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Heiner Goebbels & Alfred Harth
Vom Sprengen Des Gartens
@ 1979 W Germany Pressing
******
Second album by HEINER GOEBBELS & ALFRED HARTH as a duo. Just under three-quarters of an hour of jazz textures in full experimentation on free bases and an important foray into the exploration of new sounds playing with pieces by Bach or Schumann, to give two examples. Sound improvisation by the most amazing European saxophones.
Wolfgang Dauner
Output
@ 1970 W Germany Pressing
****
An early outlier in the ECM catalog, Output convulses with as much originality as it did when it was first released. Wolfgang Dauner, perhaps better known as founder of the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble (which saw ECM greats Eberhard Weber, Kenny Wheeler, and Charlie Mariano pass through its doors), assembles a modest trio of talent for this classic 1970 studio free-for-all. The end result is humor, brilliance, and chaos rolled into one. Most of the album flirts with any number of possible paths, the sole exception being “Nothing To Declare,” a straight-laced tangent into jazzy territory in which Dauner has a field day with his modulator. “Mudations” and “Brazing The High Sky Full” are cryptic bookends, while tracks like “Abraxas” whet our appetite with provocative flavors. Superb, if jumbled, musicianship and strong attention to detail are the order of the day. Dauner does wonders with limited means, Braceful sheds his skin whenever possible, and this is a far cry from the Weber of languid orchestral suites. Not an easy listen for the faint of heart, but one that will give back what’s put into it and, like the fully opened cover, gathers its power from another dimension.
ECM Review
More Foggy electronic minimalism on cassette from Japan's Vanity Records by the mysterious Salaried Man Club. Very little more than rudimentary fuzzy drum box rhythms interspersed by lonely basic synth noises that barely get far beyond the white noise setting.Punctuated by vocodered vocals which bring back images of a depressed Metal Mickey crossed with Marvin the Paranoid Android. It conjures a vision of a version of the Exorcist as made by Nintendo for a Game Boy mark 1, sellotaped to a circuit bent Speak and Spell machine possessed by a Demon who has escaped a pixelated Sinclair Spectrum ZX version of Hell. Another classic from the pre-cambrian waters of electronica.
Yoko Ono
It’s Alright
@ 1982 HK Pressing
******
This is one of two albums that would be ideal to introduce anyone to her music who does not know it (the second being 'Seasons Of Glass') In many ways, this is more 'poppy' than her others and is recommended to new listeners of her work for that reason. With tracks like 'My Man' and 'Tomorrow Never Comes', there are also plenty of other 'hooky' type songs. This album features one of Yoko's most thought-provoking collection of lyrics set to the beautiful masterpiece that is 'Spec Of Dust'. The title track is the most memorable and tuneful of what is one of Yoko's shorter albums.
Yoko has never released a bad album, but this has to be one of her very best!
Great stuff!
Famous Name (Edited)
Here’s a great ..still unreissued album by K.Berger someone who along with Manfred Schoof ..Peter Broetzmann, Wilhelm Breuker and so on was one of the pioneers of ‘free’ music in europe in the mid 60’s. Most people probably now know him more as an arranger on pop albums by the likes of Jeff Buckley and Natalie Merchant.. his bread and butter so to speak . a few jazz fans remember too that he played on some of Don Cherry’s classic album’s the magnificent 'Eternal Rhythm’ from 1968 being the 1st that comes to mind. He has since appeared in many contexts from free to imaginative mainstream jazz and ethno/fusions.
As a pedagogue he co founded the influential creative music studio with his wife Ingrid and Ornette Coleman. its a pity that so many of his own earlier releases are either out of print ,or very difficult to obtain.
I like this one a great deal ..its a tough ..fairly free . hard cooking record for the most part , and features possibly the most abstract version of Igrid Berger’s 'the smile’ as always with this vintage the Coleman-esque melodic and rhythmic influence’s are palpable. Some may be familiar with Adelhard Roidinger through his appearance with Braxton and Oxley on the classic seven compositions for trio 1989(hat).. he deserves kudos’s for his performance here, demonstrating an astonishing level of invention throughout.. I dont know much about the schizm that occured among the co founders of Enja a decade ago… but its clear that so many distinctive early gems are being overlooked.
Ruth White
7 Trumps from the Tarot Cards and Pinions
@ 1969 (2013 Re-issue) French Pressing
*****
Electronic composer and innovator Ruth White is considered among today’s most gifted arbiters of what is termed “the new music.” Formally educated in piano and composition (she has three degrees from Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Tech), Miss White discusses her work in her Southern California studio: “I do not have a formal classical electronic background— that is self-taught. In fact, I was careful not to study electronics with anyone. Because I have been working in recording for many years, I felt that there was a directness of approach that I wanted to develop which was totally missing from the electronic scene in classical music.” How effectively her medium has conveyed her message may be judged by the critical comment awarded her own original electronic compositions.Writing of “Seven Trumps From the Tarot Cards,” a completely electronic score reflecting her impressions of the occult, Donal Henahan commended Miss White in The New York Times for her “musical inventiveness and electronic sophistication.”
Harald Weiss
Trommelgefluster
@ 1982 Germany Pressing
******
Harald Weiss (surname also spelled "Weiß") (born 26 May 1949 in Salzgitter) is a German composer, director, screenwriter, and free-lance artist.
Weiss's compositions are influenced by minimalism, as well as jazz and rock musics. Numerous trips (in the context of theater workshops and tours) to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America have also had a significant influence on his music.
Weiss has received many awards for his musical compositions and films, including the Niedersachsen Kulturpreis (1982), the Kulturpreis of Bielefeld (1984), and a fellowship from the Villa Massimo in Rome (1985-1986).
In 2009 Dorothee Mields and Andreas Karasiak were the soloists in his requiem composition Schwarz vor Augen und es ward Licht dedicated to the Knabenchor Hannover, premiered on 31 October 2009 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra
Weiss has lived in Majorca, Spain since 1984, and his music is published by Schott Music.
Looking at the title of Harald Weiss’s only album for ECM, which means “Drum Whisper,” leaves us with no mysteries regarding what we are about to hear. This simplicity of purpose is characteristic of a composer whose modest discography has sadly left him little represented outside of his native Germany. As percussionist, vocalist, writer, and actor, Weiss brings a love of the theater to his performance style and world, which here is overrun with a thousand bare feet along the dusty earth. Weiss is also well traveled, and from his widely cast net hauls a wealth of local influences onto the vessel of his craft. And so, while flashes of Ramayana re-creation and Peking opera paint Trommelgeflüster as a disjointed pastiche, in the context of this recording these references take on a life of their own. Each percussive cell circles itself into an Ouroboros of change in a larger chain of being. Between the steel drummed steps and melismatic chants of Part I and the darker territories of Part II, which begin as if an offshoot of “Lucifer’s Farewell” from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Samstag aus Licht before spreading into a diffuse palette of outbursts and whistling dreams, Weiss renders something intensely organic toward the concluding twang, steady and distant like a jaw harp in the mouth of providence.
A wonder of an album that defies categorization in the most pleasant way, Trommelgeflüster has the makings of a ritual, even as it uses itself as a stepping-stone into non-ritual realities, where regularity is but the dream of a nomadic soothsayer. The music skirts the edges of consciousness, even as it plumbs the depths of wakefulness.
Weiss is the recipient of numerous awards, and was just coming into prominence when Manfred Eicher decided to put him into the studio. The result is an intriguing session, and an artist, not be overlooked.
ECM Review
Karl Berger
With Silence
@ 1972 US Pressing
*****
Here's a great ..still unreissued album by K.Berger someone who along with Manfred Schoof ..Peter Broetzmann, Wilhelm Breuker and so on was one of the pioneers of 'free' music in europe in the mid 60's. Most people probably now know him more as an arranger on pop albums by the likes of Jeff Buckley and Natalie Merchant.. his bread and butter so to speak . a few jazz fans remember too that he played on some of Don Cherry's classic album's the magnificent 'Eternal Rhythm' from 1968 being the 1st that comes to mind. He has since appeared in many contexts from free to imaginative mainstream jazz and ethno/fusions.
As a pedagogue he co founded the influential creative music studio with his wife Ingrid and Ornette Coleman. its a pity that so many of his own earlier releases are either out of print ,or very difficult to obtain.
I like this one a great deal ..its a tough ..fairly free . hard cooking record for the most part , and features possibly the most abstract version of Igrid Berger's 'the smile' as always with this vintage the Coleman-esque melodic and rhythmic influence's are palpable. Some may be familiar with Adelhard Roidinger through his appearance with Braxton and Oxley on the classic seven compositions for trio 1989(hat).. he deserves kudos's for his performance here, demonstrating an astonishing level of invention throughout.. I dont know much about the schizm that occured among the co founders of Enja a decade ago... but its clear that so many distinctive early gems are being overlooked.
