The Secret Life of Stones, Walt Shaw (Discus Music CD)
Let me come clean straight away: I am no fan of drummers. In fact I detest most drummers and their drumkits. I usually say the exception is John Marshall’s ‘Four Gongs Two Drums’ on Bundles, which is a masterpiece of restraint, although there are odd moments in many band’s repertoires where I think ‘yes’. (Guy Evans’ double drums on Van der Graaf Generators ‘Gog’ springs to mind.) In the main though I prefer percussion, and well-programmed drum machines. Rotatoms were a gift from god in my humble opinion.
So you can perhaps see why I surprised myself liking Walt Shaw’s new album, although to be fair he does state that ‘At the heart of the work is percussion, mediated using electronics’. So, although there are some drumskins involved this abstract music is mostly reliant on what Shaw calls ‘sources of vibration’, which includes stones in cans, the decay of gongs, and a whole load of other things:
stretched wires, springs, bent metal, various saw blades, circular and fret, wood,
glass, metal plates, tuning forks, marbles, and naturally some drums, found
objects, voice, cymbals, singing bowls, metal and wooden tongue drums
There are mostly recorded with contact microphones and then treated with effects, to produce drones and textures, which sometimes lay beneath the clanking, twittering, echoing and gently chuntering foreground sounds.
It’s like a weird kind of play, characters moving across the stage, in front of an abstract scenic backdrop, to interract, argue, nod to each other and move on. On ‘Snowquilt’ a voice quietly declaims amongst and through the sounds. The titles are as impressionistic as the music, which hovers between ambient and free jazz improvisation. Although there is a lyrical freedom at work here it is one executed with care, by someone paying attention to the mistakes, accidents and possibilities of sound.
I feel privileged to be shown this secret life.
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Rupert Loydell