March 17, 2013
March 10, 2013
new album “Return: The Journey” (KSE #251) from Boston trumpeter-composer Forbes Graham
FORBES GRAHAM
“Return: The Journey” (KSE #251, cdr album)
$8 US/ $10 elsewhere, postpaid
payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com please include note indicating what items you are ordering
the new album from the acclaimed Boston trumpeter-composer
Although I had seen his name in print before, Boston-based trumpeter-composer Forbes Graham’s music first entered my world with the stunning 2010 album ESSENCES, a series of duets with percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, seven tracks recorded in 2008, each inspired by a particular scent, or “essence.’ Graham’s jaw-dropping mastery of extended techniques, his repertoire of textures, his rich conception of sound-in-space….I was blown away, and the album was high on my best of the year list for 2010. I sent that list to Mr. Graham, and as I wanted to hear more of his work and to share that work far and wide, I invited him to record a new album for CDR release on Kendra Steiner Editions…..he graciously accepted, and the result is RETURN: THE JOURNEY (KSE #251)
RETURN: THE JOURNEY is an almost-hour-long excursion through different terrains in each of the eight tracks. As the album begins, we’re taken into some anonymous space with distant coughs and creaks and footsteps and speech just beyond our reach, but that pulls us into the space, making it quite specific, and while this is happening abstract smears of heartbeat-funk electronics and crinkling percussion provide the listener with a sense of the life force present in whatever space we inhabit. Track two brings Forbes’ trumpet into the scene, darting and querying and engaging in a dance with the electronics (all sounds by Mr. Graham, by the way), and each track after that takes us into another new territory in sound. There is deep African soil mixed into snippets of contemporary intellectual-speak and sci-fi travels into into the cosmos…in some ways, this is the perfect updating of those areas investigated by Sun Ra and Don Cherry in the previous century. And Graham’s trumpet is a traveler on this journey, along with the listener. You’ll hear echoes of players as diverse as cornetist/trumpeter Tricky Sam Nanton, of the early Ellington years, to the pure-sound explorations through extended techniques of trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff. However, it’s fair to say that the album highlights Graham the composer and painter-in-sound, as opposed to being an instrumental blowout.
A writer is never supposed to say that “this album seems longer than it is,” but this one DOES in the sense that you lose all sense of time. It may clock in at around an hour, but the depth of the material and the breadth of the journey are such that I could have just spent an afternoon with the album. Near the album’s close, on the track “Walkthrough: National Portrait Gallery” we are once again knee-deep in site-specific environmental sound, as if we are “touching down” again on the ground before taking off again on the final track with “Black Starships Executing Spacefold Operations.”
Forbes Graham has delivered us a fascinating album that really cannot be put comfortably into any genre. The man’s compositional skill sits alongside his instrumental skills and spontaneity, and the found-materials of contemporary life, which act as a kind of seasoning and thickener in this 21st Century gumbo. And there’s always that hint of abstract funk in the background, almost like a trace element in a homeopathic mixture–more of an echo than a physical presence.
Listeners who appreciate modern composition, field recordings, free-improv, and audio collage will find RETURN: THE JOURNEY a fascinating trip, one that they will return to often. Forbes Graham is working in his own unique territory here—I can’t think of anyone who combines elements the way he does. It will be exciting to hear the new directions he’ll venture into on his next album…and the one after that…
I usually don’t quote the artist’s verbatim statements on the music unless s/he requests it, but Graham’s comments on this album are so clear that they can only be weakened by paraphrase, so I’m going to quote in full his take on the album: “Returning is the process of traveling to a destination that represents sincerity, humility, and quiet dignity. Therefore, my task is to produce music and sound that as honestly represents my feelings and thoughts as possible. The travel is that exploration through different fields, ideas, and genres within the framework of some sort of overarching idea. Whatever I do, in my own way, I try to keep it funky, which is probably most notable on a track like “We Got It”. But the whole album drips with a feeling of sci-fi future funk. It never can hurt to be funky, and sometimes we need the release and escape of imagining fantastical other worlds.”
Forbes Graham is a trumpet player, composer, and electronic musician based in Boston. He has performed and or recorded across North America and Europe with David Gross, Rakalam Bob Moses, Joe Morris, Luther Gray, Jim Hobbs, Raqib Hassan, Syd Smart, Birgit Ulher, Leonel Kaplan, Jack Wright, Tatsuya Nakatani, Daniel Levin, Ras Moshe, Laurence Cook, Jacob William, Cooper-Moore, Darius Jones, Sabir Mateen, Pandelis Karayorgis, Kevin Frenette and many more wonderful artists.
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Selected FG discography
Interdimensional Science Research Orchestra – Suns of Ra
Forbes Graham – I Won’t Stop
Weasel Walter/Paul Flaherty/Greg Kelley/Forbes Graham – End of the Trail
Weasel Walter/Marc Edwards Group – Blood of the Earth
Tatsuya Nakatani & Forbes Graham – Essences
Construction Party – Instruments of Change
while ordering Forbes Graham’s new album, why not pick up more independent, original, and spellbinding experimental music that you cannot get elsewhere:
KSE #243 (CDR), VENISON WHIRLED (Lisa Cameron), “The Many Moods of Venison Whirled”
KSE #255 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE / LISA CAMERON / LEE DOCKERY, Live at the KSE 6th Anniversary Concert
KSE #239 (CDR), FOSSILS, “Bells and Gulls,”
KSE #254 (CDR), D J I N A Q U A R I A N , SIR PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE & THE HEREAFTER
KSE #235 (CDR), BOOK OF SHADOWS, “Chimaera”
KSE #206 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Emilio “
KSE #222 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE, “Sopranino Solo, “ cover art by MP Landis.
KSE #220 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Sweet Days of Discipline”
KSE #247 (CDR), MARCUS RUBIO & BILL SHUTE, “Only The Imprint Of An Echo Remains” (poetry and electronic music album, recorded in San Antonio, TX)
KSE #237 (CDR), MICHAEL BARRETT & MIKE GRIFFIN, ““Birtual Seme-Alabak” (aka Belltonesuicide and Parashi)
KSE #228 (CDR), UNMOOR, “Night Driver”
KSE #226 (CDR), DEREK ROGERS, “Born Into Systems”
KSE #208 (CDR), ANTHONY GUERRA & BILL SHUTE, “subtraction” (limited USA re-press of CD originally issued on Black Petal Records, Australia)
KSE #214 (CDR), SABRINA SIEGEL,”Bottlecaps”
KSE #238 (CDR), DANIEL HIPOLITO/EVA KELLY/BILL SHUTE, “Fascination”
ALL LIMITED HAND-ASSEMBLED, HAND-NUMBERED HOMEMADE DIY EDITIONS WITH VARYING COVER STOCKS AND INKS, MADE IN TEXAS
$8 each US postpaid/$10 elsewhere for first CDR, $8 each after the first…
payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com please include a note listing which items you are ordering…
COMING SOON:
APRIL-MAY 2013…SPRILLS OF ORE (Eva Kelly)
JUNE-JULY 2013…ALFRED 23 HARTH, Micro-Saxo-Phone: 4
………………..
Traces (from Hours Past Sunset)
TRACES
the assembled singers, shimmering
but set to a moderate heat,
layered on risers
and flanked by baffles,
wordlessly in – ton – ing
color and shade
and blend
and balance
but as humidity
they cannot be seen,
only felt
freshly blown sand
across recent footsteps
somewhere between
Artesia and Alamogordo
over an image sharp and deep
we place a sheet
of tracing paper
stubby, nail-bitten fingers
trying to hold
it in place
the other hand
taking a pencil and copying
the general line
not worrying
about detail
or precision
leaving it all
to texture
and accident
Don’t Look Back
D O N ‘ T L O O K B A C K
I
two lean sixty-watt bulbs
separate, unadorned by bases or covers
hang about a foot from the textured ceiling
(christened with the contents of exploded Coke cans
and rusty water
from unrepaired roof leaks)
of the Live Oak Washateria . the street outside
deserted
save for a few nightshift workers,
expired inspection stickers on their pea-soup
green used cars or
those driving home alone from the last call,
trying , slowly, to stay within those weaving
yellow stripes
three of the seven washers
sit, broken, half-full of dark water
sour-stinking, clouded, they’d be
attracting mosquitoes if any rain
had fallen in the last ten weeks
not enough light to tell
if the clothes are clean
as intended
a quick cigarette (while
sitting outside Marie’s Ethnic Hair Care
next door) fills me with
nicotine courage and animation
while my security-guard uniform and underwear
and socks and two towels
tumble halfway-dry .
leaning forward to read the headlines on
yesterday’s Express-News through
the caged front of the bottle-green
newspaper machine:
Bush vetoes child health insurance plan
*
Mayors along Texas-Mexico border protest
proposed border wall
the uniform must be kept clean
protecting someone else’s property
the lawns mowed
transients shooed away
hedges manicured
soda-straws and Doral filters removed
from the parking lot
back inside among the laundry, talk-radio
bangs the drum slowly and surely,
in heartbeat-like measure , preparing us
for the next overseas invasion and occupation
create enough of an internal storm,
and we’ll shoot out the mirror ,
blissfully unaware sinking into grotesquerie ,
while FoxNews tells us
we’re the fairest of them all
II
this San Antonio crockpot
three-quarters full :
a stew of whispers and gestures
of details and textures
of weeds and warehouses
of haircuts and hemmed jeans
of chlorine and ash
the pre-sunrise remnant, family–
heirs not of this rounded world,
smothering as it sands off our rough edges
into sameness.
No– heirs elevated into
the fullness of time
III
the furniture loosens
the body struggles
the mind’s wiring frays
arms and legs flailing away
against the river
rising to reclaim its own
the web unravels
into lines
of a curvature
so subtle
as to be
unnoticed
***
outside again
towels still not dry
***
arrangement alignment
spilled Budweiser
(beechwood, rice, and gravel)
echo of an echo of
a train’s horn,
falling tonal contours
east of town
moths scurrying in space,
feather-stepping in time,
artificial light distracting them
from night-blooming flowers
and pollination
bending headlights and muffled
car stereos as 4 a.m.
employees arrive at
Taqueria Jalisco #3
two doors down
clicking and droning of
air-conditioners cycling
on and off
from all directions
through the night
pure experience translated
from sensation
into words,
dubbed into English,
the line-readings
not matching the lip movements
or the gestures
or the facial expressions
another one in the sea of faces,
neither unjust nor courageous,
back for another round another shift
another walk on either side of the third rail
another danse macabre around the void
with a glorious pasted-on sh*t-eating grin
The Gun-Metal Moon, Regal
T H E G U N – M E T A L M O O N , R E G A L
streetlights dim
city budget cuts
an overfed
ivory cat
stiffens and
arches its
back at
the crest of
a dry brittle
lawn
as my dog & i
pass
sharper than ever,
focused,
planted amidst
rows of clouds
like strips of
streaky cotton bacon,
the gun-metal moon,
regal,
stands
a symbol
of all we cannot
grasp
or touch
or even approach
oak leaves
blown into murky
arkadian streams
weighted-down
slow –
fall
eventually
suspended, unknowing,
in the sediment
no entries in
the checkbook
for the last twelve
purchases
afraid of what
the balance might
be
stubborn, we
seize and inspect
fabulous shadows
talking them up
running them down
storms from the east,
pass by !!
squirrels walk the perimeter
fences
car salesmen and grocery-store
shelf-stockers
have one more brewski
before the game,
whatever game
someone in a garage
on the other-side of
the alley, of the
kudzu curtain
about a block
away
wrestles with the
basslines of
obsolescent Wire and
Buzzcocks and
Thee Fourgiven tunes
but with time and
with perspective
he’ll master them
and transcend them
and lock arms
with comrades past
and future
before once again losing
himself and finding
balance
in the crowd
running
away from
the alert
blindness
of dreams
neither
casual
nor gracious
watching ourselves
functioning
as imposters
skulking
around corners
and down
dampened hallways
in some alternate
place of sweet ’n’ sour
greys
valet-parking
the cars of
republican felons
in a world
we never
made
gasoline-powered
men in sports-
logo t-shirts
blow leaves
from their
front lawns
into the gutter
before the mail arrives
on saturday afternoon
in south texas
between the interstate
and the air-force base
don’t you
leaves dare
decompose on
MY lawn,
they declare
to themselves
with a sense
of accomplishment
if you’re in the gutter
you’re no longer MY
responsibility
Sequence Blue
S E Q U E N C E B L U E
————————————————————————————————————————–
The storm
fells the power lines
blackens the valley–
when the dogs and the ducks
become silent I’ll worry
Teenage moms in knit caps
their toddlers in snowsuits
using military-green plastic
garbage-can lids as sleds
down the knoll onto the ice
Looking like tanks
state highway trucks
will eventually sand and salt
the icy back roads
that connect when thawed
Sore throat
slowing the pace
injured-wing sparrow
weighted down
with mud
Snow
scraping the
dead skin
off of
yesterday’s heels
An unnamed dog trots
along the unlit shoulder
of the county road
as if he’s got places
to go and things to do
March 2, 2013
“new” poetry chapbook, THROWAWAY B-SIDE (KSE #252), from Bill Shute
THROWAWAY B-SIDE
Bill Shute
KSE #252, poetry chapbook
$5.00 ppd. anywhere ……. payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com
As some of you know, I am working on a book (with Rob Craig) about the films of Jerry Warren. Watching his films multiple times, then for the “patchwork” films watching both the films from which footage was taken AND Warren’s assemblages of both that original footage and his newly-shot footage, one begins to enter the strange somewhat off-kilter world of Warren’s films, and if you are a creator of artistic “product” yourself, you being thinking like Jerry Warren.
(note: the ultimate throwaway b-side, Sticky Sticky…so cynical it’s sublime)
Francis Coppola inhabits the world of Orson Welles and creates Rumblefish. Steven Soderbergh inhabits the world of Alfred Hitchcock and creates Side Effects. Alas, I inhabit the world of Jerry Warren and create THROWAWAY B-SIDE (KSE #252).
In the proud and shameless tradition of THE PILL, CONFESSIONS OF A VICE BARON, and CURSE OF THE STONE HAND…I present to you…THROWAWAY B-SIDE (KSE #252)…the “new” poetry chapbook from Bill Shute.…somewhere between broken arms and broken hearts…
….Kendra Steiner Editions, “happy to be a part of the industry of human happiness”….
….
March 1, 2013
DJIN AQUARIAN & SIR PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE & THE EVERAFTER (KSE #254), live album available now!
D J I N A Q U A R I A N , S I R P L A S T I C C R I M E W A V E & T H E H E R E A F T E R (KSE #254)
Live CDR album, recorded at the Hemlock, San Francisco, 9 October 2011
$8 US postpaid/$11 elsewhere postpaid, payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com
limited, hand-numbered, hand-cut DIY edition of 160 copies in varying ink/paper color combinations….
when they’re gone, they’re gone…
KSE is proud to bring you a raw 40-minute live performance from two of the greats of higher-key psychedelia: from the West Coast, the legendary DJIN AQUARIAN of Ya Ho Wha 13 and the Source Family, and from Chicago, the legendary Sir Plastic Crimewave, with a killer organic rhythm section. Sounding like some non-existent Skydog boot of Ya Ho Wha in their prime (minus Father Yod, of course, though his spirit is certainly in every note), this is music as spiritual practice and ritual. You can’t fake or pre-plan this kind of music. You have to get into that zone, that sacred space, and explore. It grows, slowly, it evolves, it sinks roots and extends its branches, it pulls you in and gets all over you until you are one with the music. In some ways, this is the purest kind of psychedelic music, and it’s great to say that this new album has the same dense organic tribal sound as the Aquarian/PCW duo album on Prophase, but this has the added benefit of being ABSOLUTELY LIVE, with the audience sounds and distortion that only a live performance can deliver. Again, this is an archival recording made on non-professional equipment, but so was METALLIC KO…
I was privileged to see the re-formed Ya Ho Wha 13 in concert in Austin a few years ago (my pic of Djin is below), and it was the ultimate lift-the-bandstand higherkey psych jam, and I grew up listening often to a cassette of their 1974 classic PENETRATION that a friend who was fortunate enough to own a copy made for me, so KSE is honored to keep the circle unbroken and present you ANOTHER album in that great tradition of spiritual travel through cosmic music…
while ordering KSE #254, why not pick up more mind-bending experimental music that you cannot get elsewhere:
KSE #255 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE / LISA CAMERON / LEE DOCKERY, Live at the KSE 6th Anniversary Concert
KSE #239 (CDR), FOSSILS, “Bells and Gulls,”
KSE #251 (CDR), FORBES GRAHAM, “Return: The Journey”
KSE #235 (CDR), BOOK OF SHADOWS, “Chimaera”
KSE #206 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Emilio “
KSE #222 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE, “Sopranino Solo, “ cover art by MP Landis.
KSE #220 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Sweet Days of Discipline”
KSE #247 (CDR), MARCUS RUBIO & BILL SHUTE, “Only The Imprint Of An Echo Remains” (poetry and electronic music album, recorded in San Antonio, TX)
KSE #237 (CDR), MICHAEL BARRETT & MIKE GRIFFIN, ““Birtual Seme-Alabak” (aka Belltonesuicide and Parashi)
KSE #228 (CDR), UNMOOR, “Night Driver”
KSE #226 (CDR), DEREK ROGERS, “Born Into Systems”
KSE #208 (CDR), ANTHONY GUERRA & BILL SHUTE, “subtraction” (limited USA re-press of CD originally issued on Black Petal Records, Australia)
KSE #214 (CDR), SABRINA SIEGEL,”Bottlecaps”
KSE #238 (CDR), DANIEL HIPOLITO/EVA KELLY/BILL SHUTE, “Fascination”
ALL LIMITED HAND-ASSEMBLED, HAND-NUMBERED HOMEMADE DIY EDITIONS WITH VARYING COVER STOCKS AND INKS, MADE IN TEXAS
$8 each US postpaid/$11 elsewhere for first CDR, $8 each after the first…
payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com please include a note listing which items you are ordering…
COMING SOON:
MARCH-APRIL 2013…The Many Moods of VENISON WHIRLED (aka Lisa Cameron)
APRIL-MAY 2013…SPRILLS OF ORE (Eva Kelly)
JUNE-JULY 2013…ALFRED 23 HARTH, Micro-Saxo-Phone: 4
the already-a-classic 2012 album from DJIN AQUARIAN and PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE SOUND on Prophase…
…Djin and Steven “Plastic Crimewave” Krakow also released a cassette (long out of print), seen above
PENETRATION: AN AQUARIAN SYMPHONY, the 1974 LP by Ya Ho Wa 13 that introduced me (and many others) to DJIN AQUARIAN’s guitar work…it remains today THE touchstone of higher-key tribal psych…
