Ball of Wax 51 Songs: James Kelly Pitts – “When It Happened I Got So Dizzy It Happened Again”

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Levi Fuller

If I may pause briefly here to pat myself on the back, I’m really pleased with how Ball of Wax has often become a platform for people to branch out from their usual modes, to try new things they might not have otherwise tried without someone saying “hey, send me long, weird songs.” Take James Kelly Pitts, for example. While he has his own unique, idiosyncratic approach, his material generally falls squarely in the “guy with a guitar singing a song” canon. Instead of just picking up his guitar and writing a really long song (which is totally what I did), he went to his corner laundromat for sonic inspiration. “When It Happened I Got So Dizzy It Happened Again” is an extended, wordless composition with a tumbling, jerky rhythm that you probably wouldn’t have guessed came from a broken washing machine, but as soon as you know, you can’t unhear it. Rather than turning that beat into a looped 4/4 bed for a folk/pop/rock song, James just kept going further into musique concrete territory, creating a rhythmic sound collage with percussion, feedback, and many layers of drone that jerks and swells and spins and rinses your mind clean. A welcome experiment for Mr. Pitts, which I hope he builds upon in the future.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: Doug Haire – “Ilwaco”

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Patrick J Gibbs

When I was in college there were two compact discs that I particularly enjoyed going to bed to because of the way the songs fell in sequence and engaged with my drifting into sleep. Disc Two of the Lou Reed anthology Between Thought and Expression was one of these. As the songs played, they would interact with and become an indistinguishable part of the environment around me. As I fell into sleep, the songs would draw the dormitory sounds into my dreams. During the transition I often wasn’t certain from where the sounds that I was hearing were coming. From the room? From the recording? Or from my imagination?

Doug Haire’s “Ilwaco” similarly becomes a part of the soundscape of its listener, rather than a lone, independent track. Its sweeping winds and dripping waters quietly fill the room, chilling and moistening the space it occupies. One hears the tide pull in, or is it a car on the road outside? Could it be both? Does it need to be either? As the track progresses, the natural sounds fade and a modulating tone moves to the fore. As the tone builds in prominence it first surrounds the listener, it becomes tactile, then it transcends the senses. It is present. Here it becomes difficult to determine the source of the sounds one is hearing.

My cat and I had similar, but different experiences listening to “Ilwaco.” I became disoriented and concerned that my roof was leaking. Paul the Cat stared at and readied himself to attack the computer from which the track emanated. For both of us, the experience of listening to Doug Haire’s piece transcended reality. For both of us, our senses were heightened, alerted, and engaged.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: Niko Haritos – “The Collective”

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Levi Fuller

I’ve known Niko Haritos for a while now as a drummer (I know he’s popped up on a Ball of Wax or two in that capacity over the years), so it’s interesting that his first contribution as a solo artist is entirely devoid of percussion – and, for the most part, rhythm. “The Collective” is a dark, humming cloud of low-end noise shot through with shimmering bursts of synthy light, and its appearance on the horizon signals a shift into a less traditionally musical section of this marathon compilation, where the shackles of rhythm and melody are thrown off and Edgard Varèse’s “organized sound” definition of music is heartily embraced. But we’re lowering you into this musical deep end gradually, floating on this dark, shimmery cloud of sound (but, you know, not that cloud of sound). Bring your headphones, and try not to forget which way is up.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: electric bird noise – “stcesni eht fo ecnad”

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Levi Fuller

I don’t know much about electric bird noise. I assume it’s one person with a guitar and a looper and a dream, but as far as I know it could be a duo, or even a whole ensemble. EBN has an extensive catalog reaching back a decade or more on the fine drone-oriented label Silber Records, but “stcesni eht fo ecnad” is the only thing of theirs I’ve listened to (my ears have been kind of busy lately). This song is relatively simple – careful guitar lines meandering one note at a time over and under and through each other, looping, reversing, and twisting in the wind like so many dancing insects (I’m particularly picturing a mass of gawkily graceful, spindly-legged stick insects, clambering and twining and crowding along a green, bendy branch) and swarmed in occasional sinister, buzzing, clouds of double-picked thrum or blissful, tremulous drone. Despite its simple elements, like so much of the music in this collection, “stcesni eht fo ecnad” utterly holds one’s attention and reveals more and more with each listen.

I’m afraid the seven hours of music in this volume of Ball of Wax is just giving me (and, I hope, you) more assignments for further listening, but that’s never a bad thing. I’ll just have to add electric bird noise to the list for a future deep dive, maybe some time after I’ve properly absorbed the catalog of autOaudiO.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: The Fosbury Flops – “ape MAJOR”

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Lattney B. Jones

“ape MAJOR,” by The Fosbury Flops (a Vardaman Ensemble/Harvey Girls side project), drops in with a chattering synth effect which fades in and out of the mix throughout its duration, but it’s the clipped and gently flanged vibraphone that washes in over the opening half-minute that is the track’s raison d’etre. This staccato line (not too far removed from the namesake sound of Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga) doesn’t intrude so much as it makes itself at home and lets the listener know that the next 13 minutes will be fully within its calming control, so that when a bass-drum beat stops by for a visit a fourth of the way through the track, you know that a pleasant gathering of friends is taking place.

Harmonic progression is hinted at with tones just barely coming and going so that, once the bass notes join (with an emphasized eight-note “bump-bump” on the percussion at the front of each measure), the alternating V – I (G and D majors, respectively) chord structure makes perfect sense.  For the next eight minutes, the only change in the proceedings is the sound of the accompanying tones gaining confidence as the staccato synth foundation wavers just enough to invite neighboring 6ths and suspended 4ths (and at one point, possibly a flatted third, though with sounds this subdued, one can’t be quite sure) over to introduce their friends.  Near the end, the chattering becomes more incessant and, with few additional effects, informs the group that the night has reached its end everybody must soon go home. Despite the sounds used, this is one of the gentler and more inviting instrumentals I’ve heard in some time.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: Afrocop – “MOAB Shield”

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Levi Fuller

Afrocop has been delighting Seattle with their idiosyncratically spacey, dubby, experimental grooves for several years now, but this is their first time gracing a volume of Ball of Wax, and I couldn’t be more delighted to have them aboard. I don’t know to what extent their usual material is improvised vs. pre-arranged/composed, but “MOAB Shield” is an impressive bit of improvisation from the keys/guitars/drums trio. (They actually call it an “improvised cluster,” but I only know what one of those words means in this context so I’ll go with that.) Rather than laying down a groove and getting crazy with it for 10-20 minutes (not that there’s anything wrong with that), they created a seemingly through-composed piece with movements, key changes, subtle and sweeping shifts in mood and rhythm, and more – like the lost Barry Adamson soundtrack to an unfinished David Lynch film. If I were better at writing about music (and had more time to do so) I could write a lengthy essay detailing the unfolding genius of this piece, but I’m not and I don’t, so I’ll have to let the music mostly speak for itself (which it does ably).

You probably won’t hear this exact piece from Afrocop at the Ball of Wax 51 release show on March 9th, but you will probably hear something at least as great.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: Peter Colclasure – “Long Form 1”

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Levi Fuller

In this space I recently sang the praises of Peter Colclasure’s compositions for piano – which, as far as I know, are usually composed and performed in the traditional way of writing down music, and then playing it. “Long Form 1,” as far as I can tell, is a new direction in composition and performance for Peter. I don’t know exactly how it was written – if it’s a combination of composed and improvised work, or exclusively one or the other – but I do know it’s a digitally created collage of acoustic and electronic piano, different performances and elements chopped up and (maybe) looped and (definitely) laid over each other. It start simply, and for the first few minutes you might think it was just one deft piano player, but new elements arrive, strange non-acoustic sounds start manifesting, and you begin adding the parts up in your head and realizing that no one one human could be performing this piece. The overall feeling is beautiful, sublime, perhaps even meditative – but in a focused, hyperaware way, rather than a spacing-out and forgetting all your troubles kind of way. (I’ve never really meditated, so it could be that neither of these describes the actual state.) Whatever the state it inspires or evokes, I love this new direction from Peter, and hereby demand a full-length album. In the meantime, he’s generously given us almost 15 minutes of music to immerse ourselves in here. Commence immersion now!

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: slicnaton – “Storch”

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Zach Warnes

From the opening lines, slicnaton’s “Storch” sounds like menace slowly being poured over a smoldering fire. I imagine that scene from Apocalypse Now where a sweat-drenched and terrified Martin Sheen makes his way into the jungle temple to slay his mortal foe, only to find the gruesome reality of human nature fully on display. No, Marty! Don’t go in there! . . . The horror! The fuckin’ horror, man.

Nicholas Slaton uses analog instruments married with digital manipulation to create vast soundscapes both terrifying and full of intrigue. Melodies fall into each other and disintegrate into sound artifact. Each layer creaks along with the anticipation of something truly terrible lurking around the corner. Hints of jazz linger from well-captured woodwinds before being washed away. Sometimes you can’t even tell what it is you are hearing but that only adds to this experience.

Even for someone who is not an avid fan of drone music, this track has something to offer an audiophile looking for inspiration for creativity or perhaps the darkness within themselves.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: Steven Arntson – “The Squirrel”

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Levi Fuller

A squirrel. A concertina. This is not a pair that should make for 11-plus minutes of captivating music – even if you figure in the fact that we’re talking about our native Pine Squirrel in general, and not one particular squirrel. And yet here we are. Steven Arntson has taken these two simple elements and woven together something beautiful and delightful – a doubtless exhausting, painstaking task that reveals not a bit of effort or strife in its final execution.

“The Squirrel” starts off slowly, tentatively. You might be a bit skeptical at first. “Is this it? This wheezy little squeezebox?” And then, perhaps like finding yourself in a Pacific Northwest wood, watching a little native creature in its natural habitat, digging up nuts, scampering over leaves and up and down trees, you can find yourself zoning out and getting lost in the moment, and then focusing in with laser clarity on specific movements or phrases. And then before you know it you’ve lost all track of time, it’s dark, you have no food, and the only thing to lead you home is the sweet sound of a concertina drifting over the hills. Or maybe that’s just me. Suffice it to say, Steven Arntson has achieved something remarkable with this intimately minimalist, charming piece of music. Repeated listens will be rewarding, I promise you.

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Ball of Wax 51 Songs: Virgin of the Birds – “Laura and Jennifer, Bright in Some Soft Sky”

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Matty P

It’s a semi-sunny sunday Seattle afternoon in February and the piano slowly plays its themes in the background. There are celestial keyboard-sounding chords fading in and out. I’m half conscious, like the music that plays. I’m reflective. It’s as if we were in that movie Interstellar that came out a few years back now, and we are in some weird new time-space dimension looking out onto the world that only knows itself in three dimensions. Everything is bright and still. I could be shouting but it would not matter because I would not be heard by myself or others. Never would I have thought Matthew McConaughey and Virgin of the Birds share so much in common. But seriously, Jon Rooney shows great restraint and patience in “Laura and Jennifer, Bright in Some Soft Sky.” The ebb and flow is not rushed. It goes at a natural pace. You can sip your coffee or tea and let your mind wander throughout this meditation. And then the xylophone will smack you like a zen moment. The listener is rewarded for venturing into the depths of this part of the song. The lightness carries you away. Trepidation, resolution.

 

 

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