Don't touch that dial . . .
Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 01/01/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
". . . First you can't hear anything (it's below the sound threshold), then you're wondering if there's something wrong with your equipment (it's emitting some kind of electronic buzz), then you wish you couldn't (it becomes louder and just plain annoying). Static. White noise. Aural unpleasantness. But . . . . . . Slowly resolving into something quite interesting, even arresting.Not exactly the chittering, plinkitty English Avant Garde of Derek Bailey/John Butcher/SME (although Michael Zerang has obviously listened to John Stevens), etc.; more along the lines of Robair/Masaoka/Kowald.In the liner notes to SME's great disc, A New Distance, Steve Beresford (himself a stalwart of British Avant Garde jazz) says, "My ears are drawn to sounds I genuinely have never heard before." That observation pretty much applies to what happens on this disc: you're likely to have never heard such sounds before. Whether they please or no, listeners must decide for themselves. This listener digs it."