Search - Eugene Chadbourne :: Insect and Western Attracter

Chadbourne entirely too unknown to Amazon listeners . . .

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 10/28/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

". . . and this is as good a place as any to start.A confession. Eugene Chadbourne is about as far from my socio-political orientation as a man can be. Yet . . . yet . . . . . . he makes music of importance. Far be it from me to dismiss a man simply because his politics is unsustainable.Anyone who aspires to familiarity with avant-garde jazz should have at least some familiarity with Eugene Chadbourne. A true iconoclast, he makes entirely listenable music from the most unlikely components, including such bizarreness as Moroccan bugle, home-made clarinet, electric toaster, Stradivarius saw, bargain electronics, Electric Ladybug, "synthesizer made by someone's father." Ahem. Quirky, skittish, rhythmically challenging (if not challenged!), genuinely idiosyncratic, Eugene Chadbourne's music never fails to engage, even while it goes off in ten different directions at once. The amazing thing is that it makes any sense at all. This is certainly a product of Chadbourne's trial-and-error recording method combined with some kind of inherent genius of soundscape-organization. The only other composer/musician who comes anywhere near Chadbourne in terms of intelligble bizarreness of soundscape configuration is John Rapson.If you have even the slightest interest in avant-garde jazz, I suggest you hook up with Eugene Chadbourne. This is as good as any place to start."