Vector Trio-Sin Ojos; self-released via Bandcamp, 2015

With hindsight, Disaster Amnesiac could kick myself for not checking out more music during the years that I lived near Washington, D.C. The shows that were attended by teenage Amnesiac were awesome, of course, but there is just so much great musical culture there to be had: Go Go, Blues, Jazz, Roots Rock, etc. can be found alongside the eminent Punk Rock and Hardcore that gets a lot of the attention. I do recall night time trips to Georgetown for record shopping, during which I would stand outside of this little Jazz club's window, in which the drummer would often be placed, and listen. Still, it's a drag to have never taken in so much of the music that permeates the District.
Happily, Disaster Amnesiac discovered yet another great D.C. band recently, through the great World of Abstract Dreams blog (the man's reading list.....wow), that band being Vector Trio.
Sin Ojos, one of three 2015 releases at Vector Trio's Bandcamp page, starts off spaciously with Semi, a track that has Disaster Amnesiac ruminating about any and all manner of the Post-Ayler continuum in Improvised Music. The group makes these skeletal frames of sound, within which they interact freely and with precision. As I've listened, it's become clear that this group has jammed together a lot; they comment on each others' sounds, finish each others' riffs, and just generally play. Drummer Marshall Hughey frames the sound on Semi. His drum set playing doesn't so much swing as creates zones, from which bassist Gary Rouzer and trumpeter Scott Forrey launch off into their own spaces. These three players present myriad sounds during the tune's twelve minute duration, and though they all really inventive, it's Hughey's drumming that impresses the most. His brush techniques go way beyond the standard Jazz-brushed swishing: at times he coaxes what sound like strange machine sounds from his brushed tom toms and cymbals, or taps out log drum sounds out on the sides of his drums. This is not to say that Forrey and Rouzer don't play incredibly on Semi; they certainly do, but Hughey just puts on a clinic in improvised drum set creativity throughout.
Next up can be found the Jazz march of the title track, during which Forrey really shines. The rhythm section provides a solid, swinging frame, from which he riffs at times buttery and full bodied, at times spicy and more slim and high pitched. His trumpet playing on Sin Ojos travels many paths, all of them compelling to hear. Rouzer gets woody, percussive tones from his bass, and, eventually, Hughey introduces the recording's first overt Swing pattern, moving the group into the canny lateral Monk quoting of Well You Shouldn't, with its sweet horn solos and more fine, if somewhat more traditional brush work from Hughey. It's the kind of nod to tradition that all Jazz lovers could recognize as legitimate and heartfelt. Disaster Amnesiac figures that none that would hear this track would find it disingenuous. Its easy, swinging feel seems all about adding creative touches to a much cherished tradition, never aping it, but participating in its evolution.  Things go back to the more Free side on Not But Also, in which the rhythms get more cellular and pointillist for a time as the trio examines collective improvisation conversation before beginning to bounce a bit more. Forrey's solo again shows him to be a masterful player: as I've listened to Sin Ojos, I've marveled at how much sound and varied tone he gets from what so often seems like such a simple instrument (I realize that this is absolutely not the case, of course, but, hey, maybe I need to check out more trumpet and less saxophone during Jazz listening sessions). Ojos winds down with the melancholy closer The Minus Ghost, during which Rouzer pulls sweeping tones from his cello, Forrey bleats lonely and somewhat sorrowed, and Hughey provides more inventive framing with his excellent brush work.
As this title suggests, there are times when people are without eyes to see, but if you have any kind of ear for Jazz, listen for the sounds of Vector Trio. 

Street Of No Return-David Goodis; 1954, Fawcett Publications

For the past few years, Disaster Amnesiac has been digging interviews and podcasts from an "alternative historian" whose view are quite challenging to mine. Within the spirit of free speech, and the desire to challenge certain orthodoxies that had begun to ossify within my perceptions, I have greatly appreciated this Youtube celebrity's spieling. Recently, he opined something to effect that "America has contributed NOTHING to world culture", and this assertion had me scratching my head, especially since I was deep into American writer David Goodis's 1954 novel Street Of No Return.
It seems to me that Noir writing's form, with its short, tight, descriptive sentences and bleak world views arose out of the necessity of describing the hard scrabble gauntlet that most Americans must indeed walk within our lives on this part of the continent. Street Of No Return definitely stays within those parameters, and masterfully so. Goodis's novel, the story of which essentially spans one long night in the life of a quintessentially 20th Century American Loser, is written with the economical, fast moving Noir style that gives voice to the constantly hustling American Masses. His pages-long description of main protagonist Whitey's beat down at the hands of a sadistic racketeer named Bertha struck this reader as a perfect metaphor for the myriad unpleasant turns that fate hands to so many people within the "American Dream".
Additionally, the sub plot of the novel, framed within a ginned-up race war, plotted and financed by unseen hands that couldn't care less about those doing the actual fighting, and only interested in the profitable chaos that stems from it, is clearly reflective of American culture. Sadly, that's a dynamic that's in play more within the 21st Century Global Culture, but the strange bedfellows that intertwine seem to Disaster Amnesiac to be singularly American. As such, Noir in general and Street Of No Return in particular  are deeply American, culturally.
Along with Jazz, Rock 'n Roll, Hip Hop, Bluegrass, Hollywood, and, indeed, Noir, America has indeed made a few innovations in culture. Disaster Amnesiac cannot say that they're all shining lights as compared to the innovations of various other World Historical societies. That said, novels such as Street Of No Return, which is a fine, fast, and really good read, give the lie to statements that would have American culture as one vast blank. Often dark? Yes. Blank? No, just churning within a firmament that we're all aware of, and trying desperately to rise above.

Tape Crash #12 by Stefan Christoff/Post Mortem-Split cassette/dl; Old Bicycle Records, 2015

Fun Disaster Amnesiac fact: I currently work at a place that often involves young people screaming, crying, etc. As such, my musical tastes, especially during the afternoon automobile commute, are sometimes tending toward the "mellower" sides of the musical spectrum. I still consider myself a musically adventurous person, of course, but, some days the intensity of working with cognitively asymmetrical students has increased the desire for more placid sounds.
Thankfully, independent labels such as Italy's Old Bicycle Records are producing releases that satisfy both of these criteria. Take for example the recent split cassette release between Stefan Christoff and Post Mortem, Tape Crash #12.
Packaged within a beautifully silk screened wrap-around case, Tape Crash #12 features two sides of music that nicely fulfills both of the above stated needs.
Stefan Christoff's contribution on side A, recorded in Montreal in the years 2013-15, have him playing generally slow tempo, introspective works for solo guitar, organ, and piano. On piano pieces such as reve populaire a Montreal and piano in the atmosphere, his melodic approaches are emotionally charged and moving, seeming to hint at times at loneliness and possibly sadness, with touches of some kind of overcoming. Granted, these are just projections on Disaster Amnesiac's part, but they just have that sound of late-night piano ruminations that tend to evoke those types of feelings. His six string playing on correspondance has great High Plains, wind-swept strummings, and I really enjoy the slow pace of its movement. Perhaps Christoff's most experimental moves on Tape Crash occur during his organ pieces, fenetres sonores, with its backward sounding loops, and the 1960's-style Minimalism of organ rhythms under the rain, but even these two are plenty chill and meditative. Overall, Stafan's side is a fine fusion of relaxed, atmospheric playing and experimental questing. Disaster Amnesiac has found these sounds plenty soothing after tough days with challenging students.
On the B side of Tape Crash #12 can be found Dutch artist Jan Kees Helms, aka Post Mortem. His one long piece, Waasland, has a more musique concrete feel, with long, ambient sound washes, watery piano samples, strange, metallic-sounding percussion, floating voices, and the like. Waasland is certainly more on the more purely experimental side, but Disaster Amnesiac has found its tones to be equally calming. I suspect that this has much to do with Post Mortem's pacing: over the course of twenty three minutes, his sounds are never pushed hastily. Indeed, the mental impression that I have had is one of a dreamy river of sound that flows languidly past the perceptions. It may seem like a point belabored, but, again, this music provides plenty of mellow, yet compelling listening as Disaster Amnesiac has wended his way home during the work week.
A few years back, Disaster Amnesiac wanted to describe the music that fuses introspective, meditative vibes with the harder edges of the more purely experimental tones as "Blackened New Age". I don't know if the artists whose work is presented in Tape Crash #12 would be comfortable with, or even like that appellation, but it seems, in some ways, appropriate. I do know that their sounds are helping me to relax, while not boring me to tears, after long, generally stressful days within my particular zone of the "rat race". For that, I am grateful.

Bob Marsh-Viovox; Public Eyesore #109, 2008

It seems as though conversations between creative/thoughtful/non-wealthy people in the San Francisco Bay Area increasingly feature an element of "where in the hell are we going to move once our landlord evicts us?". This has at least been the case for Disaster Amnesiac for the past couple of years. I hear about more and more people having to pack things up and leave the places that they'd been calling home; a move to entirely different city or state has been pretty often the case in these circumstances. The complicated property rights and human rights issued that these conversations touch upon are way beyond the scope of this humble blog, but, in this instance, I write about a friend's work, this friend having had to recently pull up stakes and leave the community within which he'd been working and thriving for several years.
Bob Marsh gifted Disaster Amnesiac a copy of Viovox at he and his partner, painter/percussionist Sandra Yolles', house during the first of their two moving potlatch events in late September of this year. He noticed me looking at it, and suggested that I take it and enjoy it.
Enjoy it, I certainly have!
The disc features Bob on spoken word, which he mixes with processed violin, cello, and sampled sounds. 
Viovox has a very Avant-Garde, Experimental Music sound throughout, but is always imbued with the kind of human and intimate flavor that makes it quite pleasurable to hear. It never feels like a pointless exercise.
Marsh's raw, Punk Rock/Industrial feels on the stringed instruments definitely add to this property, as his playing style is indeed heavy, in the sense of it having physical impact. Bob does not coddle his instruments. Of course, this is not to say that he bashes them around either, it's just that, as one listens, one can feel their effects. It's this type of playing, rooted as much in Folk traditions as any 20th Century forms, that Bob always brings to his music.
Also within the Folk music matrix is the tradition of verbal information transmission. On pieces such as Rich Rule and Bring Out the Dead, Marsh achieves almost Medieval tones of narrative, while on Fuck It All and Calm Down his concerns seem more contemporary if equally "primal", even "alien" at times. Disaster Amnesiac has been marveling at the ways in which Bob effectively externalizes the internal dialogues that we are all going through. It strikes me that there is an element of autism or even insanity within these types of dialogues, and one of the highest functions of art is its ability to release these "demons"; on Viovox, Marsh sounds as if he is, in many ways, doing so, and inviting the active listener to participate in this process.
Mixed together, the twin elements of strings and voices blend richly in Viovox, providing for a fascinating, fun, and sometimes cathartic musical experience. Although challenging, it's never boring.
Bob and Sandy are now on their way east, searching for a new home in a more affordable area of the U.S. Any community in which they will reside will be better for their presence. Disaster Amnesiac is glad for any Bob Marsh recordings present in my musical library, especially since it will be challenging to see him, going forward.

Ricardo D'Orlando-Extensions Through Dimensions; Galactus 15 Records, 2015 compact disc

Over the years, Disaster Amnesiac has interacted with more than a few musicians, and perhaps one of the most humble of them is Ricardo D'Orlando. I met him at the Luggage Store in San Francisco, where he was doing a performance after driving all the way to California from his home base in New York City. Mind you, there were no other stops on this tour, save for a brief one in Los Angeles, where Ricardo stopped to check out some gear. Many musicians would likely be pretty perturbed by having to have traveled so far, especially in light of the somewhat small turnout for the show. Ricardo showed no negativity or frustration at all. He simply set up his synths and guitar amp, turned his rig on, and played a wonderful and spaced out set for his allotted forty five minutes, after which he packed his gear up, grabbed his car, and proceed to start the long trek back east. Pretty awesome, all of it.
Since that time, Disaster Amnesiac and Mr. D'Orlando have struck up a friendship on Facebook. A few weeks back, Ricardo let me know that a I should be expecting a package containing some of his music; the package has arrived, and I have been digging his solo disc, Extensions Through Dimensions, to start.
The disc features twenty three tracks of Cosmic Music, produced with the pretty much the same gear that I saw him use at the Luggage Store, and they all flow nicely together. There is a vaguely ritualistic feel to the overall sound, which pairs nicely with the ancient carvings featured on the disc's cover. D'Orlando sculpts as well, building up big clouds of sound that drift through the listener's perceptions as their action unfolds. There are linked sequences, such at the four part Antagonization, with its short statements; classically 20th Century Electronic Music moves on Robot Speaks; a canny remixing of Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde; harrowing heaviness on La Terra Trema; New Age feels on The Sacred Craft, and even emotional tenderness on Shala 1 and Shala 2. As any effective ritual should, Extensions Through Dimensions has varying and diverse movements.
It's these types of variation that Disaster Amnesiac finds really compelling about Extensions. When listening to this disc, I have found my mind going to all sorts of fascinating imaginary places; it's clear that Ricardo has put a lot of thought and care into his creative efforts.
I beseech you, the reader, to send some care his way, and listen to some of his music. He's surely put in the miles to warrant your attention.

Hexn-al-khimiyya; Old Bicycle Records, limited edtion cassette/dl; 2015

     "[I]t's like an alchemists playground"-June Millington, Angry Women in Rock, v. 1 

As Disaster Amnesiac has been listening to, and really digging al-khimiyya by Italian artist Hexn, I've also been digging back through certain key publications within my library, not the least of which being Andrea Juno's great mid-1990's interviews with women musical artists from the Pre-Punk, Punk, and Post-Punk years.
June Millington's quote, used to describe engineer Richard Perry, jumped out at me, its theme being synchronous with Hexn's stated goal of a "desire for alchemical knowledge" as arising from his musical matrix.
Hexn's playground would probably have to be designed by Edward Gorey or Tim Burton, as the release features a fantastically Goth vibe. Tracks such as Still Praying In the Middle of a Sun, Since Everything Was Anything, and A sacred Ring Around the Earth feature the kind of Bat Cave trance rhythms and vibes that would have just about any fan of that genre up and onto dimly lit dance floors world wide.  
Still Praying features a wonderfully dramatic, icy synthesizer buildups that lead into really cool reverb drenched viola sounds, Since Everything features finely programmed down-tempo percussion, and A sacred Ring's doom-ey ritualistic vibe slithers into an awesome double time shuffle that would surely send any of its participants into a Dionysian ecstasy. These tunes are seriously tight, finely produced, and incredibly pleasurable to hear.
Further tracks such as Never Again Again Again, Now Then Black, and Eye are a bit more on the heavy Industrial side of the blackened Goth spectrum, with their sounds having a bit more of an experimental feel, perhaps a bit less dance-oriented and more of the head trip variety. One won't hear Disaster Amnesiac complain about those vibes, either! More really thoughtfully produced musical alchemy can be heard within these tracks, it's just that one may want to sit down with the eyes closed for them. Perhaps they're a bit more on the Apollonian side of the "as above so below" equation.
With al-khimiyya, Hexn has crafted a fine magickal vessel. It is surely a symbol of a sublimely attuned musical/alchemical soul.

Mean Crow-s/t; Limited edition cassette/Digital download, Ross Hammond Bandcamp, 2015

A few weeks back, Disaster Amnesiac got into a pretty interesting conversation with a local business owner about our mutual love of Jazz. He told me about his trips to Monterey and Montreal Jazz Fests, and I told him about the rich, vibrant Northern California underground scene. The look of incredulity that he gave me was both heartbreaking and instructive. Heartbreaking, because I realized that he just did not believe me when I told him about how many great Jazz/Improvisational musicians this area has, and instructive because, after thinking about the interaction, I realized how much work must be done to let Jazz fans about said scene.
One can't say that Ross Hammond isn't doing his share of this undertaking. Take a glance at his bandcamp page, and you'll surely get my drift. Along with showcasing his own work, he also runs the great Gold Lion Arts organization in Sacramento, where he organizes shows and puts on educational and art events. Ross is WORKIN'!
Working, too, is the sound of Mean Crow. This trio features Hammond on guitar, Luke Stewart on bass, and Nate Scheible on drums. Together, they explore some seriously deep Jazz and improvisational spaces.
The set, recorded in late 2014 in Washington D.C., starts off with some the group playing collectively long, arcing tones, with an almost Industrial Jazz feel, before spinning of into a typically heady solo from Hammond. Disaster Amnesiac has enjoyed the simple approach of his aesthetic, and the myriad voices that he coaxes from just strings, neck, pickups, and amp. Ross continues to grow his sound; from a quite simplified base, he manages to produce an overwhelming array of tones and moods. Stewart and and Scheible most definitely keep pace with him. Their tight rhythm section actions cooks, boils, whirls and blazes around the guitar speak, with big, plummy bass tones and quick sticking/foot action on the traps. Stunning trio action herein! The only quibble I have is that its side cuts off right as Ross seems to be delving into another great statement. Dude, frustrating!
Thankfully for the attentive listener, side two continues with their sublime trio dynamics, with some hot slide guitar action following after the initial bowed bass eloquence of Stewart's playing. Scheible also impresses mightily with his brush chops, which are quick but by no means un-present within the action. This leads back to more full trio Harmelodic conversation, the group back in all-out STUN mode as the tape concludes, Mean Crow walking the listener out the door with a seriously bangin', funky, aural kick in the ass.
I could go on and on: Mean Crow's release is the kind that begs for the moment by moment enthusing that characterizes many a music fan. Disaster Amnesiac will just advise: find it and listen to it! If you're at all interested in Jazz or improvised music, I promise that you won't be disappointed.
Would that guys like the business owner that I mentioned be able to acknowledge talented voices when they hear, or even hear about, them, regardless of their status. Disaster Amnesiac feels happy to be able to do so, as I am always happy to hear new sounds from Ross Hammond and his various groups.