Jay Wrote

Half Low; Full King   - Appreciations. Alan Sparhawk and a full-throated audience opened for Halloween Alaska at St. Paul’s Turf Club this week.   Too bad most attendees used the opening hour to hollar at each other rather than listen to the Low leader’s intricate intense solo set.   Sparhawk gradually set deep computer beats, brought up an understated electric guitar and used heavily processed vocals to weave mysterious melodies into his songs.   Absolutely no chance to understand one line of the lyrics.   Thus space music: intricate, contemplative.   Imploring vocals had been mis-processed in an intergalactic satellite’s attempt to forward a message concerning another world’s analogue to deity.   We missed that message in the cacophony.   Or maybe just Jim Morrison come back to re-inhabit some Scots-Irish blues.   This was complicated, carefully wrought music.   Time for me to get the most recent Low recording.   ...

Appreciation: Galaxy Express 555 (Christopher Farstad) “Can you hear the real me?” is a question which is not quite heard in the improvisational soundscape performed Thursday at the Khyber Pass.   The computer generated downpour and hail-storm yielded to quadraphonic waves crashing on Brighton Beach.   The amusement park there is closed but loose ride parts and flapping signs sing with the wind and animated orchestrated pipes and valves ask the question:   Where is the Lizard King? Electric organs breed with birdsongs that haunt this unseen movie’s soundtrack before the Yamaha electrosaxophone stirs up Zappa-esque but guitar-less feedback. Does it matter if Christopher tells the truth about not playing the sax?   Hard to say.   That’s a problem with electronica - if there is skillful intonation, can anyone identify it?   But this music is not about tunefulness, not when your overheated wookie cries elicit eruptions of hilarity...