a r t i s t : Rhys Chatham
t i t l e : Guitar Trio Is My Life
d a t e : 2008
l a b e l : table of the elements
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : Mar/2008
t r a c k s : 10
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 293,4 MB
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If the most pure rock'n'roll is all about excess,
emancipation, and sexuality, then 55-year-old Parisian
composer Rhys Chatham makes Mick Jagger seem like a Sunday
school teacher: Chatham's second 3xCD box set for Table of the
Elements, Guitar Trio is My Life!, collects 10 performances
from Chatham's 2007 14-city North American tour. Every night,
Chatham and a different ensemble of musicians performed his
most famous work, 1977's "Guitar Trio", twice. It's about
time: For too long, Chatham's massed guitars have been a
footnote to those of the more famous Glenn Branca. But Branca
--- like Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, Swans'
Michael Gira and Jonathan Kane, and the Modern Lovers' Ernie
Brooks, many of whom appear here-- was an early student of and
member in Chatham's New York ensembles. This exhausting,
exhilarating collection, though, should confirm both Chatham
and "Guitar Trio" as staples in the rock and 20th cenury
composition canons. At the very least, from the first E note
to the last E chord three hours later, it proves that Chatham
-- also significant for his curatorial role at New York's The
Kitchen in the 70s and in the establishment of No Wave later
that decade-- fucking rocks.
The "Guitar Trio" score is deceptively simple: "In this
century, it has never taken more than an hour to teach 'Guitar
Trio' to everyone's satisfaction and comfort level," Chatham
wrote in the score notes circulated for the 2007 tour
documented by Guitar Trio Is My Life! "So please don't worry
about anything." Several guitar players gather around a
drummer and an electric bassist. Their amps are clean, loud,
and high on treble. The drummer counts off, and Chatham strums
an open low E string, his rhythm a bit like a jumpy 60s Brit
Invasion tune. The drummer plays a cantering, steady rhythm
restricted to the hi-hat. One by one, Chatham signals each
guitarist to join. The bassist enters. After several minutes,
Chatham begins strumming the top three strings and then
signals each guitarist to do the same. Later, Chatham begins
strumming all six strings, fretting only the second string to
B. Eventually everyone stops playing except the drummer, still
using only hi-hat, and Chatham, again playing one string. The
entire process repeats, and it's generally a bit briefer the
second time around. The music fades out with a final chord
played on a conclusive downbeat. Chatham announces the
ensemble, bows, turns to his band, and starts again in the
exact same way. Except this time, the drummer is given use of
his full kit, especially the snare and kick drums. The only
previous version of "Guitar Trio" (available on the long-since
out-of-print 2002 box set An Angel Moves Too Fast to See and
on the 2006 disc Die Donnerg÷tter) was eight minutes long
(first cycle only). The shortest take on Guitar Trio Is My
Life! is the second Brooklyn cycle, which ends after 16
driving minutes.
But the "Guitar Trio" sound is surprisingly dynamic: Chatham
does not specify when any given player should play above any
given fret or for what length of time. Such inherent
indeterminacy means that what begins as a stately, strummed
guitar pattern begins to mutate and grow into surprising
shapes. This variety of sounds builds cumulatively into a
thick swath of high and low overtones bouncing off of each
other like long-lost kin at a crowded family reunion. All of
the sounds are made from the same E string or E chord, but
none of them are exactly the same. By the time "Guitar Trio"
hits its six-string segment, it's as thick as a furious
blizzard. When the notes really come down, it's beautiful and
overwhelming.
Still, 10 versions of the same 16-to-30 minute piece of music?
Boring, right? Perhaps were it not for the musicians included
here-- from members of Tortoise, Sonic Youth, and Thee Silver
Mt. Zion to an unknown but incredible Buffalo drummer named
Jim Abramson, who gloriously mauls his 21 minutes of Table of
the Elements time on Disc One. "Guitar Trio" ingests
individual talents and funnels them into a composition loose
enough for new ideas but tough enough to test physical and
mental limits: On the full-drum version from Toronto, then,
you get a six-piece string section (including Final Fantasy's
Owen Pallet), thickening the guitar sound into a viscous
smear. But after the one-string turnaround, it sounds like
Chatham's worn them out. Same for Tortoise's John McEntire,
who turns in the best brass-only drumming with his Chicago
performance, riding his hi-hat with impeccable time and
finesse. But he gets lost inside the nine-guitar storm on the
full-kit version, unlike improvisational heavyweight and
Collections of Colonies of Bees drummer Jon Mueller. Like he
does on this year's solo drum Table of the Elements release
Metals, Mueller rattles speakers from the frame. His kick drum
and heavy snare slap fearlessly. They lash at the six guitars
like the only way out is revenge. Same for Ernie Brooks'
bristling bass pops on the second set from Brooklyn: With a
rhythmic sense that sounds like whiplash must feel, he folds
his own aesthetic beneath Chatham's masterful umbrella work.
When considered alongside Chatham's statement that he can
teach anyone this piece in an hour, such variety is
exhilarating. "Guitar Trio" was composed after Chatham, then a
New York composer taking a somewhat academic approach to
minimalism, saw the Ramones play CBGB. Their music shocked him
into redirecting his sonic approach within his own pre-
existing ideas. The result is glorious, one-chord, electro-
orchestral, garage-band minimalism. Anyone can learn this
music. Anyone can play this music. Anyone can enjoy this
music, rhythmically and tonally electrified as it is. This is
a popular inroad for both understanding and participating in
sound fields generally relegated to academia. "Guitar Trio"
suggests infinite possibilities for this music, for all music,
really: If you can combine basic "punk" ideas with basic
"classical" ideas to create something that will forever alter
the shape of both memes (see Sonic Youth and Glenn Branca),
what can't you do?
(http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/49191-
guitar-trio-is-my-life)
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cd1
01-Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Brooklyn [19:27]
02-Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Chicago [23:35]
03-Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Buffalo [21:15]
cd2
01-Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Toronto [19:20]
02-Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Montreal [22:24]
03-Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Cleveland [16:35]
04-Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Minneapolis (excerpt) [06:45]
cd3
01-Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Milwaukee [19:04]
02-Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Chicago [30:23]
03-Guitar Trio Pt. 2, Brooklyn [16:27]
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