Rudis/Custodio/Diaz-Infante
CRR LIVE
Rudis / Custodio / Diaz-Infante – CRR LIVE
Lx Rudis [DJ rig / Two copies of “Crashing The Russian Renaissance” (CRR)
Andre Custodio [Nord Modular Synthesizer / Microphone / Darbuka / Voice]
Ernesto Diaz-Infante [Amplified Acoustic Steel String Guitar (extended technique)]
Pax Recordings PR90268
Pax was one of the first record companies that Sonoloco really took to heart, but it’s been long time new review now, so it feels special to take that good close reviewing look at a Pax recording again: CCR Live – which is short for Crashing The Russian Renaissance Live, hinting at an earlier recording entitled… Crashing The Russian Renaissance!
The stuff was all recorded in two California joints: 21GRAND in Oakland and LUGGAGE STORE GALLERY in San Francisco. I enjoy the “translated” review that comes with the CD, apparently translated from the Italian by one of those post-guide-to-the-galaxy Babel fish computer translators, turning the simplest sentence into post-modern sound poetry of a wicked and twisted Öyvind Fahlström kind!
The contents on the back of the CD cover are laid out like graphic art of the Lettrist kind – so much has gone into the artistic touch here, which we enjoy! There’s been a trend – in Sweden, where I reside – for many years now, to make everything look as laconic and meaningless as possible, and I’d like to see new directions on ahead. This cover, at least in some ways, points down one possible path.
And the sound? It’s about the sound, isn’t it? Well, these are live recordings, in front of a fairly small audience, from how they sound. I’ll touch upon some random places in the binary flow.
It’s a mixed bag of sonic seductions in play on CRR Live. The computer-translated Italian text reflects back well on the music, which is jagged, disjointed and flAky – yes, the upper-case showing off disparate feelings and forces pulling hither and thither. In an improvised setting you can either strive towards softly flowing harmonies, leaving most f the excitement out of the picture, or you may approach the moment viciously, with venom and acidic fluids – and Rudis, Custodio and Diaz-Infante veer off rapidly into a no-man’s-land of poisonous mushrooms and angry insects!
In some instances you cannot decide whether you ride the storm clouds of winter Lapland or whether you’re being ground against a moraine slope of said vicinity. It’s rough and relentless, piercing matter and mind with the same glowing distress. We like it.
For some reason the guys at the post-production have messed up, or didn’t they care? Fact is that there are clearly audible breaks between tracks, the way you used to have it in the beginning of home-burning, as you may recall. There’s no contemporary excuse for that, though. It disturbs listening – but if you’re an aficionado for this lot, you can fix that in your computer. Amadeus Pro is a good, cheap remedy, in that case. This IS a CDR production, so naturally it didn’t go through all the validation tests of a regular print.
Later the crew enters mildly chewing rosary sections, saliva-rich and stars-low-on-the-horizon vibrating, soothing and stroking. It’s like flying slow and low, five inches above the gutter, really smelling the world… before the music (what a poor word!) stops and just some PA hum and flapping bits of on-stage conversation (hand bent round the microphones) remain, for quite a while, John Cage erasive… until you discover that there indeed are small, amplified sounds rustling about round equipment and booty feet. John Cage, yes, still clinging to the semi-sounding world of electric silence; that humming, wheezing and crackling domain of involuntaries and determined resignation.
These three musicians are painting a Miró; that’s what they’re doing, or writing a Tristan Tzara! The kind of sound art they’re involved in cannot only be sensed as music, or perhaps even not primarily as music. It is something else; a milieu, a bewildering fragrance of passing blindfolded through a crowd in 19th century Russia; all that rainy garment, oozing with poor ladies.
Other sections of the CD contain lucid transmissions of crackly and sighing audio, right from the periphery of existence – or at least of audibility! In these see-through patches you may enjoy a gentle swell from interstellar voids, dotted with the sudden and brief needles of flaring, transient moments of individual minds, the way we all, through time and space, make up the general state of the universe. Remember: we are not parts of the universe; we ARE the universe: we are identical with the universe: we are the universe studying itself. If you try to find any scientific fact that would negate this thought, you will not succeed. I don’t know whether that is fun or a lousy insight, but personally I find consolation in that fact, the clear understanding of the illusion of individuality.
Further down the CD duration. A cough starts of another kind of statement, hopping and thudding down the line in a rhythmic elbowing through the timeframe. Even Diaz-Infante plays percussion, on his guitar, while others chat along in great detail on their respective sound sources.
To sum it up, this is not a CD you can make sure statements about. A lot is happening, and how you hear it will depend on your place in life, the way your illusion is in your face, and how you feel when you lay back and rest and let gravity get the better part of you.
I enjoy hearing CRR Live, much the same way I enjoy – cageously! – the fuming truck-whining of an active gravel pit or the sea gulls rising like unselfish thoughts over the Baltic Sea just off of the SSAB steelworks…
|
