published: 17 /
12 /
2001
Label:
hinah
Format: CD
The Empty House Cooperative is the musical project of David Michael Curry,a classically trained viola player who is best known for his work as a regular recording and touring member of the Boston alt
Review
The Empty House Cooperative is the musical project of David Michael Curry,a classically trained viola player who is best known for his work as a regular recording and touring member of the Boston alternative rock group, the Willard Grant Conspiracy. Frustrated by the limitations imposed by conventional band settings, Curry formed the Empty House Cooperative with several other like-minded other rock musicians in 1997, so that they could explore and experiment with an entirely improvised sound. While Curry is its one regular link, the Empty House Cooperative , which, like the Willard Grant Conspiracy fluctuates its membership depending upon who is available, also features musicians from New York City and Montreal as well as Boston , and includes in its line-up members of Come, the Molasses, Pullman and Godspeed You Black Emperor .
The Empty House Cooperative has performed live soundtracks to films, improvised dinner music in restaurants, played occasional street performances and has also provided the ambient musical score to a marathon seven hour reading of the Jack Kerouac novel 'Big Sur' at a national festival for the dead beat writer in his home town of Lowell in Massachusetts. The group will release its first studio album next year, and hopes also next autumn to tour both the UK and the USA.
As a prelude to this, the French live micro-label hinah, in what is its fifth outing and also the Empty House Co-operative's first official release, has put out a recording made by the band on August 28th 2000 at WMBR 88.1 FM, a local Boston radio station based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'Improvisational Music', which is in two segments, the first lasting just under half an hour, the second just over half an hour, is, like all its hinah predecessors, limited to just 50 copies, and, as well as featuring Curry on viola, trumpet and guitar loops, it also includes former Come star Chris Brokaw on guitar and feedback and Jonah Sacks on the cello.
The two improvisations mould and sculpt together the discordance of Come, tightly-woven cello experimentations from Sacks and the meandering viola theatricals of Curry's work with the Willard Grant Conspiracy to create a chamber-based semi-orchestral classical sound. There is an element of jazz present as well. The improvisations root slowly, the sound of each building up and fading away, sometimes to silence, before bubbling up again. Single, solitary notes and chords gradually work their way out of the background and to the fore before ebbing away again to be replaced by something else. Most direct comparision perhaps could be made with the more experimental work of Curry's fellow violist, John Cale, and in particular with the Welsh musician's also improvised 1994 soundtrack recordings for the silent Andy Warhol films 'Eat' and 'Kiss', While its instrumentation is very different, 'Improvisational Pieces ' is also reminiscent in parts of some of the music of Tangerine Dream with its slow generating and resonating beautiful sense of atmospherics. It is not by any means initially an easy album to listen to, but one, which if stuck with, is an ultimately rewarding and also addictive experience. For fans of Brokaw, Sacks and Curry's other music, or for those looking for something a little musically different and lucky enough to get a hold of a copy, it will prove to be essential listening. With this first release a prequel for what is still to come, next year's full scale debut Empty House Cooperative studio album promises to be a very exciting option.
Track Listing:-