Tuesday 17 May 2016

Michael Gordon's Philharmonic RIO album from USA, 1987, in a new and splendid rip






This is composed RIO of the most insane kind-- full of angular and jarring string section dissonances like shards of glass poking out of a candy apple sure to tempt the unwary with a mouthful of blood, or perhaps earful here...  As you can ascertain it is not suitable for consumption by children, nor, indeed, should any youngster with fewer than 18 years in their tree-ring count ever be placed near an amplified performance of this all-too modern tsunami of brain-curdling, ventricle-swelling sound waves.  But it sure is interesting to hear.  We should not be surprised if it's used in torture situations with the CIA when our new president Donald starts his great work next year making America win again, win "bigly".

Coming in three tracks only (all performer info can be seen here) I'm not able to provide a sample but let's just say that for those who heard the earlier Fleshquartet Meat Beat this would be like the most harmony-averse tracks treated to that special Russian science of athletic drug-doping used in winning Olympics involving, really, who knows what combination of uppers, steroids, Sharapova candies, and other positively inotropic treatments for an extended time.

In particular notice in the first track that interruptions in the train of music actually sound like mistakes-- as if you were recording on a cassette but hit that switch on the ghetto blaster from auxiliary input to FM radio suddenly but then switched back when you realized your mistake-- but they are not that at all, they are purposeful, entirely purposeful, or perhaps, perverse would be the appropriate description.  I can't say I have ever heard this device used to such an extent, it was commonly used at the end of 70s rock songs typically by switching to some radio station for a few seconds before returning to the original music-- but the repetition here is what is really odd.

But we love odd music, don't we?
As long as it's not the same old chords, same old melodies, same old beats, I don't mind odd...



5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah! Your review drew me in! Thanks Julian.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The link is dead.

    Please, can you re-up this album ?

    Many thanks and congratulations fro your excellent blog !

    ReplyDelete
  4. no problemo, here it is:

    https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/m0gazq

    ReplyDelete