The bear plays the saxophone (or, a bear who wants to be Bird)

The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor

Your eyes are not deceiving you: on the book cover above, that really is a bear playing the saxophone. Rather improbably, Rafi Zabor’s first novel The Bear Comes Home received the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award—and I say improbably not because it’s a bad book (actually, it’s terrific), and not even because of its oddball premise (involving a bear living in New York and trying to make it in the jazz world), but rather because so many of the novel’s passages portray the process of jazz improvisation at great length and in great detail. The book’s central storyline traces the Bear’s creative development as a band leader and alto saxophone improviser, and readers without a solid background knowledge of jazz will probably have a hard time following exactly what’s going on during Zabor’s extended descriptions of Bear’s solos. Zabor frequently uses the characteristic styles of significant jazz players as points of reference for Bear’s playing, and sometimes even includes transcriptions of melodies and chord progressions. But, as the friend who lent me a copy of the book pointed out, The Bear Comes Home is at its core not only a novel about jazz, but also about the creative process. As the Bear wrestles with his influences, practices his technique, negotiates thorny aesthetic questions, and attempts to find his voice, he’s struggling with the same problems that all artists must work through.

Another broader theme of The Bear Comes Home is the idea of artist as an outsider—as someone who is drawn to the human world, but by nature always remains on its fringes, uncomfortable with mainstream society and the ways in which most people live their lives. And the book is also a love story—albeit one involving lots of bear-on-woman sex. Though the abundance of interspecies action is without doubt the strangest aspect of Zabor’s altogether very odd novel, it’s also a vehicle for exploring some very conventional themes, such as communication problems between men and women and male struggles with emotional maturity. In fact, the plotline involving the Bear’s love life eventually becomes a little tedious—it takes him a terribly long time to figure out how to negotiate an adult romantic relationship. (Admittedly, he’s at something of a disadvantage, being a bear and all, but as the novel went on, I did grow increasingly impatient with his consistent inability to act like an adult.) Be warned: there are a number of very sexually explicit passages in the novel involving the Bear’s intimate relations with his human lover. But for the most part they’re written with a geeky technicality that helps reduce the queasiness factor; Zabor often seems preoccupied with exactly how interspecies sex might work, much in the same way he’s fascinated by what a bear would need to do physically in order to be able to play the saxophone. Also, Zabor’s very insistent throughout on not treating their relationship as a freakshow. You never forget that the Bear is a Bear, but Zabor all the same is only moderately interested in novelty and titillation. Aside from the obvious, there’s nothing Zabor’s portrayal of the Bear’s love life that wouldn’t seem at home in a mainstream romantic comedy.

For those of you out there who (like me) do love jazz, The Bear Comes Home is a real treat. Numerous real jazz players (ranging from Charlie Haden to Roscoe Mitchell) make cameos, and there’s even a scene in which members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago dress up as hospital personnel in order to rescue the Bear from captivity. (There’s also a scene in which the Bear joins the Art Ensemble onstage, and no one really pays much attention, assuming he’s in costume just like they are.) In-jokes abound, including some very funny passages about the rise of Wynton Marsalis and the marginalization of the avant-garde. And though the jazz-related humor is rich, Zabor’s serious treatment of improvisation, aesthetics, and creative development in jazz is far richer. In his lengthy accounts of the Bear’s solos, Zabor fully captures the fear, joy, and wonder of artistic creation, and in the process offers an intelligent and coherent portrait of the artistic growth and aesthetic personality of a jazz saxophonist. Zabor writes about the Bear’s playing with both the passion of an artist and the keen intellectual eye of a superb critic, and as a result The Bear Comes Home contains some of the finest and most insightful writing about jazz I’ve ever encountered.

Best new music 2008

For several Christmases running, I’ve offered a compilation of my favorite songs of the year as a gift to friends and family. The lengthy post below accompanies Ryan’s Holiday Mix 2008, and offers brief notes on each of the tracks I’ve selected this year (plus links to previous blog posts where applicable). For those of you who will be in the Twin Cities, Chicago, Denver, Decatur, or Chatham this year: you’ll get your copies soon, either in person or in the mail.

For anyone else who might be reading this: the list of songs below is thoroughly idiosyncratic, and I make no claim for it being some kind of definitive critical best-of for 2008. That said, I really enjoyed all these tunes, and maybe you will, too.

The only definitive critical pronouncement that I will make: record of the year goes to the Fleet Foxes, hands down, not the slightest doubt about it.

Ryan’s Holiday Mix 2008, Disc 1

1. Ponytail, “Beg Waves”
A jolt of twee-punk energy from a band that’s both sweeter and more unhinged than obvious influence Deerhoof. Their debut record Ice Cream Spiritual has a wonderful title and abounds with joyous caterwauling. It’s an absolute blast to listen to, especially in small doses—like a sugared-up toddler, Ponytail will wear you out fast.

2. The B-52′s, “Deviant Ingredient”
Two bands of a certain vintage from Athens, Georgia released what were alleged to be comeback albums this year, and despite my deep and abiding love for R.E.M., I have to give credit to the B-52’s for putting out the much better record in 2008. Funplex offers no surprises or stylistic leaps forward—they’re just here to party, and that’s more than fine by me. My Holiday Mix 2008 selection, “Deviant Ingredient,” is hilarious, tuneful, danceable, and thoroughly off the wall. Fred Schneider has some particularly choice lines, such the deeply profound, “It’s the yin and yang shang-a-lang / It’s the slow boogaloo, it’s what they do.” Amen.

3. Wolf Parade, “The Grey Estates”
A fine pop song about good old fashioned suburban ennui. Wolf Parade’s 2008 release At Mount Zoomer (the cover of which Pitchfork correctly identified as among the year’s worst) is disappointingly inconsistent for a band with such great talent and potential, but I’ve had the “Grey Estates” stuck in my head for most of the year. For a detailed analysis of “The Grey Estates” and a review of At Mount Zoomer, see my earlier blog post.

4. Erik Friedlander, “Big Shoes”
Cellist Friedlander first caught my attention with Block Ice and Propane, a warm and dazzling solo concept record about the American family road trip. I’m also a fan of some of his more avant-garde work—see my earlier post on his collaboration with Teho Teardo for more on this. My Holiday Mix selection “Big Shoes” operates in a relatively straight-ahead trio jazz mode, albeit in the unusual configuration of cello-bass-drums. Friedlander pulls most of the melodic weight, and the result is low-key swing that isn’t boring: stuff you can put on at a dinner party or on Sunday morning, but which also rewards close listening.

5. Fleet Foxes, “White Winter Hymnal”
“White Winter Hymnal” is a showstopper, an attention-getting shot across the bow from Fleet Foxes’ superb self-titled debut. The band wraps a simple, timeless melody in gorgeous vocal harmonies, and then hits you with a blast of dreamy, surf-meets-Tortoise guitar. Beautiful and engrossing music from one of the better records of the past decade. (For previous posts on the Fleet Foxes, see here and here.)

6. Al Green, “Lay It Down”
Veteran hip-hop act the Roots helmed the production on Al Green’s new record, and they did a bang-up job: the sound is studiously old-school, and Reverend Green sounds at home. What’s more, Green is still a top-notch songwriter decades into his career: there are a handful of tracks on Lay It Down that compare favorably to Green’s classic work from the seventies. For more about Lay It Down, see my earlier post.

7. Stereolab, “Daisy Click Clack”
Those familiar with Stereolab’s oeuvre will find few surprises on Chemical Chords: this time out it’s the same arty francophile bounce as it ever was. But they’re so good at what they do that I don’t care if they haven’t had a fresh idea in a decade.

8. Matana Roberts, “Thrills”
New York-based alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Roberts cut this record in Chicago, with the help of some great local players: most notably the legendary Fred Anderson, who duets with Roberts on several tracks. Anderson doesn’t play on “Thrills,” but I think it’s a cleverly adventurous composition, and it features terrific playing from both Roberts and Chicago’s Jeff Parker (best known for his work in Tortoise, and if you ask me, one of the best guitarists around).

9. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!”
A seething, sneering, raucous, rapier-witted and lyrical poetic declamation from the veteran Cave, accompanied by a rejuvenated, loose, and energetic incarnation of the Bad Seeds. Decades into his career, Nick Cave shows the kids how it’s done. (For more, see my earlier post on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!).

10. Erykah Badu, “The Cell”
Perhaps the most underappreciated album of 2008 is Badu’s New Amerykah Part I, the first installment in a planned trilogy of sonically and thematically adventurous concept records. The album is coherent and insular in a way that defies easy excerpting, but “The Cell” will give you a fair taste.

11. Antony and the Johnsons, “Shake that Devil”
2008′s Another World EP is a teaser for next year’s Antony and the Johnsons full-length, and most of the EP has a complacent, B-side feel about it. But then there’s “Shake that Devil,” a bold, wild, unpredictable and utterly unexpected tune, quite unlike anything else on the EP, and miles away from Antony’s typical maudlin piano ballad mode. Truth is, Antony could could weep the phone book over a few miserable piano chords till kingdom come for all I care; he’s one of the most compelling singers around. But “Shake That Devil” hints that the new record may have some surprises in store, and I’m looking forward to it.

12. Bon Iver, “For Emma”
Surely just about the last thing the world needs is another navel-gazing indie rocker mumbling over an acoustic guitar, but the indelible melodies coming through the warble of Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago bowled over my resistance. Emotionally honest and improbably haunting stuff.

13. The Walkmen, “In the New Year”
A big bravura tune in the midst of a slow-burning record full of passionate adult love songs. On first listen, Walkmen records are a little impenetrable, but stick with them, and rewards are substantial. One of the richest and most deeply moving records of 2008.

13. Lackthereof, “The Columbia”
The guy-in-a-bedroom-with-a-fourtrack vibe of Lackthereof’s My Haunted sometimes wears a bit thin, but “The Columbia” is an excellent tune, and one very well-suited to its lo-fi setting.

14. The Hold Steady, “Sequestered in Memphis”
I had mixed feelings about this year’s Hold Steady record—I’m beginning to wonder if songwriter Craig Finn has by this point spun everything he can out of his distinctive rockers, junkies, and Jesus milieu. (For an extended take on this topic, see my earlier post about the in some ways troubling content of Finn’s lyrics.) But Finn can certainly still write a hell of a good pop hook, and his band is more muscular and fun than ever—they’re probably only group in indie rock that dares to pull out Cheap Trick or E-Street Band moves (nonetheless simultaneously, and with Black Flag thrown in for good measure).

15. The Magnetic Fields, “The Nun’s Litany”
This band hit a dead end after the popularity of 69 Love Songs; when I saw them touring for the mediocre i, they seemed have trouble finding any meaningful connection to their chamber-folk arrangements at all. 2008′s Distortion is refreshing: Merritt isn’t breaking any new ground with his songwriting here, but this time out the melodies are better than solid, and the loud, hyper-distorted arrangements are a breath of fresh air (while at the same time recalling the lo-fi vibe of the early Magnetic Fields records). “The Nun’s Litany” made me laugh aloud: it’s both playful and razor-sharp.

16. Andrew Bird, “How You Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm”
A flat-out beautiful recording of a cover tune from the always-excellent Bird. I’m very much looking forward to his new album next year.

17. William Parker Quartet, “Malachi’s Mode”
Solid stuff from Parker’s quartet in a relatively straight-ahead post-bob mode. But my favorite Parker recordings from 2008 aren’t represented here, due to great their length: I’m actually partial to Double Sunrise Over Neptune, with its title reminiscent of Sun Ra, its big band, big palette and crosscultural borrowings.

18. Fleet Foxes, “Oliver James”
One of the first things you notice about the Fleet Foxes are their distinctive and immensely appealing vocal harmonies—but the spare and beautiful “Oliver James” leaves no doubt that they have plenty of other tricks up their collective sleeve. Again: Fleet Foxes is the best record of 2008.

Ryan’s Holiday Mix 2008, Disc 2

1. Wye Oak, “I Don’t Feel Young”
On this record, Wye Oak cribs more or less everything from Yo La Tengo, but they do such a good job that I didn’t mind too much. A couple of albums down the road they may find a voice and sound of their own, but for now “I Don’t Feel Young,” however derivative, does offer considerable noisy melancholy pleasures.

2. High Places, “Jump In (For Gilkey Elementary School) “
Most pop electronic acts tend to lean heavily on dance styles or 80s new wave, but the High Places take a fresh approach: as the song’s subtitle would suggest, there’s something childlike about their sound, and this particular track also has a warm, nostalgic feel. Definitely one of the most promising new acts of 2008.

3. Titus Andronicus, “My Time Outside the Womb”
Raw, rambunctious, and fun punk rock from new band Titus Andronicus. Their debut record (which I praised effusively here) is a blast, but after catching the latter half of their starry-eyed and ragged set at Pitchfork, I’m not sure if they’re going to be able to channel their considerable energy into a sustainable, grown-up sound in the future. But: maybe they’ll surprise me, and at the very least, we can enjoy them while they’re still punk kids who just go out there and unselfconsciously rock.

4. Deerhunter, “Nothing Ever Happened”
With the success of their much-anticipated second album, Microcastle, Deerhunter is beginning to take on the mantle of a critical favorite. I’m not convinced that they’re going to change the face of rock and roll, but this record does do an excellent job of distilling obvious influences into compelling, driving, slightly off-kilter rock, and I suspect we’ll probably continue to have solid (or better) albums from Deerhunter in the future. And check out that guitar solo on “Nothing Ever Happened”—inventive, lengthy, and all around terrific in my book.

5. Nomo, “My Dear”
With Ghost Rock, Nomo grows up: they’re no longer merely aping Afropop pioneers like Fela Kuti, and instead broaden their palette to draw on a wider range of sounds and styles. The infectious horn hook on “My Dear” would have done Fela proud, and here it’s locked into place by a relentless bass groove and some fine hand-drumming funk. The soloists just blow the hell out of it, and it all sounds great.

6. Juana Molina, “Un Dia”
This time out, Argentinian singer Molina cuts, slices, and samples her voice in order to treat it much like an instrument, and the resulting arrangements are inventive and fascinating. The most obvious point of reference here is Bjork, but the Molina has her own distinct sound and approach, and plenty of ideas of her own. An unabashed experiment that’s also warm, inviting, and fun to listen to, and one of the best records of the year.

7. Fleet Foxes, “He Doesn’t Know Why”
Here’s another great tune from Fleet Foxes, and one that displays their ambition and reach in ways that might not be obvious in “White Winter Hymnal” or “Oliver James.” These guys are the real thing.

8. Mountain Goats, “Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident.”
After a string of flat-out great records capped by Tallahassee and The Sunset Tree, John Darnielle’s last couple of Mountain Goats albums have been slightly disappointing. The songwriting’s still top-notch, and there’s still some novelty to hearing him find his way around the studio after years of ultra lo-fi recordings, but Heretic Pride lacks some of the passion, energy, and coherence of the best Mountain Goats records. That said, I still swooned over the gorgeous chorus in “Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident,” and Darnielle can still out-write almost any indie rock songwriter around.

9. Jamie Lidell, “Another Day”
I raved about this one in some detail here at Good Readings earlier this year: an improbably great soul tune from English oddball Lidell.

10. Lambchop, “Slipped, Dissolved, and Loosed”
Another gorgeous, brainy, quietly moving song from Lambchop, one of the best and most underappreciated bands around. I suppose I understand why their literate, allusive country-lounge-soul fails to catch the attention of trendsetting hipsters: Lambchop’s sound is unabashedly adult, genuinely subtle, and in no way trendy. Instead, the music is beautiful, heartfelt, and wry, and anchored in the stellar songwriting of bandleader Kurt Wagner. 2008′s OH (Ohio) doesn’t have quite the emotional impact of 2006′s Damaged, which is perhaps Lambchop’s finest album, nor is it as flashy as their minor (and now largely forgotten) critical and commercial breakthrough Nixon (2000). But I sincerely love this band, and it broke my heart a little when I saw them give a fantastic show to a mostly-empty theater in Chicago a couple of years back, even if I do understand why they might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

11. Marnie Stern, “Ruler”
Stern is a ferocious talent, and here she shreds the hell out of a structurally inventive tune. See my previous post on Stern for more (as well as an extended discussion of the relationship between age and the creative process).

12. Aluminum Group, “Headphones”
More appealing indie-electro-lounge pop from Chicago’s Navin brothers. Much like Stereolab, they’re a thoroughly predictable and reliable act: pick up almost any album in their catalog, and the experience is much the same. Still, their tunes and arrangements remain a pleasure.

13. Vampire Weekend, “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance”
Vampire Weekend were 2008′s biggest indie buzz band by far, and perhaps because they hold up a tuneful mirror to the privileged young aesthetes who make up a core component of indie rock’s hipster fanbase. The critics made a big deal about their borrowings from African pop music, but I can’t say I found that aspect of their sound particularly interesting or surprising—after years of African music boosterism from critic Joe Tangari in the pages of Pitchfork, it was only a matter of time before an indie rock band took the message to heart. (And Vampire Weekend has its predecessors even here: Extra Golden, for example, which actually has both American and African members, and offers a more compelling, if less tuneful, synthesis of African and indie rock sounds; or the aforementioned Nomo.) And of course Vampire Weekend’s points of reference are more generally Western borrowers of African sounds than African music directly: it’s all Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel, a fact of which the band is acutely aware (see their much-discussed song “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”). The band’s self-consciousness is laudable to a degree, but it’s also a problem: pointing out the irony of your own privileged position doesn’t mean that you’re actually moving beyond it. Further, their set at Pitchfork was uninspiring: rote, bland, suggesting that there’s really not much to this band except their tunes. Oh, but those tunes! I have about a million reasons to reject Vampire Weekend, but the songwriting is so good that I had to let it all go. If these guys can drop some of the irony and hip self-reflection and get down to business, they probably have some very good records ahead of them. More likely they’ll put out a thoroughly boring second record and everyone will forget about them completely. All the same, “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” is a great tune.

14. David Byrne and Brian Eno, “One Fine Day”
An unexpected, slightly loopy, thoroughly enjoyable collaboration between Byrne and Eno. Somewhat surprisingly, this time out they’re into pop tunes, and quite a few of them are better than decent. Eno is without doubt one of the most extraordinary producers of his generation, and his ambient work is absolutely definitive of the genre—but his own rock-oriented material more often than not leaves me cold. Daid Byrne remains an excellent musical partner for Eno, as he’s no less arty or intellectual in his approach, but also has an ability to sing with deeply appealing honesty and directness. Byrne’s post-Talking Heads output has definitely been hit and miss, but he remains a brilliant guy and one of my artistic heroes. He also writes a fascinating blog.

15. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, “Out of Reaches”
King of indie irony Malkmus has a secret weapon in his arsenal: he can write involving, affecting, even sincere songs when he sets his mind to it. Far too few of Pavement’s legion imitators have understood that Malkmus’s archness and playfulness has always only thinly concealed an emotionally earnest core. Just because Malkmus’s sentiments aren’t straightforward doesn’t mean that he doesn’t believe in anything he’s singing about; his ironies are multifaceted and complicated, but they can rarely be reduced to a mere joke. The current incarnation of Malkmus’s post-Pavement outfit the Jicks is crackerjack, and has benefited tremendously from the addition of Sleater-Kinney’s incomparable Janet Weiss on the drums. The long guitar solos, adventurous song structures, and Weiss’s hyper-proficient playing on Real Emotional Trash add up to a thoroughly enjoyable record, the best by far from Malkmus since the storied days of Pavement. Sometimes Malkmus’s verbal play gets the best of him, but “Out of Reaches” stays focused and hits home.

16. The Breeders, “It’s The Love”
Some critics complained that this sounded a bit too much like an outtake from the early 90s alt-rock heyday, of which the Breeders were certainly one of the leading lights. It’s a fair criticism, but if you can get past its familiarity, it’s a very pleasurable tune. Most of Mountain Battles goes for quieter, subtler pleasures—it was largely dismissed by critics, but I suspect many of them just might not have been paying very much attention. Mountain Battles is well worth a serious listen.

17. American Music Club, “The Decibels and the Little Pills.”
See my previous post about The Golden Age for more on this one. Way back in the mid-nineties, some critics were hailing Mark Eitzel as one of the best songwriters of his generation; now nobody pays his work (either as a solo artist or with American Music Club) the slightest bit of attention. Eitzel has always been relentlessly gloomy and brainy; I sometimes doubt that I would like his songs nearly as much as I do if I hadn’t first stumbled across them when I was a brooding teenager. Still, Eitzel remains a very fine lyricist and tunesmith, so much so that I can still put up with his sad sack ways.

18. Department of Eagles, “No One Does It Like You”
Drawing heavily on the musical (and sartorial) styles of the eighties has been all the rage in recent years, but Department of Eagles have set the retro clock back a couple of decades on In Ear Park: the sound is mostly derived from David Bowie and the Beatles, with little hints of Led Zeppelin’s mystic-folk mode here and there, too. It’s a record with moderate ambitions, but the tunes are excellent, and despite the heavy debt owed to very familiar bands of ages past, In Ear Park manages to transform its influences into a distinct and compelling sound. “No One Does It Like You” also has the virtue of being insanely catchy; it’s one of the more straightforward tunes on a record that has far more twists, turns, subtleties, and depths than you’re likely to detect on a casual first listen.

19. Breathe Owl Breathe, “Tobaggan”
A beautiful song from a small, odd, and lovely EP from a band that seems to have received absolutely no attention at all. According to their MySpace page, they’re from Michigan; that’s just about all I know about them.

Second Graders Love John Coltrane

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (registration required) ran a charming piece by Nat Hentoff about a class of second graders in Queens who’ve become such passionate fans of John Coltrane that they’ve begun holding “raffles, cake sales, and books sales” in order to save his Long Island home from being torn down by a developer. (It’s now looking likely that the house will, indeed, be preserved.)

Coltrane lived on Long Island during the last years of his life—the house was where he composed A Love Supreme and all his other late, great works. The students were introduced to Coltrane by their teacher, Christine Passarella, who discovered that her students responded enthusiastically, even passionately, to Coltrane’s music when she played it in the classroom. According to Hentoff:

John Coltrane, "Interstellar Space"

Ms. Passarella’s second-grade students, she says, would have told him how moved they were by not only the ballads “but the more avant-garde recordings, such as ‘Interstellar Space.’” She notes that, through her teaching, “I have discovered that young children have open, welcoming minds, and the more pure and emotional the music, the more they connect. Soon they were hooked on John Coltrane’s music.”

Many jazz fans and critics hate Coltrane’s “late period” work, put off by its perceived harshness and difficulty. But I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten myself thoroughly lost in late records like Meditations or Ascension, which I’d argue are among the most beautiful in Coltrane’s catalog. I’m sure it would have made Coltrane very happy to know that these children are able to connect to his music so directly—he’d be pleased to hear that people who aren’t burdened by lots of musical expectations and experience are able to get right to the heart of his expression. Folks who get caught up in one narrow idea or another about what jazz or music ought to sound like would do well to pay attention to the way these kids are approaching Coltrane’s late-period, avant-garde work: with open minds and open hearts. It’s music that you can understand intellectually, and place in historical and musical context—but that’s not at all where its power can be found. With records like Meditations or Interstellar Space, it’s far better to close your eyes, open your heart, and just give yourself over to the music, while maintaining as much of a child’s openness and innocence as you can manage.

Erik Friedlander & Teho Teardo: improvised/electronic collaborations

The jazz/electronic collaborations between Steve Reid and Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden have garnered a lot of attention over the past few years. Both are tremendously talented musicians—but I have to say that I was disappointed when I saw the two of them live at the Empty Bottle a couple years ago. I’d hoped to see some genuine improvisational interaction between the two, and had high expectations, given Hebden’s exceptional work for his Four Tet project. But at the live show, it seemed that Reid was mostly limited to following Hebden—that Hebden couldn’t change up his electronics with the same ease and fluidity that was second nature to Reid on the drums. Also, it probably didn’t help that Hebden & Reid were preceded on stage by Chicago’s great Fred Anderson, who played a muscular and energetic duo set with his frequent collaborator, the incomparable drummer Hamid Drake.

In any case, I do really like the idea of top-flight improvisers and electronic artists working together, and I’m always pleased discover successful collaborations in this mode. One recent example: Giorni Rubati, cellist Erik Friedlander‘s collaboration with electronic artist and film score composer Teho Teardo (available from bip-hop records; also available via eMusic and as an Amazon MP3 download).

The record, while excellent, is far from entirely improvised—more on that below. But first, check out the YouTube video below of a live performance by Friedlander and Teardo at the Knitting Factory in 2005. Notice how the two respond to each other throughout the performance. Teardo opens in reaction to Friedlander’s percussive, repetitive playing by bringing out some glitchy noise, but then soon moves his way into a much denser wash of darkly warm sound, which Friedlander in turn responds to by getting out his bow and entirely changing his approach to the improvisation.

On record, the two take a different approach— and in fact they were on different continents while recording the collaboration. Friedlander recorded responses to poems by Giorni Rubati —some of which were solo improvisations, while others were multitracked. Teardo then took Friedlander’s recordings, added his own contributions, and manipulated the recordings. The result is a shapeshifting and thoroughly engrossing record, in which Friedlander and Teardo both cover a wide range of sonic territory. Friedlander’s playing is often percussive, but he’ll sometimes also offer melancholy bowing or keen noisily. Teardo seems equally fond of glitchy electronic and much warmer and fuller sounds, and does a superb job of interacting with and responding to Friedlander’s recordings. Occasionally voices reading fragments of Rubati’s poetry in Italian or English float in. (Somewhat oddly, the album ends with a cover of the Normal’s “Warm Leatherette”—it doesn’t have much in common with the themes or moods of the rest of the record, but it’s enjoyable all the same.)

I’d also very highly recommend Friedlander’s solo cello record Block Ice and Propane, which I’ll perhaps give a blog post of its own someday, as it’s a remarkable record—both virtuosic and fun, and a real joy to listen to.