ARTIST: David Torn
TITLE: Prezens
LABEL: ECM Records
GENRE: Avantgarde
BITRATE: 174kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 1h 12m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-04-17
RIP DATE: 2007-05-09
Track List
----------
1. AK 9:19
2. Rest & Unrest 3:45
3. Structural Functions Of Prezens 10:58
4. Bulbs 6:21
5. Them Buried Standing 2:43
6. Sink 7:16
7. Neck-Deep In The Harrow... 12:33
8. Even More Other 4:13
9. Ring For Endless Travel 2:24
10. Miss Place, The Mist... 5:46
11. Transmit Regardless 7:20
Release Notes:
David Torn is a musical chameleon, moving effortlessly from soundtrack work to
pop projects to edgy improv, extending his guitar with electronic programming,
sampling, and overdubs. Here he sets out at the helm of an improvising quartet
with some regular partners from the New York Downtown School (saxophonist Tim
Berne, keyboard player Craig Taborn, and drummer Tom Rainey) and then transforms
the results with live sampling and extended studio tinkerings until the present
set of pieces emerge in all their fractured and compound glory. Sounds morph
suddenly into other soundsù-funk into heavy metal, guitar into radio wave, drum
into bass--and time stretches and contracts. The extended band tracks are scenes
of continuous transformation, like "Structural Functions of Prezens" in which
the naked acoustic sweetness of Berne's alto is eventually joined by its
spectral, sampled other, or the rapid chatter of Rainey's drums is set against a
world sinking in time, with tones oozing lower and drifting into stasis. Always
a master of compound textures, Torn here extends his guitar and the quartet into
a utopian orchestra between the human and the machine.
David Torn's eagerly-awaited first ECM recording in 21 years is a sonic voyage
that defies categories and blurs boundaries. Prezens is also the debut of a
unique band featuring three of the most recognizable names in experimental jazz
- Tim Berne, Craig Taborn and Tom Rainey. The CD has all of the David Torn
trademarks: multi-layered textures, thick chords, disruptions, distortions and
hypnotic loops. On this Torn production, or "reconsideration" as he calls it, he
wraps his sounds around those of his band mates, often taking apart their
improvisations and reassembling them.
t their
improvisations and reassembling them.