Music Reviews from Issue 104

First published in The Absolute Sound, Issue 104. Copyright © 1995 by Absolute Multimedia. Reprinted with permission.

I go through musical phases. One week, I'm listening to nothing but country music. The next week, I've got an electronic dance music fixation. This month, I'm into music that's on the fringe—not this alterna-grunge lite on the radio—I mean music that's truly different. Here are my two favorites of the musical moment....

CHARLES CARPENTER: Frog A la Peche. Charles Carpenter (prod., eng.) Caterwaul CAT 8221.

These days, many forms of synthesizer-derived music are all the rage. Dance, techno, rap, hip-hop, trip-hop, ambient dub—it seems that new musical hybrids appear almost as fast as someone can find a name for them. Nevertheless, they're all too much alike for me, and I find the subcategorizations either superfluous, an attempt to fit the music into some kind of marketing hype, or both. Let's face it—most of this stuff is aimed at dance clubs and (to a lesser extent) radio stations, and as such, share a common stylistic bond of four-four dance beats, with the electronic snare heavy on the two-and-four; conventional melodies, harmonies (if any) and song structures, and a "futuristic" stylistic gloss usually provided by whatever the hot synth-machine of the month is. The end result being cliche more often than cutting-edge.

Not so in the singularly individualistic work of Charles Carpenter, who composes and produced this disk out of his self-contained New England studio. Fine; self-contained electronic music production machines are nothing new these days. What is different about Carpenter is that, not only does he eschew the conventions of today's electronic pop (save for the use of a drum machine which he most emphatically does not misuse with the lack of imagination so prevalent among today's electro-danceteers), but he has used an alternate method of tuning on this album known as the Bohlen/Pierce scale. Quoting Carpenter, "rather than building the scale around the major triad, the scale is built around the ratios of 3:5:7 and 5:7:9...the scale is non-repetitive, each step-wise interval moving 146 cents away from a given center frequency." Take that, La Monte Young!

The resulting tonality shatters everything the well-tempered Western musical ear has spent a lifetime acclimating itself to. At first, it's extremely disconcerting—the music doesn't sound "in tune," but doesn't sound "out of tune" either, as there exist complex overtones and harmonies, consonances and dissonances as in any music, whether Western, microtonal Indian, or microtonal Muddy Waters. After all, the scale is based on mathematical relationships, and the notes do relate to one another in specific ways—it's not just random noise. Yet the Bohlen/Pierce tonality is literally alien, sounding nothing if not like music from another planet. After a while, you're ear stops focusing on the strangeness of the tonality, becoming drawn into the totality of the music, able to hear with a fresh perspective as a result of being liberated from the expectations of Western harmony, with its emphasis on "proper" chord progressions and "correct" harmonic resolution. The effect is, for me, liberating and exhilarating. For others, I'm afraid it will be too upsetting to listen to, perhaps almost physically so.

Carpenter uses this harmonically fascinating tonal palette to fantastic effect, wielding hundreds of synthesizer textures ranging from sharp and clangorous, to softly mellow, a sonic world of buzzes, bells, blips, long legato lines, transient bursts, sequenced ostinatos, and freely-played improvised melodies. Frog a la Peche was recorded "virtually" in real time, and sounds it—this is a performance, of wide-ranging tempos, textures, and moods, not some multitracked exercise in egghead musicology. The recording sounds so clean I suspect it was recorded direct-to-tape (or hard disk) with little outboard processing save for stereo panning and reverb. The artificially-created soundspace is tremendous, wide, deep, and tall, a wonderfully imaginative creation. Tonal balance is a bit "thin," with an overemphasized upper midrange and a slight lack of bass, (the highs, however, go out to Alpha Centauri) but this is an aesthetic judgment as opposed to a pronouncement of the recording's accuracy; since it is entirely electronic, there is no sound of "real instruments in real space" to compare it to. (Besides, if that's the way Carpenter wanted it to sound, then the tonal balance is accurate.) The synthesizers are recorded with exceptional purity; no grain or distortion to be heard anywhere. Transient response is uncanny—I don't hear any miking of sluggish cone speakers here—dynamic range somewhat less so.

Ultimately, words fail me—how does one truly describe an alternate musical universe? My emotions don't, however: I consider this recording a mesmerizing statement of musical uniqueness and creativity; the most mind-boggling thing I've heard in years. Astounding.

MICHAEL HALL: Frank Slade's 29th Dream. Producer not listed; Mark Phillips (eng.) Dejadisc DJS 3217.

Yet there's still an infinity of sound to be found within the world of Western pop music, guitars, drums, and vocals. (What are the mathematical permutations of twelve tones and eight octaves, and gazillions of instrumental sounds, anyway?) Just when you thought you'd heard it all, along comes an artist like Austin's Michael Hall. I never heard of this guy 'till now, but he certainly puts most of these "alternative" rockers to shame in this three song, just-about-45 minute disk. 29th Dream starts off innocuously enough with two conventional, melodic-pop guitar-driven songs, "Every Little Thing," which would not sound out of place on a Matthew Sweet album, and the lesser "Under The Rainbow With You." The sound is nothing special either on these cuts—while relatively grunge-free and unprocessed as so many tight-budget indie productions are (they don't have enough money to get it wrong), somewhat bright and bass-shy.

But then you get to the title track. Except, "track" doesn't do the song justice. How about, "opus?" or "monument?" (Or, "g-d, when does it end?") You see, "Frank Slade's 29th Dream" is a song about a dying soldier shot during the Spanish Civil War, and is a musical mirror of the last thoughts going through Slade's head. And he doesn't die slowly. The piece is 38 minutes and 34 seconds long. Each musical section seemingly goes on for eternity, from the plaintive piano and vocal intro, to the section where the bass, drums, and cello come in, to the frantically rocking section, to the ear-shattering noise section, to the just-before-death section, to the just-just before death section, to the last-gasp section. The musical lassitude is subjectively quadrupled by the continuous, ironic repetition of the line, "life is all right/for the time being!" throughout the entire thirty-eight-plus minute length. All in clean, naturally recorded sound-acoustic instruments such as piano and cello are rendered with a minimum of microphones and studio processing; the drums are quite realistic, especially that fat, rifle-cracking snare (no coincidence?); the vocals are up-front and dry (just a barely-audible hint of reverb) and even the guitars sound like they were recorded straight-up, mike in front of the amp and into the board.

It works. You go from being drawn in, to saddened, to exasperated, to hysterical, to annoyed, to enraged, to impatient, to wishing it would never end, a brilliant technique—you're there with Slade as he's reflecting on the Meaning Of Life one final time, you're emotions mirroring his. An overwhelmingly overpowering, emotional statement. This is what music is supposed to be, not some commoditized soundtrack written to sell shoes, deodorant, and panty hose! It's easy to forget, in this world, that real music does in fact exist and is, in fact, being produced today. Records like Frank Slade's 29th Dream serve as glittering reminders amidst a world of musical sludge.