July 19, 2009

Iva Bittová and the Bang On a Can All-Stars - Elida

This is a pretty cool album which sits comfortably between Eastern European folk music and the music of Wim Mertens, or a George Crumb vocal piece like Ancient Voices of Children.  Bittová seems to take about as much from Roma music as Ástor Piazzolla does from Tango - so, she is always referring to folk elements but never quite gets all the way there, but for a moment.  Her voice is like Diamanda Galás’s, but as if Galás was a cheery kindergarten teacher, rather than a vicious hellhound; they each sing sideways across genres, as if flipping through a Rolodex of genres crossreferenced with emotions, matching vocal technique as they go.

The Can-Bangers have always impressed me.  They have fantastic versions of tunes by Louis Andriessen, Brian Eno, and Terry Riley, and their own compositions are sometimes just as successful.  Here, leaving that comfort zone of precise structures and witty concepts, they at times have to actually tackle performance music, where technique is less valuable than spirit.  They are no Turkish cafe band, but they manage to keep from embarrassing themselves long enough to get back to something more fingery/thinky, less possessedy.

I get stuck, because I want to ask why these straddly folk/avant-classical musics never quite make it, while I recognize that plenty of rock/avant things succeed.  I think it’s a question of structure - in a music where the essential act is kick-snare on one chord for two minutes, kickety-snarety on another for a half-minute, and back to the beginning for the fade out, someone can pretty much record the sound of wringing cats and slide it into the interstices with out changing anything (see Derek Bailey’s Guitar Drums and Bass for an extreme example).  On the other hand, the folk and classical worlds thrive on large-form structure, having radically different ideas about how to achieve it, and every sqwauk and groan added to it must be relentlessly justified within those structural aims.  I don’t know.

I’d love to hear this woman do an album with Tom Ze.

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Tags: mainstream fringe folk Structure Bang on a Can playfulness Tom Ze
May 29, 2009

Louis Andriessen - De Staat

De Staat is somewhat more dissonant than the other Andriessen pieces I know (De Stijl, M is for Man…, the stuff on Bang On A Can - Industry, all fantastic).  There are a few really impressive explosions of mind-numbing sound.

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Tags: Andriessen dissonance Bang on a Can
January 26, 2008
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Louis Andriessen - De Stijl (hear a sample)

Wow. I totally forgot how much I like this CD. I originally got into Louis Andriessen from my favorite Bang On A Can CD, Industry. In the original BOAC series of recordings each CD has a collection of tracks by different contemporary composers, played by the “Bang On A Can All-Stars”. I kept acquiring their collections year after year, although each only had one or two pieces I really connected with - for example, “Failure: A Very Difficult Piece for Upright String Bass” on the first volume, involved a bassist reciting prose, playing a very difficult bass part, and then improvising in the same style, all at the same time. Industry is the first one on which every track really blows me away. The title track hit me first. It is a solo piece for an Electric Cello modified by Ibanez Tube Screamer distortion pedal - kind of the epitome of Bang On A Can’s early esthetic, I think. But the Andriessen is what I think about more and more. The piece there is interesting because it features a double-ensemble, each playing the same tune, but off by one beat.

This piece, “De Stijl”, also features a double ensemble, but it’s much less conceptually defined. It is basically a long, structured exposition of one rather rythmic, jazz-harmonied theme.

At about 15 to 18 minutes in (out of 25), a trash-percussion solo totally surprised and excited me. Basically they’re playing the theme fairly straightforwardly, but the sound is just incredible. I need to write some percussion music.

Only one part of “De Stijl” nonplusses me. At about 22 or so, maybe a little earlier, the band suddenly plays a rather banal straightforward blues-rock riff. I’m sure analysis would teach me why this is the best part, but as it is, as a listening music, it seems out of place. Maybe Andriessen just wants to give some thematic contrast for those whose attention has waned.

(old dailylisten import)

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Tags: Andriessen blues jazz listening music percussion Bang on a Can