Jandek, "Athens Saturday" review by Bill Shute of Kendra Steiner Editions

Bill Shute of Kendra Steiner Editions, who appeared on a few of our 

Jandek Study Group Overnight shows and whose work was featured on 

our podcast, has been one of the few writers out there to continue to provide 

thoughtful coverage of Jandek's recent output. We've said it time and time 

again, Jandek is producing some of the most ambitious and groundbreaking 

music of his long and storied career, yet there is a surprising lack of commentary 

that goes beyond the tired "outsider-with-a-detuned-guitar" insight. Bill is able 

to contextualize these works in a meaningful and engaging fashion, so we are thrilled 

that, as with The Songs of Morgan, he has kindly allowed us to re-publish his review of 

Jandek's latest live set, Athens Saturday. Like all Corwood Industries releases,

this 2-CD set can be purchased at a reasonable price ($12 U.S./$13 overseas)

from the most reliable mail order service around:

Corwood Industries

P.O. Box 15375

Houston, TX 77220

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Jandek’s appearance at the Orange Twin Conservation Community in Athens, Georgia was of great interest to me, primarily for two reasons: 1) it was the next show after the Austin, TX Jandek concert that I organized/curated in June 2012, so I was excited to see how Corwood would follow-up that stunning performance in Austin; and 2) Orange Twin seemed like a fascinating and unique venue. Here is a brief description (not a recent one, alas) of the concept of OT, quoted from a Google Sites article: 

The Athens, GA based Orange Twin is currently working on an “eco-village” on the northside of the town. The ultimate goal of the eco-village is to create a “pedestrian-based eco-village while preserving 100 acres of woodland five miles from downtown Athens.” Orange Twin’s vision statement is to live with one another and all forms of life, flora and fauna, in a way that respects all life, is considerate, and open to growth. The village would encourage diversity of all types. They hope to be understanding and open-minded to other’s ideas, they hope to learn and grow hand-in-hand, and to offer what they learn to others. They will also support each other, to encourage creativity, and to share their discoveries. They hope to create an integrated community that supports all aspects of life in a way that will not harm, but heal the planet. 

One uncommon aspect of the show’s organization was that ticket prices were lower if you DID NOT bring a car and carpooling was actively encouraged. AND if you bicycled there, you got a voucher for free food! Also, the amphitheater was an old Girl Scout Pavilion. Thus, this was going to be a fascinating venue for the show.

Corwood has now released the recording of the concert on a two-cd set called ATHENS SATURDAY, which has made waves in the Jandek community because for the first time, Corwood has released a show out of recording sequence. Many of us used to joke about Corwood having gotten to the end of 2006 in its schedule of Jandek live albums and how a particular show we enjoyed from 2008 or 2009 or whatever might get released by 2019 if we were lucky. Well, all that is over now…evidently, Corwood will be releasing live albums out of recording sequence…yet another wild card in the full-of-surprises Corwood/Jandek CD catalogue. After all, who was expecting a nine-cd set of solo piano earlier this year?

Of course, any performance titled WAITING TO DIE is probably going to be of a weighty and deep nature. I have previously made analogies to the process of a method actor in my descriptions of Jandek’s lyrics being given life in performance—-an actor finding hidden aspects of his/her psyche and then exploring character within the parameters of those areas. Much like the way in which the sparse but dense and rich dramatic texts of Harold Pinter or Samuel Beckett or late-period Tennessee Williams, which may seem skeletal and minimal on the page, become fully sketched out when inhabited by an actor, it seems to me that Jandek gets into a deep “performance zone” prior to recording or live performance and brings to life, “in character,” the existential monologues and dialogues of his texts. Many early critics of Jandek’s work did not seem to get that. Shakespeare is not “mad” because he wrote King Lear; Jim Thompson was not a murderer because he wrote “The Killer Inside Me.” Jandek explores deep places inside the psyche and explores profound existential questions—-questions about ultimate meaning and about identity and about the meaning of EVERY MOMENT of everyday life, not just the ones we designate as “important.” For many reasons, Jandek is one of my favorite contemporary poets–he just happens to bring his works to life through live performance, as part of a unique music-and-voice collage, whether we are talking about one of his own solo albums with guitar and voice or a live performance, as we have here with an ensemble, where the Rep is one voice, one thread woven through the quilt.

The text here (just google “Jandek, Athens, lyrics” and you can find an excellent transcription of the lyrics by “Greg F” if you want to read along) is a kind of interior monologue that splits into an interior dialogue. Someone once commented that the setting of most of Edgar Allan Poe’s works is the mind, and one could make a similar observation here, although as often happens with a Jandek lyric, it’s full of poetic phenomenological particulars….the matter-of-fact pieces of experience that tend to make up our days and nights: sitting in chairs, debating whether or not to do some mundane activity, wondering about ice chests and naps and baseball games and shoes and peaches. The central section of the piece features either a bickering couple, finding themselves taking the opposite sides out of habit and out of spite, or perhaps more likely an internal dialogue, as we question every move we make and undercut ourselves. Remember the old Warner Brothers cartoons where Elmer Fudd or some similar character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, both whispering into his ear, both trying to influence his behavior? Just imagine both of them INSIDE the narrator’s head, aspects of his own psyche.

The moods of the narrator’s flow of ideas and images is brilliantly mirrored by the musicians–in particular, the cellist and the bass clarinet player set the beyond-time pace early on and create a languid sound-canvas that the other musicians and the Representative himself swim in, sometimes diving to the bottom, sometimes coming to the surface, sometimes treading water, sometimes in pursuit of something in the water, always moving in relation to the other swimmers in a kind of underwater dance. While the tone is in many places solemn, it varies and is in some passages witty, mirroring the nature of the lyric. Jandek himself plays keyboards, set both to “acoustic” and “electric” and moves seamlessly between them. As part of an ensemble, his playing tends to be pointillistic, and he on occasion provides pianistic shading while delivering the lyrics…and often provides a keyboard “commentary” on the text between or right after particular lines. The subtle playing of guitarist Bradford Cox and percussionist Eric Harris should also be praised—though some referred to this as an “all-star” ensemble, there were no star turns at this performance, no showing off…just organic ensemble playing (by musicians who are listeners first), strands in the weave. Overall, this is undulating yet understated music that breathes. Those who liked Jandek’s MAZE OF THE PHANTOM should like the music here, though this lacks the exotica element of PHANTOM.

Except for getting up to change CD’s in the middle of the performance, I lost any sense of time while listening to ATHENS SATURDAY. It took me into its world, almost in a cinematic way, and in a place beyond time, a place beyond time-keeping beats and traditional theme-variation-theme development of ideas, the next thing I knew, the album was over…and I had the sense of walking back into daily reality from some kind of wooded area within the mind…richer for having taken this journey.

WAITING TO DIE? We’re all waiting to die…and those of us who realize that find an incredible freedom once we stare into that void. We also realize that time’s-a-wasting….these dialogues are, in the end, time-killing….it’s best to do, to achieve. I have the feeling that an artist who has released 70+ albums has come to that realization long ago…but we all must keep making the commitment, keep silencing the doubting questions and the dissonant dialogues…

As this piece closes, the final three lines are:

TIME, THE END OF ALL HIS DAYS 
WAS STARING HIM IN HIS FACE 
AND HE SIMPLY COULD NOT LOOK AWAY

The performance WAITING TO DIE is no less than a musical and lyrical deep venturing into the psyche, airing some painful truths and putting the spotlight on aspects of the psyche that are not usually discussed—-not because they are evil or because they are incomprehensible , but because they are taken for granted. Jandek takes nothing for granted.

Jandek, "The Song of Morgan" review by Bill Shute of Kendra Steiner Editions

We are in the process of putting together the next edition of the FFFoxy Podcast, which will be a feature on the Kendra Steiner Editions micro-press out of San Antonio, Texas, run by the inimitable writer and poet, Bill Shute. In preparation for that feature, Bill has graciously allowed us to re-publish his recent review of the massive 9-CD box set of solo piano performances by Jandek entitled "The Song of Morgan". Like all Corwood Industries releases, this can be purchased directly at a reasonable price ($32 U.S./$33 outside of U.S.) from the most reliable mail order service around: 

Corwood Industries

P.O. Box 15375

Houston, TX 77220

Now that I’ve had a chance to listen to all nine discs of the new Jandek solo piano box set, THE SONG OF MORGAN, I wanted to get a brief review up. This release has generated a lot of interest and discussion, and while someone should (and surely will) do a more in-depth and analytical discussion of the set disc-by-disc, I can provide a general commentary on the topography of the set now that I’ve flown over the entire territory. 

Jandek has been moving more into instrumental music with some of his recent studio releases; however, since we do not know if these albums come out in recording order, and we do not know what unreleased sessions may have been recorded between what’s released, I’m hesitant to see any trend here, except that the Representative From Corwood is finding enjoyment in exploring the possibilities of the music half of the Jandek project. After all, he’s entitled to do that. His collected lyrics (and I’m not even counting the live shows) would probably fill a 500-page poetry book, so there’s a huge body of diverse work there to explore. 

I’ve spent a lot of time with the Helsinki Saturday album (Corwood 796, and still available), recorded live in Finland and featuring Jandek’s piano with harp accompaniment, and that beautiful album brings to mind the work of Erik Satie for many, a minimal yet playful piano music that stays within well-defined parameters but is quite expressive within those self-imposed boundaries. There is some of that on the nine discs of The Song of Morgan, particularly on Disc One, but as we move through the collection, there is a much broader dynamic range here. 

Chopin would seem to be the main touchstone (and I did not even make the “Nocturne” connection until I googled Chopin to brush up on his work before writing this), and I’m also reminded during some passages of 19th Century American parlor music, but this is not music constructed in the manner of a Chopin…or even in the manner of a John Cage or a Morton Feldman. As always, I have the feeling that, like his guitar-based music, Jandek’s is a pure creation, NOT an imitation or composite of “influences.” 

As I listen to these nine pieces, each one clocking in at around an hour, I am hearing a series of “piano explorations”….it’s as if the performer sits down at the piano, begins developing a phrase, plays around with it while gradually making his way up or down the keyboard, and evolves into a related passage, taking that in a new direction and seeing where it goes, etc. The method reminds me of a pianistic “walk in the woods,” stopping to explore some areas in more detail, slowing down the pace here, speeding up the pace there, observing a gentle stream, pulling back and taking a view of a massive vista. But not winding up where he began…not working in a THEME–DEVELOPMENT AND VARIATIONS ON THEME AND MOTIFS–THEME format. What I’m reminded of most, actually, is the way Gertrude Stein will develop one of her texts such as “If I Told Him,” where she’ll repeat a phrase with some slight changes, then introduce a new word or two, and then follow the possibilities of that new combination, then add some new elements into the mix, and keep doing that and seeing where the textual journey takes her. If you can imagine a musical journey similar to that, played by someone who respects the classical piano traditions of the 1800′s and early 1900′s, but who comes to the piano with an outsider’s fresh eye, then maybe you have some idea of what you’ll be getting here. 

Just imagine The Representative From Corwood in some dimly-lit practice room in some dimly-lit back hall on a Sunday morning in the recesses of the music department of a university, no one else around, and we hear his unhurried “explorations” spilling out into the hall, the performer performing only for himself, not aware of any listeners, just exploring for his own sense of discovery. 

Not all of the nine albums consist of one uninterrupted piece. At least two of them (4 and 8 and 9?) have more than one section separated by a pause, and I’m not sure if these consist of separate pieces presented together or are simply pauses during the session as The Representative From Corwood decides to start anew in different territory. 

There is a good amount of stylistic variety within the parameters of the Jandek piano method—for instance, Disc 8 contains a dissonant section about 2/3 of the way through that could come from a Cecil Taylor album–and parts of Disc 9, from a distance at least, have the “sound” of Chopin-style elegant piano music. Disc 9 is also presented in separate–and thematically quite distinct–sections…and it ends in a dramatic fashion, as you’d expect such a piece to end. You could probably slip Disc 9 on at a party, and anyone who wasn’t a music student would not notice anything odd about the music being played. 

So my description of this album would be to call it “improvised non-traditional piano explorations on a VERY large canvas.” It is beautiful to listen to, intellectually interesting, and contains/evokes a rich set of emotions. Should you buy this? Hey, if you’ve read this far, clearly you are enough of a Jandek person to want to explore the set on your own. And at less than $4 a disc, how can you go wrong? Take a date out to a movie on a Friday night and SPLIT a drink and a box of popcorn, and you’ve spent more than what this massive set will cost you. 

This album was a dramatic move for Corwood, and I’d have to call it an unqualified success. It’s Jandek’s version of Keith Jarrett’s THE SUN BEAR CONCERTS. It’s an album that people will be talking about in 20 years. It’s epic…and it’s great listening. In fact, this and MAZE OF THE PHANTOM would be excellent entryways into Jandek’s art for the novice. 

I may add more to this review after further listening and study, but really, you should come to your own conclusion. I just hope that you’ll take the plunge and get your own copy… 

Oh, one final comment. Jandek performed a very well received solo piano concert in Oporto, Portugal on January 10, 2009. As a fan of the Helsinki album, I asked Corwood if the Oporto show had been recorded. Yes it had, Corwood replied. So when we reach January 2009 in the gradual release schedule of Jandek live shows, perhaps we’ll be treated to ANOTHER solo piano recital…

Total Life "Bender/Drifter" (Debacle Records) by Bobby Power

Since abruptly and unofficially going on indefinite haitus in 2008 after PUMPS!, the members of Growing have kept a surprisingly low profile. The Brooklyn by way of Portland power-drone guitar/bass/pedals duo (trio for the most recent incarnation, with the inclusion of Sadie Laska on samples/vocals) had a run of releases for Kranky, The Social Registry, Troubleman Unlimited, Archive and Metal Blade, all cues of the range of sounds developed by the band. Early outings The Sky's Run into The Sea and The Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of Light perpetuated glacially-paced drone movements flecked with shards of noise, serrated epiphanies and cavernous spaces. Then Color Wheel and the His Return EP introduced signs of change, the former incorporating a few briefer, more dynamic noise-drone-edit experiments and the latter providing a vocal-centered tune amidst two epic tracks. Growing records just seemed to effortlessly and organically sprawl across vast territories many other drone acts never could. And their fanbase seems to continue to grow to this day.

Now that that band has gone quiet, you can really see who brought what to the table. Joe Denardo has just recently begun his Ornament project, which although hasn't produced (released?) anything on record for us all to hear, having only played a set or two in Brooklyn. But Ornament's sprawling squall of live-edited, guitar excursions seems to continue PUMPS!'s post-Black Dice, ADD-drones. Kevin Doria's Total Life is now three LPs deep as a solo project, starting with a self-titled, drone-happy LP in 2006. Ken Bradshaw, the 2008 follow-up on American Dreamer and Brown Sounds, dove deep into two sidelong tracks of hyper-minimal loops that pitted a disturbed version of techno with high-minded loop experimentation.

Doria now returns with Bender/Drifter, a double stab of equally weighted, single-minded playthroughs that falls somewhere between both previous Total Life LPs. "Bender" presents a glorious take on gleefully sustained feedback. Although referencing the blemished beauty of Yo La Tengo's epic "Sunsquashed" while removing all percussion and true melody or arch, Doria brings an unbridled blast of shimmering feedback. This amplifier worship falls in line with so many great (de)generative noise and feedback experiments, celebrating natural cadence and harmony in mid-tonal resonance. Doria harps on a single chord for seemingly hours on end, like Spacemen 3's "Ecstacy Symphony" if they'd turned on their oscillators and left the studio for a pint. 

The flipside's "Drifter" continues the ode to Sonic Boom by spreading out an similarly sprawling drone of oscillation. Amplifiers buzz and hum while tones naturally punctuate in a rhythm of gated pulses. Waves of tones ebb and flow into the scene providing more action than you deserve. This is by no means up to standards set by Growing at their peak, but the randomness and sheer volume of Bender/Drifter is enough to keep a little hope of the band's return.

Order and listen HERE

In FFFocus: Lake Mary "S/T" (Planted Tapes)

Perhaps I’m latching on to the name a bit much here, but, having been born and raised in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, I can’t help but listen to this self-titled cassette from Lake Mary (a.k.a, Chaz Prymek) without associating it with long summer days and nights spent at, well, the lake. Though given the name, song titles, and the packaging itself, I’m guessing I’m not too far off the mark in thinking that Prymek draws at least some inspiration for his music from the natural world around him. 

Side A’s “Canopy” has airy string drones that shimmer like the rising sun reflecting off of the water, stirring feelings of simple joy and optimism for what lies ahead. Bowed guitar swells move us to digitally treated field recordings leaving us breathing in the refreshing air and staring blankly out into the distance, while listening to the subtle movement of the water as it breaks along the shoreline. The sun sets in the horizon as the B Side’s “Mardotsha” begins and we are now gathered around the crackling campfire armed with our acoustic guitars. Now lucid, though slightly liquor’d, we fingerpick our way through a number of ideas that feel right in that moment: tender and heartfelt ballads, extended raga-like patterns, free-flowing blues. We drink and play this into the C-40 early morning hours . . . 

. . . and we awake at the crack of dawn and rub the sleep from our eyes, when someone drowsily chimes, “That Prymek dude is one versatile motherf@#*er.”

For more information and to order, go to Planted Tapes