Kodama - 'Turning Leaf Migrations' (Olde English Spelling Bee)

For some reason the title of this, Kodama's only LP, sticks in my head much more than the music does. Although I always think of it as 'tuning leaf' instead of turning, a sentiment I really like. A duo of American-in-Europe Michael Northam + Japanese-in-Switzerland Hitoshi Kojo, Kodama turn the dial slightly past halfway between field recordings and electro-acoustic composition. The musique concrete elements are more than just salad dressing; they're a fundament around which the instrumental interplay congeals, and it's not virtuoso riffing but a careful colouring based around mood and timbre. There's a thick, dense atmosphere that goes throughout almost the whole LP, either the result of buzzing midrange electronics, or acoustic sounds processed into something more - it's hard to say. The numerous tracks, all with great artsy names that are much easier to cut 'n paste from discogs than to re-type ('Backing Up Into A Cultural Ditch We Slobbered Through The Din Of The Alcoholics' Babble' is my fave), blend into one big suite. At their most spacious ('Uprooting Mycelium In The Night Forest Of "Grmade" We Spoke With The Bubilant Sage' being an excellent example), Northam & Kojo bring in just enough improvised instrumentation to genuinely integrate with the field recordings; the silence slowly gets taken over but first after a variety of flutes, small percussive sounds, bells, and other objects are brought in. There's no clear divide between human/machine here; the purity of performance maybe gets lost in service to the cohesive whole, but that's OK. It's a very busy record, and given the naturalistic, pastoral elements (not just the source material but the titles and artwork as well) it's a little bit overwhelming, not a meditative field recording platter at all. That's not to say one can't lose oneself in Kodama's music; it's the very definition of psychedelic, and uncompromising in its vision as it layers up the details. The opening of the first side actually hurts my head a bit, if I have it placed right between the speakers (which is, of course, the best way to listen to music); the opening of side two is made to sound like there's some huge gob of debris being dragged across by my stylus, but it's just a trompe l'oreille. Turning Leaf Migrations is definitely a playful record, not necessarily ha-ha funny or subterfuge-driven but awash in the potentiality of bringing sounds together. For something so carefully put together it manages to feel loose, and even the denser ringing parts feel like sketches, or at least that they feel like they have the intent of a sketch, because they move on quickly. Because the tracks all flow into two side-long pieces, it's arguable that Turning Leaf Migrations is really just one big composition, but there's something a bit scatterbrained about it all. Towards the middle of the second side the sound shifts into a more creeping, underwater/sci-fi feel, like an outtake from a Chrome session only with all of the benefits (and great stereo processing) that the technology of the time (the mid-00s) provide. This shift in tonality either adds complexity to the overall picture or maybe it distracts from it and sounds too generic; I can't really decide. By the end though, I'm glad to have revisited this, as it moves to a hypnotic, meditative drone ('Where Even Once We Slept By The Arctic Ocean When Cloud Drops Bounced On Our Strings') that is stunningly beautiful yet still has the presence of quiet rustling and other bits and bobs, quilted together perfectly. It could close on that but instead takes another tactic entirely, a closing track which is the album's longest and brings in pulsing, yet soft electronics, more ringing and buzzing, and some discordant voices. There's nary a trace of distortion across the whole album, except for maybe the aforementioned needle fakeout on side 2; it's a clean mix that gets thick when it needs to, but doesn't go for the thunder. By the end, I'm actually tired from such active listening.

Idea Fire Company - 'Beauty School' (Ultra Eczema)

I don't know if this Ultra Eczema release is meant to stand as a 'major' IFCO record, since it doesn't come with a manifesto and isn't released on their own home label, Swill Radio. It also features two side-long pieces, with the core IFCO duo accented by Matt Krefting and Graham Lambkin, as opposed to a collection of shorter pieces (if that means anything - probably not!). Those two guys are a perfect match for IFCO's style of sound slicing, and the resulting record is aptly named yet monolithic in its glamour. 'Buzzbomb' is the thunderous, unforgettable track which feels endless, timeless and other such superlatives. Like The Island of Taste we find piano used prominently, played not rapidly but with a resounding certainty, anchoring the piece or rather keeping its movement adhering to a wobbly centre. The tapes and synths and other Idea Fire affects are layered without overwhelming, no single individual sound emerging to take over, and summing up to build a strong feeling of weight. If the track 'Island of Taste' was slowly floating skyward under its own breaths, maybe 'Buzzbomb' is where we come back down. It's a long track and the second movement of it shifts the tone towards something more claustrophobic; this is simultaneously a beautiful concoction to get lost in and a heavy, affecting experience. The title track on the flip is build around an indefatigable tremolo effect and thus continues the stasis. Dennis Tyfus's artwork is perfect for this - monochromatic, yet inviting, cartographic textures which imply a huge universe within to explore and probe. After 'Beauty School' and therefore Beauty School concludes, there's a ringing left in the room, the overtone hangover caused by the greatest recordings of LaMonte Young, Vibracathedral Orchestra, etc. Something else lingers long after this record passes, and that isn't just tonal but perhaps a changing of the air, or the molecular alteration of the walls and floor in here cause by these soundwaves.

Dick Hyman - 'Moog: The Electric Eclectics of' (Command)

I've never had an amazing charity shop find - no rare private press Christian psych originals for $1, or even a decently obscure classic or anti-classic. About the best I can do is this, which was only $0.25, many years ago and has lingered in my collection even though I rarely listen to it. Moog is pretty good though, moving between novelty/lounge exotica sounds ('Topless Dancers of Corfu', 'Evening Thoughts') and pure synth fuckery ('The Moog and Me', 'Tap Dance in the Memory Banks'). 'The Minotaur' is the true killer jam, with an addictive pulse that reminds me of Can or some motorik Kraut thing, and noodling, melodic solos with huge tone sweeps that remind me of British (perhaps Cantebury) prog. Hyman's compositions have a lot of air in them, allowing the high and low tones to really reverberate. This record sounds beautiful, even when the vibe is a bit too goofy to fully enjoy. 'Four Duets in Odd Meter' is a sparkling adventure through ecstatic electronics; the titular odd metre gives it an unsettling feel that somehow is still inviting, drawing me into its imagination. I situate this as coming from the final wave of mid-century Americana, where there was some strange fantasy that this could be the music of the future - where machines and computers were distant dreams, rather than tools of enslavement or at least narcissism. And marketed, of course, through pop/sci-fi ideas as the album artwork indicates, but with a rather commercial (or perhaps a better term is accessible) musical edge, at least if you were to compare this to, say, Luening & Ussachevsky. And I suspect that as time passes, this will sound increasingly interesting, in a paleofuturistic way; we are definitively in an era where we cannot dream of a future any longer, unless it's cast as some Silicon Valley-driven capitalist bullshit. Aesthetically, we're stuck, which is what Mark Fisher wrote a lot about before he died, so this Dick Hyman record could be Exhibit A from the final generation of imagination, and inspire us to once again dare to dream.

Henry Cow/Slapp Happy - 'In Praise of Learning' (Red)

I have a lot of records; some would say 'too many', and I probably must concur, even though I find it hard to part with any. One sign that your accumulation is too vast is when you don't actually remember if you own a record or not. One of the many things I've enjoyed about doing this project over the past 8 years is realising these possessions and omissions, and now I've realised that I do NOT own a copy of Desperate Straights, the one credited to Slapp Happy/Henry Cow (in that precise order of credit, and which I guess came from the same sessions as this LP). I always thought of these two bands as having briefly merged for two albums, rather than merely 'having collaborated', and In Praise of Learning is probably the high point for both bands' careers, though I realise I said in the last post that Unrest was the best Henry Cow record. By now you should know to ignore my superlatives, anyway. But anyway, the distinct sensibilities of each band are perfect in combination, different enough to challenge and pull the musicians in new directions, but unified in their passions and penchant for adventure. This LP is credited to Henry Cow (except on the spine, where Slapp Happy gets some love), and this makes sense as this is much more of a Henry Cow album with Slapp Happy's spin, as opposed to Desperate Straights which is the other way around. Plus it has a sock on the cover, dyed red in case you had any fucking doubt about their politics. The opening cut, 'War', is the most explosive juxtaposition of the two ensembles, opening with Blegvad's voice briefly before Dagmar Krause (credited here by her first name over, a proto-Madonna if there ever was one) comes crashing in. This is the first Art Bears song for sure, with violent poetic imagery and rhyme soaring over a potent mix of musicians. Former Henry Cow member Geoff Leigh returns to guest and Mongezi Feza is also present; it's almost a pop song and a perfect introduction to 'Living In the Heart of the Beast'. This is Tim Hodgkinson's composition, and it's an epic number, taking up the rest of side 1 and moving through an absolute plethora of words, printed on the back sleeve like the polemic/essay it properly should be read as. This piece is hard to grasp, with its title the most memorable thing, but in its density lies many rewards. As it proceeds through several movements, it gradually takes on the role of the anthem, as if Henry Cow has figured out how to write aggressively political music that avoids cheap sensationalism or inconsistent wavering; indeed, 'Beast' finds its own footing by the end, where it comes marching to a conclusion over a what's probably the most conventional "progressive rock"-sounding moment on the record. Side two (as usual) has the free improvisations, though they are just the bread around 'Beautiful as the Moon - Terrible As an Army With Banners'. This sound is a bit more stripped down, with Greaves/Cutler locking into a plodding groove over which Frith's piano arpeggios perfectly complement Krause's rising and falling voice. I guess to some people her singing might be an acquired taste but I love it, and would buy any record of hers sound-unheard; I remember already gushing here about Babble and the Commuters EP, and this is another one of her greatest accomplishments. Her timbre is so uncompromising that it's a perfect match for Henry Cow, one of the most principled bands there ever was (to me, they approach Crass-like territory), and 'Beautiful as the Moon' finally releases in it's conclusion into a cadence that is actually catchy, probably the most hummable part of this record and of Henry Cow in general. The improv tracks on either side are both wonderful and I can only dream of what outtakes there must be; 'Beginning - The Long March' is a little punchier, but 'Morning Star' gets into some truly extended technique'z recalling eastern gong music as much as it resembles rock, jazz, or anything western, really. Cooper in particular shines here, especially over scraped guitar strings that occasionally sound like bowls of water rotating on a giant animal skin. The lyrics are printed on the back, which you really need to follow, and at the bottom is the (amazing) quote by John Grierson: 'Art is not a mirror - it is a hammer'. I find that as inspiring today as I did at 17, even if it feels like more of a struggle to believe it (or to implement it). I don't know much about the personal journeys of the Henry Cow people over the years, but they've at least managed to keep a public image that they have really lived this ethos without compromise. I'm not sure if any young musicians today listen to Henry Cow for inspiration, but they really should.

Pierre Henry - 'Mouvement-Rythme-Étude' (Philips)

I can't find any record of this particular edition anywhere online (spine/catalogue #6510 017) but it's well-known under the same title with a different cover. This edition may be a bit less attractive but the copy I found was in really nice shape and that's a good thing, because with Henry and similar musique concrete records, the space is important. Surface noise would get in the way of the echo, which resonates off of the gurgles and bloops that mostly populate this record. I can't imagine what it must have been like to see this dance piece being performed; I think a lot of this was recorded with a microphone in a room, because you really hear the echo, though maybe it's a tape effect. And Ninjinski was somehow part of it! As a non-visual source for psychedelic enjoyment, it's hard to get much better than records like this - eschewing any recognisable genre, including drone/noise, these are sounds assembled in a way that creates a whole new musical ontology. Which is why the title of this record is so apt - it seems bland at first, but fuck yeah it's all about movement and rhythm, and Henry is often thought of (by me, at least when I'm not thinking too deeply about him) as purely a technological innovator and not so much as a composer. And while an electronic record from the 70s with a track called 'Continuum' could be a stereotype, the sounds contained within are a far cry from cosmic synth rackeffects or freakazoid drone - its more like a strange object bouncing around several dimensions, occasionally refracting with the sound that you hear when MP3s are compressed poorly, except this was caused probably by Henry grabbing the spinning reel-to-reel loop with his hand (or some other such trick). There's an incredible amount of diversity across this record, and maybe that's the reason (along with the expense) that I've never hunted down any other Pierre Henry records: this is satisfying enough. 'Pureté' is maybe the most dazzling in terms of 'how the fuck did he do that', a constantly shifting series of mild sound-bumps, still sounding like a future we could only dream of even though it's been nearly half a century since it was recorded. The 'Adagio' pieces here refer to a traditional musical mode here, and that's another reminder of how this record reinvents music itself, the aforementioned ontology of its own. For people who are scared of the 'avant-garde', I'd recommend a dip into this record, because there's enough of an embracing of the fundamental concepts of 'music' here that it can be grokked by anyone with even a remotely open mind.

Hat Melter - 'Unknown Album' (Crouton)

Two cellos, two percussionists and a lot of editing = a big electroacoustic tapestry, woven together with some mouse clicks and pressed onto 220gram vinyl. Hat Melted is a big, thick slab o' wax and since I really, really like cellos, I keep gripping my armrests hoping for some nice DDA-sounding deep 'llo. But it rarely comes, or when it does, it's blended with the percussion, the whole AMM-style of laminal sound or whatever they call it. Sometimes one cellos saws around in the background while another dances furtively around the higher register. Sometimes they just leave some space, though the processing here, while not super overboard, gives away that the room ain't necessarily real. The four musicans are pretty evenly balanced, or rather I should say the cellos and percussion are evenly balanced, since I'm not sure who's doing what. This Crouton label is (was?) run by Jon Mueller and focuses on his projects primarily - he's one of the percussionists here and probably also the svengali doing the editing. I suppose this breathes some life into improvisation, though the electronic effects aren't always in service of an overall aesthetic, and some of the more 'improv' parts go on too long. The first side is energetic and has big swells and deep resonating tones followed by their sudden absence; some circa-2003 computer work makes me think this was just coming from the wrong place to really gain some traction. A few years later I was in the UK surrounded by a whole scene that looked to these types of collaborations, but Milkwaukee just before noise broke was probably a somewhat isolated world. Hat Melter never made another recorded peep - I suspect this was a one-off studio-only collaboration, and while it has some intense peaks of enjoyable sound, it strikes me more as a curiosity now than anything. 

Roy Harper - 'Stormcock' (Chrysalis)

Here's the one, if you are only casually acquainted with Harper, that his reputation is largely built upon. And why not - Stormcock is a stunning achievement, somehow feeling like the most complete and representative record of his career despite being only four long songs and almost entirely acoustic. What it's missing is the whimsy, the goofiness, which inhabits (or infects, depending on your POV) most of this other material. I personally like a little whimsy in my Harper, but Stormcock is so solid that I don't miss it. The three previous albums discussed here, while solid-to-great, still had their bits of filler (sometimes connected directly to the aforementioned whimsy), but there is not a trace of that here; it's as if every second of every song is perfectly placed, from the exaggerated reverberating twang of a stray guitar note in 'Hors d'œuvres' to the ripping solo at the end of 'The Same Old Rock'. And let's start with the latter song, actually. It's the one with Jimmy Page, famously guesting under a pseudonym, and their acoustic jamming pyrotechnics are brilliant, presaging Jugula by 14 years and with a much stronger composition than anything on that album. But there's so much more at play in 'The Same Old Rock'; it may encapsulate everything that is great about Harper. The delicate melodicism found in some of his signature songs (such as 'Another Day', 'Commune', 'Forever' etc.) is equalled if not surpassed; the way he starts singing ( 'All along the ancient wastes / the same reflection spins...') out of the slow guitar intro is like dawn breaking through the mist, and one of the more beautiful moments; the layered vocals and mild percussion comes in to separate the aggro riffage at the end from the rest of the song which always makes me think this is really Harper's 'Stairway to Heaven' (or 'Bohemian Rhapsody'). File alongside Gastr del Sol's Crookt, Crackt or Fly?, and I wonder if this was an influence on Grubbs/O'Rourke. When one guitarist starts on this slightly middle-Eastern melodic riff (I assume Page), I always felt a bit like this used modal scales so seamlessly that it secretly revealed the whole album to be in the 'prog-rock' genre. Lyrically, it's an attack on religion and war, and Stormcock's first three songs feel predominantly to be addressing systems, structures, and other such big topics. 'One Man Rock and Roll Band' has some war imagery, made more stark by the flange effect on Harper's voice. I love this one too - the guitar is acoustic but the voice is electric, and the vocoder/flanger/chorus/whatever is a chilling complement to the natural timbre of his voice. When the piano chords show up, near the end, their thundering overtones are a perfect segue into the last track. Actually, studio production slowly creeps up slowly on this record, starting with the spare, minimal 'Hors d'œuvres' and building up to the David arranged 'Me and My Woman', where synths, horns, and other orchestral elements come and go around the maelstrom of strumming and singing. The drama is exaggerated at times (perhaps this is the album's take on 'whimsy' I was looking for) but it never cheapens things. It's huge, bringing matters to a close and ending almost suddenly, leaving an echo of headspace. If the man had a masterpiece, it's hard not to point to this one; it's a reputation justly deserved.

Guru Guru (Brain)

For years I thought this was the first Guru Guru record, but the Internet tells me it's actually the fifth! For guys often lumped in with Kraut heavyweights, you wouldn't think it listening to side one, which is mostly balls-out biker rock. Any intellectual (or at least, progressive) tendencies present in Guru Guru are buried behind the riffs, operating here in power trio mode, and even doing an Eddie Cochran cover as well. I'm not so equipped to rate such things - at parts I feel like I could be listening to Steppenwolf - but when flipped over, this record becomes a winner. That's due to 'Der Elektrolurch', a snaking, funky exploration which starts around some jammy percussion before experimenting with heavily processed guitars and a scary sci-fi voice (though I think most voices sound scary in German). It's almost unrecognisable against the riffage on side one, and it's kosmiche musik at its best - progressive, dark, and invigorating. You could probably argue that it's a bit underwritten, sounding more like a few sketches put in linear fashion than an actual 'song', but that's OK. Closer 'The Story of Life' continues the atmosphere for 12 and a half minutes, and it takes it's time. It's a slow, meandering tune with a plodding bassline, built around the repeated tenor vocals about matters such as 'The story of life' / 'is hello and good-bye'. About 2/3 of the way through we get to some sort of bridge, suggesting we sleep 'until we meet again', and it drifts off to nothing among some gongs - before a distorted guitar comes back in and takes us home via a flying carpet of burning riffage. Guru Guru are second-tier Krautrock for me but this second side can stand up against the best moments by Dzyan or Cosmic Jokers, for sure.

Globe Unity - 'Improvisations' (Japo)

I made a typo on the first draft of this and actually called the band "Glove Unity", which is a nice concept, indeed. This is a good test of the new turntable - so far I've noticed that jazz sounds far better than rock, as thicker mixes struggle a bit for clarity, but the turntable (which I got secondhand) has a pretty old cartridge/stylus on it, which I really should replace. I remembered this being nothing more than a giant ball of noise, but I'm confusing it with another Globe Unity album I have on CD. This has its moments of ball-like fury, as anything with 15 musicians playing at once will, but it's actually a lot more delicate and spacious than I remembered. Side one starts off very slowly, with everyone feeling each other out. The instrumentation is cryptically referred to with two-letter abbreviations and I think it's clear to me (ss = soprano sax, fl = flugelhorn --  or is it flute?, etc.) but it's not always clear who is what. For example, both Peter Brötzmann and Michael Pilz are credited to bass clarinet, though it's the third of three instruments for Brötzmann, so you're left to guess who is what. At the beginning there's a nice soft little lick played on that instrument, left to echo into the beautiful air-space that this vinyl pressing really clearly captures, and I'm guessing it's Pilz because it doesn't sound like a rocket launcher firing. But who knows? There's two of just about everything - well, not exactly - but only one drummer here, Paul Lovens, and he's content to sit back for long passages, just adding some cymbals or other percussion. And Alex von Schlippenbach, the leader of the whole thing is absent for long stretches. It's not until the end of side 1, when this group finally explodes in the manner I spent the whole side waiting for, that his piano really starts chopping through everything. The group interplay is fantastic, and even at its thickest, there is a remarkable balance between the different forces. It's at times tentative, and at times confrontational, but you don't feel like these musicians are battling in a way to establish dominance. I love European free jazz, because it seems to avoid any ego driven basis of much American soloing and focus on a group mentality; plus, later Dutch efforts start to reincorporate traditional swing elements and melody in a way that's really remarkable. There's no Dixieland flavours here, but as any record with both Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, a hell of a lot of boundary pushing. The end of the record is all strings, where the cello by Tristan Honsinger interplays with the bassists (Buschi Niebergall and the great unsung Peter Kowald, who I think is the Robert Horry of Euro free jazz); something is done to the bass, maybe the way its recorded, that makes it sound like some space age synth affect. I'm not sure if they actually used any effects or if it's just an accident of studio sonorities (or dust on my stylus??) but it feels like a spiritual connection to out-there European NWW list music like Heldon or Mahogany Brain, if only for a minute. Though I've pointed out the few musicians I can clearly identify (due to their instrumentation being unique), this isn't really a showcase for any one player, but rather one of the few examples of 15 people coming together to make something great together. I don't know if freely improvised music has moved very far beyond this record (recorded in September, 1977) but that's also not the point - the point is the lineup, for these musicians sound distinctly like these musicians when in this combination. And a joyous sound it is.

George Crumb - 'Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)' (Nonesuch)

Crumb's composition is for two amplified pianos and percussion, and it sounds very much like the stretched night sky, with twinkles of light and the occasional meteor. The structure, as Crumb writes on the cover, is five-part; 1, 3 and 5 are the main themes and the interludes (separated by instrument-type) are dream interventions. So taken as a whole, we get a grand sense of wonder - a journeyman captivated by the natural environment, and fulfilling the greatest promise of electro-acoustic music. The pianos sound like pianos, mostly, and the energy of electricity coursing through them really does "amplify" the decay and fluctuations of the notes. There's trills, dips, and dots; the integration with the various percussive tools hits it's peak on track 3, 'The Advent'. There's actually a great deal of percussion in Crumb's battery, according to the liner notes, all played by the duo of Raymond DesRoches and Richard Fitz. "Metal thunder-sheet" is clearly the screaming that comes across the sky here, but there's also some kalimbas, alto recorder, slide-whistles, and the "jawbone of an ass" (really!). So as focused as this sounds on wax, Crumb is actually drawing from a lot of different sources. It's hard to know how structured the playing is - certainly the closing 'Music of the Starry Night' with it's waves of chop-chop piano glass is tight, but 'The Advent' is fluid and improvised. Crumb does explicitly thank the performer for their "critically important role ... in the evolution of any new musical language". I've always loved electroacoustic composition from this era (this is 1975) because of the critical balance between technological know-how and pure exploratory wonder. The imagery of the night sky is surely universal, and maybe a bit easy compared to postmodern symphonic works that are inspired by rutabegas, artificial intelligence research or clam chowder -- but that universality stirs an easy soup in my soul. I remember find this record over a decade ago in a very low-quality secondhand shop that was all CDs downstairs and forgotten, mostly worthless vinyl upstairs. I spent a hot summer afternoon combing through the entire room and found this and only this to reward me, but for $1.99 it was truly a bargain.

The Cosmic Jokers (Kozmiche Musik)

Focused, no; nor are they even a real band! Actually this was a manipulating ploy by a producer to get a bunch of famous Kraut dudes super high and make 'em jam - and then release it as a "super group" and laugh all the way to the bank. What came out was majestic - two side-long jams, of plodding, slowly building guitar epics, washes of synth, occasional vocals, and the haziest atmosphere you could imagine. It's accidentally a true classic, and I think the musicians ended up suing the shit out of this guy, as they should have, but without really failing to thwart the endless stream of reissues. 'Galactic Joke' is the first one, and it's mostly instrumental apart from some muttering at the end. The pitter-patter of the drums sound pretty solid, and on this these Ash Ra members eek out their epic construction. Focused, no, but there's some higher power that prevents more discordant urges from taking over. On the flipside, 'Cosmic Joy' begins on a Popul Vuh vibe, but then clouds approach quickly. Over twenty minutes, the Jokers sketch out another slow, unfolding exploration of murky sonic space, this one less rhythmic and more textural. It climaxes into a tribal fury for brief moments, then pulls back and allows dissonant guitars to come in. The presence and fidelity is distant, obscure; when piercing guitar notes flicker around the edges, it's never close enough to touch. Of course we now know they were just some super high dudes in a (presumably very smoky) room dicking around, but dicking about with their brainwaves locked together due to the shared experience of whatever they ingested. I feel sluggish, yet opened to something, just by listening to it. These are jokers more in a Hagbard Celine way than Monty Python, if you know what I mean; but as the group Krautjams go, this is definitive and masterful, maybe even too much so (for while I do enjoy this, I'll take the weirder and fruitier songforms over the space jams 7 times out of 10).

Don Cherry - 'Eternal Now' (Antilles)

In Sweden now, Cherry is leaving his Ornette Coleman-influenced roots behind and working with musicians much closer to 'folk' than 'jazz', and also three guys I've never heard of. There's also no pocket trumpet or cornet to be found here, so maybe that's some other indication of his intended direction. (I've never actually been sure if he plays the cornet and the pocket trumpet, or if it's the same thing and just mislabeled by a lot of people). The opener, 'Gamla Stan - The Old Town by Night' sounds like the murky moody post-Mu direction, based around a h'suan (you know, the ancient Chinese instrument). It drifts gently into said night, suggesting a world more influenced by Palenque than Peking, but maybe that's just me. 'Love Train' is the smooth sexual force of Don Cherry, not the O'Jays, but actually it's Bernt Rosengren who is delivering the erotic salvos. Cherry, who composed the piece, stays on piano (with Christer Bothén) and directs the piece through a simple structure with occasionally erupting chord bangs. The taragot is Rosengren's instrument of choice, which is a wooden sax from Romania. When the notes change there's a bit of grift, and a much more mellow tone than a resonating sax bell would provide -- almost like a tenor sax crossed with an Indian shenhai. It's the closest to a proper jazz feeling on the whole record, as Rosengren knows how to work the reed. The gongs and Tibetan bells are felt more that overtly heard, and it's a nice slice of something different that appears to be something familiar. Bothén's own 'Bass Player for Ballatune' disrupts the smooth vibe, closing out the side with a pounding, Charlegmangian piano workout for six hands and two keyboards. It's dense and seems far longer than it's actual running time (3'45) -- and perhaps attempts to define 'eternal now'. On the flip we get 'Moving Pictures for the Ear', a repetetive tribal percussion jam over which Cherry extemporises on harmonium and vocals. I saw the No Neck Blues Band once and they got into a jam that sounded exactly like this, and the harmonium here floats around the same way their keyboard did. It's so simple, yet compelling - my highlight of the album - not so much because it's a convincing work of ethnoforgery but because the piece offers so much in a simple structure. The rhythms are there to pick apart and the timbre of the dousso n'Koni, in conjunction with the harmonium, make it endlessly psychedelic. 'Tibet' takes things full circle, with it's slowly expanding sound clouds -- Cherry bleating on the Pkan-dung, which the liner notes assure me is 'a Tibetan ritual trumpet constructed from the thighbone of a virgin'. It's the sparse journey you'd expect, a truly placid exploration that nonetheless manages to be interesting and with momentum. Overall, Eternal Now is a beautiful record to listen to, though maybe slightly leaning towards the dark side of "look at all of these cool ethnic instruments". Or actually, it straddles that line, as there's enough intuitive musicianship here to master anything unfamiliar, preventing this from being a mere educational exercise.