Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0905282227250.8395@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: (Review of Julu Twine from Aquarius records)
Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 22:28:52 -0400 (EDT)
(Review of Julu Twine from Aquarius records) Porter Records to me, myk_saintdirt show details 12:59 PM (3 hours ago) Reply Follow up message Hi guys, really nice review from Aquarius records... Alan Sondheim is a legendary writer and critic, he's also quite the accomplished musician, his fantastic Ritual-All-7-70 album was recently reissued on ESP which we should get around to reviewing quite soon. This collaborative effort is in fact not archival but a brand new record, released on the insanely prolific and always impressive Porter Records, on Julu Twine Sondheim teamed up with lap steel guitarist Myk Freedman for some improvised folk, that manages to bristle with energy, sounding quite abstract at moments, but surprisingly composed at others. Incorporating a unique arsenal of instruments, including zither, banjo slide guitar and even something called a parlor guitar, the duo crafted this gorgeous songsuite, the playing is often quite percussive, and aggressive, subtle strumming and abstract finger picking is all tangled up with intense strumming, and atonal scrabbling, here and there the instruments are wreathed in thick buzzing feedback, other times the melodies are spidery and abstract and allowed to unfurl lazily. Sondheim contributes a kick ass banjo solo, that sounds simultaneously like classic bluegrass, but also slightly chaotic and seat-of-the-pants sounding. Freedman counters with a gorgeously languid slide guitar solo, all drifty and woozy and ethereal, but the record works best when the two play together, and off of each other. Lots of reverb and room sound, strange haunting Eastern sounding melodies, occasional squalls of detuned hillbilly psych freakouts, stumbling lurching atonal melodies drifting into soft shimmering avant Appalachia, squiggly slippery slide wound all around off kilter chromatic riffing, and once in a while, the two come together perfectly and unfurl a warm washed out drone-y guitar raga, that we wish would just go on and on and on. Everyone into Blackshaw and Rose and Bishop and Baldwin and Ahmed And Akiyama and other modern acoustic guitarists should definitely check this out. Same sort of sound, but way more tripped out and otherworldly and mysterious and jazzlike. RECOMMENDED!!!