Zeena Parkins

Nels Cline - The Inkling (2000) {Cryptogramophone ‎cg 105}
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© 2000 Cryptogramophone | ‎cg 105
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Creative / Guitar

Those who find avant-garde jazz and free improvisation to be too abrasive are advised to check out this album, on which guitarist Nels Cline is joined by bass wizard Mark Dresser, drummer Billy Mintz, and downtown legend Zeena Parkins on electric and acoustic harp. Make no mistake about it, this music (some of which is composed and some improvised) is definitely challenging: tonal centers, when they exist, shift unpredictably, and Dresser and Parkins in particular make almost constant use of extended techniques that allow them to pull otherworldly sounds from their instruments.

John Zorn - John Zorn's Cobra, Live at The Knitting Factory (1995) {Knitting Factory Works KFW124 rec 1992}
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© 1992, 1995 John Zorn / Knitting Factory Works | KFW 124
Jazz / Avant-Garde / Structured Improvisation / Modern Composition

Recorded during twelve separate performances of John Zorn's "Cobra" during 1992, "John Zorn's Cobra: Live at the Knitting Factory" presents an extraordinary mix of performances, with different stagings by different groups and an absolutely stunning array of performers and environments.

Tin Hat Trio - The Rodeo Eroded (2002) {Ropeadope–Rykodisc RCD 16016}
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© 2002 Ropeadope / Rykodisc | RCD 16016
Jazz / Chamber Jazz / Jazz Folk / Jazz Blues / Creative Music / Classical

San Francisco's nearly un-catagorizable Tin Hat Trio deliver another set of improvisational accordion-fueled Eastern European spaghetti western epics on their third album, The Rodeo Eroded. Mixing a Tom Waits-esque broken carnival feel and quietly sweet melodies, the trio waltzes their way through 15 tracks, occasionally augmenting their standard guitar-accordion-violin lineup with tuba, harmonica, celeste, banjo, and any number of instruments.

Recorded and originally released in 1996, Rheo-Umbra is a two-part composition by Elliott Sharp for a typically bizarre ensemble consisting of electric harp, electric bass, two bass clarinets, percussion, sampler, string quartet, and electric guitar (along with the Slab, a somewhat guitarish instrument invented by Sharp himself). The first six minutes of "Rheo-Umbra 1" are built on a repetitive theme that is carried by the string quartet and muttered about, commented upon, subtly undermined and sometimes supported by the others.

Luminosity‘s two large ensemble works, “Self/Non-Self and Luminosity in the Bardo” and “Symphony of Drones #1,” come from quite different places. The former is inspired by reflections on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the latter a structural exploration of improvisation via graphic notation. But they share a dark, serious, and moody tone.

Bjork's first non-soundtrack album since HOMOGENIC is positively pastoral compared with that release's experimental electronic textures. Swathed in strings … Full Descriptionand laced with beautiful choral arrangements, VESPERTINE has more in common with SELMASONGS, echoing that DANCER IN THE DARK soundtrack album's meandering melody lines, while smoothing out and adding an ethereal sheen to the more angular approaches of the singer's previous work.
Here the idiosyncratic Icelander lets loose with her full range of vocal stylings, though even her most innocent, little-girl-lost persona can't hide her steely intelligence. The album-opening "Hidden Place" starts with foreboding electronic rhythms–it's about unspoken or unfulfilled desires, and it's simultaneously exotic-sounding and dripping with melancholy, a mood that persists until the gently cathartic "Undo," with its mantra-like line "It's not meant to be a strife/It's not meant to be a struggle uphill." Though VESPERTINE's textures might ostensibly seem smooth and seamless, beneath the surface Bjork's emotions run raw and exposed, as evidenced by the final naked outburst of "I love him" in the coda to "Pagan Poetry." VESPERTINE is Bjork's most mature, fully realized integration of her pastoral Icelandic roots and her contemporary electronica (electronic scamps Matmos and Matthew Herbert are collaborators here) inclinations to date.