COPY FOR YOUR RECORDS

This evening, since getting home I have been trying to find a cool spot in the house where I could still hear the stereo and listen to tonight's CD, which has been a live disc by the new York based Delicate Sen trio. The group consist of Anne Guthrie, (french horn) Billy Gomberg (laptop) and Richard Kamerman (motors, objects, electronics). The group released their debut album last year on Kamerman's Copy For Your Records label, which I wrote about here.

I'm not all that sure how readily available this CDr is actually. titled Betalevel, Los Angeles, CA, its a live recording wrapped up in a handmade card sleeve, but it doesn't appear at the CFYR website. It may be that Richard K is just circulating the disc around friends and acquaintances, but as Brian wrote, albeit briefly about it (back in June, but as Brian doesn't add titles to his posts it makes them hard to link to directly) I figured it would be OK to review it. Richard can be contacted via the CFYR site, but I am sure he can chime in in the comments here and let us know if its not available to order!

Similar to their first album, the music here is a kind of nervous, tetchy affair that balances quite extreme ends of the aural spectrum, from the really very harsh clatter of Kamerman's motored devices through to the acoustic warmth of Guthrie's french horn, with Gomberg habiting an area somewhere between. The issue I have with this CD but I can't quite decide if its a positive or negative issue, is the somewhat murky recording quality, which actually makes it quite hard to be sure which sounds are coming from the musicians and which from the room. There is certainly a "live" feel to the recording. At one point six or seven minutes in, after Kamerman interrupts proceedings with his loudest and most abrasive burst of clattering mechanics there comes a distant gaggle of spoken voices, as if in a crowd can be heard. Do these sounds come from the room or from Gomberg's laptop? My first thoughts, given the raucous nature of the voices, and the way they flow straight out of the loud interruption is that they are in the room, bu tthen they hang around a little too long and suddenly disappear, so maybe they are a carefully, and cleverly placed sample.

Although all three musicians contribute equally here, it feels as if, and in particlar in the early stages of the recording, that Guthrie is the most present, her languorous tones rolling out one after the other, with the other two thirds of the duo placing sounds in between them. As the set progresses so they begin to direct traffic more, and it becomes hard to tell Gomberg's computer from Kamerman's synth from the hum of the room, with Guthrie's interjections feeling less dominant. The early parts of the disc sound quite cagey, (small c) as if the musicians are feeling out the space, finding a way into the music, but given that this recording was made at the last date of a West coast USA tour (this is announced over the applause at the end of the disc) then this probably wasn't the case. Moreover, the vaguely dislocated, slow start to the set was probably carefully choreographed in real time by the trio, a curiously broken up, non-flowing style of improvisation that gradually seems to come together over time.

Delicate Sen are a group that intrigue me quite a bit. This CD, along with their first release hint at potentially great things, but then leave me hanging slightly, placing all of the right ingredients into the mix, a great blend of sounds, a strong sense of tension in the air, but then somehow don't follow through into the music I really expect to hear. The recording quality may be partly to blame here, but I don't quite manage to enjoy the interplay between the electronic and acoustic here as I suspect I might, and the music passes by full of potential and full of great moments that promise to lead into other things but never quite get there. Betalevel, Los Angeles, CA only really serves to extend my curiosity in this trio from their first disc. I sense there is much to connect with, but I'm not quite there yet, and so far my enjoyment of this music revolves around the blend of instrumentation and the unusual structures within the composition. I don't think I have made an eyes closed, physical connection with the music yet, but perhaps that will come. I suspect seeing the trio live would be of big benefit to my understanding the music's dynamics, but geography would seem to be making that a little difficult at present. Still, thoughtful creative music that is begging for me to listen to it plenty more. I'll do my best.

- Richard Pinnell, The Watchful Ear