Ezio Piermattei - If a Fencer Now Learns to Row (My Dance the Skull, 2020)

The London-based (or Rome-based, depending on which website you’re peeping at) tape label My Dance the Skull has been around for over ten years, a forum for the imprint’s founder Marco Cazzella to showcase his fondness for sound art and surrealism.  Cazzella has featured artists as diverse as Thurston Moore, Alan Sondheim, Maurizio Bianchi, and Bananafish founder Seymour Glass (under his This is Yvonne Lovejoy alias) on the label’s Voice Studies series.  The label is a slow-burning affair that appears to have experienced a burst of activity this year, with a handful of issuances appearing.

One of the newer artifacts that has shown up recently is this thirty-plus minute electroacoustic epic from Ezio Piermattei.  Hailing from the Abruzzo region of Italy, Piermattei runs the Tutore Burlato label, which appears to have paused operations in the last few years.  If a Fencer Now Learns to Row has been described by the artist as being composed of voices, places, objects, and instruments.  One can discern various dialogues – both sensical and otherwise – taking place, as well as field recordings of the seaside, church choirs, and other locations.

All of these sonic elements are woven into a semi-conscious narrative that is graced by a hallucinatory score.  The proceedings are evocative and tug at various emotional centers as the music unfolds.  At times incredibly intimate, and at others enigmatically oblique, If a Fencer Now Learns to Row is a powerful piece to take in.  Every millisecond is full of audible wonders to behold.

This affecting work of sound art is available in digital form via the My Dance the Skull Bandcamp, for those of you who need some respite from the real world.  Dive in and enjoy!

Tristan Magnetique - 2 (Cosmic Winnetou, 2020)

Digital synths don’t get a lot of love these days, but the Casio CZ-101 – the electronics manufacturer’s first professional-grade synth – should conjure a lot of nostalgia for those of us who grew up in the 1980s.  I’m pretty sure I banged out a few mediocre melodies on one when I was a kid.  But this dinosaur is aging himself.  True synth wizards, such as Günter Schlienz (a.k.a., Tristan Magnetique and the head of the Cosmic Winnetou enterprise), have unlocked god-mode on the instrument.  An ambient music maestro who has achieved mastery over the instrument keyboard’s eight voices is someone to be respected, and so is the instrument itself. 

Schleinz is certainly no slouch; his catalogue is lengthy.  But his work as Tristan Magnetique, in which he has limited his arsenal to only the CZ-101, is quite beefy in and of itself.  His first outing bearing this particular brand was spread across a whopping three cassettes, while this bad boy spans two spools.  This is an auteur who understands what the ambient music aficionado wants: a lot of music in lengthy passages to support inner exploration and nocturnal meandering.  And this is what we have been given.

The pieces on 2 are nameless, but they each span a side of a cassette.  There are distinct movements, and these seem to be bookmarked by interjections of field recordings.  For example, the A side begins with at least three or four interwoven voices that take their time to lock onto each other before what sounds like a skittering violin shatters the mystique at around the five-minute mark.  This then leads into the next passage of dreamlike drift, peppered with chiming resonances.

If I were to be forced to describe this body of music in a single word, that word would be “tranquil”.  There is a decidedly calm vibe present throughout, and it’s definitely refreshing.  One feels at ease, even when the sounds stray toward the alien and synthetic.  And while the emotional tone is placid, the music is also nuanced and full of interesting ideas.  2 is the ambient genre at its most effective.

There are still copies left of this relaxed masterpiece over at the Cosmic Winnetou Bandcamp, so stray in that direction to fulfill your mind’s need for solace.  And we all could use a little bit of solace these days, am I right? 

David Cordero & Pepo Galán - As a Silent Tongue Shadow (Muzan Editions, 2020)

Ambient wizards David Cordero and Pepo Galán capture the beauty of southern Spain with this collaborative effort for the always fabulous Muzan Editions imprint.  Hailing from opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar – Cordero from Cádiz and Galán from Málaga – the two have whipped together a series of haunting meditations from fluid and evaporating tones.

Sound-making objects seem to be whisked away like grains of sand in the wind, their remnants only fleetingly discernible behind layers of drone and obfuscated melody.  On “After the Pains”, piano notes resonate outward, only to return as obliterated husks of melancholy.  What might be processed birdcalls is manipulated such that the warbles become a lonely, alien cacophony.  Dreamy tones weave these elements into a blanket of nostalgia and warmth.  What should be frightening becomes beautiful.

With “Deva”, the duo begins with a swirling fog of glittering drones.  The amorphous cloud eventually crystallizes into a delicate polyrhythm.  Patterns of vibraphone-like tone dance about in a sprightly display of vigor.  The hypnotizing piece slowly dissolves into silence.  “When the Light Disappears” is ironically a gleaming ball of dreamlike tone that slowly unfurls into a gaseous nebula of colorful, intermingling textures.  This, the lengthiest piece on offer, is a perfect capstone to this fine collection of ethereal soundscapes.

The artists themselves have a few copies of this dreamy cassette left on their respective Bandcamp sites.  Digital drift can be acquired via the label’s Bandcamp.  Either way, this is a must-have for lovers of the drone.

Wizard Of - Devour EP (Bedroomer, 2020)

Toronto-based musician Bob McCully has been active in various forms for 15 years.  He began as Women in Tragedy, taking on a significant role in his city’s noise underground.  He pumped out an endless stream of CD-Rs and cassettes, through which he matured his sound from lengthy noise-drone explorations to song forms that were tinged with elements of metal and shoegaze.  He dabbled in electronic dance forms, but it wasn’t until adopting the Wizard Of moniker that McCully truly embraced the beat.

As Wizard Of, McCully has dialed back his prolific nature, taking a more measured approach to his output.  Quantity has been overshadowed by quality.  The one constant in McCully’s music is a darkness, a sinister vein that continues to run through each track.  Devour, his latest, isn’t blatantly rooted in horror, but there’s a chilling subtext that lurks just beneath the surface of every track.

The EP opens up with the title track, which transmogrifies from a hypnotic pulse train into a seriously overdriven banger of a piece.  A syncopated snare shuffle leads to a piano outro that jump cuts into “Knife”.  Here’s a piece that mirrors horror-esque themes against hardcore beats, to great effect.  McCully heads to UK garage territory with “Demon Life”, which seems to pick up where “Knife” left off, albeit in a more energetic mode.  “Fingers Through Light” seems to bring out the producer’s jazzier side, being riddled with what sounds like trombone stabs that pull together into a melody.  McCully once again brings on the darkness to close out the proceedings with “Gold Blur”, an enigmatic piece that is worthy of repeat listens.

Devour is available digitally via his Bandcamp, so shuffle your way over there and lay down a few bucks for this stellar collection of shadowy beats.

Sol Rezza - POOL (Self-Released, 2020)

It’s been awhile.  Forgive me.  It’s been a little crazy around these parts.

These days, we’ve been listening to an incredibly evocative piece of music.  This particular composition is imbued with the essence of water.  Entitled POOL, it was crafted from many smaller loops of water sounds, assembled into a series of 7 stories, which then coalesced into the ultimate 25-minute long piece.  It was born in the midst of waves and droplets, mists and torrents.  It is fluid yet crystalline.  Malleable yet structured.

The product of Argentinian composer, radio producer, and sound artist Sol Rezza, POOL was commissioned by the Chile-based Tsonami Festival.  There, it was presented as a radio piece that was “based on the notion of the power of transformation of the element of water, as a continuum that balances one of the life cycles of our planet, and the one that is being radically affected by climate change.”

Not coincidentally, the 7 narrative elements that comprise the piece seamlessly waft into each other, the liquid-sourced field recordings melding with more abstract electronic sonic elements.  Icy rhythms and glacial drones exist alongside each other, creating an emotional churn.  Peaceful, then excited, harmonious, then vigorous; the cycle repeats across a titanic 25 minutes.

For the digital release, which is accompanied by a 5-part graphical score, Rezza has included each of the 7 segments as unique tracks to investigate on their own.  It’s here, where each idea is encapsulated within its own small space, that one can really investigate the essence of POOL itself.  A listener can interrupt the flow, perhaps to focus on the heightened boiling of “Loop III”, or maybe to ruminate on the melancholy piano of “Loop IV”.  Each section can be interrogated and enjoyed apart from the others.

You too can absorb the fluidity of POOL, both as a mammoth composition, and as a series of vignettes.  Head over to Sol Rezza’s Bandcamp and choose your entry point into this aquatic adventure in sound.

Matt Robidoux - Brief Candles (\\NULL|ZØNE//, 2020)

When this little blog first took flight, the first ink spilled was for a self-titled cassette by a project named Isness.  Half of the Isness duo is Oakland-based musician Matt Robidoux, a coastal transplant who ran with Sunburned Hand of the Man when he was located nearer to the Atlantic Ocean.  He is a purveyor of fine songcraft, and Brief Candles – his latest tape – totally spills the beans with respect to his deftness in musical ideation.

There are 17 performers other than Robidoux who are credited as being involved in these compositions, which were realized over a 2-year period beginning in 2017.  Each individual lends their distinct musical signature, playing loosely within the framework that Robidoux has assembled.  “Rose Room” leads the proceedings, as the composer croons atop a scrappily strummed guitar and wobbly wind instrument melodies.  The piece swoons, staggers a little bit and tumbles around before collapsing entirely.  Taking a completely contrarian position to the preceding piece, the instrumental “Little Wall” is a tightly wound composition, complete with a staccato section in which each instrument pierces the silence with its voice.  I sense the influence of Gastr Del Sol here, but I could be wrong.

Robidoux sways between weirdness and complete control across the length of this tape, and it’s actually quite refreshing.  Veering between precision and looseness allows for subtle shifts in tone as each piece reveals itself, piquing our interest over and over again.  One particular piece that exemplifies the complete array of sensibilities is the epic “Reflection Space”, which begins with an understated synth warble before morphing into something almost completely motorik in nature a la Neu!  Then the horns enter, stumbling over each other in an attempt to freak everyone out.  Robidoux attempts to calm things down with his soothing voice, which only heightens the intensity even more.  This track alone is worth the price of admission.

Robidoux still has copies of this imaginative and attention-grabbing cassette, so steer your ship over to yonder Bandcamp and slap a few bucks down for this one.  You’ll thank me later.

With Great Care - With Great Care (Aural Canyon, 2020)

The Aural Canyon label is no stranger to this little blog of ours, mainly because we have much love for their delicious brand of audio bliss.  Our orbits are very aligned with theirs, and we eagerly anticipate each new release from the imprint.  This particular cassette has been rattling our ear drums for awhile, and it is a shame that we haven’t had the bandwidth to spill any ink about it in months past, because it’s so damn good!

Modular synth wizard Grainger Weston is behind the moniker With Great Care, and this is his debut.  It’s a pretty epic release, though – so well-tuned as a matter of fact that it’s hard to believe this guy hasn’t been cranking out synth-scapes for eternity.  Or maybe he has, and this is the first time that he’s dared to attach his incorporeal emanations to a physical form.  One can never be sure…

This is the kind of modular jamming we love around here: the music carefully balances a mix of ambient hues behind a melodic foreground and fractured loops that coalesce into tide pools of undifferentiated sound.  Such weirdness can create a kaleidoscopic effect, as can be heard on “Swim”, in which oblique patterns emerge and recede almost constantly as the lengthy piece unfolds.  At other times there is an unnerving, extraterrestrial vibe that takes hold.  The alien atmospheres of “Horizon” with its glitchy lexicon is exemplary of such an unearthly mode.

Unique in its execution is “Blue”, in which a sprightly – almost pachinko-esque – melody is sparsely peppered over a barely present hum.  It’s like Weston is jamming freely on his modular, really exploring the outer reaches of melody, tone and timbre.  The whole thing is thrilling.  As a matter of fact, the entire tape is a stunner from beginning to end – definitely one that we will be jamming while under quarantine, and beyond.

Aural Canyon have copies of this expansive and entrancing cassette over at their Bandcamp, so grab yourself a copy, hunker down, and drift away on clouds of synth.

Lithics - Wendy Kraemer EP

It’s mid-April and we’ve finally made it through the stacks to a 2020 release.  Finally!  FINALLY!!

So we’ve been heavily digesting social media in the absence of in person social interaction, and one thing that has been popping up frequently is the “name one record per day that has made you who you are” phenomenon, or whatever it’s called.  Over here at Nine Chains HQ, we’re pretty sure that there’d be at least one no wave record in our list, should we ever choose to participate.  And that leads us to today’s object of critical investigation, this EP reissue from Portland’s Lithics.

This four-piece minimal primitive punk ensemble ride their bikes on the edges of the no wave neighborhood.  There are the requisite angular guitars and rubbery bass involved.  And the half-spoken vocals of Aubrey Hornor smack of late 70s or early 80s avant-punk, in a good way.  This gang wear their influences on their sleeves, but there is a sense of originality that keeps them from becoming an imitation or a parody of what came before.

The Wendy Kraemer EP has an interesting genesis.  Originally self-released by the band on cassette, this is an odds and sods collection of demos, improvisational jams and practice recordings of material that at the time was yet to be released.  Ironically, the proceedings work as a package unto itself.  Sure, the fidelity of the recordings is all over the map, but that actually adds to the visceral feeling of the music.  The folks over at Moone Records must have felt the same way, because they decided to reissue it, and on wax no less.

There are no tracks listed, but discerning listeners will likely make out songs from the group’s more “professional” recordings.  That being said, we enjoy listening to the entirety as one big block of tunes that scuttle past in all their scrappy glory.

Moone still have copies of this bad boy over at their online shop, so go ahead and sidle over there and prepare to enjoy yourselves.

Endurance / PJS - Endurance / PJS (Crash Symbols, 2019)

Hey!  What better way to tide us over during the mini-pocalypse than a lovely slice of drift that is itself a triumvirate composed of our favorite music-producing organisms?  Crash Symbols, Endurance, and PJS all rank up at the top of our charts, so the idea of them combining forces is almost indescribable in its goodness.  We’re as happy as can be, all things considered.

Here we have a reel of ferrous material imbued on either side with the cosmic sounds of Canada.  Well, technically Endurance is currently located in Japan, but Josh Stefane is Canuck diaspora, so we’re widening the lasso over here in our geographic categorization.  On the A side is a pair of his compositions, while the flip side is owned by PJS, which is Jordan Christoff and Patrick Dique.

The Endurance tracks capture two unique modes of Stefane’s soundcraft.  “Outside” launches with a string of reverberating chimes that ring out with a sense of delicate beauty.  The sounds blend into a gentle, shimmering mist that just begs to be waded through.  Dreamworld, here we come!  The opposite effect is at play on “Waystation”.  In this piece, a darkness overtakes us.  We’re riding in a lonely subway car at midnight.  Our skin crawls and the hair on our arms stands on end.  An uneasiness grows within us.  We can’t think of anything but the darkness.  Eventually, a faint glow materializes through the window, the sense of dread diminishes, and we allow our internal monologue to continue.  This is a very bold piece.

PJS lay out a live synthesizer array that sways gently in an invisible breeze.  “Parellels” captures the duo channeling spirits from the cosmos and bending those phantasms to their will.  Their translucent bodies waft however Christoff and Dique command them.  A binaural fluttering evokes graceful movement, such as that of a fish darting through water or a soaring bird, and a subtle crackling emerges with a fairly regular cadence, giving rise to a slight shiver.  These are the sounds of a cloudless twilight.

Alas, physical copies of this captivating release are sold out, but it’s available in digital form via the Crash Symbols Bandcamp, so click on over there and prepare to zone out.

Julia Bloop - Out of the Bloop (Patient Sounds, 2019)

Hey all!  I hope that everyone is keeping healthy and not going stir crazy in these very interesting times.  We can do this self-isolation thing.  Just please be kind and loving to your fellow citizens, maintain your distance, and above all, stay positive!  Me, I turn to music in times like these, and this lovingly crafted cassette courtesy of Julia Bloop is getting me through the social distancing blues.

Out of the Bloop was released by the now-defunct Patient Sounds label, an imprint that had been at the forefront of sonic curiosity for 10 years before calling it quits in 2019.  As a matter of fact, this was one of the final cassettes to leave their hands before the proverbial towel was thrown.  I was misty-eyed when I heard that M. Sage was drawing his lovingly-curated label to a close, but the legacy that he’s left behind certainly stands tall, and we have over 100 releases to return to when the need arises, so there’s that.

Rather than going out with a bang, Patient Sounds chose to drift off toward infinity, patiently.  This is definitely reflected in the telltale loops and samples that have become a signature of Julia Bloop’s, and are featured readily on this stunning cassette.  The most rabble rousing of the pieces on offer here is “Sailor”, which leads off the proceedings with a loping drum loop and an almost Hawai’ian guitar that dives in when it’s appropriate to do so.  There are chirping birds as well, and this seems to be a thematic touch point throughout the cassette, as they appear again in “Pacific Sunset”.  On this track, Bloop dials the drums back to a clickety-clack ratcheting that seems to grow more pervasive as the track progresses.  Piano, sax, and other tones are sprinkled about gingerly, not merely decorative, but adding to the overall sense of good vibrations being transmitted.

“Deserted Shore” is even more mellow, a piano/guitar heartstring-tugger that tumbles through a bank of samples like that prince who rolls the Katamari ball around in that highly addictive video game.  Along the same lines is “The Thrill of Shelter,” which seems to bounce around with a misty reverb that implies a cavernous locale of some sort.  Eventually, it settles into a dreamy swirl of sound, before vanishing completely.  And then there’s “Set Us Free of This World,” which is the culmination of all that came before it.  A plethora of birdsong, piano, guitar and other samples are combined into a lengthy meditation on existence itself.  This is a doozy and the perfect way to sign off such a lovely cassette.

Should you wish to investigate the wonderful world of Julia Bloop, you can find both physical and digital options at their Bandcamp.  Enjoy, and once again, stay healthy and safe!

heArt Ensemble - Oréade (Small Scale Music, 2019)

The Small Scale Music imprint is a tiny Montréal-based label dedicated to pursuing the exploratory flavors of music: noise, free jazz, experimental stuff.  All of it is worthy of digesting for those listeners with feisty viscera.  The Montréal creative music community is prolific, adventurous, and has an incredible story to tell the rest of the world.

Recently, Small Scale unleashed a pair of CDs featuring the work of Guy Thouin and the second incarnation of his heArt Ensemble.  Thouin is a legendary figure in the French-Canadian free jazz scene.  He is the only surviving original member of the Quatuor de Jazz Libre du Québec, which was the first free jazz combo formed in the city of Montréal, active from 1967 to 1974.  A prolific drummer and percussionist, Thouin was also a member of L’infonie, a loose collective of musicians who favored beat poetry and prog-oriented avant-jazz.

This new branch of the heArt Ensemble tree finds Thouin paired up with saxophonist Félix-Antoine Hamel.  The two musicians have been improvising in the drummer’s basement every week since 2015, often inviting guests to explore along with them.  The material that comprises Oréade is the result of a heavy period of experimentation as a trio, with harpist Marilou Lyonnais-Archambault joining the fray.  There is almost 70 minutes of music presented here; who knows for how long these mavericks jammed in order to harvest this distilled product of their creativity.

One intriguing aspect of this particular recording is the melodic sensibility that wafts into the proceedings from time to time.  The CD actually begins in this mode, with the almost funky “Ostinato” searching out and finding a groove to lope along to.  That being said, the trio brings on the fire most of the time, roaring along with abandon.  The harp adds a certain uncanniness that is amplified by the clever deployment of electronics.  There be ghosts here, but their howls are shimmery and bright.  This is some straight up outstanding music!

Small Scale Music still have copies of this stunner over at their Bandcamp, so head on over and drop some dollars.  You will thank me later.

Amelia Courthouse - Ruby Glass (SPINSTER, 2019)

The SPINSTER Sounds label is doing magical things.  We were first introduced to them via the wonderful Quilt of the Universe compilation, and they’ve returned with another mighty undertaking, this time courtesy of Leah Toth who some might know from her work with Wooden Wand.  For this release, Toth is going by the name Amelia Courthouse, and Ruby Glass – as it’s called – is a quiet masterpiece.  The album is awash in delicate melodies that glisten with phosphorescent tracers as they weave about.  Each piece is the product of deft hands.  These hands are composed of fingers and nerve endings that are steeped in their craft.

We take flight alongside Amelia Courthouse beginning with “No Chimbo”.  A softly panned flute-like pad provides a base for a spindly melody to be plucked out overtop.  These elements are joined by a wafting guitar line that just might be the ghostly twin of the opening guitar solo from King Crimson’s “Starless”.  The title track juxtaposes a melancholy piano melody against bells and chimes, of which one seems to become enmeshed with an analog version of itself.  This analog ringing calls out with an uncanny sadness that is melted away by the higher pitched chimes.

“Hugh Kenner” takes its name from a Canadian literary critic (Courthouse is an assistant professor in modern literature) and is decidedly haunting.  Its morose piano line is swept up in a haze of wafting pads and chords that only heighten the sense of foreboding.  “Becker” just might also be named after a literary critic.  Could it be that Courthouse is channeling May Lamberton Becker?  This piece begins rather simply but quickly sprouts multiple adornments that are quite gorgeous.  There’s an unusually compelling distortion effect at play that adds drama to the mellifluous piano melodies.

Listening to the 17-minute-long “Murphie 1” is like trying to take in the entire night sky with one glance.  The delicate pinpoints of starlight, the shooting streaks of meteors, and the slow tracking of satellites coalesce into a fine needlepoint pattern imprinted on our eyelids.  Courthouse’s wordless vocals add an angelic touch to the proceedings.  This is a mighty fine way to close out such an already wonderful release.

It is highly, highly recommended that you obtain a copy of this entrancing release.  There are some left over at the SPINSTER Bandcamp so run over there pronto and seize yourself a copy.

øjeRum - Selv I Drømme Lyser Den Første Sne (Aural Canyon, 2019)

You’re probably wondering, ‘another øjeRum review?’  Well, we happened to have a bunch of his releases in our stack, so we couldn’t help but spilling a little more ink about this ultra-prolific Dane.  This one is a cassette reissue from our friends over at Aural Canyon of an LP that originally came out on the German label Midira Records.  It must be said that both editions are worth owning just for the artwork alone, although the vinyl is long sold out at source.  Each edition is graced with its own handsome collage created by Paw Grabowski himself.

The vinyl version of Selv I Drømme Lyser Den Første Sne (English translation: even in dreams the first snow glows) pairs classic øjeRum ambient bliss with an interpretation on cello by Aaron Martin on the flip.  The cassette changes things up a bit.  The original piece remains, but the B Side contains a ‘dual version’, in which Martin’s cello and Grabowski’s loop-based ambient shimmer are played together.  The result is unbelievably breathtaking.

Fans of øjeRum’s oeuvre will be pleased by the eponymous 20-minute long monolith of minimalism – with its craftily-arranged loops and richly-hued sonic textures.  When floating alongside the cello’s wavelike sheen, the drones seem to flourish, to grow deeper and more complex.  This music is evocative enough to bring tears to your eyes, but its origins are not in melancholy.  These emotions are rooted in an indescribable beauty, an experience that must be undertaken to completely understand the sheer immensity.

Aural Canyon still has a handful of copies of this captivating release as of this writing, so let the winter winds whisk you off toward their Bandcamp and enjoy… 

øjeRum - 7 Sjæle (Midira Records, 2019)

If there’s one thing in common across all the øjeRum releases out in the wild, it’s that they’re all intensely beautiful works of art.  Both aurally and visually.  Danish musician Paw Grabowski is a master collagist, and his artwork adorns every musical artifact that he unleashes.  They are magical, amazing to look at.  And amazing to listen to.

øjeRum here presents seven souls, or songs, each a series of cascading swells that unfold slowly and crash delicately into each other.  The music is hypnotic, dreamlike, and misty.  Each of the first six relatively brief tracks reveals itself and then vanishes all too quickly.  Every piece is a unique take on the impalpable nature of sound rendered palpable when received, transmitted and decoded by our own sensory systems.  Like a gas, this music seems to expand to fill whatever space it enters: the atmosphere, a room, your ear canal.  Harnessed by our minds, images take shape: waves, a sunset, the movement of bare branches in the wind.

The final piece takes its time to beam into existence.  Over twenty minutes, øjeRum harnesses the preceding souls into a whirlwind of lush and intertwined drones.  It is a symphony of synthetic tones, a splatter of starlight with a pattern that evolves as the music unfurls.  It is sound as beauty, the feeling of being awash in bliss.

These beatific tones are available as 7 Sjæle, on LP via the Midira Records website or on cassette through øjeRum’s own Bandcamp marketplace.  Whichever way you choose to digest this intoxicating elixir, take your time, let it wash over you, and enjoy.

Antony Widoff - Disposition (Full Spectrum Records, 2019)

Welcome to 2020, dear folks!  This year is already gearing up to be a doozy, and along those lines, we’ve got an interesting tape here to chat with you about.  An interesting tape filled with eclectic computer music created by one of the more fascinating figures that you’ve probably never even heard of.  Antony Widoff has had a lengthy career that has seen him rubbing elbows with the likes of U2 and Frank Zappa, co-developing a musical composition software tool, and creating multimedia installations for display around the world.

In the 1980s, a young Widoff was a student at Bennington College, where he got involved with the development of a musical composition tool called M, and was hired by Intelligent Music, the small company founded by another of the developers, Joel Chadabe.  The other two authors of the software were David Zicarelli (who apparently still works on M) and John Offenhartz.  At around this time, the aspiring musician and composer was also noticed by free jazz legend Bill Dixon, who was a professor at the school, and formed a sort of collaborative pairing with the innovative trumpeter.

He was also in an angular post-punk band called Memorial Garage alongside Philip Price, and has been attributed to a recording under the name Weak (released in 2003) and an animated storybook called Have Another Pillow.  He currently runs a podcast called The Assembly of Silence Radio Hour, writes philosophical texts, and creates videos (and still makes music).  These activities can be sampled over at his Patreon, on which Widoff goes by the name Taijireality.

Disposition was a series of demo recordings for the M software tool and was originally released by Intelligent Music as one of four products that the company had on offer.  The others were the M software itself, as well as another package called MIDI Draw, and a cassette from founder Joel Chadabe.  The music is, not surprisingly, varied from track to track.  Jaunty new age romps pair up with quiet interludes which butt up against more experimental fare.  There are some exquisite and incredibly fascinating moments here, especially the title track and the free jazz-like “Who Is This You”.  The closing piece, the evocative “Just a Phase”, samples the many moods and motifs found across the rest of the tape and juxtaposes these in a very evocative manner.  Somehow, this collection of ideas and experiments has coalesced into a unique experience that is definitely worth undertaking.

Fortuitously, a copy of the original Disposition cassette turned up in the hands of musician Andrew Weathers, who runs the Full Spectrum Records label.  Weathers immediately contacted Widoff, who was delighted to re-issue the music for a new, and potentially appreciative, audience.  I’m going to repeat myself when I say that this is certainly a tape worth investigating, so I urge you to bounce on over to the Full Spectrum Records Bandcamp site and take an aural gander at this lovely little gem; prepare to be pleasantly surprised.