More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
11 May
That review (on 29 June 2009) (of the opening Troyka album by Martin Longley, which I talked about before) goes like this (with my added numbering in parenthesis - so that I can add facetious comments...) :
A transgressive sound, full of bent notes and shiny contortions
Troyka are yet another young London combo who are inhabiting (1) the increas-ingly (2) vibrant scene that's devoted to the uninhibited collision between jazz, rock, free improvisation and funky jamming. They're beaming off into a completely different direc-tion when compared to the work of keyboardist Kit Downes' previous band, Empirical. Downes has so far (3) been heard as an acoustic pianist, but in this setting (4) he concentrates on the organ, cranked up to its grittiest settings (5).
Troyka's other two members are not so familiar (6) on the jazz scene, but they're certainly empowered to excite (7). Guitarist Chris Montague and drummer Joshua Blackmore add to the forceful jazz-rock judder, with spiny constructions and shifty beats, as Downes jams (8)out on his electro-warbled keys. It's a transgressive sound, full of bent notes and shiny contortions (9), erupting with powerchords (10) and prog rock organ bursts, and even featuring the odd dose of bluesy bottleneck slide guitar.
The opening pair of tracks are so profoundly excessive in their pursuit of leaden riffage (11) that, for a while, subsequent (12) pieces can't help but feel restfully in-active by comparison. Tax Return contorts around an organ susurrus, with guitar that's by turns prickly and overloaded. It's not surprising that New Yorker Wayne Krantz is cited by the band as a heavy influence. The Frenchman Marc Ducret could be another contender as a guitaring forefather. Blackmore's drum patterns are highly detailed, the Troyka combination ending up as being at once avant (13) and visceral. The chunky organ flamboyance can't help but remind the listener of Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge. Even mightier, Clint must surely be dedicated to Mister Eastwood in Dirty Harry guise, with its extremely weighty powerchords (14) and bassy overhang (15).
The itchy time signatures continue (16), but most of the heavy artillery is reserved now until the album's closing tracks. A sinister bass padding dominates Bear, then Cajoch gets into some fidgety clenching (17). Twelve rains organ droplets, with a guitar that arcs up from vibrato-ed pings to the return of that earlier scalding sensation (18). The granite riffing (19) is sustained during Born In The 80s (20), but it's now alternating with a glowing sensitivity (21). With Noonian Song, Montague is getting into Krantz via the arcane tunings of composer Harry Partch, or maybe even the bendy tonalities of Fred Frith's table-top guitars.
The Agent's facetious comments
(1) Can one 'inhabit [... a] scene' ?
(2) Is the word 'increasingly' increasingly used when someone wants to claim some-thing is happening more - without telling you how much ?
(3) Is it obvious that this phrase is meant to mean when Downes was playing with Empirical ?
(4) Isn't 'setting' a word more used to describe a venue (or a venue's features) than a 'combo' ?
(5) Clumsy repetition of 'setting' ?
(6) Does this mean (a) 'less familiar', or (b) 'less familiar than Downes' ?
(7) Authorized to titillate ? Licensed to kill ?
(8) Overused (also in the first paragraph) ?
(9) We may know what a duck-billed platypus is, but what are 'shiny contortions' ?
(10) Whatever they may be - heavy note-clusters ?
(11) Is Leaden Riffage a village in Kent (a twin to Granite Riffing - please see (21), below) ?
(12) Posh way of saying 'later pieces' ?
(13) Posh way of saying 'before' ?
(14) Does repeating the 'word' (please see (10), above) help ?
(15) Huh ? A medical condition ?
(16) Whatever their itchiness may comprise, did I know that they'd started ?
(17) Couldn't they get some ointment for it ?!
(18) Which 'earlier scalding sensation' was that ?
(19) Eh ?!
(20) It may be intentional to confuse verbiage with the names of tracks (e.g. 'A sinis-ter bass padding dominates Bear, then Cajoch gets into some fidgety clenching'), but why does the track listing render this one as 'Born in the 80's' (apostrophe and fewer capitals) ?
(21) Is (a) the way in which the 'granite riffing' alternates glowingly sensitive, or (b) are some sections 'granite riffing' and alternating ones 'a glowing sensitivity'... ?
All in all, that panel in the talk on Music journalism in the 21st century might lead one to believe that a piece published by the BBC wouldn't be open to any such criticism - as I say, are they just protecting their backs, but not seeing the onslaught of those who write appreciations of live or recorded music in a different way from a traditional review ?
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