Glenn Kotche -- Mobile (Part 2 of 2)
Glenn Kotche
Mobile
Nonesuch; 2006
Rating: 8.8
Disclaimer: Before I talk about how much I really have enjoyed listening to this album for the past few weeks, I must first issue a warning to a potentially uninitiated listener. This is a solo, instrumental, percussion album. And yes, you read that correctly. There is only Mr. Kotche playing the instruments, creating the arrangements, and crafting the original songs. There are no guitars, basses, keyboards, or any other components of traditional pop music. There is a quite liberal use of a wide variety of percussion pieces (both acoustic and electronically-modified), ranging from kalimbas, snare drums, floor toms, bass drums, cymbals of various sizes & thicknesses, and struck springs amongst others. This is late-20th century minimalism run amok, and it’s quite beautiful.
But placing the details of that disclaimer aside for a bit, I really didn’t know what to expect from this album when I heard word of its impending release. I was familiar with breadth, depth, and complexity of Kotche’s work as Wilco’s drummer for the past few years, having recording the seminal Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the slightly disappointing A Ghost is Born (though it had good moments like “Theologians”), and the recently released and quite wonderful live album, Kicking Television. I knew this guy was a good drummer, a great drummer, one who had recorded two solo albums previous to Mobile, but I was unprepared for what I began to hear emanating from my speakers. You have this one idea of how the world should be, yet the world continues to throw you curveballs – the songs on this album sound nothing like anything Wilco has ever recorded, even as “experimental” as Wilco has been for the last 5 years.
However, so that I don’t bore you with a track-by-track synopsis of the album, allow me to discourse upon two select songs and how they each are representative of the imagination and creativity that flow freely through this record. On Parts 1 & 2 of the title track, “Mobile,” the piece begins with a series of electronic pulses merged with plucked strings that slowly moves into the conflict and cohesion between three kalimba melodies. The warring, yet interconnected, sounds fill the spaces by emanating, ebbing, and flowing with abandon, representing Kotche’s stated hope in his liner notes to reveal “the unintentional rhythm of the spaces – that is, the rhythm of what isn’t there.” On Part 3 of “Mobile” (which is actually receives a separate track listing from Parts 1 & 2), Kotche records what is most likely the most traditional sounding drum kit-produced melody on the album, but when ran through a processor, the beats and breaks clash and collide with a dark piano line, creating what could easily be the template for a Radiohead B-side.
The other standout track is the 11-minute interpretation through modified drum kit of the ancient and revered Hindu folktale Ramayana. The song is entitled “Monkey Chant,” and is so named after the Kecak, the traditional Balinese performance of the Ramayana by a large male choir. Kotche, on the liner notes, gives a detailed breakdown of which noise or sound represents which main character in the story, along with a timeline of the song’s progression, following the story’s chronology. Springs rattle, high-hats clench and unclench, thick drums are pounded upon, cymbals ring loudly, and electronic pads squawk, as an intense, driving, almost manic rhythm is maintained by this talented drummer. In many ways, “Monkey Chant” earns the rightful title of “story-song.” Instruments are called into action as voices for each player – they converse, argue, debate, cajole, and rebuke each other. The song runs counter to traditional attempts to use words to tell a story, yet succeeds wildly in conveying exactly the emotional and psychological course of the tale. I couldn’t have done it – could you?
When added to my Mac’s iTunes library, Mobile arrives on my screen listed under the genre of “Classical” and I didn’t agree with the designation whatsoever. Of course, when I then look through the standard genre options on iTunes, I am unable to locate another choice that best describes what Kotche has created. There’s not even a chance to select “Instrumental,” unless I typed it in myself, and I don’t have the time to change all of the settings on each song.
Anyway, regardless of my issues with iTunes and its inability to describe the music in my library, Mobile is replete with experimentation of how to create sound and how to mold those numerous sounds into an understandable and sonically digestible whole. My only complaint with the album is that there are a few occasions (specifically on the song “Individual Trains”) where the line between the avant-garde tweaking of sounds and the crafting of well-designed, yet still left-of-center, pieces of music is blurred a bit too messily. As inaccessible as solo, instrumental, percussion album already is, I wish that Glenn had honed the direction of the sounds a bit more finely. However, I’m not here to quibble with his manipulation of his music – this was an exquisitely written album that any true student of music should be able to appreciate and be compelled to include in their personal music library.
Mobile
Nonesuch; 2006
Rating: 8.8
Disclaimer: Before I talk about how much I really have enjoyed listening to this album for the past few weeks, I must first issue a warning to a potentially uninitiated listener. This is a solo, instrumental, percussion album. And yes, you read that correctly. There is only Mr. Kotche playing the instruments, creating the arrangements, and crafting the original songs. There are no guitars, basses, keyboards, or any other components of traditional pop music. There is a quite liberal use of a wide variety of percussion pieces (both acoustic and electronically-modified), ranging from kalimbas, snare drums, floor toms, bass drums, cymbals of various sizes & thicknesses, and struck springs amongst others. This is late-20th century minimalism run amok, and it’s quite beautiful.
But placing the details of that disclaimer aside for a bit, I really didn’t know what to expect from this album when I heard word of its impending release. I was familiar with breadth, depth, and complexity of Kotche’s work as Wilco’s drummer for the past few years, having recording the seminal Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the slightly disappointing A Ghost is Born (though it had good moments like “Theologians”), and the recently released and quite wonderful live album, Kicking Television. I knew this guy was a good drummer, a great drummer, one who had recorded two solo albums previous to Mobile, but I was unprepared for what I began to hear emanating from my speakers. You have this one idea of how the world should be, yet the world continues to throw you curveballs – the songs on this album sound nothing like anything Wilco has ever recorded, even as “experimental” as Wilco has been for the last 5 years.
However, so that I don’t bore you with a track-by-track synopsis of the album, allow me to discourse upon two select songs and how they each are representative of the imagination and creativity that flow freely through this record. On Parts 1 & 2 of the title track, “Mobile,” the piece begins with a series of electronic pulses merged with plucked strings that slowly moves into the conflict and cohesion between three kalimba melodies. The warring, yet interconnected, sounds fill the spaces by emanating, ebbing, and flowing with abandon, representing Kotche’s stated hope in his liner notes to reveal “the unintentional rhythm of the spaces – that is, the rhythm of what isn’t there.” On Part 3 of “Mobile” (which is actually receives a separate track listing from Parts 1 & 2), Kotche records what is most likely the most traditional sounding drum kit-produced melody on the album, but when ran through a processor, the beats and breaks clash and collide with a dark piano line, creating what could easily be the template for a Radiohead B-side.
The other standout track is the 11-minute interpretation through modified drum kit of the ancient and revered Hindu folktale Ramayana. The song is entitled “Monkey Chant,” and is so named after the Kecak, the traditional Balinese performance of the Ramayana by a large male choir. Kotche, on the liner notes, gives a detailed breakdown of which noise or sound represents which main character in the story, along with a timeline of the song’s progression, following the story’s chronology. Springs rattle, high-hats clench and unclench, thick drums are pounded upon, cymbals ring loudly, and electronic pads squawk, as an intense, driving, almost manic rhythm is maintained by this talented drummer. In many ways, “Monkey Chant” earns the rightful title of “story-song.” Instruments are called into action as voices for each player – they converse, argue, debate, cajole, and rebuke each other. The song runs counter to traditional attempts to use words to tell a story, yet succeeds wildly in conveying exactly the emotional and psychological course of the tale. I couldn’t have done it – could you?
When added to my Mac’s iTunes library, Mobile arrives on my screen listed under the genre of “Classical” and I didn’t agree with the designation whatsoever. Of course, when I then look through the standard genre options on iTunes, I am unable to locate another choice that best describes what Kotche has created. There’s not even a chance to select “Instrumental,” unless I typed it in myself, and I don’t have the time to change all of the settings on each song.
Anyway, regardless of my issues with iTunes and its inability to describe the music in my library, Mobile is replete with experimentation of how to create sound and how to mold those numerous sounds into an understandable and sonically digestible whole. My only complaint with the album is that there are a few occasions (specifically on the song “Individual Trains”) where the line between the avant-garde tweaking of sounds and the crafting of well-designed, yet still left-of-center, pieces of music is blurred a bit too messily. As inaccessible as solo, instrumental, percussion album already is, I wish that Glenn had honed the direction of the sounds a bit more finely. However, I’m not here to quibble with his manipulation of his music – this was an exquisitely written album that any true student of music should be able to appreciate and be compelled to include in their personal music library.
posted by APN at 9:10 PM
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