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Artist Profile Reviews

The Lost Legacy of Jazz Great Bilal Abdurahman 

Source: Bandcamp Daily.

“Whoever heard of a tambourine, a fan, and a clarinet all playing together?! Well, here we go again!” Such is Bilal Abdurahman’s gleeful declaration midway through his 1971 album Sound, Rhythm, Rhyme & Mime for Children, and it’s a fair question. What child would have heard this unusual combination? Or the one-string Ethiopian violin, the Ugandan ennaga, or the rhythm you can make with just a hammer and a saw? Abdurahman saw a whole world of sound beyond the horizon of traditional children’s music, and he made it his mission to guide his listeners through that world.

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Artist Profile

10 Best Neu! Songs of All Time 

Source: Singersroom.com.

German band Neu! is one of the most influential and innovative acts of the 1970s krautrock movement. Formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by multi-instrumentalists Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger, the band’s unique approach to rock music combined experimental and avant-garde elements with propulsive rhythms and hypnotic melodies, resulting in a sound that was both groundbreaking and timeless. Neu!’s influence can be heard in countless bands and genres, from post-punk to electronic music, and their legacy continues to inspire and captivate listeners to this day.

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Artist Profile Reviews

Matthew Shipp In 2003 

Source: burning ambulance.

He’s always maintained a high rate of production, putting out multiple albums almost every year. But 2003 seemed to be a particularly intriguing time for Shipp — he was in a phase where he was combining the sounds of a conventional jazz group (a trio or quartet) with electronic music and programmed rhythms, and doing other things that were even less “in character,” if you were one of those people who thought of him as just an acoustic free jazz pianist. The five records he put out that year are fascinating, both individually and collectively, and that’s what we’re talking about this week.

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Artist Profile Reviews

Christina Vantzou Profiled and Reviewed

Source: Bandcamp Daily.

Composer and sound artist Christina Vantzou first attracted attention via her role in The Dead Texan, a side project of Stars of the Lid‘s Adam Wiltzie (the couple were married at the time but have since separated). And while it would be another seven years before Vantzou emerged as a solo artist in her own right, the album anticipated a tantalizing aspect of her subsequent work. Her music might be ambient and classically rooted at its core, but drift along with it for a while and you’ll soon encounter elements that feel unsettling and disruptive—as if the music is following a dream logic. “The idea of an unsettled sound, a sound that keeps changing, is connected to my thoughts about ways of living,” Vantzou says from Brussels, adding that she’s somewhat “unsettled” herself: “Nomadic life interests me, and there’s a part of me that likes to imagine the lives of ancient travelers from the distant past.”

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Artist Profile

Frank Zappa on Why He Was a “Specialised” Guitar Player

Source: Far Out.

“My theory is this. I have a basic mechanical knowledge of the operation of the instrument and I got an imagination. And when the time comes up in the song to play a solo, it’s me against the laws of nature. I don’t know what I’m gonna play, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I know roughly how long I have to do it, and it’s a game where you have a piece of time and you get to decorate it.”

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Artist Profile

Muslimgauze Profiled

Source: Muslimgauze.

Does anyone remember Muslimgauze? It was the creative outlet of Bryn Jones, a man from England who was basically a human assembly line, extruding close to 100 albums’ worth of material over the course of roughly 15 years. (The first Muslimgauze material appeared in 1983, and he died in January 1999 of pneumonia, caused by a fungal infection in his bloodstream, which sounds like the kind of thing a noise musician would use as a track title.) In the nearly quarter century since his death, dozens more releases have emerged; Discogs lists 151 albums, 34 singles and EPs, and 18 compilations, plus five “miscellaneous” items: a flexi-disc, a half-hour interview released digitally, etc.

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Artist Profile

George Crumb: A Remembrance

Source: I Care If You Listen.

I first got to know George around the turn of the millennium when he came to my Makrokosmos 70th birthday tribute for him at Merkin Concert Hall in New York. By the time his 75th birthday rolled around in 2004 (which I celebrated with another complete performance of Makrokosmos I and II, this time at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall), the Crumbs had accepted me into their household where I had the privilege of spending all the major holidays of the year. These occasions remain among my happiest memories.

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Artist Profile

Thumbscrew Profiled

Source: Downbeat.

Through countless gigs and seven studio recordings over the past 10 years, the members of the cooperative trio Thumbscrew — bassist Michael Formanek, guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara — have hit on a formula that balances strictly composed, intricately arranged and finely articulated material with blistering, unbridled improvisation that often tips into the skronk/sonic-shrapnel zone.

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Artist Profile

The Early Beatnik Artwork of Frank Zappa

Source: Far Out.

While we primarily remember Frank Zappa for his non-conformist approach to music, he was far more than that. Given Zappa’s eternal confrontation of the avant-garde, it may be no surprise to learn that he had been a promising artist in his youth. Before his music career took off, he had won several competitions for his drawings and paintings.

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Artist Profile Interviews Reviews

February / March Perfect Sound Forever is Out

Source: Perfect Sound Forever.

BLACK SABBATH
Interview/book excerpt: Geezer Butler talks bass style

MANUEL GÖTTSCHING
German guitar legend remembered by bandmate Lüül

JEAN EICHELBERGER IVEY
Composer/Pedagogue & Peabody Computer Music Studios

EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC ON TRADITIONAL INSTRUMENTS
A daring concept?

ANTHONY MOORE
Interview: major label-dom & Pink Floyd collab

TWENTIETH-CENTURY FLUTE MUSIC
Vintage Album for the Adventurous