David Boykin-Transolo; Sonic Healing Ministries #026, 2022

 

Midwest-based practitioner of improvisational izzness David Boykin first came across Disaster Amnesiac's perceptual radar about a decade ago through Dusty Groove, the Chicago based record store. Boykin gets lots of love there, plus distribution of his Sonic Healing Ministries label's releases. Deservedly so, as David makes great Jazz music that bridges the gaps between Bop, New Thing, and later improvised modes, all from aesthetics that are clear and relatable. 

Boykin's recent CD, Transolo, draws from the Improvised Music side of his musical world. Over five tracks, he plays either unaccompanied bass clarinet or drum set, in a very live setting. Disaster Amnesiac can't figure out if there's an actual physical audience in attendance, but I can clearly hear him put down the horn, move over to his drums, and vice versa. 

David's bass clarinet style is characterized by ample use of multiphonic lines, which gives the listener plenty of voices to hear within many played movements and phrases. His being a Jazz player of the post-Ayler continuum also allows room for plenty of "talking" notes, growls, squeals, squalling, and smears, along with more traditional melodic statements. All of these moves blend in pretty seamlessly; his adeptness with the bass clarinet comes across. It's been tough for Disaster Amnesiac to not compare Boykin's playing herein with Eric Dolphy, and to a lesser extent Anthony Braxton, for those two have made such definitive statements with the bass clarinet. That said, Boykin's tones are not as other worldly as Dolphy's, a bit lower in their elemental timbres; his Blues feel is a bit more audible than Braxton's. He's got his own voice going with it. 

The pieces on Transolo in which Boykin plays the drums are particularly fascinating. At times he utilizes an "all over" approach, skittering around on the skins and metals. At others, he seems to focus intently onto one particular aspect, cymbal bells or side head cracks on the snare. He shows real prowess with a full set of drums throughout, pulling out great tom tom tones and pairing them with ride cymbal drones. Extra points for cowbell hits as well! Drummers interested or involved with Free Improvisation will want to take note of how a player who usually takes on the melodic/harmonic roles within a group uses the drums, these examples could prove useful to them. 

All told, Transolo is a cool, intimate glimpse into the solo workings of a committed instrumental player of deep pedigree within the Jazz scene. No doubt, David Boykin will continue pushing his muses with releases such as it. Can you keep up?

Brasilia Laptop Orchestra-10 yEars aLive; Public Eyesore Records #150, 2022

 

Ten years is a pretty long spell in which to do anything, and as such seems deserving of some kind of acknowledgement. So it has been done for Brasilia Laptop Orchestra by way of Public Eyesore's release of 10 yEars aLive, a compilation of tracks culled from the years 2013-2021( if you're reading this in the year 2022, don't worry, their first performance was in 2012).

Across eleven tracks of what can be lazily called Electronic Music, BSBLOrk as they call themselves, journey into varied zones of sound. These sounds, and the parameters in which they are generated, are subject to initiatory sources such as large dice being thrown, cameras as input/control devices, and audience participation. These sources fuel the primary concerns of BSBLOrk's aesthetic: physicality, play, and political engagement. The sense that Disaster Amnesiac gets is that the ensemble are concerned with not evolving into a dry exercise in academic music, but instead of morphing into a more living entity. Another sense that I get is that it's important to see this group, for the listener to inhabit the same space in which they are producing their music. Not existing within a vacuum would serve to prop up all three of their stated goals, that's for sure.

Back to the sounds. They are varied and wide-ranging, I'd imagine in large part due to the non-fixed nature of the personnel. On yEars, I have heard DNA sequences floating within the ethers of protoplasm, primitive 1960's synthesizer blooping and bleeping, disembodied voices howling up and down from their respective spatial coordinates, Cosey Fanni Tutti's pocket trumpet, Bryan Day's junkyard gamelan, fizzing squalls of dying circuitry, spaceship docking instructions, crazed beings preaching their cosmologies, etc. etc. Returning to that idea of having a morphology, BSBLOrk certainly does seem to have that characteristic, at least for this listener. The music that is documented on yEars is juicy and breathing, nowhere staid. I imagine that this is the desired effect, so kudos to Brasilia Laptop Orchestra for their achievement. 

What do you think music production will be like in 2032? Disaster Amnesiac imagines that most of the members of Brasilia Laptop Orchestra have pondered that question. Until that time, I'll try to figure out how to say "cool set dude" in Portuguese as I (hopefully) see them play via some streaming platform. I'm glad to have a copy of 10 yEars aLive to jam in the interim.

Live Shot #65!

 

Harpist Rebecca Reinhard Foreman. Interpreter of Baroque, Romantic, Folk, and other forms. Historian of harp production. Public library, Oro Valley AZ, 8/17/22.

Live Shot #64!

 

Musician, poet, visual artist, scholar Brian Strang. 111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco 8/18.

Live Shot #63!

 

Old Million Eye, house party, Oakland CA 8/12/2018.

Ypsmael+Eloine-Lost Teeth; Chocolate Monk Records #552; 2022

 

Bryan Day has Public Eyesore/eh? Records churning again, after what seemed to be a pause of sorts. Before Disaster Amnesiac gets to some of that output, a quick stop is needed over at Chocolate Monk Records for Lost Teeth, a cool collaboration between Ypsmael and Eloine, the latter of which is a performance name which Day uses at certain times, while the former Day has documented on his labels. 

Lost Teeth features eight tracks of Electro-Acoustic invesigations, all of which strike this listener as some kind of through composed vision, very visually stimulating in its movements. Disaster Amnesiac has seen it more than once as a city, one that is virtually constructed within the perceptions, one that exists within some other mental sphere or dimension. This on account of the spaciousness of the instrumental interactions knitted together by Ypsmael and Eloine especially.

Across its roughly forty minutes duration, these two sound artists coax strange, cool tones from instruments, voices processed and/or not processed, field recordings, and found objects. It all hangs together less as a maelstrom and more as a meditation. Picture it if you will as a walk through those virtual streets painted by the tones that emanate from the creativity of these two practitioners. Disaster Amnesiac has especially enjoyed trying to identify Eloine/Day's inventions, as time was I was familiar with them as objects seen on the 3D plane. These days, I have to see them within different dimensions, but that's fine, as they sound as cool to me therein, popping and scraping like some junkyard gamelan.

Ypsmael brings a bit of darkness to the proceedings, throwing disembodied voices out at random intervals, which make Disaster Amnesiac feel like I'm walking along fogged in, cobbled streets way after sundown, slight tremors of fear tingling down my central nervous system. His drums processing is nervy, too, as he makes their sounds smear and wobble along with his baritone guitar tones and other objects. 

Lost Teeth sees the sounds from Ypsmael and Eloine mixed into a clearly heard field of intrigue and sonic adventure for those who desire a bit more than verse/chorus/verse etc. from their listening time. If one finds oneself in that camp, Disaster Amnesiac advises to steer on over to Chocolate Monk's web page, because this record is limited to sixty copies, and I'm aware that Seymour Glass has one along with me. Surely, there must be fifty-eight adventurous weirdos still out there among the living......