DAVID GRUBBS / AVEY TARE
split
12”, Fat Cat
Split-releases are a funny thing, because how does the connection between
the two artists represented come about, if at all? What are their
connections, their parallels and antagonisms? Should we regard the two
musicians interconnected at all, anyway or not? In punkrock and underground
metal things are a lot easer – two bands that know and like each other,
from touring together, living together, playing together, being on the same
label together or shopping for beer together, decide that they want to do
something together, e.g. a split release. So they do it – and every band
does their own thing on their side. Is the same true for experimental music?
Was the pairing of Grubbs and Tare a work of their own idea or did the
record company plan and execute that? And what influenced the selection of
their musical pieces? (In a musical field in which the selection of format
is influenced by musical theory, that is a question to be asked.)
Grubbs starts off with “The world brushed aside”, a ten-minute
solo-piano piece, in which he plays scaled chords with single notes in
different scales but not out of range. Sometimes the piece is completely
about linking various notes that are usually not linked and making them
adjacent and fitting. At other times this piece is as much about the sound
of the piano itself (its body, its echo, its responding) as about the notes
being played. It is a very Tchaikowskian piece at time, relying a lot on the
power of the classical piano, the sheer size of its sound and the reverb of
its body. Even though there are no straight chords, nothing ever sounds
askew. His second piece is mainly distorted guitar reverb, another
exploration into the sound an instrument makes by itself, shortly after it
was hit by the player. Where does an instrument take you, as soon as you
start playing it? Every instrument has a life of its own and even though the
player chooses the path, the style he goes in is dictated by the instrument.
Unfortunately this second track, called “Theme from ‘Horizontal
Technicolor’” is over too soon. Originally, it comes from a soundtrack
Grubbs did for the exhibition of an artist and then reworked it.
The three tracks of Avey Tare are more eclectic, psyched and closer to
his usual work. “Crumbling Land” features a monotonous bass,
children’s choirs, strange singing and askew harmonics, noises and
feedback, a strange singing melody included. “Misused Barber”, the
second track starts off with digital noise and a distorted, asthmatic voice
talking while the noises in the background bang away, pile upon each other
and add an atmosphere of serial cult-killers. The most disturbing thing on
this track, though, is a little peeping sound that comes again and again and
again every few seconds and sounds just like the alarm clock of my wife
(which sometimes wakes me up 30 minutes before I have to get up.) The third
track “Abyss Song (Abby’s Song)” starts off with the sound of water
running and some screaming in the background. Then it drifts into ambient
noises that shift over each other like waves. And then it gets even weirder
from there. I’ll just say it is like a 21st century avantgarde
reworking of “rubber room” by Eddie Noack. The best thing about this
piece, in my opinion, is the way in which the ambient noises in the
background slowly start to build a harmonious piece of music.
