Elliott Sharp/Orchestra Carbon: "Abstract Repressionism: 1990-99".
Sharp's longer works succeed better than his short pieces. ("Datacide,"e.g., comes off as some downtown musicians fooling around in a studio.) And his live performances have generally been better than his studio recordings. ("Larynx," for all that it's a fine album, just doesn't compare to seeing it live.) There's a peculiar paradox here, because it's the structure of the larger works that lends them weight, and it's the improvisational edge of the live shows that gives them force. So anyway, about this album... yeah, it's meatier than the more recent "Cryptid Fragments" and it is nice to hear Sharp working with strings.
Mike Wasson
This recent album for "Orchestra Carbon" combines a string ensemble with percussion and Sharp's own double-necked bass guitar, and stretches from extended drum solos to Penderecki-like string harmonies, via chaotic, fractured noisescapes that are difficult to follow but powerfully affecting. Frenetic rhythms are followed by taut, stretched lengths of violin drone; whirlpools of atonal confusion lead into Wagner-on-speed stridency. It's not an approachable album, by any standards, but ultimately it's powerful and rewarding. Brian Duguid
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Elliott Sharp: "In the Land of the Yahoos".
Elliott 's "pop" album, made as sort of a joke, features lots of sampled vocals on top of dance-club beats. It's certainly his most accessible: his other recordings have more of his trademark guitar turbulence and mathematically oriented compositional style.
Myles Boisen
In the Land of the Yahoos is Sharp's self-described pop album, meaning that he and others sing, his guitar and bass are toned down and the percussion is almost normal. An amazing LP with more variety than many of his others, it explores numerous textures and moods, dishes out surprises at every turn and displays a witty sense of humor.
Trouser Press
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Elliott Sharp/Soldier String Quartet: "Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup".
This is by far one of the best Elliott Sharp albums I've heard (although there are also many of his recordings I haven't heard). With their rich textures, strings make an ideal showcase for Sharp's compositions. The use of only four musicians (except on one piece, where the quartet is overdubbed to produce 20 instruments) keeps the music relatively uncluttered, which lets you hear all of its subtleties. (A complaint one might lodge against Larynx, a stunning album overall, is that things get lost in the sheer wall of sound all those musicians are making.)
Of the pieces here, in a certain way the title track takes the most straightforward approach: Establish a melodic theme, develop it, depart from it, return [iterate].The melody is such an absurdly simple one that the Soldier String Quartet has plenty of lattitude for variation. (The disk includes two takes; it's instructive to listento them in succession.)
"Tessalation Row" and "Re/iterations" are two different orchestrations of a Fibonacci series composition. The Fibonacci compositions are what I think of as the distinctive "Elliott Sharp sound." The intervals are so peculiar, that to me it always sounds as though several melodic lines have been compressed into one surface, and if I were a computer I could decompress it all into something sensible. They are beautiful and exciting to listen to, because they unfold in a logical, structured way, but one that's marvelously alien. "Re/iterations" (the one overdubbed to make 20 instruments) is overwhelming. It approaches the density of sound you'll hear in "Larynx," but still maintains a basic integrity toward the sparser version embodied in "Tessalation Row."
The middle portion of the CD is devoted to a triad of pieces, "Digital," "Diurnal," and "Ringtoss." "Digital" has the quartet hammering prepared instruments (according to the liner notes, strips of steel were woven into the strings). The effect is rather strange; it reminds me a little of some recordings of African drumming I've heard. The other two are quasi-melodic improvisations, "Ringtoss" making use of open-tuned instruments.
Mike Wasson
An excellent rendering by The Soldier String Quartet of some of Sharp's best music ...visceral patterns with seering harmonic content and new string techniques ...the unique title piece, present in two takes interesting to contrast, seems to be partly a gritty and humorous take-off on hoedown/cowboy horseback-riding music (as depicted in movies) and then wanders into some strange slithery tuning zones traversed by squiggly melodies ...using the Fibonacci series to generate tunings, rhythms and forms the next selection "Tessalation Row" delivers an electrifyingly gorgeous image as geometric and scintillating as the Zapotec design from Oaxaca, Mexico, on the CD's cover ..."Digital" is a toe-tapping rhythmic study that uses a strip of spring steel woven into the strings near the bridge as a preparation, the instruments then all played with a two-handed hammering technique ..."Diurnal" and "Ringtoss" study massed and unison melodic gestures using looping and de-construction techniques ..."Re/Iterations" is for string orchestra (made here by over-dubbing the Quartet) with contact microphones attached to the instruments to pick up the subtle difference or "ghost" tones produced by the combinations of high harmonics ...dense masses of swirling frequency/rhythm patterns lovely in their rawness.
"Blue" Gene Tyranny
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon: "Monster Curve".
This is a (whew!) 72-minute plus compilation of Sharp's work with Carbon from 1984 through 1987, taken from...the "Carbon" and "Fractal" albums, a series of live-in-the-studio recordings made from '84 to '86, and a long, previously unreleased dance score...It was with Carbon that Sharp fully explored the limits of his instrumental technique as well as the mathematical methods of composition that are among his most enduring achievements...The early Carbon works examine the possibilities of structure, a structure dictated by the Fibonacci series of numbers and expressed by the interlocking rhythmic patterns pounded out by no less than three drummers. The later tracks, however, hang together by a barely discernible thread, with a number of odd, jarring interpolations.
Gordon Anderson
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon: "Larynx".
"Larynx" is a composition in six parts commissioned from Sharp for the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The liner notes' description of the compositional techniques used (the Fibonacci Series, fractal geometry of turbulence, various alternate tunings for the instruments) reads like something out of Iannis Xenakis. Despite that, this is probably about as accessible as Sharp'll ever get. The music is still characterized by the dense slabs of sound that dominated his earlier music. His guitar and reed playing are still distinguished by techniques that push the instruments' capacities to their limits...Also dominant is Sharp's interest in various Third World musics. Various rhythms used sound African, and his reed work has an almost Arabic nasality at times...Carbon, this time out, is a 13-piece group that includes four drummers and a string quartet.
R. Iannapollo
Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Larynx is a composition in six sections with five interludes which ranks among Sharp's most accessible pieces. A blend of rock and jazz with heavy Third World music accents, Larynx represents Sharp's most fully-realized ensemble composition for his group Carbon (which consists of 13 members, including four drummers and a string quartet, on this outing). Still, Sharp himself remains at the music's forefront; his dense guitar work continues to push the envelope of what the instrument is capable of doing.
Jason Ankeny
Thanks to his increased skill at writing for ensembles, Larynx is Sharp's best album with Carbon. As much jazz as rock, somehow it's neither. Constructed in six sections with five interludes, the titular piece runs over both sides of the record. Four drummers play on the opening and closing sections; the Soldier String Quartet, Jim Staley and others combine to create an amazing array of textures and rhythms. But the most inspired playing comes from Sharp himself. For the last ten minutes he pounds red-hot rhythms on bass and guitar fretboards, accompanied by frenzied drumming and dissonant violin. Awesome.
Scott Lewis
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Semantics.
Semantics is a rock/jazz power trio with drummer Samm Bennett (who sometimes plays with Carbon) and saxophonist Ned Rothenberg. The group's phenomenal debut meshes Rothenberg's rhythmic, interweaving sax lines with Sharp's forceful bass and guitar. The more chaotic and noisy "Bone of Contention" generally eschews the song structures of Semantics and is more on the jazz, if not the free jazz, side of the band's stylistic fusion.
Scott Lewis
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Bootstrappers: "Bootstrappers".
Loisaida noise-meister Elliott Sharp meets San Pedro backbeat kings Mike Watt and George Hurley for 52 minutes of frenetic, in-your-face improvisations. Lots
of beat, lots of noise, Watt's fat, round bass sound, Sharp noodling on guitars, and the occasional bass clarinet -- yeah, generally cool stuff from this arty underground power trio. The odd tape loop here and there breaks things up, but otherwise there are no vocals. Standout tracks include the opener, "The Memory Is a Muscle," and the eight-minute "Media Dub," a satisfying excursion into the land of noise and rhythm. It features excellent live-to-DAT sound, mostly in the studio, but there are also three tunes from a show in Long Beach. Not much subtlety here, but so what?
Stuart Kremsky
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon: "Datacide".
This is one hard rockin', smokin' unit. Sharp and Carbon couple fierce, sledgehammer hard rock techniques with their experimentalist leanings, rife with craggy, dissonant chords, angular lines, shards of screeching or metallic sounds, and squawking saxophones. Sharp provides some terrific, thunky, hardedged bass lines, snazzy and weird soprano saxophone, and plenty of brash and abrasive noises on the "slab" and via samples. He is accompanied by the crack pairing of David Linton and Samm Bennett, two extraordinary drummers and percussionists who provide some pounding backbeats and some powerhouse percussive fills and textures. Zeena Parkins completes the ensemble, performing on slab and electric harp.
Dean Suzuki
In nature, Carbon gives us diamonds on the one hand, ginpowder material on the other. Raw beauty and combustibility: an appropriate metaphor for the music on Datacide.
Improvisation to electronic music. Yet Carbon is in some ways the most concentrated of all his projects. It is effective on several levels. Its rhythmic thrust is immediately arresting, but the layered group sound has many other properties to recommend it, not least the singing overtones Sharp produces on his trusty bass. Musician magazine once referred to him as "a composer in combat boots", a literal description that hints at both the formal intelligence of Elliott Sharp's work and the bloody fury of its Enemy records Release Sheet
Sound Wire
...Carbon's music is jittery and aggressive, wound way too tight and ready to explode...You can hear Blood Ulmer harmolodics, death metal, hardcore, Beefheart blues, industrial electronics, and maybe a trace of surf music...insistent riffs, and there's always a solid beat.
Down Beat
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon/Soldier String Quartet: "Twistmap".
Four works perf. by The Soldier String Quartet, Carbon and Sharp. Like the first Kagel quartets, these pieces introduce new playing techniques and sounds, some stimulating the ear and mind with the aural equivalent of painting with gravel...raw and beautiful, especially the second cut "Shapeshifter".
"Blue" Gene Tyranny
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon: "Truthtable".
Carbon weaves electric harp, samplers, and a maniacal jazz-and-rock-solid rhythm section around Elliott Sharp's doubleneck guitarbass, which can emulate a kitten crying, a street cleaner flattening a stop sign, or a tray of metal forks cascading down a fire escape. Though the lyrics might stray towards the inflammatory, Truthtable captures the coldness of the city: It's loud and mean and would probably fight you for a taxi in front of CBGB at 4AM.
Colin Berry
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon: "Autoboot".
This is a superb grab-bag of live, rare cacophany from Carbon, one of Elliot Shaps many side projects. You get goofball spazz jazz, distorted vocal workouts reminiscent of a more technologically informed Fetus. Naked City-like explosions, and more. It's all propelled with a brain-damaged zeal and total disregard for normal conventions. A fine overview of the eclectic, aggressive weirdness of E. Sharp and Carbon.
Mr. Goodwrench
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon: "Amusia".
"...when E# limits his expressions to the nonverbal realm, Carbon becomes one of the most inventive electric bands on the planet....
Option
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Elliott Sharp/Carbon: "Interference".
Elliott Sharp and his twisted friends in Carbon are absolute whizzes at churning out a mutant crossbreed of rock and skronk jazz. This CD is no exception to the general rule, with creaking, scratchy guitar, farty sax action, weird electronic samples & machine gun drumming mooshed up together into a churning, pungent gumbo. A couple of the tracks meander, but most are aimed straight between the eyes. Music for the chicken ritual.
Mr. Goodwrench - KFJC
"...may be his tightest and most focused vehicle....Sharp not only devises his own instruments and processing, but he's achieved a distinctive vocabulary and compositional logic. Sharp's solos are twisted and tightly wound, twitchy with pent-up energy.
Down Beat
Elliott Sharp, "composer in combat boots" and darling of the New York avant garde, is among the two or three most innovative guitarists on the planet. Employing very little standard technique, he has forged a musical language completely distinct from Derek Bailey's intimate (and now ubiquitous) scratches and squeaks. If Bailey was influenced by Webern's extreme delicacy, Sharp is a disciple of Xenakis, mobilising huge blocks of sound in the pursuit of something abstract and impersonal. Fellow travellers will find themselves listening to this or any other of his releases, ear pressed to the speaker, wondering what he's doing.
Although an improvisor, he is also a modernist, and embraces effects pedals (distortion and delay being his favoured condiments), samplers and sequencing. Often, as on this album, his guitar becomes a sound-source to be manipulated and turned into something far removed from the rock idiom. Likewise, he is just as happy to prop his guitar against a wall and play squalling sax (he's not a "proper" sax player, more a have-a-goer like James Chance) or program his loping, rolling computer rhythms. These latter seem to be connected via ISDN straight into Trump's brain, so close is the interaction between them.
Because of his tencency to bury the traditional tone of the guitar under a welter of electronic treatments, and because his extended techniques do not make for a traditional tone anyway, it is rather hard to pick out Sharp's contributions from Zeena Parkins' distorted harp. Parkins is another improvisor who is just as happy in a wholly-composed environment, and she makes a fine contribution here, mostly blending with Sharp but occasionally stepping forward with ideas of her own. She has recorded with him before, and played with him often: the untitled eighth track finds them duetting in a tempest of suffering amplifiers, and is a revelation. Pulling down the full quintet's brick wall reveals the true extent of their simbiosis, as close as Jim Hall's with Bill Evans.
Sharp's musical tendencies can veer wildly between genres, taking in industrial, jazz, prog rock, techno, modernism and so on in half an album, and Carbon were formed in part to give a focus to his rock/classical fusion. Nevertheless, it's unusual to hear something as satisfyingly disciplined as Interference. All seven tracks are strong ensemble performances, with few solos as such, and much of the music is textural and riff-based. Musos hankering for Sharp's geometrical-freakout solo style might be disappointed, although whether many bedroom strummers seek out his albums the way they seek out stuff by John McLaughlin is another question.
A minimalist he may be on paper, but he can never resist packing too much variation into every bar for boredom to get a look in -- his driving, ametrical funk is always veering off in odd directions or encountering peculiar objects in its path. The exception here is "Jungle Freeze", a skittering collage of machine noises and harp abuse supporting an anti-solo on sax (alien wailing sounds; no tunes) and only briefly breaking into more familiar, percussive territory. Sharp's sax playing, especially here, has something of the charm of Ornette's trumpet about it.
This is not an album which is going to surprise any existing Carbon converts. Still, it would be an injustice to claim that this was just more of the same from the outfit even if new ground is not being broken with such obvious abandon as at its inception. In Parkins, Sharp has found a genuine kindred spirit. Great pairings like this are rare and precious in this kind of music, which is so often played in ad hoc combinations in which little of depth is really shared. This is the most concentrated of Carbon's albums, their most successfully-integrated lineup playing some powerful music, and comes unconditionally recommended.
Richard Cochrane
http://come.to/musings.com
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Elliott Sharp: "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Yahoos".
Melding shards of avant garde, jazz, mainstream pop, etc., Elliott Sharp has concocted a visceral combination between Russ Meyer's phobic visions of American sexuality and violence with 'Gulliver's Travels' in the land of the savage yahoos, resulting in a humorous and excoriating soundtrack to the American landscape. Features Samm Bennett, Eugene Chadbourne, and Anthony Coleman.
Unknown
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Elliott Sharp: "K!L!A!V!".
The uniquely
titled K!L!A!V! (presumably a reference to the klavier) consists of
three of Sharp's works for a variety of keyboard instruments. "Twenty Below"
is scored for a sextet of keyboardists, ranging from synthesizers to reed organs
to toy pianos, engaging in "structured" improvisations, wherein each musician
is given a certain set of instructions (altering rhythms, employing specific
extended techniques, etc.). For the listener, the result sounds a bit like some
hitherto unknown, especially warped Sun Ra session from the late '60s. The sonic
territory covered is enormous and, without benefit of any obvious meter, much
less melodic content, it just about holds together tautly enough to sustain
interest. The title track is much more in line with the work of player piano
maverick Conlon Nancarrow, Sharp sampling various piano sounds and reproducing
them in a manner physically impossible for a human pianist to perform. The music
itself, though skitterish and intense, is actually quite a bit more melodic
than your typical Nancarrow and is enjoyably accessible. "Mapping" is for purely
solo piano (Sharp at the keys), concentrating on repeated hammering at the lower
end of the instrument's range with the sustain pedal held down. This moves him
into marginally Charlemagne Palestine-related areas, but Sharp, showing a finely
concentrated interest in an ostensibly narrow sonic range, manages to draw out
some fascinating music that's deep, rich, and agitated. Fans more familiar with
his rock-oriented work may come away baffled, but serious devotees will want
to hear this often-compelling disc.
Brian Olewnick, All-Music Guide
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Boodlers.
As with most projects involving guitarist/composer Elliot Sharp, the music on this disc is perplexing but ultimately fascinating. Listeners expecting intense and highly distorted guitar exercises over odd meters will not be disappointed.
Russ Summers - Option.
Chalenor and Franzoni lay down brutally direct grooves which Sharp sometmes entwines his guitar lines in, but more often uses as a backdrop for billowing sonic clouds which occasionally explode into frenetic spiky shards of dissonance, with his computer manipulations lending the grooves a choppy feel. Sharp's tour-de-force is the 20 minute "Boodlerama," a kaleidoscopic journey through the museum of guitar tones which climaxes in a maelstrom of the kind of 'skronk' guitar style which Sharp helped pioneer.
Steve Holtje - The Wire.
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Boodlers: "Counter Fit".
Onto the next member of the band-good man, that Fred Chalenor. This project of last year, with NY guit-man E# and double-drumming team Franzoni & Trump, is a jubilant romp through the noise garden, complete with the tenor sax stylings of Mr. Sharp himself. Moments of this album remind me of the early Primus jam tunes-"Spegeti Western", for example-with its intricate rhythms pounded out (and might I add, splendidly stereo-panned) behind the wall-of-god-knows-what that Elliott seems to pull out effortlessly; all the while, Fred playing his almost unmistakable groove lines throughout.
Collectively composed, these tunes seem to represent one musical quality over all others-texture. There are never singable melodies, per se, but shifting waves much in the style of Robert Fripp. The opening track "Serf’s Up", for example, drives a straight rhythm, two chords, one huge pedal, and E#’s harmonics, squeaks and pops for a good nine minutes, resulting in a very ambient experience. "Dubble or Nothing" runs Fred’s dub bass alongside a ferociously funky line by the drums, all the while Elliott mixes his million-and-one effects guitar into the loop, again resulting in what I would shamelessly call an ambient experience.
Critter’s Buggin’ fans take note-if you’re craving more well-drawn grooves with sonically enlightening guitar playing, this is a must-listen. Enjoy, my friends of noise!
Rob Ugmo - Hi-Fi Mundo
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Hoosegow: "Mighty".
Guitarist/bassist Elliot Sharp has released, oh, maybe 9,000 albums of experimental music with the likes of Zeena Parkins, Eugene Chadbourne and a slew of other exceptionally interesting inbreeders. Here, for the second time (the first was Terraplane), he steps outside the Twilight Zone to present a disc of blues-influenced music. Esther is associated with the Black Rock Coalition, a fine organization of jazzers and rockers dedicated to better marrying both musical styles. She sounds far more like sleek jazz singer Cassandra Wilson than any blues shouter, which is certainly no criticism. Sharp's dirty blues on "Junky Heaven" is a deserved slap in the face of everyone believing those who play noise can play nothing else.
Pretty cool to be able to sign your name E#.
Dave McElfresh
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William Hooker: "Shamballa".
Two extended duets, the first with Moore and the second with Sharp, both recorded (as far as I can make out) in 1993. On the first piece ("Sirius," pts 1 & 2) Moore's opening guitar work reminds one of "Confusion Is Sex" - era SY. But the longer format allows him more room to develop motifs. Hooker's drumming is punctuated, stacatto. Sometimes he provides a backbeat for Moore, but more often he's right up front, creating dense structures of sound. In the second half of the piece, Moore opens with an impressive noisescape that reminded me a little of the Merzbow/K.K. Null collaboration Deus Irae. There's a nice section where Moore recedes into the background, playing, essentially, guitar percussion, while Hooker assembles rhythmic fragments that cohere and then fall apart again.
I half-expected the second piece ("The Hat ... and its train") to feature "Larynx"-style work from Elliott Sharp. Those signature intervals show up in one or two places, but the rest of the time Sharp plays in a looser, freer style, carving out an array of textures and sounds (in one place his guitar makes a sound like a jet or a formula race car doppler-shifting into the distance). Again Hooker's percussion has equal structural weight with the guitar. It's nice how Hooker and Sharp spin off in their own directions, then snap back into formation, sometimes with Hooker in the lead, sometimes with Sharp.
Mike Wasson
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Psycho-acoustic: "Blackburst".
Using a variety of digital gadgets and synthesized doodads, original Zorn Cobra mates Zeena Parkins (electric harp, bass clarinet) and Elliott Sharp(double guitar-bass) spin maddening webs of sound that are, well, far out, man. From cartoonish romps (how about a party of Tazmanian devils grunting in your walls?) to sci-fi soundscapes (alas, without a theremin), Parkins and Sharp serve up improvised platters of smudges, skitterings and sawings.
Highlights: Sharp's ping-pongy doodlings and haunting bell-like harmonics on the slushy, percussive "Too Mass Chain".
Down Beat - March 1997
Elliott Sharp and Zeena Parkins are heavy hitters in New York's downtown experimental/jazz/avant-garde scene. Relentlessly prolific, with a revolving door of projects and collaborations hard to keep track of, their previous work together includes Sharp's notorious group Carbon and an earlier Victo release, Psycho Acoustic (also the name of their duo project). Those're the facts, but the truth is that these two smoke nitro for breakfast and like it.
Blackburst is a whirling blender of Sharp's revolutionary guitar, Parkins' unique electric harp, and globs of fiercely applied digital electronics, synths, processors, and something known as a Buchla Thunder. Together they create a benevolent mayhem that's prickly yet accessible. The wah-wah guitar, pulsing heat, and synth warblings of "Specific Gravity" could have been pulled off the last Crash Worship album. "Ha-Kol" drops sax and bass clarinet into a quicksand of static and unholy flourishes, presumably from Parkins' harp.
On "Two Mass Chain," the avant-garde runs headlong into the digital promise of triphop. And, clocking in at almost 25 minutes, "Peregrine" is an extended workout where Sharp and Parkins really square off and trade thunder. Guitar, harp, and the rest fuse into each other, by turns sounding like dirt-track bikes circling the cosmos, horses neighing, a ghostly, bell-like ringing, and mind-expanding fret-shredding on Sharp's double-neck guitar/bass.
It may be difficult listening by pop and rock standards, but Blackburst has warmth, unpretentiousness, and an amused sense of adventure that is inviting. Parkins and Sharp are avant-garde miners, producing rough gold by force of talent, persnickety imagination, and limitless can-do.
Carl Hanni, Puncture, early 1997
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Various: "State Of The Union".
Various is an understatement!
Monster multi-instrumentalist and producer Elliott Sharp has assembled a second State Of The Union compilation featuring 147 tracks over two-discs With the directive to produce a track of aproximately one minute, artists from the creative worlds of rock, jazz poetry, performance, industrial, film, and ambient submitted to this fund raiser for the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Programming your CD player on random conjures up an infinite possibility of combinations. There are writers Allan Ginsberg and Spaulding Gray, the octogenerian wisdom collected by David Greenberger, the cartoon cut-ups of David Shea, avant creations of Painkiller, Machine Gun, Zeena Parkins, the squank rock of Dim Sum Clip Job, the turntable manipulations of DJ Spooky and Christian Marclay. Not to forget Soldier String Quartet, Ken Vandermark, Fred Frith, Yamarsuka Eye, John Lurie, Hakim Bey, God Is My Co-Pilot, John Zorn, Arto Lindsey, and Marc Ribot.
Sharp's collection of these tracks over the past 14 years acts as an outstanding time capsule, documenting the downtown scene. Nowhere has so much material been collected in one place. And for such a good cause.
SOS Jazz - Dec '96
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Elliott Sharp: "ARC 1 - I/S/M 1980-83".
ARC, Vol. 1 is a collection of Elliott Sharp's early-'80s recordings with a variety of small groups (some including Bill Laswell, Bobby Previte, and Olu Dara). As such, it contains several of Sharp's rawest and most intriguing works; he experiments by bringing semi-awkward jazz and avant-garde ideas to the rock guitar, ending up with odd combinations of energy and intellectual insight which are usually difficult to reconcile.
John Bush, All-Music Guide
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Elliott Sharp: "Figure Ground".
OY! SO LOUD and indecipherable! I saw this man with big lipps on television a couple of years ago playing his double necked electric througha computer which attached sampled bytes to each guitar note. VOTTA CONCEPT! Why would anyone do that when the result is noise drenched SQUEER NEER NEER the likes of which the lithuanian brat can produce with his guitar unplugged!
But what I really want to understand is how this post-mod Manhattanite came to compose the music for the move made about the earth's greatest homoerotic artist TOM OF FINLAND? Fer those unfamiliar with TOM'S ouvre this super realist illustrator from Hel-sinki has eclipsed Michaelangelo (over the past three decades) as the greatest cartoonist of hot bods since God. All his boyz are smiling lumberjacks with inexplicably mighty oak trees springing from their sprayed on genes-but some how this artist made it believable for millions and millions. I haven't seen the movie, "Daddy and the muscle academy" but I inagine its alotta Tom in pans n scans. So what kind of music does the man with big lippz score for this imagery? Can't be the stuff they played last week that sent half the audience out on the street to watch with safety glass between the band and their earz.
Peter John Boyle
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Tectonics: "Field and Stream".
With his group Carbon and other downtown jazz ensembles, the experimental guitarist Elliott Sharp makes music that is dense, intricate and often dissonant. On "Field and Stream," the second disk from his group known as Techtonics, Sharp adds an additional layer of complexity by incorporating the electronic programmings of drum-and-bass. A British and European dancehall music that is at once frenetic and bulky, drum-and-bass is an apocolyptic sound made as much for listening as for dancing.
Along with the German digital programmer Frank Rothkamm and the avant-garde harpist Zeena Parkins, Sharp creates a moving flow of foreboding, otherworldly drum-and-bass pulsations, which are interrupted by sudden outbursts of snare drum beats. Meanwhile, Sharp wails and moans, clanks and crashes on his doubleneck guitar-bass.
The cumulative effect is the musical equivalent of canoeing down a pleasant stream before hitting a patch of rocks and gnarly roots. It's difficult, but if one concentrates it's intensely pleasurable as well.
NYTimes On-Line 98-09-30
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Tectonics: "Errata".
Sax strangler
and guitar mauler Elliott Sharp has been raising downtown avant- garde eyebrows
since the seventies. He's collaborated with the grand Pooh-Bah of the downtown
scene, John Zorn, and probably shared an occasional basket of cheesy fries
with fellow guitar terrorist Derek Bailey. So he's connected in all the right
places. Of course, he could be a complete toss bag, but I'd hesitate to venture
such an opinion on the evidence of this stunning album.
Tectonics is Elliott Sharp's electronica moniker, and for those of you that
weren't around for the last record, 1998's Field and Stream, Sharp ripped
drum-n-bass a new one by layering dreadnought beats with the tortured skkreeches
of his saxophone and the razor shards of modified guitars. The album put all
but Photek's releases to shame at the time of its release.
Since then, Sharp has found some new upstarts jockeying for his spot. Autechre,
Phoenicia, and Boards of Canada-– all their fine recent releases are
reduced to a fine gray dust by Errata. See, Sharp is not only a devilishly
accomplished sax and guitar player; he can also program the crunchiest beats
and the wildest rhythm sequences.
Just to top off the pissing contest, he's given each track vaguely Boards
of Canada-ish titles: "Spliny Thicket," "Goomy," and "Kargyraa,"
for example. "Spliny Thicket" opens with a tsunami of guitar noise
that even Thurston Moore might get out of bed for-- it's probably the most
conventional track here. By contrast, the relatively peaceful "Calle
Siete" skronks along on a bluesy sax riff before the rippling percussion
rolls into an urban gamelan frenzy. "Noospheric" is a bravado display
of beating down "idm" spods into the backlit screens of their Powerbooks.
I've not heard an album this year that successfully combines the naked freedom
of jazz improvisation and the alien crunch of digital mechanisms with more
feistiness and self- confidence. The ol' Warp label may be the brand leader
in electronica for now, but the real innovator has been around a whole lot
longer than 10 years, and he doesn't need Amazon.com to fawn over him. He
calls this record Errata. What a wag!
Paul Cooper, pitchforkmedia.com
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Elliott Sharp: "ARC 2 - The Seventies 1972-79".
Several of Elliott Sharp's earliest recordings are included on this Atavistic compilation, before he moved to New York and became a part of that city's fertile Downtown scene. The tracks on ARC, Vol.2 show that Sharp was thinking along similar lines long before he hit the Big Apple; the first track, "Interference," features the overpowering sound of four guitars (and not much else). Much of the rest of the album consists of works recorded during the mid-'70s while Sharp was in college -- interesting from a historical viewpoint, but definitely not in relation to the highs of his later career.
John Bush, All-Music Guide
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Uitti/Sharp: "Improvisations".
impromptu NEWS 19
July/August 98
masculine feminine
First Sharp's musical movement: like a blacksmith he strikes and creates a
sound module, uneven, and brutal which he then catapults in an accelerated
net of transformations and evil modifications. Looking for the perpetual
movement. The initial formula gives birth to another, each formula goes
forth, recycles the magical fuel, the energy of the next formula, like one
would tune the energy of a star in the far distance. Music full of
radiations. Whether he plays very expansive or reserved he builds on
ramifications, tentacular variations which go very fast. And this is very
masculine in its attempt to explain-express a total and original conception
of his proper musical movement.
Frances-Marie Uitti is not very often playing with Sharp. She is rather
uncessantly cutting his trajectories. She plays between sharpian
ramifications. The dynamic comes from always trying not to be swallowed by
the net. As if she was taking on the task to fill, inhabit the spaces he
only goes accross and leaves behind. Her strings find the time and space to
sing where Sharp dazzles with his ephemerous formulae. Even if sometimes
she has to become a fury, play with a consuming physical commitment, in
order to preserve her autonomy. She seems also more receptive to what the
other is doing, sensibly developing themes he drew only the cabalistic
sketches of. So doing she brings out emotional paths barely touched upon by
the sharpian conquest for the perpetual movement. She takes all the risks
for these emotional conflicts. There their routes are imbricated. Moreover,
in the improvised engagements of Uitti can be heard an in-depth work on the
relationships between the works written for her by the classical composers
and the research for a personal language that no score will ever capture. A
space of freedom, breathing, research necessary for her to keep personality
in the interpretation when she goes back to the universe of the classical.
Pierre Hemptinne
Thanks to Benjamin Pequet for the translation!
contact: La Médiathèque
24 rue de la Seuwe,
7000 Mons, Belgium
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E# and DJ Soulslinger: "Rwong Territory".
A live collaboration between Sharp and Liquid Sky founder DJ Soulslinger recorded at the St. Ingbert Jazz Festival, Rwong Territory forges a common ground between the avant-garde and contemporary electronica -- ranging from drum'n'bass to dark ambient backdrops, the music
provides a new and energizing context for Sharp's extreme guitar and sax, and although not everything works, the results are never boring.
Jason Ankeny, All-Music Guide
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Elliott Sharp/Orchestra Carbon: "Radiolaria".
Mr. Sharp's Orchestra Carbon - pairs of saxophones, trumpets, trombones,
bass clarinetsand keyboards, along with tympani and Mr. Sharp on soprano
saxophone and laptop computer - played "Radiolaria," based on formulas of
biological growth. Again and again,relative simplicity - a single wavering
note, a chord, a pattern of unison attacks - gave way to teeming
complexity. Dissonant chords welled up, sometimes throbbing with phantom
tones produced by nuances of tuning; quick, tootling patterns appeared,
then melted into the clangor. Although each section traced a similar arc,
the particulars kept changing: low and reedy, piercing, hefty like a big
band, lush and orchestral and finally a pristine open fifth whose growth
pattern was left to listeners' imaginations.
Jon Pareles, New York Times, January 24th, 2000
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Terraplane: "Blues For Next".
With Blues
for Next, Elliott Sharp has turned in the best update on the blues since
Skip McDonald's Little Axe project. This is a set that honors and respects
the classic sounds of the '50s, while adding elements that make it sound contemporary
without making it sound like rock. The first disc of the two-disc set features
Sharp's Terraplane quartet with a handful of guests; the second is simply
the quartet. The quartet itself brings an amazing breadth of experience to
the table. At the time of this recording, Sharp had been one of the most visible
proponents of the New York "downtown" musical aesthetic for over
20 years. Longtime cohort bassist Dave Hofstra had experience ranging from
John Zorn and William Parker to Luka Bloom, and had even been a member of
the Waitresses. Sax player Sam Furnace worked with both Julius Hemphill and
Johnny Copeland, and drummer Sim Cain spent many years in the Rollins Band.
The collaborators on the first disc (only one guest for any given tune) are
vocalists Dean Bowman and Eric Mingus, and legendary guitarist Hubert Sumlin.
Mingus (yes, Charles was his father) and Bowman both wrote their own lyrics,
which are virtually devoid of any standard blues cliches. That in itself is
a major accomplishment, but they show themselves to be excellent vocalists
as well. Sumlin's participation is not particularly revelatory, but it's great
to hear him playing and having fun in this setting. They cover plenty of blues
territory as well, from the classic boogie of "Rollin' & Tumblin'"
to the New Orleans second-line rhythms of " As It Falls," played
with two tenors, drums, and a tuba, with Bowman showing off with musical coughing
and a little Leon Thomas-type yodeling.
As great as the
first disc is, things really start to get interesting on the second disc,
where the band experiments a little more with the blues form and Sharp brings
a little more of his personal vocabulary to the proceedings. This disc is
all instrumental, and really showcases Sharp's techniques in a setting far
different than his usual avant excursions. The band will be playing in the
blues idiom, then switch gears and move into a reggae/dub-influenced rhythm,
with Cain switching to electric drums to add a drum'n'bass flavor, then back
again. Even when Sharp is using effects and extended techniques, or the band
is playing something different than a standard blues sound, the feeling
of the blues is never lost. Sharp is no blues guitar technician, but then
neither is Sumlin or John Lee Hooker; it's all about feeling, and Sharp's
got that. This recording is a lot closer to the real spirit of the blues than
a truckload of teenage Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabes.
Sean Westergaard, All-Music Guide
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