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"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
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a r t i s t : Ahvak
t i t l e : Ahvak
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : Cuneiform Records (Rune 185)
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : Jan/2004
t r a c k s : 07
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 80,9 MB
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Special Request By The HiT2000 Crew: Buy This Album, They
Really Do Deserve Your Kind Support.
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/ahvak.html <- Buy
----------------------------------------------------------
Band Members:
Yehuda Kotton - Guitars
Ishay Sommer - Bass
Udi Susser - Keyboards, Woodwinds, Vocals, Baglama, Darbooka
Roy Yarkoni - Keyboards, Piano
Dave Kerman - Drums, Percussion
Udi Koomran - Computer
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com <- Label's Homepage
The Israeli band Ahvak, named after the Hebrew word for ôDustö,
creates music of dark, ominous and compelling beauty. Ahvak's
mesmerizing and electrified version of chamber rock blurs the
boundary lines between styles and align the band with such Rock
in Opposition style bands as Univers Zero, The Science Group,
Sotos, Thinking Plague and the 5UUs. Led by two conservatory
trained composers/keyboardists and also featuring guitar, bass
and drums (by Dave Kerman, known for his work with the cutting
edge avant/progressive bands 5uu's, Blast, Present, U Totem and
more), the five musicians are joined by their engineer, Udi
Koomran, who often extends the music into unique directions by
his use of modern computer software, without compromising the
integrity of the compositions or the vibrant performances. The
resulting CD is a highly sophisticated and expertly produced
work, featuring superb compositions performed by highly
experienced musicians.
Review:
It's not so hard to produce the most impressive progressive
rock album ever made in Israel. There wasn't much competition
in that field in this small, middle-eastern country. None the
less, it IS a big deal to produce a debut album worthy of
mention alongside the best of the international scene. This
album has been made in spite of difficult economical conditions
and no local label backup. There is no music company in Israel
that is willing to support such a bold band like "Ahvak"
(Hebrew word for Dust), who is comprised of serious musicians
who cannot make an honest living from their art.
The album "Ahvak" excells in two main elements: The 1st is the
incredible use of cutting-edge studio wizardry, based on the
latest in sound software. The 2nd is the successful combination
of tech-talent and composing-talent. It's a rare achievement,
requiring careful balance - technical understanding among the
musicians, and musical understanding from the technician's
side.
Listening to this album, as a whole, is no ordinary exeperience
of absorbing a few cute songs with jumpy melodies. It's a
demanding journey, packed with adrenalin, through many
different acoustic stations. This is no place for wimps: It's a
lightning-fast voyage on a digital ghost-train, with your eyes
closed, and without leaving your chair for one minute. The
channels are filled with sworming effects and fast dynamic
lines. The train takes a new turn every few secondes, right
into a new dark tunnel. There are on "songs", no singers, no
verses and no chorus. "Ahvak" throw the listener right off the
cliff, with no rest afterwards.
Musically speaking, Ahvak's compositions are planted in the
European school of Modernism. That means dissonant chords,
polyphonic lines, atonal moments, breaking of formal structures
- and even a few parts of obscure quality. If you can't
tolerate any deviation from standard harmonies of pop culture,
you may have trouble digesting what this list of people cooked
for you - Dave Kerman (Drums & Percussion), Udi Koomeran
(Sound), Yehuda Kotton (Guitars), Yishay Sommer (Bass), Udi
Susser (Horns & Keyboards) and Roy Yarkoni (Keyboards).
This band is capable of choosing musical motifes and developing
them in un-expected tactics. The use of motifes is important to
sustain a minimum of coherency, so the listener will not get
lost in the action. Although the arrangements are highly
dymanic, the motif's "anchor" allows the brain to keep running
after the notes even when they gallop bravely between several
conceptual points that are farily distant from one another. I
recommend using headphones (hi-fi ones) in order to fully
notice the nuances and surprises along the way. Here are some
hints: a wining cat, a fistachis salesman inside an amusement
park, an old piano soundtrack taken from a silent picture,
etc..
If you must compare Ahvak with other bands working in the
modern world of prog-rock, then you can associate the group
with the new generation of "Rock In Opposition". Similar groups
are Univers Zero, Thinking Plague and Miriodor. The Cuneiform
label, the distributer of Ahvak, compares them also to Sotos
and 5uu's. If you ask me, the comparison is misleading, since
Sotos's musical production and arrangements are quite boring,
while 5uu's composition skills are no match for the members of
Ahvak (yes, I know that Kerman is a member of both bands).
The 1st track, "Vivisection" inserts the shocked listener into
the morbid, twisted, sick, scary and multi-layered world of
Ahvak. It's a difficult piece to grasp, perhaps trying to
introduce the American customer into the Israeli ethnic feel -
prog from the desert, if you will. There are some darabookas
here (middle-eastern percussion) and eastern-based harmonies.
The atmosphere is intriguing, uncompromising, and impossible to
follow on your first listen. But It's not the best track on the
album, so don't be quick to judge the rest that will follow.
The 2nd track, "Bertha", combines healthy instrumental prog
energies and humorous break-ups of building tension. The group
has some fun with a motif, throws it to all possible
directions, demonstrates tight virtuosic playing, and finishes
the piece with a nice effect of a radio playing some folk music
in a living room. The 3rd track, "Moments" is a brief chamber
composition for piano and flute. It sounds arbitrary and too-
improvised for my ears, so I think it doesn't fit the album.
Ahvak could have done without it.
The 4th track, "Ahvak" is the hallmark of the entire project.
It's dark, long, complex and has symphonic depth to it. It
reminds me of Univers Zero in the Heatwave era. The piece
containes some dramatic motifes which are pretty catchy,
excellent harmonic development, a huge variety of musical
production surprises, and a circular, "closed" structure which
gives a deep sense of a journey which has ended. Even Kerman's
drums go through a few acoustic distortions (all made by
computer), which make it sound like a machine gun. The band's
playing is superb, all the musicians give it all they've got,
the production supplies interest and tension in all the tricky
passages, and the clear digital recording documents the piece
perfectly. I don't usually go "Bravo" and all, but this track
is a precious pearl of sound.
The 5th track, "Cement" is a short piece for guitars and
keyboards. It's a rare moment of normal, melodic peace-of-mind
on the album. It's pleasent even for the un-trained ear. It
displayes a few nostalgic instruments (Fender Rhodes, Wah-Wah
guitars etc.). Actually, it's a well-needed "breather" between
the monumental 4th track and the 6th hard track, coming right
up.
The 6th track, "The Yawners", although not as focused and
effective as the 4th track, holds some powerful moments, spine
-chilling effects and intersting melodies. The piano and
flutes, for example, go through Koomeran's sound table, and are
treated in an original way of thinking, that one is having
trouble identifying them at all. The result is somewhat
alienating, but always virtuosic, special and packed with
drama. I like the part where the band goes through a carousel,
panning the listener through a stereo circle. Udi Susser's
flute solo is masterful, and Kerman runs his drums like a
hyperactive troll - I used to think that his drumming was
artificially paced...few people can drum that fast. The 7th
piece, Pirzool concludes the album with 55 secondes of nothing,
and I would gladly have deleted it from the CD.
Summary Judgement: Ahvak's debut album is a fine export from
Israel, a pleasent surprise which shows great care and
dedication, rich musical imagination and deep technological
knowledge. It sets high standards, which few local bands will
be able to surpass. Nothing on this album came easily. Every
second is a product and living proof of thought, care, learning
- and a keen will to surprise and shock. Although I would
easilly remove two tracks (3 & 7), and replace the ugly cover
art with something else, it's still the best prog-rock effort
from Zion, to date. It will probably NOT be appreciated well
here in Israel, since the underground scene is achingly small
in size, but that's fine: Ahvak's eyes are firmly fixed on USA,
Europe and Japan - not Tel Aviv, Haifa or Jerusalem.
My score is: 9.5/10.
AMG:
Although this is the debut recording from Israeli band Ahvak,
the music is tight, complex and mature ù not the sort of result
normally associated with a fledgling band. But age (and
experience) are relative, and band members had been working and
rehearsing together for at least two years prior to this
recording. No harm, either, that several of Ahvak's principal
members are conservatory-trained composers and musicians, and
the drummer is expatriate American Dave Kerman, a veteran of
art rock bands 5uu, Motor Totemist Guild and Thinking Plague.
These diverse ingredients add up to a very nice piece of work,
characterized in part by the dissonance and sledgehammer
intensity of Zeuhl-style Goth groups like Univers Zero or
Present, but with legitimate art rock and even chamber music
pretensions as well, and a musical scope and dexterity that is
superior to more narrow-focused musical kin. Tricky polyrhythms
and chromatic instability are the norm. Middle Eastern rhythms
and motifs are sometimes evoked (but not excessively), and the
group's use of dynamics is exemplary. The powerful throb of
Ishay Sommer's bass and Kerman's drums, and the distinctive
howling of Yehuda Kotten's electric guitar are quite capable of
bludgeoning the listener into submission, but Ahvak knows how
to wield a scalpel also, and pieces like ôRegaim" (essentially
a duet between Udi Susser's flute and Roy Yarkoni's acoustic
piano), have their own cultivated sense of quiet dis-ease.
ôHamef ahakim" opens with a jaunty (but slightly demented)
organ and calliope sound, and after a rather austere middle
section, breaks into a ragged waltz tempo, samples the sounds
of children at a carnival (?), moves into a quiet but ominous
interlude and then builds to a climax in an fashion that is
almost symphonic. It and the title piece (also the group name,
which translates as ôdust") are the longest and most complex of
the seven selections, and they wander through nightmare
dreamscapes that are alternately euphoric, portentous, violent,
funereal or just quietly twisted. Udi Koomran, on ôcomputer,"
is in effect a sixth member of the group, and his subtle
electronic embellishments add a welcome touch of mystery,
adding to the music's slightly sinister edge. The music on this
CD is hardly a romp, but it can be recommended unreservedly for
its creativity, intelligence and emotional conviction.
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01-Vivisection [08:31]
02-Bertha [08:25]
03-Moments [02:41]
04-Dust [16:21]
05-Cement [02:53]
06-Yawners [13:32]
07-Ironworks [00:58]
-------
53:21 min
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