GLASS CANDY / Love Love Love
(Troubleman Unlimited)
Portland, OR's Glass Candy have ditched the "and the Shattered Theater"
part of their monicker and done some overhaul on their line-up as well,
with a new bassist and drummer (while Johnny Jewel switches to guitar from
bass), clocking in at 25 minutes for this their first album proper after a
pile of EPs (and with many of the songs reprised from those EPs in new
studio versions). For the uninitiated, the band is fronted by a totally
yowling and stylish frontwoman named Ida No (who's been referred to more
than once as a glam/goth Debbie Harry for today; as if you hadn't heard
that said about others enough, I'm totally down with Ms. No as superstar
potential) with a sound of minimal, Suicide-ish throb with heavy bass and
splashes of classic-rock riffery and death disco. Despite some added
studio tricks (this record sounds a lot less lo-fi than the EPs and 7"s)
the cool
minimal vibe of the band is still well intact, well complemented by No's
pipes, and sounding huge. Glass Candy deserves the same press hype as the
Yeah Yeah Yeahs for sure.
PASQUALE CANGIANO / Solo Piano 4 Dummies (Black
Rhombus)
ERIK GRISWOLD / More Than My Old Piano
(Clocked Out Productions)
So this guy Pasquale from Brooklyn, aka Flex Unger, did a Listener Hour
here on WFMU and was an enthusiastic, fun n goofy kinda fellow. He's kept
me in his loop of activity for the last couple years, and I'd hear all
kinds of things like he was obsessed with Sofia Coppola and doing a movie
about her, he was DJing John Allen's wedding somwhere in a field upstate,
he was playing with Roy Campbell. I didn't know Flex was a jazz musician,
so I when this CD of his improv piano appeared, I was intrigued. Putting
it on, I listened to some stumbly plinkety-plonk and wondered what the
hell this dude was up to. Then I read the liner notes and roared.
Apparently our man Flex/Pasquale was taking lessons with a jazzbo bass
teacher, and was quite suspect of the teacher's pronouncements on jazz
theory, structure, improvisation etc. So, Flex recorded himself "playing"
"improvised" piano, slipped it in a car tape deck riding with his teacher
and told him it was a live Cecil Taylor record, and would the teacher
explain what was going on. Needless to say, the teacher expounded, and
then got busted when Flex explained that it was indeed not Cecil at all.
Oddly enough, by track 3, I too am really into this record, it relaxes me
and my brain starts to detect the patterns of his cat-walkin'-on-keys
style. I say: Tonic, book our friend.
As michievous though a bit more performance-experienced is Erik Griswold,
a pianist from Queensland, Australia, who has been releasing excellent
music both solo and with the Clocked Out Duo. Incorporating post-bebop,
Fluxus, visual shenanigans, and deflated takes on electroacoustic music,
performances have been legendary down under, and unfortunately the music
hasn't been too available up here. Erik's latest offerings have been truly
astounding; dabbling in balloon music, Chinese traditional pop,
improvisations of toy instruments, and more notably on his latest solo
disc, lots of unusual applications of prepared piano. This includes takes
on Stevie Wonder and Al Green, plus some other adventurous Brazilian and
Cuban covers. Unlike some avant-artists that apply gadgets and gimmicks to
standards, Erik/Clocked Out material is blanketed in a vibe all its own
and
is worth your visit to its little universe
(www.clockedoutproductions.com).
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