Trapist

The Golden Years
Staubgold Digital 19

Although no one would ever confuse the improvisations on this CD with ecclesiastical plainsong, the fact that this Canadian/German/Austrian trio’s name suggests the Trappist order, implies the deferential skill it brings to the music. Not only do the three players cunningly negotiating the boundaries between jazz improvisation, rock beats and electronic interface, but like monks in that order which discourage speech, this compelling program includes as many lucid and protracted pauses as measured instrumental timbres.

Over the course of four mesmerizing tracks, Vancouver-born bassist Joe Williamson’s steadying thumps are advanced with the same sort of electronic delays and modulations as German-born guitarist Martin Siewert brings to his slurred fingering, which is already distorted and processed. Plus the inventive slaps, flams and drags from Austrian percussionist Martin Brandlmayr are only as pronounced as needed to keep the program balanced. Ambidextrous or overdubbed, he expands the basic tripartite sound generation with piano riffs or vibraphone reverb when needed.

Filtering out extraneous timbres throughout, Trapist reaches a climax of sorts on The Spoke and the Horse when perfectly timed twanging guitar licks, a juddering bass line and emphasized drum rolls blend with the crackling and grinding voltage undercurrent for a satisfying rhythmic exposition. Meanwhile, bass and drums harmony is expanded with sensitive vibe coloration and dense, signal-processed buzzing. Finally, after folksy guitar strums and metronomic bass stops are paired with processed sequences that could be telephone dial tones or aviary twitters, the final track incorporates the intimation of waves lapping against the seashore. A similar resonance was heard on the first track, bringing the program full circle.

Additionally this CD confirms how wide a sonic spectrum can result when electronics are put in the service of intelligent intermingling of a minimum of instrumental textures.

--Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 18 #4

December 15, 2012

Radian

Chimeric
Thrill Jockey Records Thrill 224

Part of the wave of European post-Jazz/post-electronic combos, Radian’s first CD in four years reinforces its commitment to forging a distinct style out of many sonic references – but doesn’t signal any radical changes.

Formed in Vienna in 1996, Radian’s three members are still as committed to exploiting computer-linked sound reorganization and record studio systemization as they are in replicating live impulses. But the end product sounds less live than premeditated.

Proponents of group interaction, no one’s contributions trump those of the other players here. Especially cognizant of this is drummer/vibist/computer manipulator Martin Brandlmayr, who also has similar experience as a member of Trapist, with guitarist Martin Siewert and bassist Joe Williamson, and Polwechsel with percussionist Burkhard Beins and bassist Werner Dafeldecker.

Atmospheric and throbbing in parts with washes of unaffiliated sound warps and computer-generated drones, Chimeric also bows to so-called improv rock, highlighting distorted, fortissimo guitar lines, unvarying drum pops and paradiddles, plus brief episodes of accelerating electronic distortions. With Trapist and Polwechsel wedded to free improv, it’s probably Nemeth’s interest in sound tracks which tips this CD’s sound more towards background color than individual expression.

Pieces such as “Feedback Mikro/City Lights”, which was partially recorded in sequence without cutting and re-mixing, suggests similar mesmerizing episodes by bands such as The Necks, especially when ringing guitar licks and echoing vibraphone rebounds are taken into consideration. Yet the accelerating timbres that follow a martial drum beat suggest effects sampling rather than experience summations. Similarly, psychedelic-referencing stretches and altered flanges on “Subcolors” are resolved with dulcimer-like scratches, a near monotonous drum beat, extended metal bar clanking and fuzzy guitar scratches.

Perhaps avoiding performing for a year and eschewing recording for four times that length of time wasn’t Radian’s best course of action. On the other hand fans of the trio and followers of avant-fusion music may be more impressed.

Acceptable within its limitations, Chimeric – and Radian – has the potential to be and do so much more.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Git Cut Noise 2. Feedback/Mikro/City Lights 3. Git Cut Derivat 4. Chimera 5. Kinetakt 6. Subcolors

Personnel: Stefan Nemeth (guitars and synthesizers); John Norman (bass and Martin Brandlmayr (drums, vibraphone, samples and editing)

June 28, 2010

Polwechsel & John Tilbury

Field
hatOLOGY 672

AMM with John Butcher

Trinity

Matchless MRCD 71

Adding a new element to an established entity even in improvised music can be liberating, upsetting or something in-between. This thesis is demonstrated on these CDs, with, for a variety of factors, varying results.

On Field for instance, where the distinctive pianism of British keyboardist John Tilbury joins the Austrian-German-British Polwechsel quintet, the resulting sound field is enhanced. Trinity on the other hand is more problematic. Here British saxophonist John Butcher – who was a member of Polwechsel when the first CD was recorded – adds his reed style to sounds created by the long-standing AMM duo of Tilbury and percussionist Eddie Prévost. Oddly enough the triangle appears unbalanced not from Butcher’s novel contributions, but from a bewildering reticence on the part of Prévost. This is especially puzzling since the saxophonist and the percussionist recorded a notable disc in 2005.

Inheritors of Vienna’s reductionist musical tradition, plus sonic extensions where instrumentalists expand techniques to achieve the flexibility of electronics without plugging in, Polwechsel’s core duo has been together since 1993. Butcher joined Austrians, cellist Michael Moser and bassist Werner Dafeldecker in 1997, while percussionists Burkhard Beins from Berlin and Austrian Martin Brandlmayr made the band a quintet in 2005. If anyone’s textures could fruitfully expand this recognized sound, than Tilbury is the prime candidate. Long-time interpreter of scores by Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman, he has since the 1960s been a fellow traveler to the every-shifting AMM band – which arguably invented British lower case Free Music – and a member of it since 1980.

On Field his interludes or perhaps fantasias, involve sweeping power that builds up to thickening note clusters and patterns which are then interspersed among Butcher’s strained vibrations and angled, sul tasto rubs from Moser and Dafeldecker. Although like most of Polwechsel’s work, the overlay is definitely chiaroscuro, piano arpeggios plus resonating smack and scrapes from the percussionists expose additional polyphonic colors. Antiphonal and melismatic textures also arise from melding of the saxophonist’s burbling breaths and the pianist’s split-second string stops. By the finale of Moser’s “Place/Replace/Represent” simultaneous reverberations from clipped keys, sizzling cymbals and thumping bass drums reach an appropriate interface.

A windstorm of droning textures illuminates the Dafeldecker-composed title track with exposed partials encompassing Butcher’s peeping split tones, Tilbury’s abrasive keyboard thumps and hand-stopped strings plus grating rattles from the percussionists. Angled bow sweeps, reed cries and occasional piano plinks confirm the acoustic properties of the tune. But the concentrated multiphonics also suggests the sort of motor-driven blur the sextet can create eschewing electronics.

If the rhythmic pumps from the dual drummers are understated on this CD, then percussion expansions are reduced to micro-tonality on Trinity. In fact most of the time Butcher’s reed-biting buzzes or bird-like chirps plus Tilbury’s metronomic pounding, are more prominent than Prévost’s stick-on-cymbal slides or affiliated tam-tam-like plinks. Only a few times on “Conduit” and the other tracks are the percussionist’s rattles, rubs, resonation and ruffs as aurally apparent as the others’ timbres. Perhaps some of the slide-whistle-like shrills come from Prévost, but in the main the strident trills and tongue-flutters can be traced back to Butcher.

On a track like “One Tree Hill” Butcher’s twittering corkscrew flutters and wide-bore intense split tones plus Tilbury’s uneven liquid arpeggios and low-pitched pedal-pressured rumbling repeatedly create an airy, near lyrical interpretation. Yet while the saxophonist’s squeezed tones are almost matched by the percussionist’s thin abrasive scratches, only Prévost’s knife-edge-like cymbal scrapes complement the pianist’s unmistakable chording.

A memorable one-off collaboration for an ensemble that now operates without Tilbury – and Butcher – Field suggests a novel expansion to the Polwechsel oeuvre Meanwhile, although the saxophonist’s characteristic improvising introduces another element to the long-time AMM interface, the music on Trinity appears to be unsettlingly reductive this time out.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Trinity: 1. Meantime 2. One Tree Hill 3. Flamsteed 4.Conduit

Personnel: Trinity: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); John Tilbury (piano) and Eddie Prévost (percussion)

Track Listing: Field: 1. Place/Replace/Represent 2. Field

Personnel: Field: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); John Tilbury (piano); Michael Moser (cello); Werner Dafeldecker (bass) and Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr (drums and percussion)

February 16, 2010

The Necks

Townsville
ReR Necks 8

Kapital Band 1

Playing By Numbers

Mosz 017

With terms such as ambient and minimalist sloppily and frequently bandied about, their correct connotation becomes as blurred as the sound often is during purported performances of the musical genre they’re supposed to represent.

The advantage of CDs such as The Necks’ Townsville and Kapital Band 1’s Playing By Numbers, however is that they’re ingeniously designed by musicians who concentrate as much on the details of creation as the overall structure. The discs also demonstrate that homespun, unfussy and discreet sonic creations should be expansive, not static or flimsy. Furthermore, although each band may be slotted in the same sub-section of musical creation, each pursues a different itinerary to reach its defined objective.

Australians, the three members of The Necks have been operating within the restricted freedom of unpremeditated improvisation for almost two decades. Yet the nearly 54-minute, single track that makes up Townsville is both consistent and unique. The consistency relates to the high standard which the band has set for itself over the years. However this floating nocturne is unique because it’s gradually revealed as a showcase for pianist Chris Abrahams, with the in-the-pocket groove of bassist Lloyd Swanton and inventive percussive fills, courtesy of drummer Tony Buck, subtly coloring his keyboard fantasia. Most other Necks’ discs focus on Swanton’s sturdy string stropping.

Although the applause is excised, Townsville was actually recorded live in concert and merely mixed and mastered afterwards. In contrast, Playing By Numbers is a totem to recording studio wizardry. Vienna-based Nicholas Bussmann, initially a cellist, and Berlin resident Martin Brandlmayr, ordinarily a percussionist, play all the instruments on the CD’s three tracks, except for flute. The resulting timbres from cello, guitar, marimba, voice and drums were sutured in the studio and extended with found urban street sounds. Wisely, the two have decided that when they perform live, contributions from other instrumentalists – including Buck, who is now a Berliner – will fill out the presentation.

That astute realization is likely why Playing By Numbers impresses while many other studio creations reek of dial and DAT manipulation. More to the point, both men have a history of playing live, Brandlmayr, with among others, the bands Radian, Trapist and Polwechsel; and Bussmann, who also composes for radio, theatre and film, with no-input mixing board manipulator Toshimaru Nakamua as Alles 3.

Conversely, mixing board manipulations are seamless and buried within the presentation in the Playing By Numbers. That means that among the harmonic confluence of cello swipes, vibraphone patterning and guitar plinks, triggered electronic wave forms that resemble winds whistling through a deserted ghost town, watery seascape and advancing and receding beach front tides color, but don’t overpower the presentation.. Unconnected ripples, retreating footfalls and languid sound snatches also play a part in creating sfumato-like transitions on the tracks.

Hypnotic minimalism arising from a bell-and-vibe configuration, percussive rhythms that encompass a single slap, or a descending, distracted rim shot. Meanwhile sweeping guitar string rotation enlivens the proceedings enough to confirm that humans are behind the CD’s creation.

Another human process detracts from the overall presentation however. On the final track a disembodied voice that sounds as if it’s broadcasting from beyond the grave repeatedly verbalizes a series of banal phrases in a monotone. Only when electric piano slides, bass guitar plucks and a final drum tap replaces the vocal mumbles dopes the tune to come back to life. For some reason appending deadpan vocals to a performance has become popular with many Teutonic reductionists.

Happily no one attempts to sing on The Necks CD, recorded in an arts centre in Thuringowa, Australia. In contrast, with the audience response deleted, this instant composition seems to be solidly of and about itself. Suspended in aural ether, it undulates through a series of intricate twists and turns as it meanders to the finale. Interconnections among the trio members are such however, that the piece manages to inventively accelerate from adagio to andante and beyond without any noticeable interruption or showboating.

Beginning with Abrahams’ organic note clusters in almost equal temperament, framed by Buck’s cymbal rattling and Swanton’s thumping bass the initial shape seems both romantic and impressionistic. Yet as the pianist’s tremolo cadences rustle and are rearranged harmonically, the portamento waves quicken and harden. While all trio members subtly shift the rhythm, this isn’t done in harmony, but in triple counterpoint, which each instrument’s line polyphonically unique. Never static, the performance gets busier and thicker until Abrahams’ overlay of cascading rococo detailing from one hand, and low-frequency chording from the other becomes evident.

Constantly in motion, the fragile theme advances not just because of the pianist’s waterfalls of notes, but also from the bassist’s rubato string shifting and the drummer’s drum top slapping. Guitar-like reverberations and echoes characterize the penultimate variation which depends on the confluence between the shifting, strummed chords from Abrahams’ piano and Swanton’s thick bass string patterns. Meanwhile, as the resulting cadences get denser, it’s apparent that underneath the others’ output Buck’s bounces and ruffs have made the tune louder, faster and more assured – almost double the tempo at which it began. Brought to a fitting climax with the pianist’s multiphonic arpeggios, the finale is signaled by a quick theme recapitulation and cymbal reverberations that melt timbres into suspended silence.

Although these are two notable efforts of prototypical modern improv, Townsville has the edge, since no one raises a voice in a song variation.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Townsville: 1. Townsville

Personnel: Townsville: Chris Abrahams (piano); Lloyd Swanton (bass) and Tony Buck (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Playing: 1. Playing By Numbers* 2. Playing By The Night in Vienna 3. Counting the Waves

Personnel: Playing: Erik Drescher (flutes)*; Martin Brandlmayr and Nicholas Bussmann (live and remixed cello, guitar, vibraphone, bass, marimba, voice, drums and pre-recorded live sounds)

March 6, 2008

Kapital Band 1

Playing By Numbers
Mosz 017

The Necks

Townsville

ReR Necks 8

With terms such as ambient and minimalist sloppily and frequently bandied about, their correct connotation becomes as blurred as the sound often is during purported performances of the musical genre they’re supposed to represent.

The advantage of CDs such as The Necks’ Townsville and Kapital Band 1’s Playing By Numbers, however is that they’re ingeniously designed by musicians who concentrate as much on the details of creation as the overall structure. The discs also demonstrate that homespun, unfussy and discreet sonic creations should be expansive, not static or flimsy. Furthermore, although each band may be slotted in the same sub-section of musical creation, each pursues a different itinerary to reach its defined objective.

Australians, the three members of The Necks have been operating within the restricted freedom of unpremeditated improvisation for almost two decades. Yet the nearly 54-minute, single track that makes up Townsville is both consistent and unique. The consistency relates to the high standard which the band has set for itself over the years. However this floating nocturne is unique because it’s gradually revealed as a showcase for pianist Chris Abrahams, with the in-the-pocket groove of bassist Lloyd Swanton and inventive percussive fills, courtesy of drummer Tony Buck, subtly coloring his keyboard fantasia. Most other Necks’ discs focus on Swanton’s sturdy string stropping.

Although the applause is excised, Townsville was actually recorded live in concert and merely mixed and mastered afterwards. In contrast, Playing By Numbers is a totem to recording studio wizardry. Vienna-based Nicholas Bussmann, initially a cellist, and Berlin resident Martin Brandlmayr, ordinarily a percussionist, play all the instruments on the CD’s three tracks, except for flute. The resulting timbres from cello, guitar, marimba, voice and drums were sutured in the studio and extended with found urban street sounds. Wisely, the two have decided that when they perform live, contributions from other instrumentalists – including Buck, who is now a Berliner – will fill out the presentation.

That astute realization is likely why Playing By Numbers impresses while many other studio creations reek of dial and DAT manipulation. More to the point, both men have a history of playing live, Brandlmayr, with among others, the bands Radian, Trapist and Polwechsel; and Bussmann, who also composes for radio, theatre and film, with no-input mixing board manipulator Toshimaru Nakamua as Alles 3.

Conversely, mixing board manipulations are seamless and buried within the presentation in the Playing By Numbers. That means that among the harmonic confluence of cello swipes, vibraphone patterning and guitar plinks, triggered electronic wave forms that resemble winds whistling through a deserted ghost town, watery seascape and advancing and receding beach front tides color, but don’t overpower the presentation.. Unconnected ripples, retreating footfalls and languid sound snatches also play a part in creating sfumato-like transitions on the tracks.

Hypnotic minimalism arising from a bell-and-vibe configuration, percussive rhythms that encompass a single slap, or a descending, distracted rim shot. Meanwhile sweeping guitar string rotation enlivens the proceedings enough to confirm that humans are behind the CD’s creation.

Another human process detracts from the overall presentation however. On the final track a disembodied voice that sounds as if it’s broadcasting from beyond the grave repeatedly verbalizes a series of banal phrases in a monotone. Only when electric piano slides, bass guitar plucks and a final drum tap replaces the vocal mumbles dopes the tune to come back to life. For some reason appending deadpan vocals to a performance has become popular with many Teutonic reductionists.

Happily no one attempts to sing on The Necks CD, recorded in an arts centre in Thuringowa, Australia. In contrast, with the audience response deleted, this instant composition seems to be solidly of and about itself. Suspended in aural ether, it undulates through a series of intricate twists and turns as it meanders to the finale. Interconnections among the trio members are such however, that the piece manages to inventively accelerate from adagio to andante and beyond without any noticeable interruption or showboating.

Beginning with Abrahams’ organic note clusters in almost equal temperament, framed by Buck’s cymbal rattling and Swanton’s thumping bass the initial shape seems both romantic and impressionistic. Yet as the pianist’s tremolo cadences rustle and are rearranged harmonically, the portamento waves quicken and harden. While all trio members subtly shift the rhythm, this isn’t done in harmony, but in triple counterpoint, which each instrument’s line polyphonically unique. Never static, the performance gets busier and thicker until Abrahams’ overlay of cascading rococo detailing from one hand, and low-frequency chording from the other becomes evident.

Constantly in motion, the fragile theme advances not just because of the pianist’s waterfalls of notes, but also from the bassist’s rubato string shifting and the drummer’s drum top slapping. Guitar-like reverberations and echoes characterize the penultimate variation which depends on the confluence between the shifting, strummed chords from Abrahams’ piano and Swanton’s thick bass string patterns. Meanwhile, as the resulting cadences get denser, it’s apparent that underneath the others’ output Buck’s bounces and ruffs have made the tune louder, faster and more assured – almost double the tempo at which it began. Brought to a fitting climax with the pianist’s multiphonic arpeggios, the finale is signaled by a quick theme recapitulation and cymbal reverberations that melt timbres into suspended silence.

Although these are two notable efforts of prototypical modern improv, Townsville has the edge, since no one raises a voice in a song variation.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Townsville: 1. Townsville

Personnel: Townsville: Chris Abrahams (piano); Lloyd Swanton (bass) and Tony Buck (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Playing: 1. Playing By Numbers* 2. Playing By The Night in Vienna 3. Counting the Waves

Personnel: Playing: Erik Drescher (flutes)*; Martin Brandlmayr and Nicholas Bussmann (live and remixed cello, guitar, vibraphone, bass, marimba, voice, drums and pre-recorded live sounds)

March 6, 2008

POLWESCHEL

Archives of the North
Hatology 633

By Ken Waxman

Situated even more so than previously within its own unique sound world, the now five-man Polwechsel mixes reductionist techniques and inchoate electronic tinctures with the autonomy of FreeImprov to make its point

On this CD, the Austrian-British band changes direction by adding two percussionists – Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr – to an aural concept that previously was advanced by Polwechsel founders, Werner Dafeldecker on bass and cellist Michael Moser and given auxiliary tinctures when London-based reedist John Butcher joined the ensemble at the beginning of the century.

True to its initial impulses though, Beins, who has partnered with everyone from British guitarist Keith Rowe to vocalist Phil Minton; and Brandlmayr, who is in the Trapist trio which explores similar territory; aren’t percussionists in the conventional sense – at least if that’s measured in beats, flams or paradiddles. Instead both men inject barely pressured, stretched tones from their kits – long, hocketing cymbal vibrations, patterning wooden rim shot snaps, drum top scrapes and friction plus chains rattling and the rolling of blunt objects.

Interlocking with these impulses are Butcher’s distinctive tongue fluttering and stops, singular tone warbling, and multiphonic note expansion. Dafeldecker adds precise arco string movements and more concentrated dense hums, plus occasional, and often seemingly random, pizzicato string strums. Additionally, Mosher outputs electronic impulses from his computer from time-to-time. Yet the crackling reverb and input signal- crossing is introduced with the same lapidary care as the reedist brings to his wind-chime-like trills or the bassist does to his droned undercurrent.

Essentially the concept, like similarly distinctive tone distribution from England’s AMM or Australia’s The Necks is inimitable – improvisation following its own reductionist strictures. This way, the underlying and overlaid pulses are as liable to result from polyphonic interaction among subsets of acoustic instruments as from wave form oscillation produced electronically.

Zart as well as staccato, yet characterized at points with authoritative undulation arising from strummed chords and reed-linked ghost-note obbligatos, the sound appears and vanishes according to its own logic. Of and in itself and apparently timeless, ARCHIVES OF THE NORTH marks a stimulating next step in Polwechsel’s evolution.

Track Listing: 1. Datum Cut 2. Mirror 3. Core Cut 4. Magnetic North 5. Site and Setting

Personnel: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Michael Moser (cello and computer); Werner Dafeldecker (bass); Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr (drums and percussion)

August 14, 2006

TRAPIST

Ballroom
Thrill Jockey Thrill 141

Structure and feelings are the two impulses jockeying for dominance on the five selections that make up the second CD by this Vienna-based trio. Musicians whose distinctive sound channels post-rock and electro-acoustic re-mixing as well as free jazz, the challenge they face here is to ensure that the sprawling treatments don’t bury the animated improvisations.

For most the part they succeed, though Trapist’s soundworld isn’t as unique or self-contained as those created by similar cooperative trios such as Britain’s AMM or Australia’s The Necks.

Of course Trapist isn’t the exclusive purview of the three. Martin Siewert, who plays guitar, lap steel guitar, pedal steel guitar, mandoguitar and synthesizer here, has stated that one of his ambitions is to sublimate and electronically diminish sounds. Luckily the instant compositions on BALLROOM aren’t as reductionist as some of the projects he’s been part of in SSSD or efzeg with doleful Teutonic experimenters like bassist Werner Dafeldecker.

Part of the reason is that rhythmic textures are provided by Martin Bandlmayr on synthesizer, vibraphone, drums and percussion, who is also a member of minimalist-rock band Radian. Canadian-in-Europe Joe Williamson on bass and trackerball [?!] provides some of the improv color, having worked in the past with free music masters like Dutch drummer Han Bennink and British reedist Evan Parker.

Studio mavens, Trapist improvised the bed tracks then added and edited in strands of vibraharp, synthesizer and software-based treatments to further blend the sonic compounds. “Time Axis Manipulation (part 2)”, is the track that offers the most memorable pulsation. Here an overlay of spacey electric keyboard meets throbbing beats courtesy of Bandlmayr’s cross sticking and Williamson’s straightahead pulse. Amplifying the sprawling electro-acoustic promises that preceded it in the much longer -- and frankly less focused -- “(part 1)”, this tune braids crackling sine wave pulses, dense static and instrumental virtuosity into a self-contained and unique soundworld.

Other tracks add drum top cleaning sounds and delicate brush strokes from Bandlmayr, slide guitar intimations and unadorned song-based guitar riffs from Siewert, plus cathedral organ drones and wiggling electronic loops from everyone to further bond the disparate instrumental properties.

Climax is the almost 18½-minute final track, with the sardonic title: “For All the Time Spent in this Room”. With individual instrumental sounds alternately buried and emerging from the oscillations, the piece lurches from episodes where familiar tones are outlined, to those when individual attribution is almost impossible.

Throughout massed accordion-like tones and wiggling sine waves vie for aural space with wah-wah guitar tracks, bass thumps and counterpoint drum rustles. Soon the polyphony of simple, repetitive guitar licks are mirrored by synthesizer tones which then become muffled and diffuse. Beneath the circular, electronic buzzes and squeals is an undulating, organ-like continuum, which eventually gives way to a new theme presaged by acoustic guitar strums. As soundless episodes alternate with hesitant chording, the sonic backdrop fades away until the entire track fades to silence.

Notable as one method of mixing electronic and acoustic impulses, the Trapist three have avoided many of the drawbacks of electronic overkill. The feeling remains that they can do even better, though. After the fine work here, this puts even higher expectations on their next outing.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Time Axis Manipulation (part 1) 2. Time Axis Manipulation (part 2) 3. Observations Took Place 4. The Meaning of Flowers 5. For All the Time Spent in this Room

Personnel: Martin Siewert (guitar, lap steel guitar, pedal steel guitar, mandoguitar, synthesizer); Joe Williamson (bass, trackerball); Martin Bandlmayr (synthesizer, vibraphone, drums, percussion)

June 28, 2004

BRANDLMAYR/DAFELDECKER/NEMETH/SIEWERT

Die Instabilität der Symmetrie
GROB 547 & dOc 008

IVAR GRYDELAND/TONNY KLUFTEB/PAUL LOVENS
These Six
SOFA 512

One reason that improvisational music is so distinctive is that an almost identical instrumental line-up can result in completely different, yet valid sounds. So it is with these two CDs.

THOSE SIX is, no surprise, made up of six instant compositions performed by the six hands of two young Norwegians -- Ivar Grydeland on guitar and banjo and Tonny Kluften on bass -- plus veteran German drummer Paul Lovens. The result is firmly in the jazz/free improv continuum.

The other CD, whose title translates as “The Instability of Symmetry”, merely adds one musician -- Stefan Németh on synthesizer and computer -- to a trio with the same instruments as on THOSE SIX. But the music the four Austrians make -- the others are Martin Siewert on guitars and electronics, Werner Dafeldecker on bass and computer and percussionist Martin Brandlmayr -- is firmly in the microtonal, electro-acoustic realm. It’s so embedded in that scene, as a matter of fact, that some listeners may be heard pressed to believe most of the same instruments appear on both sessions.

An established partnership, Grydeland and Kluften are also part of the ever-changing local No Spaghetti Edition collective, which adds out-of-country guests, and both men have played in a trio with veteran British drummer Tony Oxley.

As important a free improv pioneer as Oxley, Lovens is another veteran whose numerous associations include the Globe Unity Orchestra and a trio with British saxophonist Evan Parker and German pianist Alex von Schlippenbach. But he never pulls rank and tries to overshadow the Norwegians here. If anything he’s self-effacing.

Only on the fourth track, for instance, does his playing move front-and-centre. But even here, while Grydeland scratches on the front of his strings and Kluften provides constant accompaniment, Lovens’ pointillistic splashes and manipulations are integrated into the whole picture. Overall, dabs of tick-tock rimshots and smears of dead centre beats combine to make his musical points.

Additionally, his cymbal scratches and what sounds like the gradually loosening of the nuts from metal rims fits hand-in-glove with the guitar’s quietly focused fills and the bassist’s spiccato tones. Fiddle approximations aren’t the only unique sound the Norwegians bring to the session, however. Grydeland is also a banjo player, though his approach is far removed from the styles of Pete Seeger, Earl Scruggs or any Dixielander.

Playing that instrument on the second track here, his chromatic plinks emphasize the banjo’s dissonant color field, often using its snapping strums in a rhythmic rather than a melodic fashion. Facing these sounds are bass work that ranges from emphasized arco slides to wood tapping, plus a constant cross stick rhythm from the. At times it also seems as if Lovens is rolling his sticks on the drum surface rather than hitting them.

On its own, the third and longest track moves into the realm of disparate silences, that actually it to the sounds on the other CD. Kluften’s walking bass line is the only constant presence, as Lovens appears to be wiping his drum tops with a cloth and producing a circular beat by tightening and loosening the tension rod on his snares and tom-toms. When he resonates unselected cymbals or sounds out a miniature tap dance on the drums’ rims and sides, Grydeland counters with flat-picking, the occasional outright pluck and slurred chording.

On DIE INSTABILITÄT DER SYMMETRIE, silences vie with undulating electronic-tinged drones, but that’s no surprise either. Other bands involving combinations of these musicians such as Efzeg and SSSD are firmly in the computer-amplified and assisted world. But while the acoustic properties of the instruments are on show, no signs of the beat-heavy pop projects in which Dafeldecker, Siewert and Brandlmayr sometime indulge are present.

“Part 4” is the closest pop approximation. Here Siewert’s shivering reverb opens up into a gentle melody that sounds as if it’s being played on an acoustic guitar. Behind him, rolling cymbal textures intercut with bass reverb and sine wave continuum create shifting background tones that soon shape themselves into a windstorm-like ostinato. This increases in volume until it almost reaches monsoon proportions. Finally, the electronics become more frantic as they swallow the andante guitar melody, with the ending featuring percussion suggestions cutting through buzzing oscillations.

Yawning, twisting cymbal textures are heard at the very end of “Part 5”, after a subtle metallic outburst from the hi-hat, ride and crash cymbals has been buried under cathedral organ-like droning crescendos. Németh’s synthesizer probably produces the sound source and its buzzing fits in with the echoing tones produced by the strings.

In contrast, “Part 3” is all quaking electronic tinged textures and rumbles from Brandlmayr’s kit, knit into an assembly line of passing tones. As the synth ejects unvarying locomotive pitches, accelerating guitar reverb rattles by, followed by the immense resonation of an electrically amplified drumbeat. By the end, however, all other sounds vanish within a static sonority that is just as abruptly cut off.

Oddly enough, the nearly 12-minute longest track, “Part 2” recorded a year previously without Dafeldecker, is just as Futuristically inclined. Beginning with a machine-like pulse, that is pierced by flat-out drum flams and a computer-generated clamor that could be unselected cymbals amplified to the nth degree. As the incessant, ululating static continues it’s occasionally interrupted by the sweep of Siewert’s fingers across his strings. This is followed by whizzing electronic friction that could result from a mistake in outlet attachment or used to make a point. Coda is a split-second drum roll and stick scuffing on a drum top.

Acoustic, electric, noise or silence -- take your pick. These instrumental configurations offer up versions of all of that. Each presentation is equally valid. However neither band quite reaches the state that could make you ignore the sound sources’ delivery method for the resulting improvisations.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: These: 1. 08.48 2. 10.54 3. 14.31 4. 04.10 5. 08.29 6. 03.17

Personnel: These: Ivar Grydeland (guitar and banjo); Tonny Kluften (bass); Paul Lovens (selected and unselected drums and cymbals)

Track Listing: Die: 1. Part 1 2. Part 2 3. Part 3 4. Part 4 5. Part 5

Personnel: Die: Martin Siewert (guitar, lap steel and electronics); Werner Dafeldecker [except track 2]; (bass and computer); Martin Brandlmayr (drums and percussion); Stefan Németh (synthesizer and computer)

April 12, 2004

GUSTAV DEUTSCH /HANNES LOESCHEL & VELVET LOUNGE

Film ist. Musik
Loewenhertz 009

MARTIN ARCHER English commonflowers
Discus 15CD

A soundtrack anxious to stand on its own as program music, and mix’n’match program music lacking only visual images to become a soundtrack characterize these two European CDs. More impressively, British keyboardist/saxophonist/electronics composer Martin Archer and Austrian pianist/composer Hannes Loeschel have produced aurally descriptive discs that prove that genre definitions are a thing of the past.

While neither CD would exist without the foundation of jazz and free improvisation, influences from electronics, rock and post-rock, folk melodies, musique concrète, pure noise and both traditional and contemporary classical music slide into the sound as well. Those 1960s psychedelic bands that insisted their amateurish efforts were movies for the ears didn’t realize how accomplished composers like these could redefine that conceit decades later.

Gustav Deutsch’s found-footage-work Film ist. (1-6) is the initial inspiration for FILM IST. MUSIK (the CD). Just as the auteur modified sequences from scientific and educational films, so most of Loeschel’s soundscapes developed for the film can stand on their own. One difference between his and Archer’s work is that the Sheffield-based saxophonist brings technical mastery of recording studio voodoo to bear on his pieces. Despite output from devices, sampling and synthesizers, the Viennese pianist works in real time.

Divided into 15 tracks of varying, mostly very-short, length, probably to reflect the rhythm of Deutsch’s film, the sounds on Loeschel’s CD mix his classical background, contemporary jazz trio excursions with bassist Peter Herbert and electronic investigations done in the company of synthesizer maneuverer Josef Novotny and guitar, lap steel and devices maven Martin Siewert, all of whom are represented here.

Thus “Riverso Vivo”, which could be to be a gentle piece of 18th century chamber music for Joanna Lewis’ violin and Loeschel’s piano. contains a middle section where the fiddle’s (possibly sampled) repeated motifs get faster and more frantic. Immediately following it is “Crashframe”, where the violin appears to be fully mechanized, splashing chords at supersonic speeds. It’s backed by rambling rock-style drumming from Martin Brandlmayr, buzzing No Wave guitar styling from Siewert and -- probably courtesy of Novotny or Stefan Nemeth -- epic fanfare samples that seem to be announcing a royal procession. When a percussion crash finally arrives, it vies for ear space with what is probably samples of fiddle playing from a scratchy 78.

Or take highly minimal “Telenovela Largo” (translation: slow-moving TV soap opera?), where low-frequency keyboard timbres operating on top of a subtle bed of percussion create an ambient Brian Eno-style intro for a main theme that never arrives. A few sampler-induces buzzes do interrupt the reverie at points though.

“Maschine” at 56 seconds is descriptive onomatopoeia of how many different ways a hammer can be sounded. Yet “Gong Song” suggest the pealing of a triangle or the ringing of a doorbell rather than any gong sound. Although mechanized pounding and this ringing continues intermittently throughout the piece, it shares space with splooches of unmistakable electronics, and some swelling arco cello and bass work from Michael Williams and Herbert, often fusing together for maximum sweetness.

Then there’s “Zug” -- “train” in German -- which literally sounds like a freight engine arriving at a level crossing and interrupting the proliferating sounds around it. These include mechanized buzzes -- doubtlessly created by Siewert, Novotny or Nemeth -- the thump of Herbert bass strings, guitar attachment effects -- Siewert again? -- heavy metal drumming -- and some rhythmically compelling beeps and drones that reconstitute themselves into a melody. The coda is from undefined scratches probably from a moving turntable with a lathe-like motorized buzz as if a shop class had been captured on audio.

As you can see, plenty of images are suggested by the music. Even the pulsating screech of metal against metal, shrilling factory whistle and snatches of spoken German that appear on one track resolve themselves into absorbing music, in its broadest sense.

So too does Archer’s nine-track sound experiment, which was recorded in two different studios and remixed between January 2000 and March 2002. Like bassist Simon H. Fell, with whom he worked on two earlier CDs, Archer is a player who has turned more and more to composition in recent years. Unlike Fell, who often records roaring free jazz pieces as an instrumentalist, Archer has mostly curtailed his sax playing for work with keyboards and electronics.

That’s why it’s particularly gratifying here to find two reed-driven tracks, featuring Archer’s alto saxophone and dedicate to the Art Ensemble’s Roscoe Mitchell. Most impressive is “Still life with absinthe and pomegranates”, as archetypical a BritImprov title as you can imagine. On display are classic vocalized reed squeaks and smears, not to mention tongue slaps, with multiphonics sometimes giving ‘way to pure colored noises blown through the saxophone body. Of course this wouldn’t be an Archer composition if what appears to be a sampled version of his earlier solo didn’t show up near the end. Throughout, there are also contributions from longtime Archer mate Charlie Collins, spewing out busy flute patterns, as well as overdubbed bass clarinet lines and some keyboard counterpoint.

If these tunes reflect BritImprov, then a couple of others pay homage to subspecies of BritRock. Lead off track, “I’m yr huckleberry”, is described as a tribute to 1970s jazz/rockers The Soft Machine. Featuring shimmering electronic keyboard washes and fuzz-tone bass guitar -- both played by Archer -- soundtrack potential is definitely there, especially when the fuzztones keep recurring as if the studio was beneath an RAF jet flyover. Combined, the horn section of flugelhornist Neil Stanniland, trombonist Julie Helliwell, tenor saxophonist Vic Middleton and Archer on alto saxophones give this piece more of jazz feel than the Soft Machine exhibited in its most instrumentally free phase.

Elements from depressive singer/songwriter Nick Drake’s “Black Dog” appear on “Know”, another Archer solo piece. This time, though, it appears as if the sizzling keyboard sounds are amplified filigree on top of the likely sampled guitar drone and repetitive drumbeats.

Archer isn’t above using the sort of studio legerdemain Fell employed on his COMPOSITION NO. 30 on “Trash white tonal”. On this textural piece, the duet between Simon Pugsley’s hearty, boppish trombone and Jenni Molloy’s sepulchral bass was initially recorded against a completely different electronic track. The droning guitar work and reverberating electronics -- again created by Archer -- were substituted at a later date.

Even more visually oriented are the title track and “Mall bunnies”. On the former actualities from a Liverpool street, complete with a bus’s air brake noises, are melded with instrumental sounds, including Archer’s promulgated echoing and arching keyboard/electronic tones that add up to an admixture of what was created by Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound and synth-driven New Romantic bands. As crowd noise and children’s voices filter in and out of the beat-driven music, Pugsley’s open horn trombone makes its presence felt as does the near folk-rock of Tim Cole on acoustic guitar and John Jasnoch on lap steel.

At more than 17½-minutes, “Mall bunnies” perhaps wins a prize as the most superior work of music with the silliest title. Influenced, as its composer states, by Morton Feldman, Olivier Messiaen, the organ sound on Miles Davis’s later LPs, death metal and Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music, it isn’t so much a mish mash as an epic-proportion cinemascopic homage to his many icons.

Featuring Collins on flute, bassist Molloy and Benjamin Bartholomew on electric guitar, much of the piece revolves around Archer’s work on vibes and glockenspiel, which seem to be in appropriate Sun Ra, outer space tuning. Including another Soft Machine-influenced organ-stop keyboard undercurrent, the flutist brings a breathy Carnatic tone to his solos while Bartholomew operates in proper Metallica mode throughout. Also included are what seem to be warbling birdcalls that come upfront whenever the hard rock guitar or restrained dynamic piano touches aren’t there. Standout may be the brawny yet restrained, booming Mingusian bass solo. Trickster that he is, though, Archer slid this solo, recorded in a different context and different session into the track’s mix.

Tired of Hollywood blockbusters that seem to be nothing more than special effects and product placements and TV shows that are aimed at the lowest common denominator? Here are a couple of moving pictures for the mind that should give you more pleasure and more things to think about than anything attached to sprockets.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Film: 1. Testviertelton 2. Beep Song 3. Vario 4. Im Freien 5.Beep Song Reprise 6. Hund 7. Vogel 8. Noise Loop 9.Riverso Vivo 10.Crashframe 11.Zug 12.Maschine 13. Gong Song 14. Projektor 15. Telenovela Largo

Personnel: Film: Joanna Lewis (violin); Hannes Loeschel (piano); Martin Siewert (guitar, lap steel guitar, devices); Michael Williams (cello); Peter Herbert (bass); Josef Novotny and Stefan Nemeth (synthesizers, sampling); Martin Brandlmayr (drums); Gustav Deutsch (soundtrack)

Track Listing: English: 1. I’m yr huckleberry 2. Fantastic individual 3. English commonflowers 4. Know (by Nick Drake) 5. Water grid 6. Mall bunnies 7. Down the road 8. Still life with absinthe and pomegranates 9. Trash white tonal

Personnel: English: Neil Stanniland (flugelhorn); Julie Helliwell or Simon Pugsley (trombone); Charlie Collins (flute, bass clarinet); Vic Middleton (tenor saxophone); Martin Archer (keyboards and electronics, sopranino and alto saxophones, clarinet, recorder, violin, bass guitar, harmonica, vibraphone, glockenspiel); Tim Cole (acoustic guitar); Benjamin Bartholomew (electric guitar); John Jasnoch (lap steel guitar); Jenni Molloy (bass); Chris Meloche (field recording)

April 7, 2003