Recording: Made to Break

Artist: Made to Break

Song: [untitled piece]^*

Recorded at The Drake Underground, April 19, 2014.

Made to Break - [untitled piece]

Full review to follow. Ken Vandermark is fond of exploring different musical ideas with different collaborators so it was no surprise to see him hit town with this new quartet. The idea was to mix "the music of Ethiopia and the Ex, alongside the New Music ideas of John Cage and Morton Feldman". There was a certain commitment to repetition that might be attributable to the latter, but in execution it sounded as much a product of some punk-funk lineage — bassist Jasper Stadhouders, who played with a postpunk edge, might be responsible for that. The other novelty here was Christof Kurzmann, who provided some realtime looped electronic textures behind Vandermark's reeds and Tim Daisy's percussion. Engaging stuff, even if the early-curfew vibe at the Drake gave the proceedings a slightly-rushed edge that didn't quite give the music a chance to live up to the project's name.

^* "None of the pieces have titles, they just have music in them." – K.V. [his notes from the field, though, imply these in-progress pieces will acquite names some day.]