Trios (review)

Chris Mann's manic, ever-unintelligible voice fills large expanses of this compact disc. Amid the constantly moving and intricately variegated texture, familiar sounds recur: occasionally the friendly sound of Christian Wolff's melodica peeks through the miasma, the flutter of tremolo-bar vibrated electric guitar, a slow plunking at a piano.

Five musicians contributed to the music here. According to Pogus Productions' Web site, the album "combines instrumental and electronic improvisation with non-real-time computer processing and editing." Composer/guitarist Larry Polansky, Chris Mann (narrator/poet/vocalist), and douglas repetto (computer musician/ live electronics manipulator/ recording engineer) recorded "several hours of live improvised material in one session" in January of 1998. Then, in April of that same year, composer/pianist/bassist/percussionist/ melodica player Christian Wolff joined Mr. repetto and Mr. Polansky to record additional material. The products of both of these trio sessions were then (in the CD's tertiary level of creation) offered over to Tom Erbe (credited with "recording, editing, processing" in the liner notes), who sifted through material from the two trio improvisations and shaped them into the six resultant CD tracks.

Overall I find the shorter tracks more successful than the longer ones. As much as Mr. Mann's chattering has to recommend it, the best track is the last one in which there's no recognizable vocal part on the surface of the piece.

Track Two, the shortest of the album, opens with glissando electric guitar, quickly joined by Mr. Mann's pitch-prominent delivery. A brief silence, and then repeated notes on the (sometimes) prepared piano (sounding like a glass rod resting on the strings at times—with a metallic harpsichord-ish sonic result), then manic Mr. Mann is back, joined by blips of electric guitar (warmed by a little reverberation this time). The harshness of the filtered voice gives this track a contemporary sheen, and the brevity really works for this assemblage of sounds.

Track Three has a thicker texture: slow dives of electric guitar (a much more distorted timbre here) or of electronic assemblages, Mr. Mann's voice periodically lowered or made harsh and distorted, occasional white-noise spikes, clean guitar oscillations (various thirds), a meandering movement in Mr. Wolff's bass. The encouraging bleat of the melodica peeks through about two-thirds of the way through the track, and then a little bluesy piano steps in, sometimes backed by sample and hold-like blipping, or by heavily distorted guitar—and then there's Mr. Mann again. But, for a couple of minutes the computer sounds (and computer altered ones) keep even his burbles at bay, with a full and rhythmic sound. Heavily processed and altered voice, and quasi-minimalist piano take us to the end of the track. Track Three is longest of the album, and perhaps its most representative. But, it just doesn't keep the listener's attention like the two short tracks of the CD.

Track Four: electric guitar has the first word—long notes, distorted, faintly sinister percussive things punctuate the underbelly of the sound. Then, Mr. Mann's babble enters and builds to his own Australian braying. The guitar dominates this time, though. With subtlety, long sounds take over: electronics, more guitar, the voice's presence recedes then eventually returns. In its absence the listener notices how much of the rhythmic activity of the track (and the album as a whole) is carried by this element. A delicate electronic whine (almost the shortwave of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Hymnen, but not quite) and grossly slowed voice (becoming a percussive and bassy thump) end the track.

Track Six opens with rattling prepared piano and percussion, high glisses on clean guitar, along with a much noisier, distorted guitar sound and a flittering of processed piano and electronics. Then, scrabblings (piano and otherwise) with perhaps the voice instrumentalized and pushed to the distant background. (Finally, Mr. Mann doesn't dominant the texture—the voice is actually absent.) Following, a clockworks sound of high piano and high guitar notes repeating, repeating, repeating. Then, nothing. This track is the most beautiful of the album, and a reason to give even the...