What a boring role the stringed bass is (was) often relegated to! For so many years, it served merely to fill up space and provide a root, or a pedal point, or just, "Hey, can you double the cello line? Okay, thanks." That's like moderately tranquilizing an elephant and telling him "do not make a lot of noise or smash things when you walk". In a great deal of modern rock, bassists aren't heard or noticed until they aren't there (subtract the bass guitar from Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins etc. for some examples). When placed in a solo situation, as is the case with Canadian born / Stockholm transplant Joe Williamson and contemporaries such as Christian Weber and Jason Roebke, you lament how regularly misused this incredibly versatile, emotive and powerful the instrument is.
Being an honorary devotee of Giacinto Scelsi (he collaborated with Rhodri Davies and Stefano Tedesco on the album Lontano — Homage to Giacinto Scelsi), Williamson's Hoard draws immediate comparisons, as the two works here resonate (literally) with the same methodology of the Italian composer. On the 24-minute "Inadvertent Attraction of Suspicion", he focuses on stifled tones, squeezing them to the last until other sonic materials ooze forth (others have likened this Tibetan-inspired style to acquiring the "ambient halo" where performers fling brass and bells around a tonic). However, whereas Scelsi's orchestral oeuvre frequently resembles enormous, neutral, numb clouds, the lure of Hoard is the rhythmic and textural diversity the listener receives due to the stellar, intimate production (cheers to Peter Nylander and David Stackenäs for the mix and recording). Every thump, click, pluck, smack, pull, scrape is heard as it was meant to be: loud and present. Each drag of the bow reveals myriad, hypnotic micro-patterns which, coupled with the size of the instrument, booms onward as a war machine.
On the title track, Williamson begins with a less aggressive attack, allowing a small series of pitches ring through (i.e. D# against E, a perfect fourth of D# against A, to C#, C# against F#, sporadically alternating octaves), though still using a rough, grainy aesthetic where bow length dictates swaying downbeats. Near the half-way mark, he hikes his speed and tactile pressure for several minutes until bursting, then applying a similar fervor to delicate harmonics and closing with an abrupt whisper.
Once upon a time in 1959, Charlie Haden played with Ornette Coleman at the Five Spot. On one occasion, it's rumored that, eyes closed and body pressed against his instrument, he didn't notice someone approach the stage and place an ear to the f-hole. When Coleman looked up, he asked the identity of this weirdo, who turned out to be Leonard Bernstein; the celebrated conductor / composer was so possessed by the sound of the instrument that he had to touch it. While listening to Hoard, you feel the same attraction as the instrument grips your shoulders and pulls you along according to its whim. In the words of one bassist whose playing is never suppressed, "Play every note like it's your last" (Flea). And that's exactly what Williamson does.
Comments and Feedback:
|
