Search - Kevin Drumm :: Comedy

Minimalism has come to mean so many different things that it's nearly meaningless; what do Charlemagne Palestine's keyboard-battering sound clouds and Philip Glass's densely layered, remorselessly rhythmic operas really have in common besides a name? On Comedy, Kevin Drumm resurrects the genre's seminal impulse by extracting rich musical ore from limited veins of sound. The CD splits into three parts. "Organ" and "Organ Returns (Slight Difference)" open and close the disc with 15-minute blasts of foundation-crumbling noise obtained by shifting between two unequally distorted organ chords. Their effect is paradoxically meditative, like being lulled into a trance by the roar of an unmuffled internal combustion engine. In between lie four investigations of electronically generated sine waves that would warm the heart of any Pan Sonic fan. Whether they're composed of piercing tones, like "Second," or serene pulses, like "Just Like a Parvenu," each mesmerizing piece teems with microscopically variant details. --Bill Meyer