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Julie Tippetts & Martin Archer, Ghosts of Gold (Discus 37)
On his 2008 double-disk In Stereo Gravity, Martin Archer’s collaboration with singer Julie Tippett appeared to be a good fit for both parties, with Archer’s sound collages an effective foil for Tippetts’ vocal experimentation – and vice versa. This new release, again on Archer’s Discus label, extends the collaboration over the entire program and is also notable for moving beyond the ”found poetry” of the earlier material, where Tippett was using nonsensical spam messages that Archer had lifted from junk email texts. Instead, on Ghosts of Gold, Tippetts brings her own poetry to the session, which according to the CD notes she wrote and collected between 1994 and 2004. There’s no indication one way or the other that Tippetts has published any of these poems previously, but even a cursory examination of the printed lyrics indicates that she has substantial poetic abilities.
The poems all have an underlying Gothic quality and many of them display whimsical macabre touches reminiscent of Edward Gorey, e.g., “When the gang green grass/Under shell-shot shutters/Round the trippy-toed trembles/Through the glittering glass….” (This from “Run Another Road,” which appears to be narrated from the point of view of a witch). However, other poems are more serious in nature – some dealing with the vaguely anthropomorphic mutation of elemental forces (“Metamorphic Rocking”), others with small but hard-won emotional victories (“Moonshine,” “Daydreams and Candlelight”) and at least several with torment and madness (“The Winging,” “The Ghostly Apparition”). Regarding the latter two pieces especially, a delicate balance is struck between humor and horror.
Archer makes his own substantial contribution to the proceedings, laying down tracks in advance which Tippetts then selected in the studio as appropriate backing for her chosen poems. Some poems are narrated quite precisely (e.g., “Metamorphic Rocking”), others sung or chanted (e.g., “Moonshine,” “Run Another Road”) and in several other pieces, poetic narration and singing/chanting are combined, e.g., “The Bear That Walks At Night”) Archer’s sound collages are made up of treated keyboards, saxophones, clarinets, harmoniums, xylophones and thumb pianos and include eerie drones, staccato bursts, fluttering arrhythmic filigrees and even the occasional rhythmic jazz/rock or techno pulse (“The Bear That Walks At Night, ““Rainsong”). His typical studio wizardry extends to multi-tracking and other effects applied to Tippetts’ voice, sometimes creating the effect of a Greek chorus commenting on the primary text.
The artistic level of the collaboration between Archer and Tippetts is light years beyond the standard song lyrics set to music or spoken poetry supported by a few gratuitous sonic embellishments. It’s a true synthesis of sound and music, with the interaction between the two constantly shifting from piece to piece and even within individual pieces. No apparent formula being imposed upon the material; each piece is allowed to find its own shape. The quality of the recording and mixing is also spot on, with Tippetts close-miked for a clean, crisp vocal quality which showcases her expressive abilities as reader. All in all, it’s a outstanding creative effort and all the more impressive when one reflects that Ms. Tippetts (as Julie Driscoll) began her professional career many years ago as a celebrated pop singer and fashion item who the British tabloids famously designated as “The Face”). Obviously, Tippetts is an artist who pursues her own creative muse without regard for the marketplace. As does Archer, although I don’t think he was ever regarded as similarly photogenic.
Posted by Bill Tilland at 18:14, 13 Nov 2009
DAMAGED IN TRANSIT by Steve Swallow, Chris Potter, Adam Nussbaum (067 792-2)
[ review of: DAMAGED IN TRANSIT by Steve Swallow, Chris Potter, Adam Nus...(067 792-2) (junk)
]Initially, its hard to figure out why this is such a terrific CD. After all, the instrumentation is standard stuff tenor sax, electric bass and drums. No piano, but it has been years since the absence of a piano in a small jazz group was regarded as an innovation. The tunes, all written by bassist Steve Swallow, are conventional hard bop and post bop, with a few blues and ballads, and one calypso. Nobody plays outside (or at least stays outside), and there is no obvious experimentation of any sort. So this should just be a good solid trio date by three jazz pros, right? But instead, it commands the listeners attention from the first track to the last. The abilities of the three musicians certainly have something to do with that. Tenor saxophonist Chris Potter is truly one of the best young players on the scene right now. He has the facility on tenor to toss off fluid hard bop lines worthy of altoist Charlie Parker, but most often he adopts the staccato swagger of the other giant of the tenor, Sonny Rollins (as opposed to much more widely imitated John Coltrane). The calypso, especially, brings Rollins to mind, as Rollins has had a special fondness for calypso tunes throughout his career. Swallow is his usual lyrical, elegant self, demonstrating why he is still one of the masters of the electric jazz bass, and drummer Adam Nussbaum is crisp, cool and self-contained throughout. Recorded live at several venues during a 2001 tour of France, the music comes across as traditional in its basic form, but the group continually purshes the tradition around, mixing styles, tempos and interactive strategies. Four pieces open with Swallows silky unaccompanied electric bass, two with Potters unaccompanied horn, one with Nussbaums drums and two with the full trio. Solos commence in unexpected places (or not at all), and one player sometimes drops out, which provides creative duet opportunities for the remaining two. Rather than trading fours, i.e., alternating with four-bar solos, Nussbaum and Potter trade twelves on one piece, i.e., alternating every twelve measures. Finally, even though Swallow doesnt deign to honor his nine original compositions with real titles (theyre simply called Item 1, D.I.T., Item 5, D.I.T., etc.), they are much more than basic riffs or chord progressions. In fact, Swallow displays the scores of each of the nine pieces in lieu of conventional liner notes, which makes one wonder why he didnt bother naming them especially when some of them (like Item 3, D.I.T." and Item 7, D.I.T."), have gorgeous melodies, and others (like "Item 4, D.I.T.," "Item 5, D.I.T." and "Item 9, D.I.T.") have a very satisfying complexity. Overall, Swallow has succeeded in tapping into some sort of timeless jazz essence on this CD, where the more superficial aspects of music culture (trends, personalities, gimmicks, etc.) are left far behind. And instead of marking time with a typically nostalgic glance at the jazz tradition, Swallow & company demonstrate the continuing viability of the older forms. Calling this one a bona fide contemporary classic wouldnt be much of a stretch.
Posted by Bill Tilland at 03:12, 29 Mar 2004
Milli Tonverka by Einoma (VFORM031CD)
[ review of: Milli Tonverka by Einoma (VFORM031CD)
]Einoma (the alias of Icelandic duo Bjarni and Steindor), apparently cant get no respect. BBC Music Online recently put together a rather extensive review of the Reykjavik music scene (Reykjavik Underground), and unless my tired old eyes deceived me, Einoma (and its constituent parts) didnt even rate a mention. And yet their second full-length CD on Vertical Form is, like its predecessor Undir Feilnotum, an adventurous and fresh take on glitch techno, and a worthy addition to any cutting edge techno collection. Percussion and rhythm is Einomas strength both the sampling and the programming. Their sampling has a characteristic cold industrial sound, but the ambience is brooding rather than confrontational. Clanking chains, water pipes, old steam radiators and other metallic and or watery sounds come to mind, along with vague impressions of things being ripped and twisted. These organic sounds are nicely integrated with a more purely electronic vocabulary of twitters, squeaks and thumps. Rhythmically, Einoma straddles a line between heavy-handed 4/4 industrial excess and stuttering stop n start abstraction; theyre too variable and complex to qualify as IDM or anything else that would find a place on the dancefloor, but you can follow them (usually) without a score(card), and sometimes they kick into a legitimate toe-tapping groove. In other words, theyre somewhat to the left of Orbital, and somewhat to the right of Autechre at its most extreme, i.e., certainly not predictable and not always easy to follow, but rhythmically grounded nonetheless. The most noticeable difference between this release and their last effort is a greater use of synthesizer drones and, on one piece, ethereal wailing from a female vocalist. The increased use of the drones (and the insertion of an occasional melodic fragment) doesnt exactly transport Einoma into a warm and fuzzy new age world, but it does tend to temper their brittle austerity, replacing alien otherness with a more open-ended sense of mystery. Whether or not you regard this as an improvement or a loss of focus will depend upon your musical tastes, but both this new CD and their previous one are well worth acquiring even if no one seems willing to create (let alone jump on) an Einoma bandwagon.
Posted by Bill Tilland at 05:15, 16 Feb 2004
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