EZRAMO / GINO ROBAIR / DAVID FENECH / WENDELIN BÜCHLER featuring ARGO ULVA – PopeWAFFEN

Corvo

The very first release in this German label’s catalog is a vinyl comprising a communal effort recorded at Berlin’s Ausland in 2010 for a total duration of less than half an hour (good move, if you ask me: improvisational statements exceeding this time span, if not supported by proven artistry, sound rather boring to this reviewer’s ears). Some of the group’s members have worked – in various guises and projects – with Fred Frith, whose zing-and-jangle ghost looms on the near-entirety of the music. The palette is indeed rich in strings (prepared guitar and zither) but a measure of balance is assured by the presence of flexible sampling, assorted types of electronic device, a theremin and the occasional eruption of Ezramo’s voice, which in “The Creator Has A Masterplan” chatters, roars and laughs wickedly in a cheap embodiment of a possessed version of Shelley Hirsch (forgive me Shelley, for I have sinned). Still, there’s a quantity of lively energy in several of the combinations generated by the participants; inconveniences, malformed chords and twisted tunings become the means for different sorts of charged reverberation, the decentralization of instrumental personality at the basis of a couple of unlawful tracks where getting involved by the complexity of the collective timbral tissue comes easy. All things considered, this LP deserves a number of attentive listens, offering different angles of enjoyment and – why not – fun.