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John Zorn - Spy Vs. Spy - The Music Of Ornette Coleman

 

John here teams with Tim Berne(he's a good guy), and a rhythm section of a bassist and a couple of drummers. What you get on this record is intense playing of 17 Ornette Coleman's songs, with grindcore energy and prog-rock precision. While the concept is fun, it is pretty hard to make it through the whole record, because they rarely slow down or change the sounding. But what especially shines on this record is... the sax playing! The base melodies by ornette are very playful, and the improvisations rarely sounded better. The drumming is intense as well. Overall it doesn't have the wide range of styles covered by other bands, or anything to do with avantgarde music, but it is a very good record in it's style.

 

Patricia Dallio - Barbe Bleue

A solo album, by pianist and composer from Art Zoyd. Apparently it is a score for a play based on 'the Blue Beard'(or whatever that tale was called). This fact however does not limit the music at all as it's superb. Constructed of rather short movements which move between 1 till 8 minutes, with occasional vocals reading texts, but mostly instrumental. A look at the credits reveals that Patricio is responsible for programming, samplers and keyboards, and only a few singers working on the project. And the results are surprising since the works features many moods, sounds and has strong compositions with only her behind this all. Impressive to say the least! So, a question you've been asking until now: how close to Art Zoyd does it sound, and the answer is, that the music is in the same territory as late Art Zoyd's, but much more gentle and balanced between the electronics and the acoustic instruments, never going into unnecessary 'sound explorations.' Planning to listen to more of her work, and recommending this album to everyone.

 

Anthony Braxton - Five Compositions (Quartet), 1986

This was interesting because in Zorn's biography I've read that Anthony Braxton was an inspiration for John. The music here is somewhere between jazz and modern classical. The musique can be called unique, both because the compositions are of very unusual form, and the overall sound is unusual. Problem 'getting' the music on this album is that unlike some avant garde music which often aims to hit you in the face, this music simply goes somewhere, and what you hear is the path Anthony Braxton walks by, it is never as it was before but not in an entirely new place either. Anyways, he seems to be a very important figure in music, and you should check him out.

 

Mephista - Entomological Reflections

A trio of Susie Ibarra(drums), Sylvie Courvoisier(piano) and Ikue Mori(electronics). This is dense and experimental music from three masters in their respective fields. Released on Tzadik, this music completely fits, it is unclassifiable, experimental, having both improvisation and composition, mixed up and coming with something completely unique. While could have sounded like a big mess, the girls play very tight, while constantly experimentating, like playing inside the piano, or applying electronics to others playing to produce unusual results. It seems to be a short record, but one song could be nightmarishly long for those who do not 'understand'.

 

Thanks, great news, have known them for a while. Then I went to have a look at what other people thought of them on this site and found out they are not here. It will be interesting to see what you guys think of them. Mexico is not exactly the home RIO if you know what I mean but they have come up with a quite decent album here. I have not heard their other albums but "EL Poeta Del Ruido" is sited as their best album.