@djh - the Underground cover? I didn't give it a lot of thought; I read a biography about him which talked about the cover; the look on his face is kind of "what is this shit" and the cover seems a little odd and exploitive, but then it's mild compared to the exploitive relationship with Columbia in the first place, and it's also less exploitive than the constant "let's put a white female model on the cover of this" from that period in jazz; I also always wonder if there is a relationship between this and the Basement Tapes cover? The two remind me of each other although looking now it's more a visual composition thing than content...
I will say it took me a long time to warm up to looking into the Columbia stuff but now I am more and more, and enjoying them a lot, especially this one.
Someone on here pointed me to bigO, maybe even to this album? I am not often a big fan of bootlegs (sound quality matters to me perhaps more than it should) but this Ellington set is really, really, really great stuff. Recorded two months before I was born. Thanks to whoever led me there.
- Devotion, the opening track of
Grant Cutlers 2012, approaches you from what seems like a great
distance, moving slowly across snowy Midwestern plains. Its a fitting
introduction to an album of cold, geologic beauty, a record not only
inspired by the setting of its creation, but quite literally fashioned
from artifacts unearthed from attics and closets and basements. Often,
artists seek a universality in their work, but Cutler has crafted the
timelessness at the heart of 2012 by documenting a moment, the first
snowbound week of 2008 in Minneapolis.
Hed been reading about
Zen meditation practice. He was learning about binaural beats. Hed just
gotten a Roland JX-3P, a synthesizer from 1983. And so he spread his
synths about the floor of the back room of his house and set about
making drone tapes on his grandfathers tape deck. The deck itself was
rescued from his sisters basement, and the no-name recorder didnt even
work properly half the time. It would eat the cassettes whole, and so
every successful recording was a victory. Even then, playing the tape
back to transfer it onto his computer would sometimes destroy the tape.
Each of the performances here, then, is unique and unduplicatable.
The
fragility of the process is in perfect harmony with the fragility of
the music, which plumbs the beauty of the synthesizers sounds, pulling
out tones that link 2012 to Tangerine Dream, to Aphex Twins Selected
Ambient Works Vol 2, to Boards of Canada, and to Autechre. Its a love
letter to the soft, otherworldly fuzziness and cool, austere alienness
of the analog synth. Its airiness and space let you follow tones and
looping sequences through subtle shifts and changes, the sound coloring
whatever space the listener is in, just as Cutlers wonky tape deck
colors the sound of the whole record. Its the kind of album you want to
curl up and take a nap inside of.
A warm blanket, a love
letter, a document, a sonic painting of winter in Minnesota: 2012 is all
of these things and also something more. Its a mirror, a work that
reveals the listener to him or herself, reflecting back on us ourselves
in moments of peace, of focus, of solitude, of contemplation."
Comments
Really great album, will be there in best of 2017
Pete Namlook and Tetsu Inoue - 2350 Broadway
Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology.
This is also what I am reading.
Caterwauling, but the good kind
This was a late-year addition for me, and the more I hear the heavier I like. Hard to keep up with Rob, he already has a new one this year.
Bill Bruford's Earthworks - Dig
Anthology of Russian Sacred Music, $6.49 for 560+ minutes of music. Mostly choral, but I am only two hours into it at this point.
@djh - the Underground cover? I didn't give it a lot of thought; I read a biography about him which talked about the cover; the look on his face is kind of "what is this shit" and the cover seems a little odd and exploitive, but then it's mild compared to the exploitive relationship with Columbia in the first place, and it's also less exploitive than the constant "let's put a white female model on the cover of this" from that period in jazz; I also always wonder if there is a relationship between this and the Basement Tapes cover? The two remind me of each other although looking now it's more a visual composition thing than content...
I will say it took me a long time to warm up to looking into the Columbia stuff but now I am more and more, and enjoying them a lot, especially this one.
Thomas Oboe Lee
Download for free here.
emuser Roland Emile Kuit - Abstract Flute Music
I like this album a lot.
The whole album is still free at Soundcloud
- Innova Recordings.
Streaming via the eMusic Beta
Free at the archive. Not the best comp, but nice enough in the background.
Claire M. Singer - Solas
Streaming on emusic beta.
@brighternow - up your street?