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"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
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a r t i s t : Tetuzi Akiyama & Jozef van Wissem
t i t l e : Proletarian Drift
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : BVHaast 0404
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : June/2004
t r a c k s : 02
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 59,9 MB
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AMG Review (3/5 stars):
European guitarist Jozef van Wissem adopted the long string
lute some years back and has been recording solo, with
electronics, and in concert on it with other guitarists over
the past few years, the last with Gary Lucas on Diplopia. This
set, consisting of two extended improvisations with Japanese
uber improviser Tetuzi Akiyama among many other projects (he is
also a member of Keiji Haino's Nijiumu) who plays a nylon
string resonator guitar using the same tuning as van Wissem's
Renaissance lute. As one might expect, this isn't for
everybody. It's noodley, loping, languid, and very speculative
stringed music, much of it atonal--but in a pleasant way. The
two extended pieces meander, float and shimmer, offering a
dialogue that is admittedly difficult to discern, but clearly
exists. The music here is poetic, sparse, and halting, but is
nonetheless compelling in its own quiet, unobtrusive way. --
Thom Jurek
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?
p=amg&uid=UIDSUB020406090141142448&sql=Aic7uak6kam3c
Dusted Review:
Tetuzi Akiyama's guitar playing, with its spindly blues-tinged
inflections and stifled silences, is without a doubt one of the
more engaging performance approaches in contemporary
improvisational music. He consistently manages to steer
performances away from oblivious dissonant abstraction, denying
his sessions the baggage of the usual ominous, sterility-tinted
cliches. Akiyama has a sensitive range, able to indulge both in
the moments of abandon and focus the improvisation with his
dark, raspy melodies.
A duo, then, between Tetuzi Akiyama and Jozef van Wissem, a
Dutch lutist with a history of somewhat academic forays into
the 17th century music (which shouldn't be surprising, given
his somewhat anachronistic instrument of choice), seems like an
odd match. Perhaps it was prompted by Wissem's recent duo with
another fringe musician working with blues idioms, Gary Lucas.
For better or for worse, however, Proletarian Drift is not
remotely strange. The recording is of a strong, if conventional
duo, perhaps weighted down by its lack of forcefulness. Wissem,
seemingly not an experimenter in extended technique or
electronic augmentations, more or less plays his lute in a
traditional fashion. That is to say, it sounds like a more
resonant acoustic guitar; its timbre is only slightly
different. As Akiyama is playing an acoustic guitar, in the
same tuning as the lute, there seems to be an easy interplay.
The straight-ahead performance on acoustic instruments seems to
stifle varying approaches. There are no fulsome drones here.
Both of the two improvisations on Proletarian Drift are low-
key, and remain in a state of easy tranquility, as though
recorded in a living room or a kitchen. Yet, the focus seems to
be on tonal and rhythmic tension, rather than absolute sound.
The first parts of both improvisations show Akiyama reaching
for an intensely sparse, timbral emphasis - a decidedly
cultural approach shared by his more immediate colleagues, such
as Taku Sugimoto. Wissem, however, seems impatient with this
blankness, and both improvisations reach a state of sweet,
though matter-of-fact melodic interplay by the end. A more
immediate comparison might be Derek Bailey's Ballads record.
Yet without the same conceptual approach or instrumental
versatility, Proletarian Drift often comes across as a bit
thin, lacking a certain malleability and nuance. --Matt
Wellins
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/1394
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01-The Golden Mass, Part I-II [29:46]
02-Ascension [13:39]
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43:25 min
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