Kelpland Serenades
Anna Humler- voice, toys, found objects
Stewart Liebig- contrabass guitars, electronics
“Winter Street”: rituals from a never-to-be-known culture, and it doesn’t echo Meredith Monk. Now that’s an opener. Each piece on this CD has well-honed bizarreness, and this structure saves them from the structure-free sameness so much free improve succumbs to. When you consider they’re live and undubbed tracks that only makes them more impressive. “Sidpaho” suggests music that might be made by Japanese human-electronic beings. “Fantasma” releases ethnic rites mixed with electronics that grow organically out of the work (or out of the play, maybe I should say). Ritual song after ritual song rises out of the molten stew. Throughout the platter the two musicians never sound contrived or affected in the slightest. Rather, they seem to be coming from some long-established but hitherto unknown culture, in or out of our space-time continuum.
They never forget that new music should surprise, astonish and delight the listener. Ravishing doesn’t hurt, either. In 12 years of reviewing improv records this is one of the 4 or 5 most exceptional I’ve come across. Beautifully recorded, too. Track it down by all means.
pfMentum
CD 029
P.O. Box 1653
Ventura, Calif. 93002
Richard Grooms