haunting new album from MATT KREFTING, “Recitals” (KSE #266)

MATT KREFTING

“RECITALS” (CDR album, KSE #266)

issued November 2014

$8 US postpaid / $11 elsewhere postpaid

payment via paypal to DJANGO5722(at)YAHOO(dot)COM

We’re honored to be releasing a second album from cutting-edge musical renaissance man MATT KREFTING, whose previous KSE album “Sweet Days of Discipline” was widely praised and widely enjoyed. Matt is well-known in the underground for his pioneering work with SON OF EARTH, and he’s also released widely different but equally fascinating albums on such essential labels as KYE and CHOCOLATE MONK. Although record stores might be tempted to put Krefting releases in the noise/drone/bricolage/musique concrete stack (if, indeed, there IS such a stack), there is always a purity of sound, an elegance, and a kind of going back to antiquated roots in his music….hmmm, is there such a thing as rococo post-modernism?

There is always a deep conceptual base to Matt’s albums, although it’s often felt and sensed rather than explicitly stated. With RECITALS, Mr. Krefting has chosen to investigate the world of amateur music recitals, the kind of thing perhaps best exemplified by nephew Jimmy’s fourth grade performance of a Chopin piece at the elementary school talent show. There is an authenticity to such a performance, a raw rickety beauty that today’s jaded ironists often fail to catch, a fumbling yet hyper-real sincerity, and a unique quality to both the environment in which the performance takes place and the function of the audience of family members, family friends, and schoolteachers. As Matt describes it, “they are coached and prodded, then are subject to a bizarre mixture of unrealistic scrutiny and unconditional appreciation that ceases entirely to exist once they reach adulthood….There is such an amazing tension in the sweaty-palmed fumbling of the parent’s hands against the microphone of the video camera as they film their young one offering up the fruits of their labor….RECITALS is a teasing apart of these hopes and fears.”

The source material comes from a combination of found recital material, original music of Matt’s creation and commissioned material, but the pedigree of the tree matters little when the master carpenter fashions the wood into an Art Deco cabinet in his workshop, and we are in the hands of a master craftsman with Mr. Krefting.

I know, from keeping in touch with Matt over the months of this album’s creation, that a lot of thought and a lot of time-consuming re-fashioning and editing and tweaking went on after the basic album was completed, but Matt labored over the handiwork until the gongs resonated at just the right frequency, so to speak.

And the programming of the album is brilliant, again clearly the result of a lot of thought. The first two tracks (of nine total) ground us in a somewhat known reality, but beginning with track three, we are taken off the main highway, in the dark, on unlit back-country roads in an unknown territory. I dare anyone to predict where this album is headed, once it starts to kick in. Krefting is the captain of this sound-ship, and he’s taking us on a kind of magical mystery voyage into waters not found on any map. Truly, this is a HAUNTING album, an album of great beauty, a work that is sweet-and-sour, a work that has a delicious sense of melancholy. I don’t think it’s like anything else around. The world is a more interesting place because Matt Krefting is an artist working in it…and using chunks FROM IT in the creation of his work.

Also, there aren’t a hell of a lot of people around who can simultaneously be a featured artist in the Mimaroglu Music experimental music catalog AND  sing you a deep and heartfelt version of a George Jones song in a way that can break your heart…MK is one of a kind, and we at KSE are proud to offer you this haunting and unique creation, RECITALS.

Don’t delay in getting your copy, as it’s an edition of 133 copies….

$8 US postpaid / $11 elsewhere postpaid

payment via paypal to DJANGO5722(at)YAHOO(dot)COM     please mention “Krefting” or KSE #266 w/ your order and also provide your mailing address (which Paypal sometimes fails to….thanks)

photo: Jaime Pagana

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OTHER   KSE  CDR’s  NOW AVAILABLE: 

full-sized CDR’s ($8.00 each, ppd. in US—outside US $11 )

ALL ARE AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

new releases for 2014:

KSE #291 (CDR),  MARCUS M. RUBIO, “Cities Sinking Down”

KSE #286 (CDR ), FOSSILS, “The Cardigan Hour” (limited to 48 copies, a co-release w/ Middle James Co.)

KSE #289 (CDR) A. J. KAUFMANN, “Stoned Gypsy Wanderer”

KSE #285 (CDR) SMOKEY EMERY (aka Daniel Hipolito), “Live At The Hideout Theatre”       

KSE #288 (CDR, spoken-word poetry), BILL SHUTE, “Worried Men and Wooden Soldiers: Bill Shute reads selected 2013-2014 poems,”  produced by Marcus Rubio

KSE #275 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH, “China Collection”

KSE #281 (CDR), FOSSILS, “Wooly Bully” (a co-release with Middle James Co., only 20 copies available from KSE)

KSE #279 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Wistful Entrance, Wistful Exit”

KSE #274 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE/TIM GREEN/MAX FOWLER-ROY, “Relentless Communion”

KSE #257 (CDR),  ALFRED 23 HARTH, “Micro-Saxo-Phone, Edition  IV.”

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and coming  later in 2014 (not available yet)….

mid-late DEC:     KSE #284 (CDR), BRENT FARISS, “Folk Song For 27 Oboes”

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note: earlier KSE releases from MATT KREFTING (all out of print now):

KSE #259, THE PRINCESS OF KNIGHT AVENUE (poetry chapbook)

KSE #220, SWEET DAYS OF DISCIPLINE (CDR album)

KSE #272, POLYMORPHOUS URBAN: POEMS FOR LOU REED (poetry chapbook, includes poems by MK, Jim D. Deuchars, Michael Layne Heath, Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, A. J. Kaufmann)

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as always, thank you for your support of independent arts collectives such as KSE…and of unclassifiable original artists such as MATT KREFTING…