Muskox / Canaille / Damian Valles
The Music Gallery. Thursday October 29, 2009.
Out to the Music Gallery for a triple album release spectacular from the fine folks at Standard Form. Perhaps befitting an operation that runs a music imprint as an adjunct to its print shop and bindery, SF create albums that exist as exquisite physical objects. The packaging for the albums being released on this night were visual and tactile delights, a joyful counterargument to people who want their music only in some intangible form. Similarly, the three musicians playing at this show were also exploring the tensions between the tactile and the intangible, the arranged and the improvised, and the composer's craft and ensemble's skill.
Opening the night was Damian Valles, whose new Rural Routes, an EP on 3" CD, examines his move from city to country. Live, Valles presented his music with solo guitar processed through laptop and pedals, plus a gently brushed cymbal.1 Starting with birdsong in the background, he added gently-picked loops of guitar, always keeping things intelligently layered and not merely piled one on top of another. When the later section swelled into a louder wave, Valles standing to conduct the building sounds with his array of pedals, it felt earned. Tidily executed in twenty minutes, this was a fine entrée for the evening.
Listen to an excerpt from this performance here.
With things pretty much set up and ready to go, there was only a quick break before Canaille2, led by ethnomusicologist-about-town Jeremy Strachan, took the stage. Strachan, switching between sax and guitar, has been using this unit as a larger canvas for his compositions than his sax-and-buckets duo Feuermusik. These tunes, from the new album Potential Things3 contain elements of ethio-jazz and spy themes, but always against a swingin' backdrop. By and large the first few songs were more compactly designed — pop song length, revealing Strachan's talent at, and respect for, catchy tunefulness. Things stretched out a bit more on "Summer Hair", giving Nick Buligan on trumpet and Colin Fisher — who looked to be fighting off a cold or some similar malady4 — a bit more room to stretch out in. Anchored by Dan Gaucher's drums and Mike Smith's double bass, the music was vital throughout — smart but never overbearing.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Having seem Muskox just a few weeks previously, I had a good notion of what I was in for. A few changes from last time around, though. Certainly much more elbow room for the players this time — indeed, room enough not just for a grand piano, but also for an extra player joining in on extra marimba and percussion. We were treated to all five pieces from the new album5 , plus encore. What can I add to my previous thoughts on Muskox? For whatever reason, when I closed my eyes and listened, my mind dredged up images of sitting in the back seat of a station wagon, watching snow-covered fields roll by. Evocative, then, I guess. And, natch, impeccably arranged.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 In a subtly rural touch, Valles' laptop was resting on a trusty, rugged Black and Decker foldable workbench.
2 With my poorly-remembered vocabulary, for months I'd assumed that the band name was French for "cinnamon", but it turns out that it actually means something like "riff-raff".
3 The album's jacket design pays homage to the classic Blue Note look — looking over the back cover, I half-expected to see an Alfred Lion credit.
4 I'm assuming that the bottle of cough syrup that Fisher was taking discreet swigs from between songs was for medicinal, and not recreational, purposes. His playing was exceptional, though, and not affected by whatever he was fighting off.
5 The 5 Pieces album cover is delightfully tactile, a schema of triangles, reminiscent of the Sierpinski fractals that haunted me during my youth.
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