Friday, September 5th, 2008 ... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

(Return to playlists.)

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.

* Matt Ulery's Loom -- "Good Morning" -- Music Box Ballerina (Woolgathering, 2008)

Quite a poppish sound, almost more like instrumental indie rock with plentiful horn parts. Melodic without being cloying. I like what I've heard so far.

Zach Brock on violin adds some agile and airy soloing, and maybe a bit of a circus/cabaret touch. There's definitely some old-world Europe baked into these tunes, and the image of a music-box ballerina is a good one for summarizing the sound. It's artsy, yet playful like a toy.

Definitely an NPR/ECM sheen, ear-pleasing and mature, on tracks like Liguria. (It's the effect of those sturdy yet soothing piano lines, the kind Keith Jarrett does so well.)

A two-CD set that lets you really experience the trio stretching out. Mehldau plays in a mainstream mellow mode, but his live show pulls the songs like taffy into 15-minute improvisatory journeys. This track, composed by Percy Heath, ends with a nice long drum solo from Jeff Ballard.

Much more detail available on this blog.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Todd Sickafoose -- "Future Flora" -- Tiny Resistors (Cryptogramophone, 2008)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Phil Minton, Yagihashi Tsukasa, Sato Yukie, Higo Hiroshi -- [untitled track 4] -- Nippara/Tokyo (Austin, 2008)

Previously noted here.

Creative duets with instruments all over the place -- trumpet, acoustic guitar, drums, keyboards, banjo, vocals. This particular track is mostly two saxophones, sometimes with a keyboard-generated big-band chord, with a mood teetering between straight jazz and abstract improv.

Overall, the album's got an airy feel that reminds me of a less lush Eberhard Weber, particularly with the soft wordless vocals on "Olive" or the pleasant acoustic guitar of "Little Man on the Boat." Things get more experimental with the drums and nontraditional sax of "Folk Song" and the droney buzz intro of "A Long Way from Beacon Hill." Not every track is to my taste -- "Koyaya" is a bit too pop-jazz, and the ironically titled "Folk Song" is an improv that works well but doesn't grab me, if that makes any sense.

* Christopher Adler -- "Signals Intelligence" -- Ecstatic Volutions in a Neon Haze (Innova, 2007)

A varied album of modern classical pieces. The title track and "Iris" use a chamber ensemble to pace through some near-minimalist work with a pillowy feel. The title track is inspired by Terry Riley's "In C," in particular.

"Signals Intelligence" is a solo percussion piece played on some kind of wood block, possibly. It's got a nifty, rapid sound. "Liber Pulveris" is for solo acoustic guitar, and "I Want To Believe" is an avant-jazzy sax/piano duet.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Francois Carrier, Michel Lambert, Jean-Jacques Avenal -- "Core" [excerpt] -- Within (Leo Records, 2008)

* William Parker -- "Morning Mantra" [excerpt] -- Double Sunrise over Neptune (AUM Fidelity, 2008)

Previously noted here.

* Kyle Maclachlan -- [Side 1, excerpt] -- Diane ... The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2008)

Actually, I'm assuming this is a recent release, but it makes more sense to think S&S must have put it out years ago, when Twin Peaks was fresher in the memory. If you recall the show, Maclachlan's Agent Cooper was always taking notes into a tape recorder, presumably to send back to "Diane" in the home office. These are those tapes! Plus some additional material recorded by Maclachlan for this project. S&S even released them on cassette.

Whether new or not, this was recently acquired into the KZSU library and quickly became one of the most popular recordings in rotation. Huzzah!

Randomly, I'll note that Maclachlan's one appearance hosting Saturday Night Live was just hilarious, and it's a shame he doesn't get to do more comedy.

Pauline Oliveros -- "A Woman Sees How the World Sees with No Eyes" -- V/A: Musiques Sumbergides (Nova Era, 2002)

Carl Stone -- "Hop Ken" -- Four Pieces (Electro-Acoutic, 1989)

Oliveros and Stone are the featured performers for the closing night of this year's San Francisco Electronic Music Festival." The Oliveros piece is a nice electronics tapestry. Stone's "Four Pieces" consists of works created on a Macintosh computer in the '80s, when the idea was still fresh and the capabilities relatively limited. It's got a cut-and-paste feel that was probably startling 20 years ago and feels a bit dated now. Like most artists, Stone is probably not thrilled to hear "My child can do that" comparisons, especially when advances in computers have made it dangerously true. Of course, he's moved ahead with the times, but I can't help but wonder what he thinks of these old pieces today.

* Robert Ashley -- "Act III: Questions and Answers" -- Now Eleanor's Idea (Lovely, 2007)

* Bloom Project -- "Shattered Eventide" -- Prismatic Season (Edgetone, 2008)

* Fire Room -- "When Water Burns Air" -- Broken Music (Atavistic, 2008)

Oof! Both "Fire Room" and "Broken Music" are adequate phrases for this Ken Vandermark band, a trio with electronics -- abrasive, ragged-glass, slaps-to-the-face electronics. Next to Vandermark's brusque sax, you get an aggressive sparring session. Great stuff.

* = Item in KZSU rotation
! = Pop anomaly
? = Item not in KZSU library

-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.