Artist.......: Tin Hat
Album........: The Sad Machinery of Spring
Label........: Hannibal
Genre........: Jazz
Catnr........: HNCD 1524
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: nov-30-2006
str.date.....: jan-30-2007
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. Old World 03:20
02. The Secret Fluid of Deusk 03:18
03. Blind Paper Dragon 03:15
04. Dionysus 03:46
05. Daisy Bell 04:58
06. Drawing Lessons 04:24
07. The Book 02:32
08. Dead Season 02:57
09. Black Thursday 01:12
10. The Tailor's Dummies 03:28
11. Dionysus II 01:11
12. The Land Of Perpetual Sleep 03:36
13. Janissary Band 03:35
14. The Comet 05:10
15. Intractable 02:18
Runtime 49:00 min
Size 63,8 MB
Release Notes:
Forging a new acoustic sound that defies
categorization while striking universal chords, Tin
Hat makes freewheeling chamber music for the 21st
century. Garnering widespread critical acclaim for
four CDs recorded between 1999 and 2004 as Tin Hat
Trio, the group has also earned high marks for
their captivating performances, sometimes including
original soundtracks for classic silent film
animation from Russia. Tin Hat's international
audiences have grown over the past years through
many concert tours in the United States and in
Europe. Hailed by the press for "interweaving Old
World Europe with post-modern America,
south-of-the-border sensuality with concert-hall
propriety, and odd-metered syncopation with deeply
soulful grooves" (The New York Press), the ensemble
has created an original American ethnic music of
its own device.
Other reviewers noted that "the group blends
elements of jazz, folk and classical chamber music
to create unique, yet often eerie compositions that
seem like the perfect movie score." (Billboard);
"Their haunting and strangely familiar music... is
a soundtrack for the kind of puzzling dream which
leaves you sitting awake in the middle of the
night..." (The New Yorker); "Forget the
definitions, and simply think of their music as
compelling entertainment, rich with whimsy,
imagination and intelligence." (Los Angeles Times);
and "They make music that blends contemporary
classical, Eastern European folk, tango, bossa nova
and bluegrass, all with a jazz-improvisation
sensibility. What comes out of that mix isn't quite
like anything else you've heard - and better than
that, it's fun to listen to." (New York Daily
News).
Founded in 1997 in San Francisco by violinist Carla
Kihlstedt, guitarist Mark Orton, and accordionist
and pianist Rob Burger, the original Tin Hat Trio
was formed as a composers collective, committed to
creating a purely acoustic music that blurred the
lines between composition and improvisation. The
group has been known for inviting other musicians
to join them for special occasions. All of their
recordings feature special guests, among them such
luminaries as Tom Waits and Willie Nelson, as well
as friends like clarinetist Ben Goldberg and
harpist Zeena Parkins. After Rob Burger left the
group in late 2004, Goldberg became a permanent
member, along with multi-instrumentalist Ara
Anderson, a San Francisco native. Parkins often
guests with the new formation and also performs on
the newest recording, The Sad Machinery of Spring,
to be released in January 2007 on
Hannibal/Rykodisc. Equally at home playing jazz or
classical, the new musicians fit easily into the
Tin Hat mold as evocative performers, adding new
colors, strokes, and textures to the already large
canvas of the ensemble's sound.
With the release of its first CD for
Hannibal/Rykodisc, The Sad Machinery of Spring, the
internationally acclaimed band of genre-leaping
musical adventurers known as Tin Hat (formerly Tin
Hat Trio) begins a new chapter in its remarkable
decade-long career.
Founded by composers and multi-instrumentalists
Mark Orton, Carla Kihlstedt and Rob Burger in 1997,
Tin Hat moves effortlessly between genres, creating
a new kind of acoustic chamber music that melds
elements of jazz, folk, classical, and various
American and World roots music. The groupÆs
concert performances and recordings have earned
widespread critical praise and an ever-growing
legion of fans around the world.
When Rob Burger left the trio in 2004, Orton and
Kihlstedt were faced with a daunting task of
reinvention. As Orton explains it: ôWe knew we had
huge shoes to fill, and that weÆd miss Rob greatly.
He and I grew up together, and weÆve both known
Carla since she was a teenager.ö Of the musical
intimacy and telepathic connection afforded by such
long-standing friendships, Kihlstedt adds: ôthere's
nothing that could possibly replace that history.ö
Orton and Kihlstedt wisely chose not to try
replacing the irreplaceable. Instead, they took the
situation as an opportunity to broaden the palette
of musical colors available to them. Dropping the
word ôtrioö from the group name, Tin Hat added not
one but three new players to the mix ù all
brilliant instrumentalists of tremendous virtuosity
and imagination, and distinctively idiosyncratic
composers in their own right.
Joining Kihlstedt (violin, viola, trumpet violin,
voice, piano, celeste, bowed vibes, bass harmonica,
ukelin) and Orton (guitar, dobro, banjo, piano,
pump organ, auto-harp, bass drum, bass harmonica)
on The Sad Machinery of Spring are: Ara Anderson
(trumpet, baritone horn, piano, pump organ, toy
piano, celeste); Ben Goldberg (b-flat clarinet,
alto clarinet, contra alto clarinet); and Zeena
Parkins (harp).
One of the most striking things about The Sad
Machinery of Spring is that although no fewer than
five different composers are represented here, the
work speaks with a powerfully unified voice,
without obscuring the vivid individual
personalities of the players. Carla Kihlstedt
reflects on that achievement: ôAlthough weÆve
given it room to shift organically with the new
lineup, the history of the group still shows
through. IÆve been a fan of Ben's writing and
playing for at least 10 years, and though the tunes
he wrote for this record fit seamlessly into the
Tin Hat æsoundÆ, I can absolutely recognize them as
his. This is true of Ara and Zeena as well.
Everyone has stretched to find a place in the band,
but also, the band has stretched to encompass the
new chemistry...ö (continued on page 2)
ôà it's been a true give-and-take. Collaborations
are really about exploring the places where people
overlap with one another, so of course those places
shift with each new person.ö
The music on The Sad Machinery of Spring was
inspired by the work of Bruno Schulz, a
Polish-Jewish novelist and graphic artist whose
life was cut tragically short in 1942 by a Nazi
officerÆs bullet. SchulzÆs relentlessly imaginative
and evocative writing in his two best-known works,
The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the
Sign of The Hour Glass, earned him a reputation as
one of the great prose stylists of the 20th
Century. No less a storyteller than Isaac Bashevis
Singer said of Schulz, ôHe wrote sometimes like
Kafka, sometimes like Proust, and at times
succeeded in reaching depths that neither of them
reached.ö
Explaining the attraction the members of Tin Hat
have to SchulzÆ writing, Orton notes: ôThereÆs an
old world quality, a classical sense, to his work,
but he was a dedicated surrealist as well. I think
itÆs that combination of elements that makes us
feel a kinship with himà There are certain, almost
childlike qualities in Schulz, like heÆs
discovering things for the first time, which is
something we try to convey in Tin Hatà a simplicity
at the heart of the music.ö
Kihlstedt elaborates: ô[SchulzÆ stories] are full
of the most magnificent descriptions of the most
mundane things. He has a way of pivoting on a
simple observation, and diving down into it until
you're at the bottom of the world looking up, or
way above it looking down. He gives his imagination
a very long leash, and it runs away with the
smallest provocation. It's as if every thought
becomes a small, yet incredibly elaborate diorama
that we get to peer into. This made for some pretty
inspiring points of departure for us.ö
The Sad Machinery of Spring does indeed do full
justice to SchulzÆ extraordinary descriptive gifts.
At various moments poignant or antic, pastoral or
ominous, edgily dissonant or ravishingly melodic,
the compositions and the performances combine to
create a stunning landscape of the imagination.
Reflecting on where Tin Hat has been and where itÆs
going, Kihlstedt notes that ôThere have always been
contradictory/complimentary aspects to Tin Hat,
which is what makes it interesting for me both as a
writer and as a player; there are aspects that
touch on folk traditions, aspects that give a nod
to more contemporary classical music, aspects that
are inherently filmic... these same things exist in
the band today, but the balance between them is
always shifting.ö
On The Sad Machinery of Spring, Tin Hat continues
to maintain that exquisite balance, and to embrace
those exhilarating changes.