Abstract Index Playlist - Sept 5/07

In my continuing quest to find music with everything on it (sometimes it leads to heartburn), I've been getting some good mileage out of the crazy new disc from A_Dontigny on the consistently boundary-pushing Notype label out of Montreal. Eric Hill's review in Exclaim magazine does a nice job in summing up what's going on - well realized illbient (and faster...) beats quickly dissolving into puddles of electronic goo, where the decay of electric pianos is as important as any of the notes being played. Beautifully constructed sounds remain beautiful as they are smudged across multiple frequencies and the stereo spectrum. If you're a Plunderphonics fan, you'll find much to enjoy here, although I find Dontigny's work to be even more unsettling because it's hard to discern the overall mood of a pieces - he works hard to make sure our cultural assumptions regarding choices of notes, rhythms and compositional techniques are always kept off balance. Not that John Oswald didn't (during that phase of his long career) but I always find myself laughing at "Dab" or "Pocket" while admiring its mutant compositional style rather than reaching for the Tums out of a sense of disorientation. But, hey, a little ganja will take care of any musically induced queasiness - it is the way of the Index.

Samples from A_Dontigny's "Geistewissenschaften"

tulsa black - cecil mcbee (strata east)
auto retrato em tripas de cachorro - satanique samba trio (amplitude)
acrobat - drumheller (rat drifting)
firebirds - prince lasha and sonny simmons (contemporary)
minor figure - geordie haley's delta east trio (indie)
aeiou - konono no. 1 (crammed)
oblemou - gangbe brass band (harmonia mundi)
james brown ride on - orlando julius (vampisoul)
yeah yeah ku yeah - bokoor band (otrabanda)
hey ya! - shawn lee's ping pong orchestra (ubiquity)
cathedral of light - william parker (aum fidelity)
bird song - robin fox & clayton thomas (room 40)
tidying up after - mike hansen (etude)
all-over - a_dontigny (notype)

horton - low in the sky (pattern based)
dub darvish - joshua penman (lua)
80 creeps - teledubgnosis (wordsound)
dervish - the dub project (M)
nature lover dub - ticklah (easy star)
another one bites the dust - clint eastwood and general saint (greensleeves)