Allan Bryant - Space Guitars
Originally posted on July 23, 2006
"The American new music and avant-garde composer Allan Bryant began his career during the 1960s in the Rome-based ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva alongside Alvin Curran and Frederic Rzewski. This production for C.R.I. is an astonishing study of the electric guitar taken out of the rock context and used as a source generator of rich and complex harmonic music. Similarities to Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, and Phill Niblock's music stem from their shared infatuations with the power of the amplified six-string and their will to exploit the less frequently explored sonic palette of the instrument, which knows no limits. Space Guitars is a drone-based work of astonishing and powerful proportions that, while shamefully overlooked in the gamut of avant-garde music, is clearly an influence on Sonic Youth and Elliott Sharp's textured soundscapes." (Skip Jansen, AMG)
Tracklisting:
1. Whirling Take-Off {6:30}
2. A Bouncing Little People Planet {6:42}
3. A Rocket is a Drum {7:22}
Thanks for the chance to listen to many hard to find recordings!
ReplyDeleteUsually, I appreciate avant-garde composers, even in cases that their music would be accused of being annoyingly spontaneous.
In this case, I can see as the blogger says, a simple study, that at places could be kept aside for personal reasons only.
I cannot see anything original in what Allan Bryant is doing on this record. Although it is something I first hear on a published record, my opinion is that these experiments have been done by many experimentalists as they explore their instruments in private.
That is what I thought when I listened to the first piece, which
takes up half of the record. These effects can be easily be obtained even out of an acoustic guitar by using a butter knife. I have tried this myself. So, either I am a composer myself or Allan should not have published this!
The second piece is a nice idea, imitating what the title says, but it is no special if he used dubbing. If he managed to have this sound produced live, then it is something amazing.
The high-pitched sound of bouncing on the third piece is again easily obtained if someone bounces a metallic object (like the butter knife) over the chords, by holding it loosely with the fingers.
I think that in general we should know how to recognize avant-garde atonality from amateuriness or simplistic explorations.
I have never been more strict in a review, maybe because as an amateur-"scratching chords"-guitarist myself, I have tried the same recordings on my tape recorder, with more or less the same results at places.
In my opinion, the orchestration lacks a composing purpose. It is just a simple experiment with professional guitar strokes. I do not think Allan tried too much to produce this, except from his listening experiences.
Setting aside any parameteres I ignore I would give it:
2 out of 10
(although this sounded VERY familiar for personal reasons, and I liked it in this way).
Some corrections:
ReplyDeleteWhere I refer to the "first piece" I mean the last, and where to the "second piece" to the first, and so on. (The last piece went up the list on my Winamp).
In the last paragraph I mean "he did not try more than gaining some inspiration through some minimalistic music played on guitars".
Sorry for the mistakes:-)