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 Al
Margolis is internationally known for his indefatigable activity as a label
owner (the historical tape-label Sound of Pig and, of course, Pogus itself)
and manager (Deep Listening, XI Records and Mutable Music), but his 20-year
old musical alias If, Bwana has gained a cult status as well. "Rex Xhu
Ping" presents six compositions featuring Margolis at tapes, electronics
and clarinet, with guest musicians Laura Biagi (vocals), Dan (speaker, tapes)
and Detta Andreana (tapes, bowed cymbals) and the Orchestre de Fou, an ensemble
playing everything from organ to a mysteryous "bikelophone". The six
tracks are even radically different from each other, but this doesn't mean the
cd sounds incoherent or randomly assorted, which is, I guess, a very positive
quality for a composer/performer. The doom-laden "Natraj" opens the
album with a looped bass note and screeching electronics, but the sullen atmosphere
is soon washed away by "Frog Field", a mix of ecstatic xylophone loops
and field recordings, easily the best piece of the disc. "Tattoed Love
Muffins" features male/female rants (in English and Italian) over disjointed
electroacoustic improvisation, while "Oy vey, Angie", performed by
the above mentioned Orchestre, is a dark and beautiful droning piece, another
highlight of the work. The last two tracks, "Cicada # 5: Version Bohman"
and "Quaderni", experiment on manipulated vocals disintegrating "normal"
speech, and would be a suitable soundtrack for some play of Beckett's. As a
whole, "Rex Xhu Ping" is a fascinating and almost constantly sombre
work, and a successful bridge between historical minimalism and concrete music,
and 80's/90's industrial experimentation. - Eugenio Maggi
Through his amazing detachment and synthetic focus fused with a maniacal analysis
and placement of every single sonic detail, once again Al Margolis has found a
way to tell us something worthy of "Magna cum Laude" appreciation, such
is the uneradicable beauty of his freakish conglomerates of musical literature
edging the boiling waters of acousmatic autism.
"Natraj" and the alluring "Frog field" are deviated specimens
of hunchbacked minimalism, "Bwana style"; instead, "Tattooed love
muffins" sees the scarce light of mutilated speech in a crescendo of creative
processing and piercing
frequencies - yet, it still sounds like a static block of constantly changing
coloured auras. "Cicada #5" is an engrossing performance of Adam Bohman's
talking tapes accompanied by a dark underground electronic background, while "Quaderni"
is a tape/voice piece exploring more oneiric realms, even if it has a degree of
"psychedelic" temperature in its anxious oscillations. But my overall
favourite track is "Oy Vey, Angie", where a small group of loonies -
"Orchestra D'Fou" - starts from scratch in slowly taking your cerebrum
away with a delicious ode to aural mucilage or - if you
prefer - a meditation on the contortion of a blind creature's fantasy stimulated
by nine entities use their improvising sagaciousness while locked in a tanked
aquarium. - Massimo, Touching Extremes
With gluesticked scraps from an old copy of Harold Frederic’s The Damnation
of Theron Ware gracing the cover, here's another record from one of the most
criminally underrated champions of modern avant composition working today, Al
Margolis (once more with a rotating cast of thousands – including deific
pop singer Joan Osborne, whose hit single "What If God Was One Of Us"
will be rattling around your short-term memory like a game of Mousetrap after
you read this), whose Pogus imprint is a logical evolution from his home-taping
days with his label Sound of Pig. The xylophone loops and current events recordings
of "Frog Field" are a welcome ding-dong-ditch rejoinder to the thudding
cut off so suddenly on the opening "Natraj", and the nine-piece Orchestra
d’Fou on "Oy vey, Angie" plays everything from tuning forks to
accordion to cells and trombone, subsequently de/constructed by later treatments
to become a stealthy, slightly metallic drone hovering over the proceedings
like those triangular USAF fighter craft you've been hearing so much about.
"Cicada #5: Version Bohman" finds Margolis and Dan & Detta Andreana
re-interpreting the "talking tapes" of Morphogenesis' Adam Bohman.
Thrums and drones build behind manipulations of Bohman’s purred everyday
banalities, which are vaguely reminiscent of the old 1990s bit where David Letterman
gave audience members Late Night's predictions for the next hip catch-phrases
of the year (e.g. "I’m a sweet little cupcake... BAKED BY THE DEVIL!"
or "They pelted us with rocks and garbage!"). Finally, "Quaderni"
features Margolis on tapes and processing and Laura Biagi on Italian whispers
– now just imagine all the effort it takes to work with tape in these times
of instant digital gratification. You think you’re bad? Take that unspooled
tape you see in the gutter beside the guy selling oranges on your commute home
and make a collage by splicing it together by hand. That’s bad.– DC,
Paristransatlantic
New album from Al Margolis, who decided this time to distinguish his solo work
from collaborative ones. First two tracks are recorded by him solely, and these
are my favourites: out-of-body and contemplative soundscapes. Al uses tapes,
samples and electronic treatment, creating mysterious atmosphere and preparing
the listener to his unusual radioplay. In the further tracks there are really
some other musicians, known from previous If, Bwana recordings. They are reading
texts against the improvisational electroacoustic background. Even if the meaning
of wordbook is not always familiar, it's overrided by the depressive surrounding
of the longest and, may I suppose, central part "Oy vey, Angie". As
the liner notes says, it was recorded live and then completely re-worked in
studio. Here we can find a lot of acoustic instruments: accordion, guitar, cello,
organ, trombone and even tuning forks - all of them are drifting around each
other, creating dense but stirring flow, just like jazz session slowed down
and condemned to remain still. Little by little, the piece goes dimensionally
and dynamically close to drone-ambient art of fashion. Next two pieces are combining
the atmosphere of the two previous ones. Consolidated by impressive. -
IEM Webzine
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