There's something wonderfully, almost perversely singular about "Blue" Gene Tyranny. Here's a fellow capable of virtually anything pianistic, immersed in the avant-garde from a variety of angles, yet his music sounds as though he feels utterly uncompelled to acknowledge it, as if he'd be content to serve as a pianist in some distant cocktail bar where only one person out of a thousand would realize that something special was afoot.
Take Your Time is a collection of essentially solo piano pieces (a couple with electronic augmentation) in which Tyranny does indeed follow the title's instructions. Tunes are spun out leisurely, ornamented with frills, dipped into this or that aspect of Americana from jazz to blues to Tin Pan Alley. In some respects, they're almost normal. And yet, there's a tinge, a subtle and slightly disturbing glaze to them, the barest hint that all is not right. It's a fascinating fluctuation, as one goes from a "simple" appreciation of a lush and beautiful melody to the tiniest feeling of queasiness; more than once, I found myself making a comparison to images from David Lynch, things that can be seen (or heard) from two conceptual angles at once.
Still, one tends to be seduced by the simple yet deep beauty of tracks like "A Letter from Home," its harmonies reminiscent of something from the Robin Holcomb songbook. Its closing chords are as lovely as anything you're likely to hear this year. And yet, and yet ... you can't help wondering if you're being slyly bamboozled, if this isn't some arch Ashley-inspired send up, so subtle as to be almost undetectable. You give up in pleasant exasperation and just surrender. The killer cut is "Meditation: Nothing's Changed, Everything's Changed" (even the title evokes Lynch-like images). Feedback generating devices are laid on the strings, creating a wavering cloud humming behind the notes, the notes sparse and chorale-like, inhabiting something of the sort of area John Tilbury often investigates with AMM. Whether or note there's any sly winking going on, it's simply rapturous.
With the hundreds of "free" piano albums, with everyone and her brother flailing about in a vain search for the new, it's entirely refreshing to hear someone "take his time" and --surprise, surprise -- end up in a territory no one's quite heard before.
Comments and Feedback:
|
