#wall matthews

[mywifeleftme]

282: Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble // Ceremony of Dreams: Studio Sessions & Outtakes 1972–1977

Ceremony of Dreams: Studio Sessions & Outtakes 1972–1977 Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble 2018, Tompkins Square (Bandcamp)

Still wildly underknown given the transporting beauty of their compositions, there is a world next door to this one where Baltimore’s Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble is as popular a soundtrack for meditation and study as Steve Reich or Philip Glass are in our own. Their music lies somewhere between modern chamber music and progressive folk, with a dash of jazz, and it was often used to score experimental dance and theatre productions. The band released two albums in the 1970s on Folkways before dissolving following the death of bandleader Joe Clark in 1983. Most probably their obscurity came from practicing their craft outside a major cultural centre; if anything, the 1,600 monthly listeners they command on Spotify represents wider exposure than they enjoyed in their prime.

Ceremony of Dreams, available in a three-hour digital format or an abridged ten-track vinyl, collects material that didn’t make it onto either of their Folkways records. Compared to Entourage and The Neptune Collection, these tracks are a little less playful, less overtly experimental in their production; they weren’t after all recorded specifically for release as an LP. But even in its condensed wax form, I can speak to the quality of Ceremony’s sober reveries, the lot of it grey or ghost-haloed yet coruscating, like black and white footage of waves crashing at night. Rather than a mere trove of demos, it meaningfully expands on their discography.

The Pitchfork review does a better job of namedropping comparable artists than I have the chutzpah for today (Arvo Pärt, Bert Jansch, La Monte Young, John Cale, Sandy Bull, raga like in general), but if you have a taste for open-concept acoustic music, Ceremony of Dreams is a sure shot.

(As an aside though: It's either endearing or grownworthy that the Entourage boys still have the classic doofy musician dude sense of humour that compels them to give these ethereal compositions "Lick My Lovepump"-ass names like "Sleazy Sue" and "Necrophelia.")

282/365

[aquariumdrunkard]

[mywifeleftme]

11: Wall Matthews // Spine River

Spine River: The Guitar Music of Wall Matthews, 1967—1981 Wall Matthews 2021, Tompkins Square (Bandcamp) Every collection should have a few pensive instrumental acoustic guitar records, since the life of anyone who spends hundreds or thousands of dollars on a pointedly outmoded format is bound to be one touched by a frequent need to have a lie-down in the dark. If it should cross your path, Spine River: The Guitar Music of Wall Matthews, 1967—1981 is a fine specimen of its kind.

Matthews is principally known as the guitarist of The Entourage Music and Theater Ensemble, a mid-‘70s acoustic avant-garde group whose compositions for modern dance performances have enjoyed a revival in recent years. While the earliest numbers here, recorded when Matthews was a teenager, are fingerpicked country folk in the Leo Kottke mould, his style changes dramatically after joining the Entourage in 1974. Though the previously unreleased 1978 home demos that constitute the bulk of this release are solo recordings, the “E Minor Suite” and “The Doves of Venus” gesture towards chamber ballet; I can readily imagine the increasingly-gnarled “Wendy’s Piece” soundtracking a single dancer’s descent into frenzy.

The LP wraps with a few selections from his first solo album, 1981’s The Dance in Your Eye, which in their faint jazziness and dewy melodies could be at home on one of the better Windham Hill releases of the era. Ultimately, the evolution of the guitarist through this period is organic enough that Spine River hangs together well as a collection, and showcases Matthews’ deftness and imagination as a player and composer.

11/365