Father Murphy, ...and He told us to turn to the Sun [Boring Machines, 2008]

Father Murphy is a truly Italian band, calling upon two of Italy's great legacies in their music. Clangorous guitar through slapback reverb evokes the bleak spaghetti western landscape while somber chanting in three-part harmony colors the music with the solemnity of a Catholic mass. Obtusely delivered obscure lyrics call to mind Syd Barrett, and reinforce the naming of the trio's Madcap Collective (a cooperative Northern Italian record label/distributor). The Italian accents and Rev. Freddie Murphy's uniquely nasal voice are quite charming, but don't detract at all from the seriousness and intensity of the singing, even with such curious lyrics as, "You are such a back spine to me!" or "It ain't monks with no cap." Sparely instrumentated, the vocals and guitar are usually backed up with nothing other than harmonium chords and emphatic downbeats from the minimal drums. The best tracks ("Go Sinister", "So Now You Have to Choose Between My Two (Black) Lungs") set a heavy mood with three-voice chanting over one- or two-chord somber desert dirges. "So Now You Have to..." is actually the second half of "I Ran Out of Fuel and a Viper Just Bit Me," which exemplifies Father Murphy's off-kilter take on a more traditional rock music approach. This two-part song ends with a fantastic stoner rock guitar riff worthy of Boris or the Melvins. "At That Time I Guess We Misunderstood" ends with a brief section reminiscent of the White Stripes in which Freddie screams out vocals in his wonderfully nasal, Italian-accented voice over sparse, heavy guitar and drum accompaniment. I wish this album had a few full songs of this sort of music! A really enjoyable album from start to finish, this is Father Murphy's most consistent, and possibly their strongest musical statement to date.

3, 4-5, 7
6, 2, 8

2008 favorites

excellent/memorable shows by local musicians other than myself at local venues (chronological)
• Fogel/Nishi/Winant, Yasi Perera, Allbee/Baker @ 1510 8th St, Oakland, 1/13
• Jon Raskin Quartet & Quintet (Allbee/Robair/Shiurba/Cremaschi) @ Climate Theatre, SF & 21 Grand, Oakland, 1/15 & 11/6
• Breezy Days Band, KIT, Bay/Oslo Double Trio, High Places @ ATA, SF, 1/23
• Mute Socialite, Ettrick, Little Women @ 21 Grand, Oakland, 1/28
• Peter Evans, James Fei, Damon Smith & Weasel Walter @ Hemlock, SF, 1/31
• Sextet (Aspelin/Davignon/Dryer/Greenlief/Lindsay/Nishi), Sophistifcuffs @ 1510 8th St, Oakland, 3/8
• Allbee/Greenlief/Nakatani, Brzytwa/Fogel/Nishi, Marielle Jakobsons, Pink Canoes @ 21 Grand, Oakland, 3/21
• Joe Colley, RHY Yau, Elf Ass, Sudden Infant @ Terminal, Oakland, 5/9
• Core of the Coalman, Midmight, Trampoline Sequel, Arachnid Arcade, Sudden Infant (Godwaffle Noise Pancakes) @ ArtSF, SF, 5/10
• Kaseki/Nishi, Chan/Evangelista/Vittum, Wiener Kids @ 21 Grand, Oakland, 5/22
• Butcher/Djll/Perkis/Robair/Shiurba @ Hillside Club, Berkeley, 6/5
• sfSound w/ John Butcher & Gino Robair @ ODC, SF, 6/8
• Wolf Eyes, Deathroes, Chronicles of Lemur Mutations, Basshaters @ the Compound, SF, 6/19
• Tony Dryer w/ Pigs in the Ground @ Fort Gallery, Oakland, 6/26, & w/ Allbee/Heule/Shiruba @ 21 Grand, Oakland 12/12
• Core of the Coalman, Bran (...) Pos, Dirty Branchez (Composers Decomposed) @ Heco's, Oakland, 6/28
• Bullshit Detector, Dye Mark, Theremin Barney, Heule+Nishi @ Pharoah Maybelline's Sound Trough, No Toilet, SF, 6/29
• Djll/Perkis, Raskin/Nishi, Shiurba/Rosenberg, Brown/Fei, RTD3, Dijkstra/Greenlief, SL Morse (Skronkathon) @ 21 Grand, Oakland, 7/13
• Neung Phak, Thai Cultural Center Musicians @ Cafe du Nord, SF, 8/6
• Anderson/Brown/Dobson/Mendoza/Schott @ 21 Grand, Oakland, 8/7
• Moe! Staiano, Bubble & Squeak @ Temescal Arts Center, Oakland, 10/7
• Allbee/Josephson/Lindsay/Walter/Winant, Wiggwaum, Death Worth Living @ 21 Grand, Oakland, 11/19

favorite albums
1. Phil Minton, No Doughnuts in Hand [Emanem]
2. Core of the Coalman, AsoltMusket [BOC]
3. Christian Weber, Walcheturm Solo [Cut]
4. Stephan Bodzin, Bremen Ost/Station 72 [Herzblut]
5. various - Living Is Hard: West African Music in Britain, 1927-1929 [Honest Jons]
• Dryer/Heule/Lindsay, Idea of West [Creative Sources]
• Basshaters, Teeth on Concrete [Occidentalize(d)]

top stouts consumed in 2008
1. Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout
2. Raven's Eye Imperial Stout (Eel River)
3. Jopen Extra Stout
4. Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout (North Coast)
5. Old Engine Oil Black Ale (Harviestoun)
6. Central Waters Brewhouse Coffee Stout
7. Stone Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
8. Lump of Coal Dark Holiday Stout (Ridgeway)
9. Rogue Shakespeare Stout
10. Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout

John Edwards, Volume [Psi, 2008]

"...she waited for the real men carrying their double basses. The ones that bring the deepest sounds able to vibrate enemies to tears."
(from the liner notes by Marek Tuszynki)

John Edwards is a master of quickly rotating through traditional and extended techniques in a completely fluid way. He shifts from arco to pizzicato to bouncing the screw of his bow between the strings to rubbing the body of the bass with his hands without so much as a pause to indicate he is changing his handling of the instrument. With this vast vocabulary at his fingertips he is able to brilliantly create free jazz-inspired frantically rolling messes, as on the opening and closing tracks of Volume ("Matter" & "Meshes"). This is Edwards at his best -- aggressive as hell, manhandling his double bass, a real man vibrating his enemies to tears.

For the rest of the album, he eschews such hyperactive technical montages and focuses on a particular sound or technique for a longer period of time. This works particularly well on "Battery", in which he hits the strings with the screw of his bow for the entire two-minute track, hanging out on a quick bouncy rhythm for most of the piece, and morphing into something approaching a walking bass line for a brief variation. On the longer tracks, he never sticks to a single idea for much longer than the two minutes of "Battery". Contrary to the tendency in electroacoustic improvisation and reductionism to simplify structure as much as possible and work with a very narrow range of techniques or sounds, Edwards improvises more freely. He is often possessed by flights of fancy, which lead him drastically away from the material he was working with. It is then up to him to bring musical coherence to the piece, to which end he often sharply returns to the initial material, treating the new sounds as an interlude or otherwise distinct part, as if following an A-B-A structure. It is interesting to witness his musical mind at work in such a way, but the results often fall short of creating an interesting or even sensible structure. My favorite tracks ("Saddles", "Battery", "Meshes") all stick to more limited material structurally. The notable exception is "Tunnel", which starts with a totally brutal, crackling arco drone, mostly unchanging for two and a half minutes (pure sonic bliss for me), then abruptly shifts to quiet creaking sounds and moves through a series of other variations from there. Somehow these transitions make a lot more musical sense to me. The quiet sounds seem like a direct and natural response to the heavy, grinding arco, and don't leave me wondering whether a new track has just started, as I do every time I listen to "Pin Drop". He isn't left with any loose ends needing to be forced back into the fold, though he does, typically, end the piece with ten seconds of the initial buzzsaw drone.

Great playing on this disc, and very well-recorded with a stereo mic set-up. A nice addition to the canon of solo double bass recordings.

recommended tracks: 5, 9, 4, 7, 3