ARAM SHELTON AND STEINI GUNNARSON.
Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel
Edgetone EDT-4055, 43:59.
edgetonerecords.com
by Steve Koenig
Gudmundur Steinn
Gunnarsson plays sax, bass clarinet, trumpet and does processing. He was born
in Reykjavik and has studied with Alvin Curran, Fred Frith and Annie Gosfield
at Mills. He does processing and plays prepared guitar. Aram Shelton is a Floridian
gone Chicagoan (1999) gone Bay Area (2005) and has collaborated with the usual
suspects in those locales.
The nine minutes
of "In Circulation" is fun for the ears with its funhouse of instruments
and toys and effects done free-improvisation style, yet drone-ism and beats
enter and go as it works its way through. Not as austere as AMM can sometimes
be, it has similar richness for close listening.
The reed and plink
"Consitutution (In Three Parts)," running fifteen minutes, is beautifully
hypnotic in a way that recalls all at once John Fahey, Ud. Bismallah Khan, and
parts of Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill. Most of the tracks are
around ten minutes, and the boys have the ears to sustain interest throughout.
The website has
a free download of the clarinet-bassed (couldn't resist) "A Charming Decoy,"
which will give you a good sense of the flavor of the disc. Note that despite
my headnote, only the group name is on the outside packaging, and is the actual
title of the disc.
Highly recommended.
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