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▀ ■
■ D-i-G-i-T-A-L-L-Y U-N-i-T-E-D
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Descending To End │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──┐
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──┘
│ ││
│ Artist........ Briggan Krauss ││
│ Title......... Descending To End ││
│ Label......... Knitting Factory Works ││
│ Cat. Nr....... 251 ││
│ Year.......... 1999 ││
│ Genre......... Avantgarde ││
│ Street Date... ││
│ Release Date.. 31/12/2004 ││
│ Size.......... 57,0 MB ││
│ Tracks........ 09 ││
│ Length........ 46:54 min ││
│ Source........ CDDA ││
│ Encoder....... LAME ││
│ Quality....... VBRKBps / 44.1Khz / Joint-Stereo ││
│ ││
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──────-·
││
┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ││
│ R E L E A S E C O M M E N T S │┐ ││
└─────────────────────────────────┘└─────────────────────────────│──┐
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│───┘
│ ││
│ MiNDSCAPE wants to bring to you some funky experimental ││
│ AvantGarde music to your living room. Thats right, this is ││
│ Briggan Kraus bringing to you the weirdest Experimental Jazz ││
│ that belongs to CyberSpace Hacker Movie. Enjoy and Thanks ││
│ for supporting the MiNDSCAPE JAZZ Cause. ││
│ ││
│ ││
│ Briggan Krauss ││
│ Descending to End ││
│ [Knitting Factory] ││
│ Rating: 7.5 ││
│ ││
│ "Steve Austin. Astronaut. A man barely alive." ││
│ ││
│ "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We ││
│ have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. ││
│ Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. ││
│ Better... stronger... faster." ││
│ ││
│ Blame television. Forty-five minutes of some of the most ││
│ complex, challenging music I've heard in a while, and I ││
│ still can't get the opening sequence of "The Six Million ││
│ Dollar Man" out of my head. It's caught in a feedback loop ││
│ now, punctuated only by the digital slinky sound effect that ││
│ accompanied every instance of Col. Austin's extraordinary ││
│ bionics. Well that, and Briggan Krauss surfacing ││
│ enigmatically. ││
│ ││
│ Descending to End is bionic jazz. Nine alto saxophone pieces ││
│ composed and performed by New York-by-way-of-Seattle ││
│ saxophonist Briggan Krauss in an empty room at the Knitting ││
│ Factory, laid out on the cold steel slab of a studio ││
│ operating table, fitted with robot eyes and limbs, and ││
│ sealed in some grotesque plastic that one would never know ││
│ was not human skin. Krauss' music is one red tracksuit away ││
│ from a lawsuit. ││
│ ││
│ Well, that's not quite true. Just because I'm doomed to ││
│ refract everything through the grainy prism of syndicated ││
│ television doesn't automatically mean litigation pending. In ││
│ fact, Krauss' bionic jazz actually emerges without precedent ││
│ as one of the few convincing electro-organic hybrids to ││
│ emerge from fringe jazz in recent years. The line between ││
│ experimental and canned is a fine one: one knob a ││
│ quarter-degree in the wrong direction and the human element ││
│ is lost, irretrievably. Krauss commands attention precisely ││
│ because the humanity of Descending to End is kept anxiously ││
│ in jeopardy. ││
│ ││
│ "Last Gasp Extinction of the World" crosses cryptic David ││
│ Grubbs-style plucking with the maximal turntablism ││
│ associated with composers like Christian Marclay. Machines ││
│ hum listlessly from every corner of the stereo spectrum. ││
│ Krauss' heavily treated sax ribbons through this little ││
│ Armageddon with skittering intensity, alternately muttering ││
│ and waxing digitally huge in the cacophony. ││
│ ││
│ "Frontal" is solo sax so overburdened by effects that it ││
│ becomes indistinguishable from a similarly encumbered guitar ││
│ solo; the track would sit comfortably just about anywhere on ││
│ Sonny Sharrock's Guitar without anyone ever noticing the ││
│ switch. The few moments that yield to these avant-heroics ││
│ play something like Kevin Costner's ham-fisted epics: a ││
│ billion dollars of digitally mastered dire apocalyptic chaos ││
│ just to make rooting for Costner plausible. These kind of ││
│ antics are disappointingly traditionalist even as they pose ││
│ as futurism; the upshot is: you'll appreciate the superhuman ││
│ clarion of the classic alto sax solo once you've heard it ││
│ overcome the nightmarish din of reverberating electronics. ││
│ It becomes condescending. Fundamentally, we already know the ││
│ Good Guys from the Bad Guys. ││
│ ││
│ These moments, though, are few and far between. "Lean Loud ││
│ and Lovely," for instance, screams like a premature burial. ││
│ You can hear Krauss clawing at the coffin; his saxophone is ││
│ so unnervingly human in its wail that it almost approaches ││
│ articulated language. What would it say amidst all the ││
│ whooshing effects and pounding cymbals that have entombed ││
│ it? "I'm still alive down here," perhaps. That's creepy. ││
│ ││
│ The grotesque insect dread of "Dust the Desolate" is cut by ││
│ dentist-drill squeal. This track sounds so much like my ││
│ nightmares it's uncanny: equal parts delirium tremens, ││
│ dental checkup and insane asylum. I swear, if this is jazz, ││
│ it is jazz infested with maggots. The sound on headphones ││
│ triggers hallucinations. Seriously sick hallucinations. Even ││
│ if the rest of the disc were simply avant-dreck (which it's ││
│ not), this track would warrant purchase. Clocking in at ││
│ almost ten minutes, "Dust the Desolate" makes you forget ││
│ there was ever such a thing as jazz, or woodwinds, or life ││
│ on this planet. ││
│ ││
│ And Krauss never looks back. The nostalgia for traditional ││
│ jazz was incinerated somewhere along the way, and we've ││
│ forgotten to mourn. The final "Flu Coasting" reintegrates ││
│ the turntable, featuring half-backward vocals that sound ││
│ like all those satanic messages I never actually found on my ││
│ metal LPs. Something like electro-sitar plucks an eerily ││
│ simple melody as if straining toward an inner calm. This ││
│ isn't music to drive to; this is what the last five minutes ││
│ of your life sound like. ││
│ ││
│ As is requisite in all my NYC apologetics, a warning: you ││
│ must accept Descending to End for what it is: difficult, ││
│ often horrifying music. Not for parties. Not for traffic ││
│ jams. Not for sex. For headphones, hallucinogens and utter ││
│ darkness. Once you get past Lee Majors, you're gone. ││
│ ││
│ -Brent S. Sirota ││
│ ││
│ If you like this release go out and buy it. ││
│ ││
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──────-·
││
┌─────────────────────┐ ││
│ T R A C K L i S T │┐ ││
└─────────────────────┘└─────────────────────────────────────────│──┐
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│───┘
│ ││
│ [01] Last Gasp Extraction of the World 06:39 ││
│ [02] Frontal 03:27 ││
│ [03] Lean Loud and Lovely 05:57 ││
│ [04] Parietal 02:00 ││
│ [05] Dust the Desolate 09:40 ││
│ [06] Temporal 02:47 ││
│ [07] Encumbrance Essence 08:43 ││
│ [08] Occipital 01:57 ││
│ [09] Flu Coasting 05:44 ││
│ ││
│ Total Playtime : 46:54 min ││
│ ││
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│─────-·
││──┐
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│───┘
│ ││
│ ││
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│─────-·