Ken Moore/David Wayne Myers - Reaching Beyond the Sphere
In the Auricle catalog of mostly obscure electronic and experimental releases lies this prog-rock cassette which is of the style and flavor so many fans prefer today, basically with lots of keyboards and all sorts of melodic lines extended over long time signatures and the like. It’s definitely a bit on the DIY side, yet feels like a band, maybe a quartet. Had they been named something hi-falutin’ and released on CD, I can imagine they’d have a little more attention than they do. For my ears, while a lot of it was interesting, it had that weakness a lot of progressive rock seems to have, to sort of witlessly go through dah-do-dah-dah-dah sorts of things, to meander lines over counts of five, six or seven without much of an emotional clout. The best of the genre usually would take something like this and then develop it, while other groups often just string them together like they’re modelling riffs. I doubt this one will ever raise notice beyond a big pile of nines, but it is interesting in its own way, heck just its very existence demands a curiosity listen.
Lars Hollmer - Andetag
Word has it I reviewed this for Expose a while back, and it’s a good thing I keep track of those things as my memory has long forgotten it. I’m a big Samla, Zamla and Von Zamla fan, of which Mr. Hollmer is a big part. Hollmer’s solo music tends either to the very experimental or to the quirkily traditional (or more often a mixture of both) and it’s unsurprising that not only is none of it a whole lot like Samla (except, obviously, for the sense of humor) but very few of Hollmer’s solos are really all that like the next. I’m not sure what it is about Andetag, but I’m getting that “every other listen” syndrome, where it sounds great one listen and then I wonder what I’m thinking. A 10-9 ping pong match or something. And I really hate to define more specifically why I don’t care as much for Hollmer’s solo music as much, as the musicianship is always tremendously. Maybe I just like the accordion better with some drums pounding away in the background.
Ose - Adonia
I return to this one fairly frequently because it’s a title I ought to like. I don’t remember my last listen being all that impressive, but I think one of Tom’s reviews made me bring it out again in that “I really must get this sort of way.” While Pinhas is here in part, making one of the connections kind of obvious, Ose reminds me more of a Heldon/Schulze combination, for one thing Ose tends to be a bit on the repetitive side and the Heldon comparisons usually only apply when Pinhas is around. It reminds me a little of an album like Schulze’s Moondawn or maybe Wolfgang Bock’s Cycles where the two sides are a little different except that both of those are in a totally different league. So really I’m still left 9-puzzled by this one, I’m certainly not wanting to get rid of it and hoping it will trigger on a later listen. Cuz ideally it has about everything I’d want from electronic music.