo of "Shingaling Baby" and "I Want a Chance at Romance" to "I Got My Eye on You", whose fast-paced female vocals sound very much like the rhythmic, Dixie Cups/New Orleans-derived vocal stylings. Rivera takes from salsa its brass playing, its percussion, and its repetitive, hortatory choruses and combines it with a decidedly American type of singing and Americanized dance patterns.

At the Party could best be described as a soul record with a Latin influence of varying degrees, depending on the song; "Got to Make Up Your Mind" could basically pass for a James Carr single, while the rhythms on "Playing it Cool" betray Rivera's Latin heritage far more obviously. "Asia Minor" is a smoky instrumental with both feet in the Latin Jazz tradition, while "Calypso Number 10" sounds equal parts Harry Belafonte and South African trumpet. The fantastic "Do it to Me" features the best elements of all the above, with the melody handed over mid-way to the joyous sound of children's voices and the frequent punctuations of the rhythm section.

Fracture me up, mess up my mind, do it, do it, do it to me...

Hector Rivera - Do it to Me.mp3 (192 kbps, 4.1 mb)
Hector Rivera - At the Party... Plus (Ace, 1966/1994)

Irene Schweizer & Louis Moholo

An amazing duo recording by pianist Irene Schweizer and drummer Louis Moholo, this early release on the Intakt label captures the pair at the 1987 Zurich International Jazz Festival. Irene Schweizer and Louis Moholo (Intakt, 1988) is one of those albums you put on out of curiosity, yet you can't get out of your seat until it's finished playing at least once through, if not twice. The infectious rhythms take hold of your body, enrapture you, and hold your attention for fourty minutes by the sheer energy radiated through your speakers. Like Fred Van Hove before her, Schweizer is an incredibly percussive player, using her piano to play dense clusters of notes in intensely repetitive solos. And it's no accident that the pianist would go on to record duo sets with more drummers like Andrew Cyrille, Han Bennink, and Hamid Drake. One can hear her kinship to the drumset from the opening notes of "Free Mandela!", which begins with Moholo's rather militaristic playing and the abbreviated notes coming from Schweizer's piano. In the same way that an extended drum roll is used to heighten the music's tension, Schweizer repeats short phrases in order to make her Schlippenbach-esque flourishes sound all the more breathtaking, increasing in power as Moholo's tempestuous drums carry her from one phrase to the next.

Schweizer is also a very modest player, content to stick to the melody line for extended periods of time in order to let Moholo's drums rise to the surface. One gets so caught up in his clamorous playing that Schweizer's dissonant detours may occasionally go unnoticed. "Mra", a rendition of one of Chris McGregor's best compositions with the Brotherhood of Breath, continues very much in this vein, with Schweizer's antiphonal solos interacting with the swing of Moholo's drums, whose frantic snare rolls build alongside his intense cymbal work. The tune is nearly unrecognizable for four and a half minutes until the pianist launches into the meat of McGregor's theme, confining herself to its beautiful cadences while exploring it at the lowest and highest registers of her instrument. The two reach an ecstatic conclusion to the whistles and cheers of the audience, whose clapping seems to flow organically into a shockingly laid-back rendition of Dudu Pukwana's "Angel".


For a European improviser, Schweizer seems surprisingly at home on these township themes, sounding very much like Abdullah Ibrahim at the height of his powers. However, the real highlight of the session is the final suite, "Exile: Song for Johnny Dyani / Africa Memories / We Will Win the War". The legacy of The Blue Notes runs deep here, especially with Moholo now being the group's only surviving member. Without the guidance of a theme, Schweizer lets her piano run loose, punctuating her wild improvisations with circular melodies and imploring one-note repetitions. The neverending stream of marching themes, which seem to emanate simultaneously from every part of Moholo's kit, gives way to a brief, unaccompanied piano solo whose Aki Takahashi-like phrasings shine with particular brilliance. By the piece's end, the dialogue between these two players is remarkable; they seem to be speaking to each other in constantly evolving phrases, urging each other on to new harmonic territory. Eventually it becomes impossible to say who is playing melodically and who is carrying the rhythm, as Schweizer's frequent reintroduction of the theme allows Moholo to govern the music's direction, while at other moments the drummer's iron rhythms give his partner the freedom to circle around him wildly in new, exciting constellations. Listening to each other, pausing for thought, and responding accordingly.

Irene Schweizer & Louis Moholo (Intakt, 1988; 192 kbps, 53.7 mb)

(Re)new(ed) blogs

Before taking off for the weekend, I wanted to draw attention to a few fellow-travelers on the blog spectrum.

Conventional Sound, run by John Hinkle, is a recently revived blog focusing on psychedelic rock and folk weirdness, well-documented and with concise descriptions that probably make you wonder why this blog is filled with so much text. Recent updates include:

These Trails - 1973 - These Trails
Bill Fay - 1971 - Time of the Last Persecution
Music Emporium - 1969 - Music Emporium
July - July (1968)
Kaleidoscope - Tangerine Dream

Sun of Latin Music, run by Julian Drago, is a brand-new Latin music journal focusing on "70s Nuyorican salsa to Latin soul to plena to guajira and beyond, all with an admittedly Puerto Rican bias." More than just a dumping-place for albums, Sun of Latin Music also seems to have plenty of room for scattered reflections on Latin music and live videos culled from YouTube. Updates include:

El Cumbanchero (Rafael Hernandez) - a spotlight on variations of the song by folks like Ismael Rivera, Celia Cruz, Xavier Cugat, and more
Javier Vazquez - Javier (1976)
Willie Colon - La Murga (video)

And I'd like to begin a new tradition here on Meshes of the Afternoon, hereby dubbed "Feline Friday."


Esther Watter, in one of her quieter moments, sprawled out on her favorite blanket

Mutant Disco (ZE)

2003 reissue on ZE of the 1981 compilation that adds an incredible nineteen tracks to the original six, making this not much of a reissue at all but an entirely new release. Subtitled "A Subtle Discolation of the Norm", Mutant Disco plumbs the back catalogue of legendary no-wave / disco / punk-funk label ZE Records, formed in 1978 by Michael Esteban and Michael Zilkha. The French-born Esteban, with his partner in crime Lizzy Mercier Descloux, played a vital part in documenting the early punk scenes of New York and London -- before all those bands signed to major labels, that is. ZE Records was conceived as an independent homebase where dance music and avant-garde leanings could freely cross-pollinate, making its music some of the most vibrant, distinctive, and refreshing of the era.

The most obvious example of this synthesis is James White and the Blacks, who contribute "Contort Yourself" to the collection. With its angular bass, female backing vocals, and James Chance/White's trademark saxophone squealing all rolling over a firm dance beat complete with cowbell and hi-hat, it clearly displays the incestuous relationship that punk and disco had developed by the late '70s. The rest of the music here is more obviously danceable but no less exciting, like Lizzy Descloux's "Funky Stuff" and "Fire", hotblooded disco numbers that create a dense mix of vaguely tropical rhythms, slithery bass lines, sharply picked guitars and Descloux's sexy French accent. Another highlight are the tracks by Cristina, a now-forgotten figure on the disco scene who delivers an incredible version of The Beatles' "Drive My Car" as well as the epic and self-reflexive "Blame it on Disco", whose leisurely horns tell the tale of a wife's neglect while her errant husband dances the night away.

The exuberant silliness continues on excellent cuts like the Aural Exciters' "Spooks in Space," which opens up with a quote from The Shirelles' "Mama Said"; Coati Mundi's Afro-Caribbean and salsa influenced "Que Pasa / Me No Pop I," complete with lyrics about Fred Astaire, James Dean and Lenny Bruce over a popping bass; The Waitresses' new wave classic "I Know What Boys Like"; Garcons' hard and fast rhythms with cries of "dance dance, watch the French boy dance!"; Kid Creole's sultry "I'm a Wonderful Thing Baby"; and Was (Not Was)'s uncategorizable jazzy-disco-percussive weirdness heard at various points during Mutant Disco's running time. (Also featured is Bill Laswell's Material, but, to be honest, I just don't like them.) Overall, this is a collection of some really classic music that offers a history lesson along with its danceability, showing that disco was more than just Saturday Night Fever, ball mirrors and ugly white suits -- it was really good!

Coati Mundi - Que Pasa / Me No Pop I.mp3 (192 kbps, 8.8 mb)
va - Mutant Disco (ZE, 1981/2003) [disc 1]
va - Mutant Disco (ZE, 1981/2003) [disc 2]

Disc 1:

1. Wheel Me Out [Remix Version] - Was (Not Was)
2. Bustin' Out - Material (feat. Nona Hendryx)
3. Drive My Car - Cristina
4. Annie I'm Not Your Daddy [Remix Version] - Kid Creole & the Coconuts
5. Emile (Night Rate) - Aural Exciters
6. Contort Yourself - James White & the Blacks
7. Funky Stuff - Lizzy Mercier Descloux
8. French Boy - Garçons
9. Deputy of Love - Don Armando’s 2nd Avenue Rhumba Band
10. Cowboys & Gansters - Gichi Dan
11. Blame It on Disco - Cristina
12. Encore l'Amore [Italian Version][#] - Garçons

Disc 2:

1. Disco Clone - Cristina
2. Que Pasa/Me No Pop I - Coati Mundi
3. I'm a Wonderful Thing Baby [Remix Version] - Kid Creole & the Coconuts
4. Out Come the Freaks [Remix Version] - Was (Not Was)
5. Fire - Lizzy Mercier Descloux
6. Spooks in Space [Discomix] - Aural Exciters
7. Tell Me That I'm Dreaming - Was (Not Was)
8. Narcissique - Caroline Loeb
9. I Know What Boys Like - The Waitresses
10. Mission Impossible - Lizzy Mercier Descloux
11. Re Bop Electronic - Garçons
12. French Boy Disco Edit - Garçons
13. Faites le Proton - Casino Music

Crime Jazz: Bernstein & Mancini

Smoke is all there’s been in my life.

Part 1: Keeping time on the scene of the crime

Bernstein

The Man With the Golden Arm (Decca, 1959) is a wonderful 1955 film starring Frank Sinatra and directed by genius Otto Preminger. A controversial film – one of the first to deal openly with heroin addiction – The Man With the Golden Arm is also part of an early string of Hollywood films to feature all-out jazz soundtracks, with Sinatra playing a reformed cardshark fresh out of rehab who wants to begin life anew as a swing drummer. The soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein is one of the finest in the genre of “crime jazz,” sounding very much like the classic Duke Ellington score to Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder, leading one to believe that the filmmaker always had an ear for some fine horn playing. Some might stop short of calling Bernstein’s music “jazz”, since it features very little room for improvisation, but the prototypically “hot” drum line and hard-hitting horns that open up “Clark Street” make it difficult to place in another genre. The orchestral arrangements on “Zosh” first sound as far removed from the idiom as possible, but halfway through the listener is greeted with a slinky bass line and melancholy trumpet solo that leave no doubt about the dominant style Bernstein is working in. “The Fix” expertly conjures up images of drug addiction with its swirling strings and angular piano line, finding its greatest tension in a sustained organ note and the repetitive, sharp interruptions of the brass section, before the song fully kicks into the soundtrack’s major theme. Part of what makes this music so good is its constant variety, as “Molly” finds Bernstein in a more tender mood, orchestrating the piano, vibes, and flute to play with all the lyricism of a lullaby. “Breakup” begins with a frantic piano line and horns that predict disaster, before a drum roll suddenly changes the music to a typical rock’n’roll dance number. Rollicking through so many genres and moods over the course of his score, Bernstein combines the swing of Count Basie and the tense dynamics of Bernard Hermann into a unique, engaging synthesis.



Mancini

Orson Welles recruited the talents of Henry Mancini a few years later for his epic noir Touch of Evil (Varese Sarabande, 1958). As the film takes place on the Mexican-American border, the focus here is decidedly different than the Chicago-based Man With the Golden Arm. Mancini is much more interested in synthesizing popular music of the era like electric blues, swinging rock’n’roll, Latin jazz, and pianola music (generally associated with Marlene Dietrich’s smoky whorehouse). Percussion is almost always bongos, congas, timbales, carrying the music along with tense rhythms on tracks like “Flashing Nuisance” and “Borderline Montuna”. Since Janet Leigh has a few bad run-ins with a group of doped-up, leatherjacketed teenagers, there’s more than a few cheesy dancin’-to-the-jukebox rockers, dominating the soundtrack’s middle section until the epic “Background to Murder”, which, if you remember from the film, plays while Orson Welles strangles a man under a seedy, flickering lightbulb. The feverish drum-horn lines give way to a gentler duet between bongos and vibes, before the guitar, sax and trumpet re-enter to nudge the music on to its terrifying conclusion. The rhythm section vies for power with the beefed-up brass, whose deep honking washes away any thought of redemption for Welles’ corrupt officer, while the Tijuana trumpet blares and bleats in lamentation. “Barroom Rock” returns to the realm of honky-tonk, while “Pigeon Caged” is a smoky, understated jazz ballad. “Blue Pianola” is the second of two delightful player-piano compositions, a mid-tempo boogie-woogie with a swing that would make Pete Johnson or Jimmy Yancey proud. Overall, Mancini isn’t interested in the kind of hectic genre hopping found in Bernstein's music, preferring instead to relish the flavor of a particular style over the course of a few songs at a time, really digging into the moods and colors each evokes. Had the composer decided to copy the style first laid out by The Man With the Golden Arm, Touch of Evil would not be as fine a contribution as it is to the neglected genre of crime jazz.

Elmer Bernstein - The Fix.mp3 (192 kbps, 4.9 mb)
Elmer Bernstein - The Man With the Golden Arm (Decca, 1959) + Henry Mancini - Touch of Evil (Varese Sarabanda, 1958) -- 134.7 mb total

Luckey Roberts & Willie "The Lion" Smith - Harlem Piano

Today I want to share with you one of my most cherished albums, Harlem Piano (Good Time Jazz, 1958), which is split equally between two of the absolute giants of stride piano, Luckey Roberts (1887-1968) and Willie "The Lion" Smith (1897-1973). Stride is, of course, a type of playing originated sometime around 1919 by performers like Roberts, Smith, James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, Earl Hines, Eubie Blake and Claude Hopkins, who took the dynamics of ragtime and added improvisation, swing rhythms, and classical flair, turning America's first popular music into a full-fledged jazz idiom. The left hand tends to keep a steady bass line while the right adds melodies, riffs, and improvised runs. Unlike ragtime, which was generally published as written music, stride is entirely performance-based, and the blistering techniques used by most stride pianists prevented composers like Luckey from selling their music. As Tom Roberts recollects in his liner notes to Roberts Plays Roberts (Stomp Off, 1999), when Eubie Blake presented some of his music to publisher Joseph W. Stern, he was told it was absolutely wonderful, but who could play it aside from him, Luckey Roberts, and a few other hopelessly talented musicians?

Due to the spirit of the era and the paucity of its studio technology, many of the greatest early stride performers left little or no recorded music behind. Charles Luckeyeth Roberts was a king, but he has only three dates as a leader to his credit, recording once in 1946 and twice in 1958. Since the early history of stride was primarily an oral one with folks like Roberts passing down their knowledge via live demonstration, and also because the pianist was financially well-off as a long-running bandleader and shrewd real estate owner, there was simply no pressing need to record; if it didn't contribute to your livelihood, why bother? For a man who supposedly taught Duke all he knew, it's truly a shame that he wasn't forced into the studio on a more regular basis, but sometimes the brightest stars fall through the air without giving a damn for posterity.

A large man who reportedly beat off three thugs who attempted to mug him one night in Harlem before dragging their bodies off to the police station, Roberts had enormous hands that could spread to play a fourteenth on the piano, causing some to speculate that he had the webbing of his fingers surgically removed. The man tears into his pieces, as one can hear on the flurry of notes that opens the version of "Nothin'" on this album, while "Railroad Blues" is a vigorous stomper whose left-hand pulse imitates the chugging noises of a locomotive. I've alway thought that Roberts was the most distinctive of the big three -- himself, Smith, and Johnson -- because of his penchant for off-beat melodies, classical themes, and introverted detours. Songs like "Spanish Fandango", "Complainin'", and the seven-minute "Inner Space" veer away from their main themes again and again, a liberty the other stride pianists didn't seem to permit themselves nearly as often. Dainty and powerful, lyrical and ferocious, these six selections are a treasure for anyone who appreciates the early heyday of jazz piano.


Luckey Roberts (left) and Willie "The Lion" Smith (right) stooping on the streets of Harlem

William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff Smith, aka Willie "The Lion" Smith, is far better known in the history of jazz, crafting more of a public persona for himself with his omnipresent derby hat and long cigar. A WWI veteran (how he earned his nickname) and the son of black and Jewish parents, Smith was born in Goshen, NY but grew up in Newark before relocating to Harlem to participate in the vibrant jazz scene. He left behind a large body of work, even an album of reminiscences with accompanying renditions of his favorite songs: a living key to the past rather than a name lost to the annals. He was recorded many times by Decca in the '30s and later by Commodore, often with his backing band, The Cubs. That era is capture on The Chronological Willie "The Lion" Smith: 1925-1937 (Classics, 1996), which I suggest you all seek out as the playing on tunes like "There's Gonna Be the Devil to Pay" and "Finger Buster" is absolutely phenomenal.

By the time of the 1958 cuts on this release, Smith had mostly moved away from the Dixieland fire of his early work, here stretching out on six compositions that alternate between the sound of popular rags and more idiosyncratic, Roberts-esque territory. "Tango a la Caprice" has the most classical flair of the session, with lighting-fast improvisations dropped like bombs within the interstices of the melody. "Relaxin'" is true to its title, with a leisurely bass that leaves plenty of room for light, playful melodies in the higher registers, while "Rippling Water" creates tension between a short, repetitive riff and the finger-busting runs that comprise its contrapuntal theme -- it may just be the best track here. Smith also reprises some of his best early work, songs like "Morning Air", "Concentratin'" and "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea". This is not only the perfect introduction to two masters of stride, but also one of the finest documents of an all-but-dead style that no one will ever convincingly replicate.

Luckey Roberts - Spanish Fandango.mp3 (183 kbps VBR, 6.9 mb)
Luckey Roberts/Willie "The Lion" Smith - Harlem Piano (Good Time Jazz, 1958)

Historical information mostly culled from stridepiano.com, wikipedia, and allmusic -- the amateur writer's best friends.

David Tudor - Three Works for Live Electronics

Three Works for Live Electronics (Lovely Music, 1996) features a handful of blistering, insane pieces by John Cage’s former right-hand man, pianist David Tudor. This is challenging music that is no easier to describe, as Tudor attempts to create a truly original syntax for electronic sound that does not borrow liberally from other genres or even previous avant-garde visionaries. Getting off to a vigorous start, “Pulsers” lives up to its name with pounding analog rhythms that throb in tandem with their own high-pitched reverberations. Speeding up, slowing down, the jackhammer sounds create their own echo, until those echoes seem to mutate and split apart from their origins to become independent components engaging in a complex polyrhythm. Philip Corner’s “Pulse Polyphony” makes a good point of reference, but this is far less pretty and metallic, almost brutal in its percussive purity. A third of the way through, the aggressive rhythms begin to make room for more abstract soundscapes, sounding like keyboards with an endless potential for reverb -- like Doctor Who meets the locomotive from outer space. The sheer speed of these analog sounds is only a step behind the manic concoctions of today's Venetian Snares.

Composed in 1972, “Untitled” is an extended foray into electronic sound production “without the use of oscillators, tone generators, or recorded natural sound materials" (Lovely Music). Recorded again in 1982 with improvised vocals from Takehisa Kosugi, the harshness of "Untitled" is stunning for this era of electronic music, the only names to come to mind being Robert Ashley or Remko Scha, but this could easily be a piece by modern noise maestros Whitehouse or Merzbow. Shrill tones are thrown through a sonic meat grinder, spitting them back out in stuttering waves with subtler electronic chirping that would sound equally at home on a random Erstwhile release. The wordless vocal accompaniment babbles on in the background with the quality of a religious chant, submerged again and again by the radio-frequencies-gone-wild that spring from Tudor’s deft hands. A hundred dying birds stuck in a frantically skipping turntable.

“Phonemes”, the longest piece here, finds Tudor in a subtler mood, not quite as relentless as he stretches out over the thirty-minute running time. An addition to the original 1984 lp, “Phonemes” begins with some long, drawn out tones that vary radically in pitch, making noises akin to Wily Coyote as he falls off a cliff and descends to the bottom of the canyon. Five minutes in, Tudor gives us hints of strange rumblings making their way to their surface, and by twenty minutes he’s created a full-fledged stew of bubbly, gurgling electronic blips and scrapes, not terribly different from those heard prior on Three Pieces but in a much more subdued, dare I say mature manner. The snarling is still there, but given the consistency of running water as opposed to fiery lava. Deep, chainsaw-like waves help grind the piece to a halt, each new tone becoming increasingly fractured, as if the jaws of Tudor’s machine could not help but inhale its surroundings only to gnash them apart with its teeth. Perhaps because of its length and lack of focus, “Phonemes” is the least immediately appealing of Tudor’s compositions featured on this release, but unhappy listeners can console themselves with the fact that this is, after all, only a bonus track. And these are only the superficial reflections of a first, cursory listen; another difficulty with music this boldly independent, so entirely removed from tradition, is the fact that it requires new emotional states of its listener rather than playing on the strings of the old ones.

David Tudor - Three Works for Live Electronics (Lovely Music, 1996, 240 kbps VBR, 121.5 mb)

Blogger Seth Watter turns 20!

Happy unbirthday to you, and happy birthday to Seth! To celebrate the day, blog-style, I thought I would post a collection of girl pop songs perfect for a birthday (or if you just lost your boyfriend, or your best friend betrayed you). Growin' Up Too Fast is one of the best girl group collections I've come across. Despite the popularity and enormity (four discs as compared to Growin's two) of Girl Group Sounds: Lost and Found, I think this compilation has better hooks and is more upbeat rather than ballad-y.

The song I've chosen specifically, "Birthday Party" by the Pixies Three, was first featured in Seth's last birthday on an animal-themed mix I made for him (the title of which I'll spare him). The compilation has other birthday and party songs to offer, however, like "442 Glenwood Avenue," "What's So Sweet About Sweet Sixteen" and "Everybody Loves Saturday Night," to name a few. The two-CD set perfectly evokes pin the tail on the donkey, fruit punch, and also crying when you don't get your way.

For the avant-garde heads in the crowd, I apologize for the unabashed pop in this post. However, if you think birthdays are the exclusive realm of the lyrical and melodic, Seth's birthday gift will be to see the Friday night line-up of the 2007 Vision Festival including performances by Matthew Shipp, Fred Anderson Trio, and "50 Violins for Leroy Jenkins." Expect a review to follow!

Happy Birthday, Sethie!

The Pixies Three - "Birthday Party"
Growin' Up Too Fast (Disc 1)
Growin' Up Too Fast (Disc 2)

Michel F. Côté - 63 Apparitions

An obscure and unfortunately neglected record by key Ambiances Magnétiques player Michel F. Côté, 63 Apparitions (&records, 2004) was originally written as a choreographical piece performed in Montreal. While I have no idea what the visual counterpart may have been or the significance of its title, I do know that this is stunningly beautiful music that deserves to be reappraised. Composed by Bruire frontman Côté and sounding very much like a continuation of his work in Klaxon Gueule, 63 Apparitions also features the playing of Christof Migone and labelmate Martin Tetreault on various objects, as well as the unrecognizable voice of AM staple Diane Labrosse. The fifteen brief tracks here all begin and end quite awkwardly, as if a continuous recording had been separated into pieces and re-shuffled. Côté's main axe is the drum, but you'd be hard-pressed to tell from this strange melange of percussion, electronics, piano, vocal manipulations and orchestral samples. Everything sounds remarkably organic, blending the electronic and the acoustic into a fluid whole.

Tracks 1-8 puff along in a kind of jerky stop-start mode, reaching interesting plateaus but never quite building to a climax. Even with the intrusion of classical music by track 9, there is never the sense of resolution, as what sounds like a melancholy excerpt from one of Gorecki's string quartets -- though I've read only Cage and Satie listed as sources -- is quickly eclipsed by Côté's trademark electronic gurgle and twittering sine waves. A sample is never allowed the freedom to play for more than a few phrases at a time, deferring importance to the insect-like buzzings of Côté's setup. Not a quoter, Côté's use of prerecorded music turns those fragments into dreamlike snippets from elsewhere, fully absorbing them into his own aural narrative. He gradually effaces the sound of strings and woodwinds beneath oscillating tones and rough scrapes; noises equivelent to fireworks (track 1), accordions (track 8) and airplane motors (track 11) prevent the music from reaching a maudlin conclusion. And it is always the orchestra that sounds bland and repetitive, never the "lesser" instruments of the computer and the mixing board.

As I walked around Yonkers, NY's Untermyer Park today, a space I've known intimately for the past fifteen years, I listened to the snatches of melody 63 Apparitions offered up through my headphones. Untermyer is filled with ruined and decaying buildings, overgrown vegetation and crumbling faux-Roman architecture. I couldn't help but thinking that Côté's music provided my stroll with a perfect soundtrack, appearing before me as the fragments of a damaged landscape whose former splendor was now buried beneath layers of grime. Far from robbing the original of its beauty, the new elements accumulating atop it had turned it into something even more beautiful, with so much texture concentrated in each surface that I broke off a piece of the pool's flooring with the heel of my shoe to pocket and take home with me. And I again came to the realization that music is that which helps animate the mute ugliness of the world around us: one view, a thousand notes.

Michel F. Côté - Track 11 (192 kbps, 7.2 mb)
Michel F. Côté - 63 Apparitions (&records, 2004)

Mori & Whitman at Issue Project Room, 6/15/07

Ikue Mori at her laptop following her performance Friday night

Anyone who was present Friday night down at Brooklyn's Issue Project Room was in for a real delight Located in Carroll Gardens, the venue is housed in an abandoned two-story silo in the former industrial district. Up a flight of stairs in the circular performance space, Ikue Mori and Keith Fullerton Whitman treated a crowd of roughly 100 people to an hour and a half of electronic manipulations, including (but not limited to) beeps, boops, pops, scratches, whirrs, clicks, drones, and the occasional refrain.

The two artists need no introduction. (Let's face it, this isn't a real publication and I know who my audience is.) Disappointingly, the two artists did not collaborate, and from what I could tell it was their first time meeting in person. Each gave a set of approximately 45 minutes, and for once I was thankful for the short running time so I could make the trek back to Midtown and then hop on a bus back to the Jersey suburbs, still arriving home before 1:00. What really made the performance special was the rare opportunity to hear both artists perform within Issue Project Room's new audio setup, featured all of June in a program called "Points in a Circle". Other participating artists this month include Lee Ranaldo, Tim Hecker, Annea Lockwood, Elliot Sharp, and Dion Workman, to name only a few. Issue Project Room will unfortunately be leaving the silo on 400 Carroll St at the end of the month to "embark on a new Brooklyn adventure," as its owner/curator told the audience. So to see Mori and Whitman perform this past Friday was truly a historic experience as well as an aesthetic one.

The goal of "Points in a Circle" is to explore, exploit, and utilize Stephan Moore's innovative sixteen-channel speaker system, suspended throughout the circular space and radiating sound in all directions. For the audience, this means being placed directly within the sonic bed, bombarded on all sides by a dizzying array of multi-directional noises. The darkness of the space and the stillness of the performers invited you to close your eyes and appreciate the concert on a purely aural level, rejecting the spectacle of moving bodies and light shows one becomes accustomed to at major venues. Far from a novelty, the speaker system truly expands what is possible when dissemninating sound and the way an audience can interact with it, perhaps influenced by La Monte Young's and Marian Zazeela's womb-like design for The Dream House. Though Mori and Whitman work within similar musical idioms, their very different styles came through in the radically different ways they inhabited Moore's sonic architecture.


1/4 of Stephan Moore's 16-channel hemisphere speaker system

Mori, silent and demure, played a laptop-only set quite similar in tone to her last few releases for Tzadik, 2001's Labyrinth and 2005's Myrninerest. The former DNA drummer deftly wove a tapestry of small, delicate noises that spluttered their way from speaker to speaker, darting about the room in circular configurations. Mori has a peculiar way of clustering sound together, combining a variety of samples into heavily concentrated units that sound like several melodies being scrambled at once. Her quiet yet manic approach to the laptop is truly unique, bottling up energy and releasing it in short, hyperventilated breaths. Halfway through, the composer introduced what sounded like a sample from an electronic harp, conjuring up the image of Mori's frequent partner in crime, Zeena Parkins. The gentle melody faded and resurfaced again during the continuous 45-minute set, introducing moments of clarity among the general confusion. As the music darted behind your head from ear to ear, one could liken the experience to that of being hunted by a flying snake, whose sudden movements rendered any visual recognition of the attacker impossible. Most amazing is the way that Mori used the space in a way that vision could never hope to replicate. Quite simply, we do not have eyes in the back of our head -- only a speaker system is capable of stimulating us from both the front and behind.

Whitman's approach to the Points in a Circle design was decidedly less intellectual and for this reason the less exciting of the two, but the composer balanced this oversight with sheer sonic beauty. One major difference I saw in his performance was its very physical nature, accomplished through a much higher volume and the use of almost every speaker simultaneously. While Mori used the space as if it were a maze, Whitman saw it as a juggernaut. Bringing his own amp, Whitman also had the advantage of using sounds from the ceiling and the floor. Starting off with some very short, abrasive sounds that punctuated the air like hammer blows, the performance gradually shifted into the ethereal, chiming high tones characteristic of Whitman's Playthroughs (Kranky, 2002), with a dash of the stuttering rhythms one commonly associates with his drill'n'bass moniker, Hrvatski. The setup here was slightly more elaborate than Ikue's, with a mixing board and guitar in addition to the laptop. I most enjoyed the kind of one-two punch offered by the artist's combination of swirling, transcendent sounds emanating from the ceiling with the deep, chest-rattling bass that rose from the floor, as if my body had become a meeting place for the competing forces of heaven and hell. While Mori's music is, for me, a very decentered experience, I find Whitman to be very much in the tradition of the climax, building to impossible heights and letting things quickly ebb before climaxing again. In short, it was a performance both lovely and intense. Though it did not prompt me to ruminate on the three-dimensionality of sound, it made my head swim with its possessive, insistent, trance-like movements.

"Points in a Circle" is the last hurrah for Issue Project Room, and who knows when Moore will again find a performance space as appropriate for his design as the abandoned silo has proven to be. And, though I made the trip there to see the two musicians on display Friday night, Moore is really each concert's unsung hero, the true instigator for this amazing, unique audience experience. It was an exhilerating moment when we all rose from our seats and stepped out into the warm summer air, but a sad one as well, with our knowledge that the space behind us would soon vanish like a stray melody.

Ikue Mori and Keith Fullerton Whitman performed at 8:00 PM on June 15, 2007 at Issue Project Room, 400 Carroll St., Brooklyn, NY.

A break in the road

My girlfriend is staying with me this weekend, so I'm going to call a hiatus on posting for a few days. However, in the meantime, I'd like to point in the direction of some excellent music I've been listening to lately courtesy of other blogs:

No-Y-Z - Sheer Electronic Din (Azra, 1983)
Maurice Mcintyre - Humility in the Light of the Creator (Delmark, 1969)
Rod Poole - The Death Adder (Win, 1996)

Also, if all goes well, I'll be seeing Keith Whitman and Ikue Mori tomorrow night at Brooklyn's Issue Project Room, so expect some exclusive coverage of the event!

Tony Schwartz - Music in the Streets

Tony Schwartz: In any city in the world, you'll find music being played in the streets. Whether as a matter of necessity or inclination, or a combination of both, you will find street musicians and their music. At sundown, a lone saxophone player walks the white line down the middle of the street, while a guitar-maker speaks of the tradition of street musicians...

The image is laughably contrived, almost cinematic in nature: a man playing scattered jazz riffs against the setting sun, stumbling around the avenues of the city. Who knows if it's real? Either way, it has that touch of the timeless, the iconic -- like that scene from Manhattan with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton silhouetted on a park bench against the Hudson. And when we stop caring about what's real or fake, true or false, something beautiful emerges: the power of melodrama to transform everyday life.

Guitar-maker: I'd hate to live in a place where no one ever got the idea of going out in the street and singing a song or playing an instrument. There'd be something wrong, basically wrong with that place... but it's a worldwide thing, it seems to be a basic human thing, you know, to want to sing and play songs for the people. So when you can't do it in a commercial machine that regulates the processes that finally get someone in front of the people, you know, to sing or to play music, then you have to do it on your own, you do it in the simplest fashion, you just go out where there are people, where you can reach them, and you sing and you play. If they like it they contribute to your livelihood, if they don't, they don't. But out of it all comes a very, you know, interesting aura around the whole human pattern and especially in the city, it gets very warm and people like it. A few don't, but there are a few who don't like most anything.

The wandering saxophone melody continues to play in the background, mixing with ambient noise from the street and the honking of cars. And thus begins one of the finest pieces of field recording ever put to tape, Tony Schwartz's Music in the Streets (Smithsonian Folkways, 1957).

I've been fascinated with this lp since I happened upon it in our radio station's music library, rifling through piles of records in an attempt to find something interesting for my next show. Intrigued by the title and the cover, I flipped it over and was pleasantly surprised to see the Reverend Gary Davis and Moondog listed as performers. But that was just the icing on the cake: the most amazing music here is by the unknowns and the amateurs, ranging from jazz bands at Italian street festivals to a classically-trained fiddler in front of Carnegie Hall, from a group of young boys in a bongo dance ensemble to the folk staples down at Washington Square, not to mention the mysterious glass bowl player whose kit consists of items bought at the .5 and .10-cent store. Church bells, gospel groups, and the sounds of parades make their way into the limelight as well, and throughout the course of this avenue odyssey the musicians speak of their experiences as street performers, placing more monetary and practical concerns alongside the odder ramblings of Moondog.

Part of the joy of this album is the real love it exudes for city life; it reminds you why you love NYC in addition to the t-shirt you never wear that tells you you love NYC. Schwartz, the man who brought you Sounds of My City (Smithsonian Folkways, 1956) and The New York Taxi Driver (Columbia, '59), narrates the loosely organized sections with his husky voice, painting a portrait of urban splendor and diversity. Marshall Macluhan once called him a paragon of the new media guru, an emerging breed whose use of technology allows greater freedom in the subject-object dialectic involved when documenting modern life. And, as in cinema verité, the speaking subject is allowed a certain degree of control over the proceedings.

The other half of Music in the Streets' charm lies in its editing technique, placing just the right vocal sample against the appropriate musical backdrop to create the most vivid and memorable snapshots of the city. Imagine the sound of a marching band that subtly fades in volume to allow a wide-eyed girl to rise to the foreground, sounding like Shirley Temple as she intones: "When you're at a parade, it seems that you would like to BE in a parade, because when you're RIGHT THERE, it seems as though you could just walk right into the parade!" Schwartz awakens in us the feeling of being a child... or a tourist. I'll be the first to admit it's an incredibly manipulative technique, but then again, who doesn't mind being treated to the right candy? Everyone has a sweet tooth.

Tony Schwartz - Parades, Part 1.mp3 (320 kbps, 4.7 mb)
Tony Schwartz - Music in the Streets (Smithsonian Folkways, 1957)

(I ripped this from the original vinyl; the record clicks and pops its way along, but I'm sure that only adds to the effect. The original didn't really have a tracklisting, divided as it was into four long segments with a list of performers on the back. On top of that, not all of the vignettes are documented, so at times I've had to guess at who or what is being played. This new track division and labelling I've made breaks the movements up into individual pieces based on the original fade-ins and fade-outs.)

Teiji Ito - Tenno

Teiji Ito all instruments including wooden flutes, ryuteki, hichiriki, shakuhachi, koto, shamisen, taiko, tsutsumi, frame drums, tom toms, ki, woodblocks, bells, rattles, gongs, steel drums, thumb piano, maimbula, log drum, timpani, cymbals, prayer bells, glass bowls, temple blocks, glass bottles, clapping, tambourine, maracas, shakers, sticks, percussion, drum set, trumpet, horns, conch shells, sho, voice, sound effects, turntable, electronics

That's a lot of instruments for one man -- and I don't even know what a good deal of them are -- but composer Teiji Ito (1935-1982) has always been one for the small and obscure. It only seems fair to devote a post to the man and his music, as this blog takes its name from one of the first films he scored, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid's classic Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). For anyone who's seen the film, one of its most enduring elements is its music, composed after the fact by Ito in 1959. Severe and hypnotic, the score transforms the original silent with its shrill flutes and arrythmic percussion -- sometimes intersecting, sometimes not, but always unsettling.

The Tokyo-born composer led an interesting life, relocating to New York at age 6 and running away from home at age 15, where he met Deren, began scoring her films, and married her in his early 20s following a trip to Haiti. On the downtown music scene, Ito became known for his strange mix of avant-garde genres with traditional Eastern and African music, leading John Zorn to call the 1964 piece Tenno (Tzadik, 2007) a "postmodern masterpiece." I haven't brought myself to finish reading Zorn's overwrought liner notes, but there is indeed something culturally schizophrenic about this music, alternating as it does between harsh electronic soundscapes, Japanese and Voudoo rhythms, and snippets of jazz.

This infinite combination of traditions is felt more fully on Tenno than anywhere else in Ito's catalogue, as the suite sustains itself continuously for nearly an hour. While the film scores are definitely loose, they're marked by a kind of intense economy of sound. Not so on Tenno: with an array of tape machines and electronics, Ito uses the breadth of his musical knowledge to create one giant, meandering hodge-podge of a composition with layers upon layers of instrumentation. To borrow a quote from Edouard Glissant: "there is no clear path, no way forward, in this density."

"Part II" of Tenno begins with the harsh striking of a gong, followed by a variety of rumbling percussive instruments that fade into a recording of what sounds like the sea, before the waves break over a frantically strummed Japanese guitar(?). Once the pre-recorded sound of running water fades, the composer transforms his own materials into a sea-like construct, with each instrument becoming an echoing rivulet that rises and swells in this body of water. While I'm reluctant to throw around the word "postmodern" like a grenade, Ito's complex use of overdubbing and his blurring of the line between live, recorded, acoustic and electronic does bear a striking resemblance to much more recent developments in avant-garde music, rendering any concern for a model-copy relationship completely irrelevant.

Teiji Ito - Tenno (Tzadik, 1964/2007, 192 kbps, 71.3 mb)

Reissued for the first time since 1964, Tenno is the second in Tzadik's retrospective series of Ito's work, following their release of King Ubu (1998) almost ten years ago. I was excited upon buying this album to see that the label plans to release at least two more full cds of Ito's music, prospectively titled Watermill and Music for Maya. The only other current release I know of is Meshes: Music for Films and Theater (What Next, 1997), containing both of Ito's amazing scores for Deren's films (Meshes and her last completed film, 1952's The Very Eye of Night). On that note, it is my pleasure to present Tenno, a lost classic and a testament to the fact that culture-crossing is not always a laughable new age scheme or imperialist rape, but can truly expand the range of what is artistically possible.

Daydream Nation: all dressed up in fancy clothes

The world is dull, but not today...

Remember the opening chords of "Teenage Riot" and how inspiring they were when you were in high school? Remember how hot Kim Gordon sounded when she made those moaning sounds on "Eliminator Jr."? What about Lee Ranaldo's neo-Beatnik ramblings on "Eric's Trip"? Remember when guitar feedback was just about the best thing since sliced bread? Remember when your parents asked you what the hell those horrible screeching noises coming from your bedroom were? Remember when Sonic Youth were young, and awesome?

Once you got into it, Daydream Nation (Geffen, 1988) really was a perfect album. I remember finding it in my stepfather's cd bin and wondering what it was doing there among Bonnie Raitt and the Eurythmics. I put it on, was amazed by the first song, and then was equally amazed that the rest was unlistenable noise. Up to that point, the only music I was really listening to was classic rock and Radiohead. I shelved it.

A number of months later, I took a long trip to Washington, D.C. for school. The ride was four hours long, and to make the day worthwhile our group left New Jersey at 4 or 5 in the morning. While everyone else slept, I put on Daydream Nation and listened to it from start to finish. Once I gave myself up to its swirling mass of distorted guitars and atonal vocals, I began my conversion to the world of the avant-garde, leading me beyond Pink Floyd to downtown mainstays like Glenn Branca and DNA. The band that I had previously known only as cameos on The Simpsons' Hullabalooza episode became a gateway to a world of the beyond, with their fluid blend of indie rock, art-school pretense and experimental skronk offering a little something to chew on for all sides of my evolving personality.

Nostalgia aside, Geffen Records has finally remastered Daydream Nation for a new deluxe edition, now including an extra disc of live and demo recordings, as well as a handful of unreleased covers -- a real treasure for Sonic Youth fans, especially in light of last year's The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities (Geffen, 2006). Though surely intended as another big label money-maker, the sound here is excellent -- even on the live cuts -- giving me a reason to finally replace my original copy of the album that my friend damaged beyond repair (the reason I no longer loan things without reservation...) I'm still making my way through the second disc, but I couldn't contain my excitement upon getting a copy of this treat. You know something is good when you aren't afraid to gush over it three, four, five years later. Here's to Thurston, Kim, Lee, and Steve, whose surreal, drug-fueled rendering of downtown NYC still managed to touch a young boy living in the suburbs of New Jersey.

Is posting this going to get me shut down? Let's hope not.

Sonic Youth - Hey Joni [live].mp3 (214 kbps VBR, 5.7 mb)
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation (Geffen, 1988/2007, 226.1 mb)


Sonic Youth today: they're so old -- does that mean we're getting old too?

Girls at Our Best - Pleasure

One of the finest groups from the early '80s Leeds scene, Girls at Our Best lived fast and died young, originally formed in 1979 as The Butterflies before breaking up a mere three years later. Short-lived as they were, the group released three singles in 1980 and another in 1981, later compiled with the b-sides on their sole lp, Pleasure (Happy Birthday, 1982). The group's name is misleading as the only female here is vocalist Judy Evans, who spearheads the group with her childish falsetto. The rest of the quartet is filled out by James Alan (guitar), Gerard Swift (bass), a D. Carl Harper (drums), though the latter is preceded by drummer Chris Oldroyd on their breakthrough single "Getting Nowhere Fast" (later covered by fellow Brits The Wedding Present).

Fun and exuberant, the band sounds like a less-kitschy Waitresses or an early inspiration for The Pipettes' brand of buoyant indie pop. The album title gives it away: this is post-punk with an exceptionally light tone, with songs about shopping and having fun around town, picking up girls, and politicians who dance the night away. But the lyrics are not without a sarcastic undertone, betrayed as they are by bouncy synth lines and squiggly clarinets. "Politics" pokes fun at the tradition of globe-trotting baby-kissers, "Go for Gold" paints a picture of middle-class excess, while "It's Fashion" ironically instructs the viewer to follow the band's trend-setting example. "We are your future, and we are fashion!" intones Evans over a churning, angular guitar line. Perhaps it's not a coherent political agenda, but it shows that a critical attitude doesn't need to be matched by an equally sour musical style. The ferocity of three chords gives way to interesting, complex melodies and a refreshing variety of instrumentation.

All of the singles are wonderful, though numerous other highlights abound in GAOB's extant catalogue. Somehow, the original ten songs on Pleasure were expanded to seventeen on the 1994 Vinyl Japan reissue, encompassing the band's entire musical history. The file also includes their posthumously released Peel Session, which languished in the archives for years until Strange Fruit released it in 1987. Just a note: "Getting Nowhere Fast" ends abruptly at 2 minutes, but this is how it was originally and always will be released. That sudden ending has become something of a hallmark, speaking as it does of a generation's nonchalant, don't-care-about-the-future attitude.

Girls at Our Best - Politics.mp3 (192 kbps, 4.6 mb)
Girls at Our Best - Pleasure (Happy Birthday, 1982/Vinyl Japan, 1994) + Peel Session (Strange Fruit, 1987)

From some nice person's website:

Singles

Getting Nowhere Fast/Warm Girls (1980, Record Records)
Politics!/It's Fashion (1980, Record Records)
Go For Gold/I'm Beautiful Now (1981, Happy Birthday Records)
Fast Boyfriends/This Train (1981, Happy Birthday Records)

Albums

Pleasure (1982, Happy Birthday Records)
The Peel Sessions EP (1987, Strange Fruit; recorded in February 1981; contains, among other selections, a medley of three singles)
Pleasure rerelease (1994, Vinyl Japan; contains all singles, A and B sides).

Hop along to Bunnygrunt's Jen-Fi

Although I have a behind-the-scenes influence (play this! play that!) on what goes over the air for Seth's radio show, the predecessor to this blog, I've rarely gotten to contribute very much. And now that I have the opportunity to share music without confronting my irrational fear of public speaking, I probably still will not contribute all that much.


However, I would like to share Bunnygrunt's best album with you, Jen-Fi. This album, upon first listen, may seem simple but I would be surprised if you weren't still going back to it 6 months later. The nonsensical lyrics and the predilection for fun can lighten any bad mood and consistently serves as a great thing to listen to in the morning.

Jen-Fi distinguishes itself from Bunnygrunt's other albums by an unfortunately fleeting line-up. The band, originally started in 1993 by Matt Harnish and Karen Ried who continue to form the core of the group. However, in the mist of line-up shifts, Jen-Fi was recorded with bassist Jen Wolfe who seemingly brought the sound together from the coarser too-soft to be rock, too-unfinished to be catchy earlier releases to create a pop gem and lent her name to the album's title. Follow up Karen Hater's Club suffers from problems similar to the older albums. Where is pop wonder Jen Wolfe now? Well, not in would-be-Christian-rock band Jenny Wolfe and the Pack. Don't make that mistake as I did!

So, as you slip on your undies, clean your room, or for whatever reason find yourself unpleasantly staying in your parents' house, this is the album you should put on.

Bunnygrunt - "Here Come the Vampires"
Bunnygrunt - Jen-Fi


Image of elusive Jen Wolfe taken moments before departing from Bunnygrunt.