Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Public Eyesore Reviews, installment #2

The past few weeks have been particularly interesting for Disaster Amnesiac, on account of a herniated disc. I have been essentially on my back for almost fourteen days. This forced down time, while extremely annoying to me, has afforded plenty of time to listen to music. Along with getting reacquainted with Stoner Doom via the Cetralstodet cassette on Sky Lantern, Disaster Amnesiac has also dug into the recent Public Eyesore haul. These recordings merit and reward multiple hearings, and I have most definitely had the time to do so lately!


Tetuzi Akiyama & Anla Courtis-Naranja Songs; Public Eyesore # 127 (CD edition)
Consisting of four tracks of acoustic guitar duo interplay, Naranja Songs stays generally somewhat introspective in its mood. Akiyama and Courtis show their improvisational prowess and personal chemistry, playing twisty and spiked on Mind Mochileros, with its echoes of Towner's ECM offerings and Fahey-esque voicing. Springs and Strings speaks with low notes, deeply sliding harmonic glissando and funky, gritty low end/high end, almost Industrial sounding chatter. They return to the somewhat pastoral Fahey spaces in The Citrico Vibe, playing call and response tag, vibing off of each others' statements as they wend their way through those fields. The disc's closer, Los Frets Nomades, features deep extended techniques, the guitarists coaxing cool Electronic Music and cello sounds from their axes. Naranja Songs is a slow, stately ride into myriad possibilities for acoustic guitars.


Massimo Falascone-Variazioni Mumacs (32 short mu-pieces about macs); Public Eyesore #126 (CD edition)
Disaster Amnesiac is still not sure what exactly a mu piece is, but I am sure that this disc, with its mixture of Musique Concrete, Euro Free Jazz Poetics, and a surreal libretto, recited deadpan by Bob Marsh ("it's not like it used to be, but it's still the system"), is a compelling listen. Falascone takes all kinds of sounds and influences from about sixteen different players and mixes them with field recordings and said libretto, the resulting blend being a hugely diverse musical cloud. The gamut is run from solo pieces, to duets, to large ensemble movements within these Variazioni; the duel drumming of Filippo Monico and Fabrizio Spera sounds particularly cool to these ears. Falascone gets all manner of great Jazz sounds from his alto and baritone horns, too.  Things cross over the pond for a Monk cover, connecting Europe and North America with the acknowledged international language of Jazz, but this piece is really world-spanning in its scope, and Disaster Amnesiac would even go so far as to include non-terrestrial worlds therein. I'd also ask sound engineers to pay close attention: there are moments that bring the close mic'ing techniques of Stockhausen and Xenakis to the fore here, and they add to the intrigue of the mood, along with other discrete aspects of this very creative sound mixture.


Period-2; Public Eyesore #129 (CD edition)
Of all the  Public Eyesore music that Disaster Amnesiac has heard so far, it is Period's music that is the most challengingly heavy. Drummer Mike Pride and guitarist Charlie Looker  begin this corker of a disc with sparse duo action, tom tom ostinato pounding circles around crisp, abstract, and bravely clean guitar strumming ("no stairways to heaven", so sayeth St. Sharrock). It's often the case that these kinds of freedom pursuits have a kind of manic, dense activity within their process. Period manages to leave all kinds of sonic crevices within theirs, and yet to obtain a seriously abstract, otherworld feel. Disaster Amnesiac has felt, while listening to 2, that I've intruded on some private,  intense invocation. It just has that kind of weight about it. Vocalist Chuck Bettis joins the fray with his expressionist vocal techniques, sounding shamanistic and crazed with his glossolalia. Saxophonists Darius Jones and Sam Hilmer add No Wave melting tones and furious bleats, but also keep that kindled, spacious vibe going within this 21st Century Kabuki. Listening to 2, one may feel as is they are returning to some primordial cave. Intriguing wall drawings are indeed scrawled there.

Public Eyesore seems to be moving at a manic pace as far as releasing top flight Improvising/Noise/Abstract documents. If you're at all inclined to need those types of head cleaners, click on over to their page get gone with a few of their artists.


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