Live shot #5

 

Aaron Sheppard, American Primitive guitarist, Emerald Tablet Gallery, SF circa 2012.

Live shot #4!

 

Well, technically not a live shot! 

This is Eric, also known as Grawer. He's a drummer, an engineer, and just a great person. His contributions to KFJC are immense, and if you aren't aware of KFJC, go and find them NOW. The best radio station in the world, KFJC is a true friend to independent artists of any and all flavors.

Another live shot!

 

Joseph Noble and Will Alexander at Meridian Gallery, SF in 2012. Both of these men are published poets, and I can't recommend their work enough. If there's a piano in the room, Will can be found there. He loves to play music, as does Joseph.

Bryan Day/Seymour Glass-Crooked Doppler; tanzprocesz Records cassette, 2021

 

To paraphrase good old Michael Corleone, just when Disaster Amnesiac thought I was out, I get pulled back in! Recently I'd been suffering through feeling at a loss for music to listen to and review, but thankfully along came yet another surprise package from Public Eyesore headquarters in Richmond. This was entirely good and welcome news, and I began to listen to Crooked Doppler, the new cassette collaboration from Bryan Day and Seymour Glass as soon as I was able to free it from its packaging.

What one will find on Doppler is the sounds of two very established artists/writers (me reviewing the guy behind Bananafish? gtfo!) delving deeply into their respective methods and fusing them into pieces that integrate them seamlessly. As Disaster Amnesiac has listened to this cassette, these pieces have always felt cogent and coherent. The attention to detail and pure awareness that Day and Glass clearly brought to the production of this release is evident throughout. They leave tons of spaces and gaps in-between the noisier parts, spaces and gaps which allow the perceptions to process and prepare, and even dare I say relax as the sound worlds reveal themselves. Even a waterfall of literal glass breaking sounds at one point does not collapse into incoherence (not that that ever should!) but instead becomes a musical timbre within the gestalt of the piece in which it is contained. 

Speaking of timbres, Disaster Amnesiac has certainly felt pleasure in seeming to be able to identify some of Day's invented instruments from theirs. Having seen him play live more than a few times, it's been really satisfying to recall them as I've listened to what I believe to be their distinctive sounds.

In addition to such aspects, the listener of Crooked Doppler will be treated to odd moans, crinkling clicks, mysterious synthesized buzzes, radio broadcast voices, found sounds of the urban variety, even what seemed to be Glass quoting a Gospel hymn. All of this and more within a matrix of deftly organized Music Concrete that would surely appeal to a wide swath of musical adventurers from the scruffy post-Industrial dudes to the serious intellectuals of academia; there's sonic goodies for them all within this release. 

Be sure and take a bite, but remember to take your time chewing, as you'll not want to miss any of the richly complex flavors of Crooked Doppler.

Another live shot!

 

Continuing with the theme from the previous post, here's another shot of an SF Bay Area musician, taken by Disaster Amnesiac out in the wild. This is Bill Noertker, bassist and composer. Bill's compositions are often inspired by visual art. This photo was taken at SF Musicians Hall Local #6. 

I will be posting some more shots from a cache that I have been going through. I really like their candid nature, and hope some others will, too.

Cool photo of Amy Reed from 2015

 

Just a really cool photo of Northern California guitarist Amy Reed, taken at Berkeley Arts Festival Building in Spring of 2015. Disaster Amnesiac is really proud of this shot, so I figured I'd share it. Hopefully more posts coming at some point in the near future.....

gabby fluke-mogul-Jacob Felix Heule-Kanoko Nishi-Smith-Non-Dweller; Humbler Records, 2021

 

The standard m.o. for Disaster Amnesiac is really simple: receive music, decide to review, listen, listen, listen, listen, then review. I mention this in regards to Non-Dweller, the fantastic new release from gabby fluke-mogul, Jacob Felix Heule, and Kanoko Nishi-Smith, because it's been really tough to get from the listening phase and into the reviewing one. 

The best explanation for this hesitancy is simply that this music is so deep and rich, so sublimely intimate, I really don't want to stumble around with words that seem inadequate as far as descriptions of these sounds go.  So, here sits Disaster Amnesiac, really wanting to review Non-Dweller, but feeling rather daunted by the task, even after multiple, deep listens. That said, I need to at least try.

These three improvisors are all clearly reaching new depths of their understanding of extended techniques with the instruments which they use: violin, koto, and bass drum. From this elegantly simple array, fluke-mogul, Heule, and Nishi-Smith utilize this breadth of understanding to conjure up a tightly focused trio action that goes so far beyond notes and so deeply into worlds; these worlds spin upon the axes that are scaffolded by each player as they listen and respond to the gestures of their cohorts. The sum total of these actions seem best described as episodes that feature all three of them changing places within the shifting zones of the improvisations. When a listener finds themselves within these various episodes, they will likely find it fascinating to try to figure out who is playing what. Is that the koto playing the bass guitar part? Is that a bowed cymbal on the bass drum, or the violin bow that is making that deep drone? Which one of the instruments is making that higher register clicking sound, and which one is making the booming low sound in counterpart to it? This is not to say that the various voices are disconnected, for they all blend into whole that is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.If you're at all interested in Improvised Music and the ways in which improvising bands order their individual languages into group dynamics, surely the kind of playing that this Sublimity Trio displays will appeal to your tastes. fluke-mogul, Heule, and Nishi-Smith are going deep on Non-Dweller.

So, yeah, here sits Disaster Amnesiac, having had tracks i and ii of Non-Dweller in the listening rotation for days and days, marveling at the beautiful cover art by Sarah Partch Smith, struggling to find the words that could even adequately begin to describe the heights and the depths that it travels  to. 

Perhaps I should have just kept this review really simple: listen and be blown away.