Original Silence - The Second Original Silence

  by Jon Rogers

published: 27 / 1 / 2009

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Review

The improvisational six-piece Original Silence aren’t afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves. This, their second release as the title suggests, mixes up the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, the noise experimentation of the likes of Peter Brötzmann and Cornelius Cardew as well as the No Wave groups of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and the Contortions. As you’d expect this isn’t easy or comfortable listening. The dense complexity of the parts collectively jar against one another and fight for attention of the maelstrom that goes on around. Sounds collide and fracture and dispense with standard notations of melody and harmony. At first it just sounds like a horrible mess of musicians all playing a different score but like Coleman’s experiments with a double quartet in 1960 and John Coltrane’s Ascension there is method is this apparent madness. Out of the blizzard of apparent cacophony comes rhythm and melody – but obviously no tune you can hum along to in the shower – and pick up on Coleman’s ideas of what he dubbed “Harmolodics” where harmonic structures were abandoned in favour of improvisation along melodic rather than chordal lines. This album, which formed by Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafson features Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and a former member of that group Jim O’Rourke, was essentially recorded live in concert in September 2006 and then mixed and mastered in a conventional studio. It’s perhaps not going to endear most listeners and the latest X Factor winner isn’t going to be belting out a cover of 'A Sweeping Parade of Optimism – Blood Streak' any time soon but give the album a chance and you just might be rewarded for the effort put in.

Track Listing:-

1 Argument Left Hanging - Rubber Cement
2 A Sweeping Parade of Optimism - Blood Streak
3 High Trees & A Few Birds - The Doll's Reflection
4 Crepescular Refractions - Mystery Eye