The 2007 murder of guitarist Rod Poole makes everything he recorded more precious; good thing he documented some of his shows. Here we get three improvisations with fellow guitarists Nels Cline and Jim McAuley from a live 2003 concert in downtown L.A.

The trio treat their instruments with great delicacy and little respect for what some luthier imagined: They stick things between the strings, pluck and slap in unaccustomed ways. Poole sometimes applies a bow to his ax, which I think is microtonally fretted.

If they won’t let a guitar be a guitar, they also won’t allow their music to be entirely human. I hear the dense fall of dry leaves, a flower opening in fast motion, the textures of raw silk, the abrasion of rusty barbed wire, the resonance of rotted wood, the drone of cicadas, the creaking of a giant iron door. On the human side, there are running feet and lullaby arms. The densities, rhythms and volume vary from moment to moment. The mood is one of calm concentration and mutual respect. The three play as an ensemble, so you usually can’t tell who’s who. All are masters who know exactly what kinds of sounds they can produce. (They are not experimenting.)

Time goes away.The 2007 murder of guitarist Rod Poole makes everything he recorded more precious; good thing he documented some of his shows. Here we get three improvisations with fellow guitarists Nels Cline and Jim McAuley from a live 2003 concert in downtown L.A.

The trio treat their instruments with great delicacy and little respect for what some luthier imagined: They stick things between the strings, pluck and slap in unaccustomed ways. Poole sometimes applies a bow to his ax, which I think is microtonally fretted.

If they won’t let a guitar be a guitar, they also won’t allow their music to be entirely human. I hear the dense fall of dry leaves, a flower opening in fast motion, the textures of raw silk, the abrasion of rusty barbed wire, the resonance of rotted wood, the drone of cicadas, the creaking of a giant iron door. On the human side, there are running feet and lullaby arms. The densities, rhythms and volume vary from moment to moment. The mood is one of calm concentration and mutual respect. The three play as an ensemble, so you usually can’t tell who’s who. All are masters who know exactly what kinds of sounds they can produce. (They are not experimenting.)

Time goes away.

In 2003 Rod Poole, Los Angeles based British expat guitarist, microtonal musician and tireless archivist of the local improvised music scene, decided to stop performing live. A sad loss, but not as tragic as Poole’s death four years later in a senseless road rage stabbing outside a fast food joint in Hollywood. He left behind barely half a dozen albums, which makes the release of this follow-up to 2002’s Incus studio session Acoustic Guitar Trio ali the more welcome. There are plenty of notes from Poole and fellow guitarists Nels Cline and Jim McAuley in these three tracks, recorded live in Los Angeles in July 2003 – hardly surprising from musicians who are open to the influence of, without ever simply aping, the idioms of free jazz, folk, rock, blues and bluegrass, evident from Cline’s work with Wilco, or McAuley’s splendid The Ultimate Frog – but the music is never gabby or nervous. From time to time, one of the guitarists settles into a rocking ostinato and lets his partners take the initiative, though it’s never a simple question of solo and accompaniment; the relationship between foreground and background is in constant flux, and as subtle as the tuning systems decided on by the musicians prior to performance. “Our methodology was quite simple,” recalls Cline. “Make up a tuning on the spot for each improvisation, look around at each other to find the nods and grins of agreement that meant that a promising tuning combination had been arrived at, and go.” Microtonallmprov, particularly from the Mat Maneri stable on the other side of the United States, can often be terse and forbidding, but that’s not the case here. There’s even [oom for recognisable harmonic progressions and singable melody. Vignes isn’t a heated argument, though things do get fiery from time to time, but a mature, intelligent conversation between three fine musicians. Part of the fun of listening is trying to work out who’s playing what, but it’s far from easy. For the record, Cline is left of centre, McAuley’s distinctive kalimba-like preparations are in the middle, and Poole, who handles the bowed work, is towards the right of the stereo mix. Ultimately doesn’t matter much. (Dan Warburton)In 2003 Rod Poole, Los Angeles based British expat guitarist, microtonal musician and tireless archivist of the local improvised music scene, decided to stop performing live. A sad loss, but not as tragic as Poole’s death four years later in a senseless road rage stabbing outside a fast food joint in Hollywood. He left behind barely half a dozen albums, which makes the release of this follow-up to 2002’s Incus studio session Acoustic Guitar Trio ali the more welcome. There are plenty of notes from Poole and fellow guitarists Nels Cline and Jim McAuley in these three tracks, recorded live in Los Angeles in July 2003 – hardly surprising from musicians who are open to the influence of, without ever simply aping, the idioms of free jazz, folk, rock, blues and bluegrass, evident from Cline’s work with Wilco, or McAuley’s splendid The Ultimate Frog – but the music is never gabby or nervous. From time to time, one of the guitarists settles into a rocking ostinato and lets his partners take the initiative, though it’s never a simple question of solo and accompaniment; the relationship between foreground and background is in constant flux, and as subtle as the tuning systems decided on by the musicians prior to performance. “Our methodology was quite simple,” recalls Cline. “Make up a tuning on the spot for each improvisation, look around at each other to find the nods and grins of agreement that meant that a promising tuning combination had been arrived at, and go.” Microtonallmprov, particularly from the Mat Maneri stable on the other side of the United States, can often be terse and forbidding, but that’s not the case here. There’s even [oom for recognisable harmonic progressions and singable melody. Vignes isn’t a heated argument, though things do get fiery from time to time, but a mature, intelligent conversation between three fine musicians. Part of the fun of listening is trying to work out who’s playing what, but it’s far from easy. For the record, Cline is left of centre, McAuley’s distinctive kalimba-like preparations are in the middle, and Poole, who handles the bowed work, is towards the right of the stereo mix. Ultimately doesn’t matter much. (Dan Warburton)

[…]Nicola Cipani’s exploration of brokendown New York pianos, The Ill-Tempered Piano, results in a fascinating collection of improvisations when necessity is truly the mother of invention. The impression, from a track such as “Scemophonia”, is that each piano is capable of little else and the disc’, success is a credit to Cipani’s creativity. Transgeographical gestalts are sometimes invoked purely as a symptom of a piano’s condition, as on the microtonally mesmerizing “Outsourced Music”. No matter how ‘out’ the tunings, many rhythmic constructions are fairly simple, evoking swing or funk.[…][…]Nicola Cipani’s exploration of brokendown New York pianos, The Ill-Tempered Piano, results in a fascinating collection of improvisations when necessity is truly the mother of invention. The impression, from a track such as “Scemophonia”, is that each piano is capable of little else and the disc’, success is a credit to Cipani’s creativity. Transgeographical gestalts are sometimes invoked purely as a symptom of a piano’s condition, as on the microtonally mesmerizing “Outsourced Music”. No matter how ‘out’ the tunings, many rhythmic constructions are fairly simple, evoking swing or funk.[…]

Now this is a strange album, but one with a special charm. Swiss-born, Italian-raised, German-educated and US-based classical philologist Nicola Cipani looked for untuned, damaged, broken and almost unrecognizable pianos in the New York area for two years. After getting acquainted with each instrument’s specific ailments and shortcomings, he still tried to play some music on it, without altering the instrument of course. In some cases percussion is the only result, but more often than not the results are interesting, if not great fun or totally captivating. The sounds are weird, bizarre, but very musical. It is not avant-garde, maybe in its approach, but certainly not in the delivery, because Cipani tries, with the limited means the instruments offer, to still create something like a tune, a rhythm, structure, emotional expression. Sometimes Tom Waits comes to mind, but then without the vocals. Cipani’s universe is harsh, tough, but full of humanity and surely, with a great heart for those abandoned instruments. If they were animate (and they surely still sound alive, although some not too much), these instruments must have rejoiced by the totally unexpected attention they got, and the vision of this musician to still make them shine, probably just one more time, one last time, …Now this is a strange album, but one with a special charm. Swiss-born, Italian-raised, German-educated and US-based classical philologist Nicola Cipani looked for untuned, damaged, broken and almost unrecognizable pianos in the New York area for two years. After getting acquainted with each instrument’s specific ailments and shortcomings, he still tried to play some music on it, without altering the instrument of course. In some cases percussion is the only result, but more often than not the results are interesting, if not great fun or totally captivating. The sounds are weird, bizarre, but very musical. It is not avant-garde, maybe in its approach, but certainly not in the delivery, because Cipani tries, with the limited means the instruments offer, to still create something like a tune, a rhythm, structure, emotional expression. Sometimes Tom Waits comes to mind, but then without the vocals. Cipani’s universe is harsh, tough, but full of humanity and surely, with a great heart for those abandoned instruments. If they were animate (and they surely still sound alive, although some not too much), these instruments must have rejoiced by the totally unexpected attention they got, and the vision of this musician to still make them shine, probably just one more time, one last time, …

Unless you heard Rod Poole, Nels Cline and Jim McAuley’s Acoustic Guitar Trio CD, released on Incus in 2002, you will probably never have heard guitar music sounding like this one. The three musicians are the same, but this performance was recorded live on Vignes Street in Los Angeles in 2003. All three musicians venture into the microtonal universe that British guitarist Rod Poole explored obsessively, playing on an open-tuned instrument played with a bow. All three musicians are also very pre-occupied with sound, like a painter can relish the physical qualities of paint, or a sculpture of stone. All three musicians do not really belong to a musical tradition, having set aside such notions about genre. Yes, Cline is best know from his rock music, but that would be very limitative to describe his work. McAuley has a more folk sound, but again, that is not doing credit to his skills. And Poole apparently was in a category all his own. “Vignes 1”, the long first improvisation, starts calmly, in a rather conventional way, but moving forward, a repetitive, rhythmic one-chord basis sets the tone for the two other guitars to fill in the empty space, creating a weird hypnotic piece, dark and light, or heavy and light if you wish, with varying levels of intensity, but inherently paradoxical, ending in almost silence, where structure and rhythm are completely abandoned for pure sound exploration, recognizable, though not always, as coming from a guitar. “Vignes 2” rebuilds improvisational density, atonal, but rhythmic, with all strings creating again a strange surreal universe, like curtains waving in the breeze, attached to nothing but the imagination. “Vignes 3” brings the trio’s sense of adventure a step further, with Poole starting to use the bow on his strings. It doesn’t sound like Jimmy Page, or even Raoul Björkenheim, but it has a screeching quality which some will call painful, some nerve-racking, some beautiful, or possibly all three of them. It will certainly not leave you indifferent. The performance was recorded by Poole, who was unfortunately killed in 2007. Apparently there is more material left by him and by this trio. Although this music is surely not to everyone’s taste, the trio’s musical explorations and the new dimension given to acoustic guitar playing clearly deserves even more releases.Unless you heard Rod Poole, Nels Cline and Jim McAuley’s Acoustic Guitar Trio CD, released on Incus in 2002, you will probably never have heard guitar music sounding like this one. The three musicians are the same, but this performance was recorded live on Vignes Street in Los Angeles in 2003. All three musicians venture into the microtonal universe that British guitarist Rod Poole explored obsessively, playing on an open-tuned instrument played with a bow. All three musicians are also very pre-occupied with sound, like a painter can relish the physical qualities of paint, or a sculpture of stone. All three musicians do not really belong to a musical tradition, having set aside such notions about genre. Yes, Cline is best know from his rock music, but that would be very limitative to describe his work. McAuley has a more folk sound, but again, that is not doing credit to his skills. And Poole apparently was in a category all his own. “Vignes 1”, the long first improvisation, starts calmly, in a rather conventional way, but moving forward, a repetitive, rhythmic one-chord basis sets the tone for the two other guitars to fill in the empty space, creating a weird hypnotic piece, dark and light, or heavy and light if you wish, with varying levels of intensity, but inherently paradoxical, ending in almost silence, where structure and rhythm are completely abandoned for pure sound exploration, recognizable, though not always, as coming from a guitar. “Vignes 2” rebuilds improvisational density, atonal, but rhythmic, with all strings creating again a strange surreal universe, like curtains waving in the breeze, attached to nothing but the imagination. “Vignes 3” brings the trio’s sense of adventure a step further, with Poole starting to use the bow on his strings. It doesn’t sound like Jimmy Page, or even Raoul Björkenheim, but it has a screeching quality which some will call painful, some nerve-racking, some beautiful, or possibly all three of them. It will certainly not leave you indifferent. The performance was recorded by Poole, who was unfortunately killed in 2007. Apparently there is more material left by him and by this trio. Although this music is surely not to everyone’s taste, the trio’s musical explorations and the new dimension given to acoustic guitar playing clearly deserves even more releases.

Rings of Fire dimostra ammirevolmente come la concezione ritmica del duo Nexus si espanda e diventi luogo stimolante per avventure improvvisative. Due suite lo riempiono, ricche e organiche. I sei movimenti fortemente caratterizzati di Faces(Cavalianti) dichiarano l’ispirazione nei titoli: Shadows, Cassavetes, Bertolucci, Jarmush, Wenders e Eastwood. La seconda suite appare più complessa e fratturata ma attraverso gli otto movimenti dai titoli non altrettanto inequivocabili, raggruppati in tre Phases, Tononi fa scorrere un fluido ritmico unificante, cui lascia la possibilità di inabissarsi carsicamente. I violini conferiscono alle due suite un colore e un profilo dinamico determinanti: merito di una scrittura che ne fa sorgere le voci dal tessuto sottostante come una necessità.Rings of Fire dimostra ammirevolmente come la concezione ritmica del duo Nexus si espanda e diventi luogo stimolante per avventure improvvisative. Due suite lo riempiono, ricche e organiche. I sei movimenti fortemente caratterizzati di Faces(Cavalianti) dichiarano l’ispirazione nei titoli: Shadows, Cassavetes, Bertolucci, Jarmush, Wenders e Eastwood. La seconda suite appare più complessa e fratturata ma attraverso gli otto movimenti dai titoli non altrettanto inequivocabili, raggruppati in tre Phases, Tononi fa scorrere un fluido ritmico unificante, cui lascia la possibilità di inabissarsi carsicamente. I violini conferiscono alle due suite un colore e un profilo dinamico determinanti: merito di una scrittura che ne fa sorgere le voci dal tessuto sottostante come una necessità.

Il progetto di Xabier Iriondo e del batterista di Starfuckers/Sinistri Roberto Bertacchini, nato quasi per caso un paio d’anni fa per contribuire con un 3″ alla Mail Series della Wallace, è ormai divenuto oggi una realtà consolidata con un personale repertorio a metà fra improvvisazione e composizione. Fra questi due poli oscilla infatti il contenuto del loro album d’esordio, costituito da brani che recuperano il blues, il rock e la memoria di vecchi 78 giri da grammofono per formulare un linguaggio assolutamente personale. Shipwreck Bag Show suona infatti come una perfetta sintesi delle loro passate esperienze con A Short Apnea, Sinistri e Uncode Duello. Un’opera di raccordo nel percorso creativo di due musicisti che alla sperimentazione coniugano un’energia viscerale derivante da un’inestinguibile anima rock. Si respira un’aria di notevole libertà espressiva. che li porta a spaziare da un irreale noise fatto di stratificazioni chitarristiche (Tuamare, Tra le Nostre Mam) a passaggi in cui la materia sonora collassa in mille pezzi (Caminito Sudo, The F. Wheeler Shipwreck ), da canzoni lacere ed ulcerate (Scoppia, Two Castaway Tramps) a momenti di tragicomico nonsense (Kalejira). Musica che lascia il segno, vivida, irrequieta e carica di tormentata umanità.Il progetto di Xabier Iriondo e del batterista di Starfuckers/Sinistri Roberto Bertacchini, nato quasi per caso un paio d’anni fa per contribuire con un 3″ alla Mail Series della Wallace, è ormai divenuto oggi una realtà consolidata con un personale repertorio a metà fra improvvisazione e composizione. Fra questi due poli oscilla infatti il contenuto del loro album d’esordio, costituito da brani che recuperano il blues, il rock e la memoria di vecchi 78 giri da grammofono per formulare un linguaggio assolutamente personale. Shipwreck Bag Show suona infatti come una perfetta sintesi delle loro passate esperienze con A Short Apnea, Sinistri e Uncode Duello. Un’opera di raccordo nel percorso creativo di due musicisti che alla sperimentazione coniugano un’energia viscerale derivante da un’inestinguibile anima rock. Si respira un’aria di notevole libertà espressiva. che li porta a spaziare da un irreale noise fatto di stratificazioni chitarristiche (Tuamare, Tra le Nostre Mam) a passaggi in cui la materia sonora collassa in mille pezzi (Caminito Sudo, The F. Wheeler Shipwreck ), da canzoni lacere ed ulcerate (Scoppia, Two Castaway Tramps) a momenti di tragicomico nonsense (Kalejira). Musica che lascia il segno, vivida, irrequieta e carica di tormentata umanità.

Quella di Xabier Iriondo e Roberto Bertacchini è un’accoppiata vincente nella ricerca di sonorità originali in grado di caratterizzare il loro progetto. Questa nuova uscita è la diretta continuazione del mini cd che chiudeva la WallaceMailSeries ed è un album che spiazza al primo ascolto, incuriosisce nel pro- seguo e affascina quando lo si ha introiettato. Un album strano, fatto di canzoni bizzarre, blues notturni, disturbati e intrisi di alcol e incubi. Strumenti a corda e percussioni si rincorrono o seguono strade proprie, assaporano. il frutto maturo dell’avvicinamento per poi scappare dietro ritmi sincopati e stranianti. Non è facile definire questo tipo di musica, sia chiaro. La ricerca sonora la potremmo avvicinare, per facilitarci la comprensione, a certe intuizioni di Tom Waits, le canzoni predono un po’ dal folk, anche se primitivizzato in chiave moderna (“Two Castaway Tramps”), dal blues chiaramente, reso minimale nella sua espressività popolare (“Scoppia”), e del jazz d’avanguardia nella ritmica e nel non dare mai niente per scontato. Non c’è auto-compiacimento in questo lavoro, non c’è l’alternativo a tutti i costi, parlerei piuttosto di un processo di stile che si concretizza in una forma personale e fuori dagli schemi della forma canzone più classica. Un album, in conclusione, che comunica, non in modo diretto, con input quasi scheletrici, ma secondo direttrici che è prezioso scoprire. Non abbiate paura a conoscere The Shipwreck Bag Show.Quella di Xabier Iriondo e Roberto Bertacchini è un’accoppiata vincente nella ricerca di sonorità originali in grado di caratterizzare il loro progetto. Questa nuova uscita è la diretta continuazione del mini cd che chiudeva la WallaceMailSeries ed è un album che spiazza al primo ascolto, incuriosisce nel pro- seguo e affascina quando lo si ha introiettato. Un album strano, fatto di canzoni bizzarre, blues notturni, disturbati e intrisi di alcol e incubi. Strumenti a corda e percussioni si rincorrono o seguono strade proprie, assaporano. il frutto maturo dell’avvicinamento per poi scappare dietro ritmi sincopati e stranianti. Non è facile definire questo tipo di musica, sia chiaro. La ricerca sonora la potremmo avvicinare, per facilitarci la comprensione, a certe intuizioni di Tom Waits, le canzoni predono un po’ dal folk, anche se primitivizzato in chiave moderna (“Two Castaway Tramps”), dal blues chiaramente, reso minimale nella sua espressività popolare (“Scoppia”), e del jazz d’avanguardia nella ritmica e nel non dare mai niente per scontato. Non c’è auto-compiacimento in questo lavoro, non c’è l’alternativo a tutti i costi, parlerei piuttosto di un processo di stile che si concretizza in una forma personale e fuori dagli schemi della forma canzone più classica. Un album, in conclusione, che comunica, non in modo diretto, con input quasi scheletrici, ma secondo direttrici che è prezioso scoprire. Non abbiate paura a conoscere The Shipwreck Bag Show.

Sorprende e affascina il debutto pianistico di Nicola Cipani, insegnante alla New York University e artista eclettico, che ha trascorso due anni a scovare pianoforti rotti e scordati per realizzare un percorso sonoro tanto estremo quanto coerente nelle sue linee generali.

L’aspetto singolare del disco non sta ovviamente nel porsi agli antipodi dal “Clavicembalo ben temperato” di Bach ma nel reinventare visionarie identità musicali sulla base di rottami giudicati inservibili: nascono così 24 bozzetti (mediamente di 2 minuti l’uno) dove Cipani trae dai pianoforti (o ciò che resta di loro) effetti timbrici e soluzioni ritmiche sorprendentemente logiche, all’interno di invenzioni improvvisate solo apparentemente rumoristiche. Non c’è volontà di destrutturare la forma ma, al contrario, di trovare nuovi equilibri espressivi sulla base del singolare materiale trovato.

Dagli strumenti che ha sottomano Cipani trae soluzioni nuove e creative, usando tastiera, corde e legno fino a trovare sorprendenti vicinanze espressive sia con l’universo delle musiche etniche che coi percorsi delle avanguardie storiche (da John Cage a Derek Bailey).
Una musica a tratti ritualistica e iterativa ma più spesso disposta a rischiare soluzioni imprevedibili allo stesso autore, in un itinerario suggestivo che si alimenta della propria anomalia. Può apparire azzardato ma al termine del percorso l’estetica di riferimento appare molto più tradizionale (addirittura cameristica) di quanto l’ascoltatore può supporre nei primi minuti d’ascolto.Sorprende e affascina il debutto pianistico di Nicola Cipani, insegnante alla New York University e artista eclettico, che ha trascorso due anni a scovare pianoforti rotti e scordati per realizzare un percorso sonoro tanto estremo quanto coerente nelle sue linee generali.

L’aspetto singolare del disco non sta ovviamente nel porsi agli antipodi dal “Clavicembalo ben temperato” di Bach ma nel reinventare visionarie identità musicali sulla base di rottami giudicati inservibili: nascono così 24 bozzetti (mediamente di 2 minuti l’uno) dove Cipani trae dai pianoforti (o ciò che resta di loro) effetti timbrici e soluzioni ritmiche sorprendentemente logiche, all’interno di invenzioni improvvisate solo apparentemente rumoristiche. Non c’è volontà di destrutturare la forma ma, al contrario, di trovare nuovi equilibri espressivi sulla base del singolare materiale trovato.

Dagli strumenti che ha sottomano Cipani trae soluzioni nuove e creative, usando tastiera, corde e legno fino a trovare sorprendenti vicinanze espressive sia con l’universo delle musiche etniche che coi percorsi delle avanguardie storiche (da John Cage a Derek Bailey).
Una musica a tratti ritualistica e iterativa ma più spesso disposta a rischiare soluzioni imprevedibili allo stesso autore, in un itinerario suggestivo che si alimenta della propria anomalia. Può apparire azzardato ma al termine del percorso l’estetica di riferimento appare molto più tradizionale (addirittura cameristica) di quanto l’ascoltatore può supporre nei primi minuti d’ascolto.