Daily Listen by Brian Brock

Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship

So Tortoise is coming out with a new album on 23 June.  I have kind of mixed feelings about Tortoise ever since I saw them on their tour with Daniel Lanois - they opened and played as his band.  It was almost as if Lanois had never heard Tortoise before, but they did a good audition, and it was politically feasible, so went with it; then, hearing them every night, he was forced to understand that their kind of music was very dry and cerebral, where his is emotional and immediate (live at least).

Almost as if.  At any rate, watching him interact with them on stage reinforced the sense I had developed, watching them, that their music was about as meaningful to me as a pile of calculators programmed to beep the tune to “Secret Agent Man”.  I loved It’s All Around You - at least I did one time on the road from Angel Fire to Taos, NM, when I determined it was my favorite instrumental album since Kind of Blue (!) - and TNT is a classic, so I was rather at sixes and sevens over the ordeal.

Perhaps they’re just best enjoyed in moments of solitary attention.  I remember that the Tortoise crowd’s stance was of awkward, arms-folded, second order reverie, such as would be expected of people who have primarily experienced something alone and unhindered by drink.

This new Tortoise track strikes me as rather an attempt to claw towards immediacy, so we’ll see what comes of the new album.

Dominic Duval’s String Ensemble - Live in Concert

It’s a spider web of extruded aluminum.  Minnows and geese are caught up, bubbling and squawking while the Mrs. winds them up, and the goose tries to eat the fish.

Listen to this stuff loud, if possible.  The amount of attention you give to good free jazz is directly proportional to the enjoyment you can reap from it.  It sounds like shit if you don’t pay attention.  This is only true up to a point - the good associations developed from listening to it eventually overwhelm the disorienting squall and you can do the dishes or cook while it plays.

The texture changes clearly from track to track in this music, which signals that they are not just hacking away at “free jazz” but actually doing something specific in each piece.

There’s some odd dated liner notes in this CD (from 1998) about cyberspace.  Check it out in the next post.

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)