Take A Ride With DeSoto

Taking a left turn can be a risk for any artist, especially one in the earlier stages of their career. But if done convincingly enough, with complete sincerity - nay, the dreaded authenticity - left turns become the career and the artist can develop a following of people who will go where they go without hesitation. I suspect that's what will happen with Matthew Silberman's new project, DeSoto.

Two years ago, Silberman released Questionable Creatures, an excellent forward-thinking jazz record featuring well-composed tunes and intense solos. There was also a cinematic bent to his approach - stories were being told through the music, sometimes illustrated with short films. That narrative thrust is the connection with DeSoto's first release, Sense Of Space, which he envisions as "A psychedelic journey down the Pacific Coast Highway while bumping The Chronic." 

While the title refers to the cosmos, it's really inner space we're traversing here. The first track, It's OK To Laugh, starts with echoing chimes and a heartbeat of percussion. A woman's voice speaks to us, half heard phrases that compete with the dirge-like melody of layered oboes (played by Rob Mosher), sometimes answered by a robotic voice. The phrases rise in the mix and gradually resolve into the statement that "We're just high-tech monkeys hurling through space at 1000's of miles per hour on a big wet rock..." OK to laugh? Is there really any other response?

Glowing Grey's clanking percussion starts up like an old train, soon joined by flute and Silberman's elegiac sax, slightly reminiscent of Vangelis's sleazy Blade Runner soundscapes. The drums pick up steam as the song progresses, slowly accreting to an almost funky, tribal beat. Silberman shows some real studio chops here as his sax seems to shoot of streams of sound that echo through the mix. Martial Meditations is almost purely ambient, but melodic like something from side two of Bowie's "Heroes." There's just a touch of day-glo Miami Vice aftermath to it - the shootout over, Crockett and Tubbs observe the wreckage - that injects some welcome levity.

Tripped brings the beat back, a rainswept slow jam that Creed Taylor could get behind, while Ancient Dialogue features found vocals and goes full-on drum'n'bass with buzzing snares and jackhammer bass drums. Roni Size - the field is yours to regain! Tree In The Wind is the sound of hope after rain, plucked harmonics and suspended chords inducing a sense of calm and uplift. 

But it's not so simple. Wednesday brings a sense of uncertainty, with a spare groove, multi-tracked saxes and questioning chords. It builds to a kind of a crescendo, the drums beginning to slam, and then deliquesces, each instrument taking its leave, leaving you with you. But are you the same?

Best of the Rest of 12: Legacy Acts

These are all acts with histories, boldly forging ahead in their own idiosyncratic ways.

Steely Gaze

Sunken Condos, the latest from Donald Fagen, has him once again turning his acerbic eye on contemporary society. Although it's his first album made without using the big production values that we've come to expect from the Steely Dan camp, it sounds absolutely fantastic, with a rich bass and gleaming keys. His voice is also a delight, demonstrating a mastery of phrasing that can only come from singing for decades. The songs are far more energetic than his last solo effort, the disappointing Morph The Cat, and overall Sunken Condos is a great listen. While a few of the tracks are just too familiar to allow it in the pantheon, his mind-blowing cover of the Isaac Hayes obscurity Out Of The Ghetto shows that Fagen still has a few surprises up his sleeve.

The Family That Destroys Angels Together

How To Destroy Angels, Trent Reznor's latest project, featuring his his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, along with frequent collaborators Atticus Ross and Rob Sheridan, has been quietly establishing themselves over the last couple of years. On their second EP, An Omen, Maandig's feather-light voice seems to have inspired some new approaches. This is especially evident on the gorgeous song Ice Age, which features an interlocking arrangement of acoustic sounds that could be a cross between a Swiss watch and a Harry Partch composition. All five songs are strong and demonstrate Reznor's masterful production skills. The album is slated for March 5th, 2013.

Empire Of The Sean

Sean Lennon has pursued his career at what looks like a relaxed pace, but in 2012 I noticed an increased level of activity at Chimera Music, his label. It's all rather intertwined - his side projects have side projects - but I have been keeping a closer eye on the goings on. The Chimera MusicSampler goes off in a number of directions with the general flavor of arty ear candy for fans of Cornelius and Cibo Matto. I was also glad to see a full-length electric album by The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, his band with girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl. For some odd reason it was only available on their 2010 tour until now. Grab it.

Kemp Muhl first began making music with her childhood friend, Eden Rice, when they were in elementary school. After the disruption of Kemp's international modeling career, they got back together as Kemp & Eden. From what I understand, some of the songs on their debut Black Hole Lace are from their teenage years - and it shows. The lyrics are often cringingly sophomoric. However, their harmonic chemistry, gorgeous voices and versatile instrumental skills carry the day and promise great things. Sparrow features a haunting melody that does not dissipate until long after the song has ended. With The GOSTT seemingly on hiatus as Lennon pursues his Mystical Weapons project with Greg Saunier, perhaps Kemp & Eden will turn out some new songs where everything comes together.

Eno Deluxe
I had a wonderful experience at a listening event for Brian Eno's Lux, his first new ambient work in some years. It was further proof that he is master of that particular domain and has become more assured as a composer since his groundbreaking ambient albums of the 1970's. It's acceptable to put it on in the background, but taking the time to slow down and just listen will be richly rewarding. 

Listening To LUX on West 57th

"It's just like Music For Airports, innit?" the suave man with the leather jacket, the expensive camera and the British accent was saying. We were all on our way out of the somewhat nondescript Church of All Nations on West 57th Street, having just spent the past 80 minutes or so listening to Brian Eno's LUX at an invitation-only listening event courtesy of Warp Records. 

Perhaps Mr. Brit Suave was right, but only in a superficial sense. LUX, essentially an album length composition in four parts (though it felt continuous), is based on a work Eno created for the Great Gallery of La Venaria in Turin, Italy, and makes explicit reference to Ambient 1: Music For Airports, Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirror (with Harold Budd), Ambient 4: On Land, Neroli, and Thursday Afternoon. But it is in no way "just like" any of these. While it occupies the same universe of what Eno termed Ambient Music, LUX is it's own discreet (yes) planet. 


I can't say for sure why Warp chose to hold these listening sessions here and England, but I respect their effort to engage people outside of the music criticism complex, such as it is, and was grateful for the opportunity to step in off the sidewalk of my life and just listen. Naturally, I took some notes as the music unspooled from the nave of the church. 


A series of tones, dropped, continuing then fading out, but not before new tones overlap. Piano? Violins? Something synthetic? Possibly all three. A major key feel, but calming and contemplative, very much in the mold of the early ambient works. Harold Budd is present, if only in theory and mood. About five minutes in, melodies and repeating motifs begin to emerge, along with a sense of foreground and background. It's like watching a painting take shape, or a time lapse of natural phenomena, such as ripples on a pond or crystals forming.


Around the ten minute mark, some new sounds make their entrance, sharper sounds, and then what is definitely a guitar (actually "Moog Guitar," played by Leo Abrahams) takes over part of the foreground. Eventually, echoes and reverb become the source of repetition and the mood gradually darkens - but only for a moment. 
One wonders if there is science or theory behind the structure of the piece as a whole, or in the way one note follows another. At the same time, it all flows beautifully and feels quite organic. 


Forty or so minutes in, there are more patterns, quieting the part of the mind that seeks to organize what it hears, but gradually the piece returns to sound following sound. Then you realize that these actually comprise larger sections and that they are alternating, creating a much larger pattern. Over an hour after it began, Lux continues and, while it would be easy to drift off, it is also easy to remain engaged. Near the end, Eno makes some moves that, in the context of an ambient work, could be called dramatic. More dynamics, patterns overlaying patterns, possibly guitar feedback reminiscent of Robert Fripp's work on Evening Star. Then it fades out, ending, as a car horn blares from outside. 


The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Mr. Suave was wrong. Music For Airports is a classic and groundbreaking recording, but as a composition it is far less assured and sophisticated than LUX. Much of Airports relies on easy, Satie-esque melodies that comfort the casual listener. As such, it is an excellent introduction to Eno's sound world, like a well-appointed foyer, but it is certainly not the whole house. LUX is a gorgeous, lush new addition to the magnificent manor of Eno's ambient works and a room I look forward to visiting again. 


In North America, LUX is released on CD and download on November 13, and vinyl on December 10.

Brian Eno

Word has come down that Lux, a new Brian Eno album, will be released on November 13. This will be his third on the seminal Warp label, and his first solo effort since 2005. Small Craft On A Milk Sea, a collaboration with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams from 2010, was nearly a return to form, as far as his instrumental music is concerned. Last year’s Drums Between The Bells saw him working with poet Rick Holland in a spoken-word format that didn’t quite take off. But I have high hopes for Lux based on the pure conjecture that he’s feeling the heat from his label-mate Flying Lotus, whose brilliant Until The Quiet Comes is the best electronic release of 2012. On the eve of Lux, here are some thoughts on Eno and his music.

I remember reading an interview with Eno in the early 80′s (in late, lamented Musician magazine), where he described spending time in Africa and how he would sit outside with his headphones on, listening to his Walkman as it recorded the night sounds of the jungle. Then there was a little note that said: [Why not just take the headphones off? - ed.] The answer to that question is simple: because then he wouldn’t be Eno. The idea of filtering – thoughts, sounds, perceptions, even the creative process itself – in central to Eno’s method. He’s been credited on some albums with one word: treatments, which kind of says it all.

He first came to my attention through his work with the Talking Heads, where his production was obviously central to their transfiguration from nerved-up bubblegum pop to floor-filling funk avatars. Remain In Light was the pinnacle of that collaboration and its creation was preceded by his record with David Byrne called My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. Thirty years later, its mixture of art-rock grooves with recordings of preachers, mystics and recordings from other cultures is still stunning.

Notice taken, I bought a box set called Working Backwards, 1973 – 1983, and did just that. What a body of work! Simultaneously while making signature records like Here Come The Warm Jets (with it’s perennial show-stopper Baby’s On Fire) and Another Green World (with the ultra-charming I’ll Come Running (To Tie Your Shoes), he found time to invent a new genre, Ambient Music. The idea was to create a sort of good Muzak, sounds that could be in the background, but that were interesting enough so that you could turn your attention to them if you so desired. I’m not sure if his Music For Airports was ever played in an airport, but it has had a second life as an orchestral concert work.

Speaking of second lives, while Eno’s work with the Talking Heads and David Bowie (Low, Heroes, Lodger) was legendary, none of us fans could have predicted what would happen when he starting working with a scrappy band of Irishmen called U2. Globe-dominating success followed, along with the fact that the formerly glammed up co-founder of Roxy Music would never have to work again. But work he did, continuing with U2 and moving on to Coldplay. I’m no fan of either of these bands but it is heartening to see Eno get his due.

Since he became a mega-producer, he’s released a few good records, most notably Wrong Way Up and Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, collaborations with John Cale and David Byrne, respectively. His original run of albums is forever undeniable and should stand as his ultimate achievement, along with his radical work on the first two Roxy albums. When it came to the ambient records, he often liked to put little diagrams on the back, explanations of how the music was made, or instructions for how to maximize the listening experience. Once, when my parents were away, I took one of their speakers and wired it into my stereo to make the tri-phonic set-up described on the back of Ambient 4: On Land. I put the needle down, sat in my chair and…something happened. I think I went into a spontaneous hypnotic state, which continued until the side ended. It was an amazing experience and par for the course when you’re a fan of the man born Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno!

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