Song Songs Song

That said, The Relatives is generally more conventional-sounding than the flights of fancy on Song Songs Song, Parker’s collaboration with experimental guitarist Scott Fields. The CD starts off innocently enough. The Parker-penned “LK 92” pits a low-register, loping, minimal groove against swinging jazz-inflected melodies; the language wouldn’t be out of place on a Metheny or Frisell release. By the album’s second track, the Fields composition “Untitled, 1968, Bing Cherry Juice, KY Jelly, Ketchup on Vellum,” we are off to the races! The piece is a thirteen and a half minute assemblage of various avant-garde trademarks — feedback, atonal soloing, pointillist textures — brought together with a degree of whimsy and improvisatory character. Parker and Fields have a certain chemistry; they manage to find order within the chaos and the various diverse juxtapositions work, delightfully. Even more cohesive is “Untitled, 2004, Dried Blood on gauze, Elastic Strip,” which has a considerably appealing misterioso character; if Webern wrote for two electric guitars, this might be the result! — Signal to Noise

 

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Christangelfox

Fields adopts an unplugged approach, playing nylon-string classical guitar; it is fascinating to hear him, stripped of amplification, effects, and feedback, improvising strictly in the pitch-rhythm domain. One part Stockhausen post-modern chamber music and one part ethnomusicological exploration, Christangelfox is a haunting, sonically beguiling work. — Signal to Noise

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