Post by Zapp Brannigan on Mar 15, 2011 21:59:49 GMT -5
www.lifessweetbreath.com/reviews/albums/43-new-history-warfare-vol-2-judges.html
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges
[Constellation, 2011]
83%
Here’s the sequence of events:
-February 22nd - Saxophonist Colin Stetson releases his newest solo album, New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges.
-March 11th - an 8.9 earthquake brings northern Japan to its collective knees, with threats of tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns in the aftermath.
-March 12th - someone posts to YouTube a sequence from Akira Kurosawa’s 1990 film Dreams, a nightmare from the legendary director’s own subconscious titled “Mount Fuji in Red”, involving nuclear meltdowns, a volcanic eruption, and utter despair.
-March 14th - I sit at my computer and innocently give Stetson’s album a listen while also curiously clicking on a YouTube link posted by a Facebook friend. The combination of Mount Fuji burning a crimson rage and Laurie Anderson intoning, “What war was this? What town could this be?”, induces a minor mental breakdown.
I don’t care to dwell any further on the significance of such ominous coincidences, for fear of relapse. What I will say is that Stetson has used his saxophone as a mouthpiece (sometimes literally) to, like the prophets of old, deliver a stunning exhortation to heed the signs of the time.
These Old Testament metaphors are unavoidable, but, to be fair, Stetson started it. By subtitling the album Judges, he is clearly alluding to a time in Israelite history when a revolving door of leaders barely kept the volatile people from culminating in their own meltdown. With the seemingly constant threat of divine wrath raining down, and an uncertainly of how to avoid it, those troubled times seem to cast a shadow long enough to darken the 21st century. Look at those horses on the album cover: their colors strongly indicate a certain apocalyptic prophecy from the final pages of the Bible, don’t they? And if not that, then what else could the significance be? From Kurosawa’s nightmare: “The red one is plutonium-239... the yellow one is stronium-90...”
Stetson takes this allusion almost to the point of trading in his sax for a shofar. Even still, this is much more than a novelty album where a guy uses the sound of tapping brass keys as percussive accompaniment. Stetson, while stunningly gifted, is entirely unorthodox in his techniques, let alone his instrumentation—Judges is just his beastly basses, tenors and altos (recorded live, with no overdubs, loops or second takes), plus guest vocals from Anderson and Shara Worden. All over this record are the fingerprints of Ben Frost (mixing) and A Silver Mt. Zion’s Efram Menuck (recording), two brilliant musicians with less-than-cheerful philosophies. The heart of it remains Stetson’s solo sax work: his tapestry of simultaneous taps, hums, and squeals forces the listener into an uncomfortable place of false familiarity.
Perhaps it should be familiar, because cataclysmic suffering is not new to this planet or its inhabitants. History repeats itself, and always will, and perhaps the summation will look like tiny, little repeated patterns, like Stetson’s fluttering ostinatos.
Or perhaps I just shouldn’t watch every video that my friends post on Facebook. Beware the Ides of March, indeed.
-Steve Mathewes, March 14th, 2011
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges
[Constellation, 2011]
83%
Here’s the sequence of events:
-February 22nd - Saxophonist Colin Stetson releases his newest solo album, New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges.
-March 11th - an 8.9 earthquake brings northern Japan to its collective knees, with threats of tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns in the aftermath.
-March 12th - someone posts to YouTube a sequence from Akira Kurosawa’s 1990 film Dreams, a nightmare from the legendary director’s own subconscious titled “Mount Fuji in Red”, involving nuclear meltdowns, a volcanic eruption, and utter despair.
-March 14th - I sit at my computer and innocently give Stetson’s album a listen while also curiously clicking on a YouTube link posted by a Facebook friend. The combination of Mount Fuji burning a crimson rage and Laurie Anderson intoning, “What war was this? What town could this be?”, induces a minor mental breakdown.
I don’t care to dwell any further on the significance of such ominous coincidences, for fear of relapse. What I will say is that Stetson has used his saxophone as a mouthpiece (sometimes literally) to, like the prophets of old, deliver a stunning exhortation to heed the signs of the time.
These Old Testament metaphors are unavoidable, but, to be fair, Stetson started it. By subtitling the album Judges, he is clearly alluding to a time in Israelite history when a revolving door of leaders barely kept the volatile people from culminating in their own meltdown. With the seemingly constant threat of divine wrath raining down, and an uncertainly of how to avoid it, those troubled times seem to cast a shadow long enough to darken the 21st century. Look at those horses on the album cover: their colors strongly indicate a certain apocalyptic prophecy from the final pages of the Bible, don’t they? And if not that, then what else could the significance be? From Kurosawa’s nightmare: “The red one is plutonium-239... the yellow one is stronium-90...”
Stetson takes this allusion almost to the point of trading in his sax for a shofar. Even still, this is much more than a novelty album where a guy uses the sound of tapping brass keys as percussive accompaniment. Stetson, while stunningly gifted, is entirely unorthodox in his techniques, let alone his instrumentation—Judges is just his beastly basses, tenors and altos (recorded live, with no overdubs, loops or second takes), plus guest vocals from Anderson and Shara Worden. All over this record are the fingerprints of Ben Frost (mixing) and A Silver Mt. Zion’s Efram Menuck (recording), two brilliant musicians with less-than-cheerful philosophies. The heart of it remains Stetson’s solo sax work: his tapestry of simultaneous taps, hums, and squeals forces the listener into an uncomfortable place of false familiarity.
Perhaps it should be familiar, because cataclysmic suffering is not new to this planet or its inhabitants. History repeats itself, and always will, and perhaps the summation will look like tiny, little repeated patterns, like Stetson’s fluttering ostinatos.
Or perhaps I just shouldn’t watch every video that my friends post on Facebook. Beware the Ides of March, indeed.
-Steve Mathewes, March 14th, 2011
