Album Info
Group...: MiX
Artist..: Carnival Skin
Album...: Carnival Skin
Genre...: Jazz
Label...: Nemu Records
Rls Date: 27-Jun-2006
Grabber.: EAC
Encoder.: Lame 3.97b APS
Quality.: VBRkbps - 44.1kHz - Joint-Stereo
Track Listing
##. Track Title Time
01. Bobosong 12:20
02. Carnival Skin 04:21
03. Diagonal People 09:29
04. Iono 11:58
05. Journey To Strange 07:20
06. Monster 07:47
Total Time: 53:15
Total Size: 79,1 MB
Release Notes
Artists who work with viscous materials like clay and glass are acutely
aware of turbulence, and how it may turn a potentially bold form into a worthless
heap. They push the material right up to the line, allowing a smoothly flowing
centrifugal force to do its thing without compromising the integrity of the
material. It takes years for these artists to learn how to ride the brink and to
stay there long enough to make art.
Improvisers deal with similar processes. They learn how to put ideas into motion
and let them unfold without falling apart. Their empirical knowledge of these
processes boils down essentially to articulations of risk. Art in improvised
music is measured in direct relationship to the risks that are taken to create
it. Often, the experience of an improviser is discernable by the rigor, if not
the zeal, with which they assume, even welcome the risk of failure. For them,
that's the brink they want to ride until the last note decays.
You get a sense of that when Carnival Skin guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil says he
ôlikes to keep one foot in the abyss.ö Proximity to doom is a perversely life-
affirming state. Just ask anyone who has ridden out a hurricane or
walked away from what by all rights should have been a fatal car crash. There's a
resulting acuity of soul and senses that's very similar to how improvisers
describe their state when the moment jells, the music takes form and it is moved
along by a force to which they can contribute, but cannot control.
That bracing, bristling sensation permeates the music of Carnival Skin on their
eponymous debut. This is particularly remarkable given the musicians' diverse
backgrounds and the short time they have played together as a quintet. Carnival
Skin began to take shape in 2004 when Eisenbeil, the leader of three previous
CDs, began working with drummer Klaus Kugel, who is perhaps best known for his
work with Theo J÷rgensmann. As is often the case in the improvised music
community, they know many of the same musicians; in this instance, both valued
bassist Hilliard Greene, who?s played with everyone from Jimmy Scott to Cecil
Taylor. Eisenbeil and Greene were already shedding with Peter Evans, who also
performs contemporary classical and electro-acoustic music; Kugel joined them
and subsequently brought on the legendary clarinetist Perry Robinson, with whom
he had occasionally played for 20 years.
Throughout the album, there's a palpable unified force with which Carnival Skin
pushes materials to points just shy of disintegrating turbulence. Whether the
material at hand is Robinson's jauntily swinging ôJourney To Strange,ö ôIonoö,
Greene's wailing dirge, or a mercurial collective improvisation like ôCarnival
Skinö, there is an urgency, a sense that even a moment's lapse of concentration
on anyone's part will cause the music to slump into slag. This suggests Evans,
Greene, Kugel and Robinson all have a foot in the same abyss as Eisenbeil.
Bill Shoemaker, November 2005
Group Notes
Looking for...
Quality Suppliers/Rippers
100MBiT+ Affils
mixit@hush.com