Using the motto, 'Maximal Repetition Minimal Deviation,' Water Damage create glowing fields of post-rock lava that pretty much suck you right in and boil you alive. ![]() The debut LP, Repeater, by this loudly droning Austin septet is a goddamn splendid example of how the process works. Whether it's the vocals of Pandit Pran Nath, the ARP 2500 of Eliane Radigue, or the nearly-blown amps of Sunn O))), by changing the listener's focus on details to one that favors flow, drones are uniquely capable of transporting our brains far far away. "There is something really special about music based on drones. Now that's Kool Music." - Byron Coley, 2022 And if you let yourself sink into its web, I do believe you will feel just the same. Every time I spin Dagobah I hear a bunch of new details. Although generally in the politest way imaginable. In that sense, Kool Music demands your attention. This gives the music a meditative quality, but the mildly casual dissonances make it tough for listeners to just float along on the sound. Each of the tracks is a solo electric guitar instrumental, usually taken at a slow pace with carefully built layers of sound that often overlap and decay before Kool Music moves on to the next trope. The music on Dagobah has certain tonal similarities to the UK free music tradition, but the pieces display a humanity and sense of humor that (rightly or wrongly) we don't always associate with that scene. Easy aural evidence of those roots has vanished over the past dozen years. Jasper has said that when he first hoisted the Kool Music flag, in Canada back in 2010, its sound was something of a cross between country music and Asian string traditions. The soubriquet Kool Music has a bit of a hip-hop heft to it, but the 14 tracks here present a very different picture. At that point we knew of Jasper as a video artist and writer, but Joanne assured us he was an excellent musician as well. Jasper has previously had some exposure on the label, when his image appeared on the cover of Joanne Robertson's Black Moon Days LP (FTR 179LP, 2015). " Dagobah is the first LP (following a couple of cassettes and a CD) by Kool Music, the solo guitar project helmed by Glasgow-based polymath, Jasper Baydala. Includes a four-page insert with liner notes by Young, Curtis, Burr, and Tashi Wada, and a download of the full recording. Mixed by Anthony Burr, mastered by Stephan Mathieu, and cut to vinyl via direct metal mastering by Hans Jörg Maucksch at Pauler Acoustics. ![]() Piece for Cello and Saxophone is released physically on double-LP. The recording captures Curtis in a performance from 2016 reflecting more than twenty-five years of dedication to the piece. ![]() At over eighty minutes, La Monte Young's justly tuned realization of Piece for Cello and Saxophone for cello alone unifies and extrapolates Terry Jennings' dense harmonies, creating an extended field of complex sonorities in motion, all brought to life by the immaculate playing of Charles Curtis. Despite the title, there is no saxophone on this album. Composed over sixty years ago, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, foreshadows a number of movements in postwar avant-garde music. Jennings died tragically in his early forties, most of his work lost to a chaotic life however, his forward-looking music quietly exerted a lasting influence on composers including Young and Harold Budd. ![]() Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Jennings was a close associate of Young, Terry Riley, and Dennis Johnson, and an early adopter of minimalist tendencies, creating slow, sustained music, influenced by jazz, modalism, and late romantic classical music. Saltern's latest offering marks the first-ever release of "lost minimalist" Terry Jennings' visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis.
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