Chattanooga Pulse

Written by Ernie Paik
Tuesday, 25 November 2008 19:31

David Grubbs
An Optimist Notes the Dusk
(Drag City)
David Grubbs is probably best known as one half of the unclassifiable art-minded Gastr del Sol, which made fascinating, unconventional pieces that employed a wide spectrum of electronic and acoustic sounds. Since the group’s break-up in 1997, Grubbs has continued as a solo artist, and his latest album, An Optimist Notes the Dusk, shows him concentrating on the electric guitar; he uses a restrained, enigmatic technique that suggests a traveler who knows exactly where he is yet provides the appearance of being a wanderer. His voice is clean and unadorned, which doesn’t quite work well on the track “Holy Fool Music,” which has an indie-rock combo arrangement; his singing fits better on a song like “An Optimist Declines,” where guitar notes mirror his vocal notes and some restless drumming adds spice to the mix.
The noodlings of “Storm Sequence” make it seem directionless, and “Eyeglasses of Kentucky” uses non-obvious chords to convey a blank mood-it seems to drift in the room and just as easily drift out. Perhaps the most disappointing track is the closing 12-minute instrumental number “The Not-So-Distant”; it’s an abstract piece with tones and stark sounds, but Grubbs has covered similar territory much better previously. Grubbs has respectable chops (John Fahey is one of his influences), but on this outing, that ability is somewhat obscured; that example underscores the unfortunate thing about the album: Grubbs doesn’t use his favored strengths, and therefore, it ends up sounding a bit thin and short on ideas.

Muslimgauze
Armsbazzar
(Essence Music)
Bryn Jones, the sole musician behind Muslimgauze, was not a Muslim, had never visited the Middle East, and was based in Manchester, England, but he devoted his entire musical career to creating works influenced by Middle-Eastern issues. And what a career it was: he started in 1982, as a musical protest against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and was wildly prolific until his death in 1999, with hundreds of original songs released under the Muslimgauze name. It’s apparent where Jones’s sympathies stood, with release titles such as The Rape of Palestine and Vote Hezbollah, and for some listeners, this may not be easy to swallow. Personal reactions are valid when it comes to music, being part of the experience, and while separating an artist’s politics and views from the work can be done in varying degrees (consider Richard Wagner and M.I.A., as two diverse examples), in the case of Muslimgauze, it’s nearly impossible.
As for the music, it’s pretty astounding stuff. Jones was working with a clear aesthetic and only used analog equipment and tape loops while eschewing digital and sampling (and Western-made) technology. The recent archival release Armsbazzar, on the Brazilian label Essence Music, compiles two previously released EP-length tracks (”Hebron Massacre” from 1994 and “Gulf Between Us” from 1997) with two tracks from the unreleased album Zamindar. The entrancing “Gulf Between Us” has a chilling, subtle tension, using hand percussion, vocal samples of ululation, short synthetic blasts, and dub elements, like beats drenched in delay and reverb. “Hebron Massacre” is even more foreboding, with an unrelenting, cyclic keyboard chord functioning as a kind of alarm tone; its bursts of static and noise and the mounting sonic density add to the impact of the song, which was created in response to an attack in 1994 on worshippers at a West Bank mosque. The Zamindar tracks are dominated by an artificial drumbeat, which is a bit distracting, but the centerpieces of Armsbazzar are affecting and complicated, like the difficult conflicts and tragedies that inspired them.