Member:
Reginod
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Reginod)
Date:
6/9/2005
Format:
CD (Album)
A friend of mine recently opined that some music is more fun for the musicians to perform than it is for the listeners to hear. It's a good bet that improvisational music would be at the top of that list. Improv is, after all, a tricky pursuit. Sometimes the best an artist can muster is a precarious balancing act on the invisible tightrope between the sublime and the simply annoying. And who knows how a listener might react? The same set of ears that would consider Coltrane in free-flight to be a thing of incomparable aural beauty might just as easily cringe upon hearing the first note of King Crimson's THRaKaTTaK.
It is upon this decidedly unpredictable stage that Taylor's Free Universe exists. Established around the turn of the century by Danish maestro Robin Taylor, the ensemble painted their first public soundscape in 2001 at Copenhagen's "Festival på Kanten." The band subsequently released File Under Extreme in 2002 and followed with 9 Eleven in 2004. Family Shot is the third album released under the TFU banner; it was recorded live with no overdubs in Copenhagen on November 4, 2004.
"Strategy" starts off the album in eerie fashion. Voices in the foreground and background carry on a conversation while a simple progression eases the listener into the music. At first it sounds like a keyboard-controlled synthesizer, until a glance at the credits reveals no keyboardist! Most likely the sounds are emanating from Taylor, who on this album handles guitars, loops and manipulations.
"M'phisto Rubberphunk" checks in at 15:09, and the rubbery aspect is immediately heard in the bass playing of Peter Friis Neilsen. Drummer Lars Juul provides a deep bottom, and the other players join in slowly: Kim Menzer on clarinet, trombone and “strange flute”; Pierre Tassone on processed violin and percussion; and of course Taylor. The overall effect at times might remind some listeners of Robert Fripp, but with the extra dimensions afforded by a fully functioning combo. Taylor and Tassone do some spooky tradeoffs in the last five minutes, completing this particular atmospheric construction, and Menzer on the clarinet caps the piece with a lonely melody.
“Angel Stairs” is an apt name for the next piece. It provides a beautiful interlude before the controlled chaos heard on “Nine Nice ‘n’ Easy Pieces.” Some of these mostly very short vignettes might bring to mind early Zappa, or maybe, on the “Ninth Piece” section, some of the more eerie parts of Zeppelin’s “Dazed And Confused,” although Tassone’s violin sounds sufficiently different from Jimmy Page’s bowed guitar.
In a few instances, the titles of the material on Family Shot seem aimed at describing the impressions that the listener might receive upon hearing the music. “Like A Nervous Car Wreck” is indeed analogous to an impressionist painting, with “nervous” being the operative word; a sense of tension is adequately conveyed. Menzer’s trombone starts the next piece, sounding much like a pensive elephant embroiled in psychiatric self-analysis; hence, the title “The Elephant Cure.”
Neilsen’s nimble bass work lays the groundwork for the album’s final cut “Z Return.” It continues the general pattern of each band member gradually stepping into the fray, and the whole thing becomes a study in sonic deconstruction, before the same dreamlike, faux-keyboard chord progression that started the album shows up again, a fitting bookend.
I guess music of this nature has to be given a chance to “wash over and sink in” before it can be fully appreciated. If successful, it can transport the listener to undiscovered lands. The well-worn phrase "your mileage may vary" is especially pertinent for Family Shot, but by all means give Taylor’s Free Universe a spin if you like immersing yourself in the surreal and sometimes stormy oceans of sound that can be created by capable musicians in the rare milieu of competently executed improv.
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