Live shot #163!

 

War Hippy + Crank Sturgeon. Wonder Valley Experimental Music Fest at The Palms Restaurant in Twentynine Palms CA, 4/5/2025. High octane Psych Noise from long time practitioners of the form. 

More shots from this show to come.

Live shot(s) #162!

 

Harpist and composer Noel Wan introduces and performs upon The Angel Of Death at ArtSpace West, ASU campus Phoenix AZ. Five pieces from five ideas. Microtonal discovery through strings amplified upon thick metal parts. Incidental sounds. This amazing instrument should paired with symphonic strings at some point.

Jon Irabagon With Mike Pride and Mick Barr: I Don't Hear Nothin' But the Blues, Volume 2: Appalachian Haze; Irabbagast Records 2012

 

The cover art for this CD from Jon Irabagon's trio with Mike Pride and Mick Barr features a story line about three hombres that move from slingin' back a few shots to throwin' down pugilistic-style by the bar to riding off into the sunset. The sounds on I Don't Hear Nothin' But the Blues, Volume 2: Appalachian Haze are ones produced from this tremendously focused trio who simply do not stop playing for close to fifty minutes' duration. Drummer Pride gets to play what in some ways is the leading role of the set. His explorations of micro-tempos, drum set coloration, blasting chops-based mega fills, and just overall hyperactive motion will surely have an attentive listener's ears pinned to the back of their skull. Mike doesn't play anything resembling a traditional beat until at least fifteen minutes in, and then only for a couple of bars. Obviously he's propelled by his own subjective cadence, and its subject is powerful and intensely driven. Also bearing down for extensions of extensions is experimental guitar Wizard Mick Barr. Fingers are flying across the frets of guitar for like ninety nine percent of Haze, which leads to the micro-tonal zones which have been so consistent and repeatedly mind blowing from Barr for quite a few years now. The precision of his attack supplies a sonic quilt of drone. Surely others have compared Mick's guitar sound to swarming bees but damned if that's not the perfect descriptor of it when he's in full flight. Just so powerful. Atop the guitar and drums blitzing, Jon Irabagon stretches out with his tenor saxophone, darting in and out of the maelstrom with overtones and polyphonics which sound authentic and studied. The man knows his horn and its tones are mastered by him. When Irabagon sets up long, circular phrases with the circular breathing technique his music hunches down like an imposing mountain, y'all ain't getting around it so best just to climb into it and let it happen. If you're at all craving bonkers, electrified free improvisation these Blues will sate that craving and then some. Yowsa.

Random shot!

 

Venice CA, 2/2018.

Live shot(s) #161!

 Both shots taken at City Park, Bisbee AZ 3/15/25.

Below: Sonoran Sunsets. Honky tonkin' two steppin' good times with really great pedal steel and vocal harmonies.

Above: Valley Fever boogie in Bisbee because it's got to come out. The guy with the New York t-shirt's favorite Burroughs book is the Adding Machine.

Amanda Irarrazabal+Marco Albert-og; eh? Records #128, 2024

 

og is a duo recording from double bass player Amanda Irarrazabal and vocalist/electronics player Marco Albert, and it was released by eh? Records at the tail end of 2024. It is also a very effective piece of experimental music whose sounds are distinct and obviously well considered. If one reads about the creators of the music documented within og, one will surely realized that Irarrazabal and Albert have had great experience as pertains to playing interactions with an international grab back of acknowledged Masters. They learned well from their mentors and are producing music of deep thought and performative ability, this much is clear all over the pretty orange cassette tape that is og. 

Opener Arak emerges swinging in the metallic zones with raw voices that eventually settle into what sounded to Disaster Amnesiac like the hallucinations of hiker that's been trapped within a dry canyon. It's a very active piece of music and so heavy. Eventually the listener is spun outward from the canyon and into Witblits. This one can be equally unsettling at times, at least until it concludes with primitive, core sounds and dog style (no, in the vocals you perves.) 

Side two of og starts with Raki, a nice slow burn of low bass tones. Irarrazabal can way extend her instrument! A song which presents presents personal linguistics and drama it is. Next up, Singani has contemplative zones and actual Jazz singing, and why not? The realm can always use more Jazz singing, and if you don't believe that please listen to The Steve Lacy Quintet with Irene Aebi or Billie Holiday, ok? og finishes with Orujo. There are throat singing and marching sounds on the tune and then Yeti conference high in the Andes. It's a treatise upon the development of language and it's a lovely conclusion to the album.

Along with the fascinating sounds of og, its jay card art, non fussy and appealing in its aesthetic, make for a release that a collector of physical objects of this type will surely crave. You should be so lucky as to score a copy. You'll like it. A lot. As Disaster Amnesiac does.

Live shot(s) #160!

 Two shots from St. Charles Tavern Tucson, 2/28/2025.

Below: Priscilla Priddy, a gal who can really sing.

Above: Barefoot On Bumblebees. The rural grit of the banjo paired with precision Post Hardcore drumming and dueling vocal harmonies. 

St. Charles Tavern is a really cool spot at which to listen to music, play pool, and hang out!