Arcane Candy

The Rova Saxophone Quartet, or Rova for short, has been operating in the realms of post-free jazz and new music since 1977. One of the more recent releases in their rather large catalog is a CD called Resistance, belched forth in 2003 by Canadian improv label Victo. It features three long tracks and nearly an hour’s worth of purely acoustic music played with, as you may have guessed by the group’s name, four saxophones, a pretty good amount of reverb and nothing else. The title track, by Rova, dives headfirst into a lively crossroads jamboree where jazz and avant-garde classical meet, with its quasi-lyrical lines punctuated by squeaks and squawks; shrill, sustained clouds and raspy drones. The second track, “The Drift” by Larry Ochs, is considerably more jaunty and playful, while the album’s closer, “The M’ad-Din” by Wadada Leo Smith, is imbued with a somewhat more thorny and homely hue. Clearly and cleanly recorded with plenty of nuance and detail, this partly composed, partly improvised music breaks the rules of both forms in a most invigorating way.

Label: Victo Catalog Number: VICTO CD 086 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 3 Country: Canada Released: 2002 More: Discogs

Text ©2009 Arcane Candy

Released in 2002 by Canadian improv label Victo, L’Oasis pushes nearly an hour’s worth of improvised guitar music out of your speakers from two longtime practitioners of the form, American Eugene Chadbourne on acoustic guitar, banjo and vocals, and Canadian René Lussier on acoustic and electric guitar. Culled from two separate live performances, one in October 1998 at Instants Chavirés in Paris and the other in May 2002 at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Canada, the material alternates rather starkly between traditional song-based picking and total free form freak outs–sometimes even offering a combination of both. But, despite housing two seemingly opposing musical poles, this disc has a consistent flow and feel, thanks to the similar recordings and a smooth editing job.

Read the rest of this entry »

Henry Kaiser has been working in underground improv music circles since the 1970s, and was one of the first American free improv guitarists. He was influenced by one of the original free improv guitarists of the ’60s, Derek Bailey. Jim O’Rourke is a composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who came to prominence in the ’90s. Kaiser and O’Rourke met in 1990 at Company Week, an annual improv music festival organized by Bailey. They enjoyed playing together so much that they decided to record a CD together. Hooray! Released the following year by Canadian label Victo, Tomorrow Knows Where You Live is a long, 73-minute collection of free improv on electric and acoustic guitar in a duo setting with no overdubs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Offering up five tracks of solo instrumental intensity from this NYC street musician and torch-passed-to rep of ’60s free jazz motions, Charles Gayle, Unto I Am is a pressure cooker that is definitely worthy of a place in your kitchen. “Innocent” (for tenor sax), “Pastures Colors” (for bass clarinet), and “Child’s Love” (for tenor sax) possess the kind of skruff, throat-toot-wail-gargle glory that guys like Albert Ayler and Kaoru Abe did more than hint at with their ground shoveling work of yore —and fans of those two characters should have a little bit more than a passing crush on these definitely-not-dainty passages. “Eden Lost” is an energetic, dissonant piano romp with a super pissed Sunday morning sermon weaved throughout. “You said, ‘I want to find my own way. I want to do what I want to do—no matter what.’ Because you say, ‘I’m good—Oh, I’m just a little bad.’ Christ said, ‘There’s no way. There’s none righteous. I’m The Way, The Truth and The Light. Ain’t nobody comes to the father but by me.’” The disc closes with an 11-minute overdub mix called, “Good Shepard” for sermon, percussion and tenor sax.

Label: Victo Catalog Number: VICTO CD 032 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 5 Country: Canada Released: 1995 More: Downbeat, Wikipedia

Text ©2003 Arcane Candy

Founded in 2004, Modern Silent Cinema is the instrumental music project of one Cullen Gallagher of Brooklyn, New York. His latest EP, Hammitt, is the sonic companion to an experimental film of the same name by Matt Barry. As a collection, it presents quite a diverse and intimate listening experience, feeling less like a cohesive album and more like a series of short sonic vignettes, each offering a glimpse into the film’s narrative and emotional landscape.



Read the rest of this entry »

Formed in 2011, the Ecstatic Music Band are present day purveyors of the ur-drone first laid down by The Theater of Eternal Music 60 years ago. Featuring John Krausbauer and Jamie Green on violence, I mean violins, Kaori Suzuki on hello, I mean cello, and Joseph Hammer on hammered dulcimer, I mean bowed guitar, they splay out a massive sustained atmosphere that can best be described as Tony Conrad on steroids. Getting plumb tuckered out at just over the half hour mark, the group should’ve kept the party going for at least a whole hour, if not longer. Drone on? Right on!

Read the rest of this entry »

In alphabetical order by artist name.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sean Noonan, a drummer known for his genre-bending approach, leads The Noonan Trio, a captivating ensemble that challenges conventional jazz expectations. With Michael Bardon on double bass and Matthew Bourne on piano, Noonan crafts a sonic world that’s equal parts playful and workful. His career is marked by a refusal to be pigeonholed, drawing inspiration from punk, classical, and avant-garde music, blending them into a unique and often unpredictable sound.

Read the rest of this entry »

Elisabet Curbelo is the Assistant Professor of Electro-Acoustic Composition and Music Theory at the University of Utah. Armed with a PhD in Music Composition from UC San Diego, she has produced “pieces for ensemble and solo instruments, voice, choir, acoustic and electro-acoustic music, music for dance, installation work, and music for improvisers, advertising, podcasts and visual media.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Psychic Sun is the umpteenth 7” single by the violinist John Krausbauer Sauerkraut. Kicking off the proceedings on side 1, “Violin I” features a clearly and loudly recorded violin splurging out a whole bunch of echoing screech scorch that sounds warmer than a mitten full of peanut butter cookies freshly baked by your mom on a sunny Sunday afternoon while she was wearing one of those aprons straight out of the 1950s with flowers embroidered all over it. The fun continues on side 2 with a similar track shockingly enough called “Violin II.” If you can’t hang with this music, maybe you should go pay your taxes or fill out a form or somethin’. The nice pattern artwork on the front cover vaguely reminds me of Jon Gibson’s Two Solo Pieces LP.

Label: Eroto Tox Decodings Catalog Number: ETD0042 Format: 7” single Packaging: Paper cover Tracks: 2 Country: United States Released: 2024 More: Discogs

Text ©2024 Arcane Candy