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REVIEWS
VITAL
WEEKLY
Once three men wanted to go to America to play some music.
A big country, alas but not with much money for three men to get
everything they needed to get to this big country. So they decide
to create a CD of pieces of music that are generated through the
mail. A most common practice to make music these days. But then,
for whatever reason, the whole tour fell through. And someone sat
on this music created for this tour support CD.
It's good to see it released, even when the content is puzzling.
Apparently it's Liles playing Potter and Hafler Trio, Hafler Trio
playing Liles and Potter, and Potter doing something similar. Perhaps
there is something solo by each as well. All clear, except the order
of the
proceedings and why three times three make eight and not nine tracks.
My estimation is that the first track is indeed by Liles. Adding
a bit of trademark collage music stuff in a somewhat synthetic field
of sound, there is some little surprises. The second piece seems
to me The
Hafler Trio, with also a trademark sound: the wind like sounds we
remember from 'Inoutof'. Colin Potter must be the author of the
third track, with it's cymbals being played and a faint trace of
digital distortion. Nicely drone related. After this things get
a little bit more difficult. They are less trademark pieces, and
it's more difficult to decipher the codes of the specific drone
in this. Of course it's not worth fighting over who did as it's
the result that counts. And the result is surely
just right up what you'd expect from the three man. Drone related,
stretched out, atmospheric, spacious or whatever qualifications
one can think of, this is a very fine disc of mood enginenering.
Perhaps it's a pity that the tour fell through, but on the other
hand, we have another treasure to add. FdW
BRAINWASHED
Written by Matthew Amundsen
Monday, 11 September 2006
Intended for release on a
tour that was ultimately cancelled, this unique collaboration between
the Hafler Trio, Colin Potter, and Andrew Liles is a strange expedition
into frost-bitten realms. Siren-like, the intoxicating lure of unraveling
mysteries impels further descent into its cavernous depths, with
little hope of return.
The album begins with “False Soap,” which has shifting
high-pitches that extend the horizon before they’re crossed
by low strings and faint rhythm. It's punctured in the middle by
warped keys and voices, ending with weird loops and liquid flights.
On its heels, “Sticky Tin,” has subtle waves, washes
and percolations that take turns running across the stereo field,
not panning left and right so much as circling the head. Similarly,
the group’s “Bloody Two Wrists” wrap around the
skull as a metallic mist, with gongs battling back and forth through
the ears. “Going to Work” is like a glacial chorus of
angelic voices tunneling ever deeper into an Antarctic ice shelf
on this epic journey of nearly twenty-four minutes, the largest
continent centering the album. In contrast, the untitled track that
follows consists only of a brief, deafening klang! before it moves
along. After this point, the album becomes more active than the
beginning, relying less on ambient tones and shifting sonic fields
and instead utilizing unusual textures.
Accompanied by a lot of ringing bass, and slowed, fractured voices,
“Eggs Benedict” sizzles as it tries to rip the seams
off of time itself. “Of Feminine Proportions” has a
conniving underbelly that builds into a hive-like finale. Probably
my favorite track on the album is its last, “Existing on an
Aquatic Theme.” The theme of the title is exemplified by looped
vocals that sound like broken mechanical owls floating back and
forth across the song’s surface, tethered by a rusty, high
pitch, and buoyed by reverberating bass smudges.
The disc’s many nuances really come alive with undivided attention,
and because of this it’s not the sort of album to play in
the background while doing other things. Although it’s too
bad that this tour didn’t happen, thankfully this artifact
survived in its place. Not only is it a thrilling hint of what might
have been, it’s also a remarkable and intriguing document
on its own.
TOUCHING
EXTREMES
The burden of thoughts afflicting the poor ones is destined
to kill their resistance. Ignorant people contribute to the collapse
of worthy beings by accelerating the process of falling into insanity.
Hydrodynamics are the perfect means to contrast the ill-minded decision,
as only what burbles and gurgles can dilute the glueyness of human
cerebral matter. What we would like to forget is brought right in
front of us, a silent reminder of our inevitable fallibility, and
lonesomeness is not maintainable anymore. A vision of decadent ancestry
is the death duty we have to pay to reach what we never cared to
explore. No speech therapist will be able to extrapolate the right
words to describe a special kind of disturbance; the ears begin
to fail, too. Dumbfounded despite knowing the result in advance,
we look for a replay, a different angle, but the score is not going
to be changed. A beamless sun leads the flock of blind creatures
until their final disintegration, an external observer still stunned
to realize how stupid everyone looks in this scene. The orchestra
plays useless songs, the soloists already gone. They had learnt
the parts light years before, but they had no time to teach them
to the retarded that impersonate pioneers.
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