Music Reviews

Bruce Anderson and Dale Sophiea

Strict

Family Vineyard

Jackie-O Motherfucker

Fig. 5

Road Cone

The bells threw me. I was house sitting at the time, and when they kicked in I started looking out the window for a church, obviously forgetting that I had just started this CD. It’s now several songs later, and now these sonic improvisers are relaxing with some sweet sounding lulls. But that doesn’t last too long before they’re off again, making a near Derek Bailey like racket before locking on a single extended loop. And then the bells come back again to lead the way into spookiness.

Jackie-O Motherfucker takes what appears at first to be a much more jarring approach to improvisational music. That approach might be likened to alien torture techniques, but I’ll bet fans of static drenched, droning noise might want to seek this out. Minutes later, however, nerves loosen up and a welcome repetitious song appears. Then a lament bubbles up, and suddenly I start wondering why I thought this was improvised music in the first place when it’s actually more of a grab bag of whatever was on the mind of this 12 member collective.

Family Vineyard, PO Box 2161, Bloomington, IN 47402; Road Cone PO Box 8732 Portland, OR 97207.


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