Chattanooga Pulse

Written by Ernie Paik
Wednesday, 13 August 2008 20:07
LaDonna Smith and Misha Feigin
Floating Bridges

(TransMuseq)

Musicians without a grasp of history might believe that their new songs sound fresh, even when they employ old styles or ideas, sometimes subconsciously. There is a musical approach, called free improvisation, where musicians are actually encouraged to ignore history, artificially inducing a sparkle of newness. One could say it’s like free jazz without the jazz-at its most pure form, free improvisation makes no reference to any genre. The Birmingham, Alabama string player LaDonna Smith is a veteran free improviser, a figure in the scene for over three decades and the co-founder and editor of the improvisor, a journal dedicated to the field. String Trek is the name of the duo of Smith with Russian-born guitarist and award-winning poet Misha Feigin, and their latest release is Floating Bridges, which documents a fascinating 2007 concert in Poland.

The 19-minute “Krakow Concerto” begins with Smith’s viola wisps, giving way to impassioned fickleness and occasional abstract singing that adds to the intensity. Feigin’s guitar work switches between small, rumbling explosions and nimble, erratic sprints. “Tribal Reverberation” is a vocal piece with a wide array of singing techniques, with sounds like laughter, scatting, percussion, alien languages, or animal-like utterances. “Klebnikov” uses plucked strings, over which Feigin recites poetry in both Russian and English; it’s enigmatic while unassuming and directionless, apart from a few tugs back into the realm of melody from Feigin’s guitar. “Die to Live” and “Crossed Currents” have some of the album’s most chaotic moments, and such passages will likely be difficult listening for the uninitiated. Nevertheless, Floating Bridges is an intriguing album with rich and expansive vocabularies of words, non-words, and unfettered music.
Girl Talk
Feed the Animals

(Illegal Art)

I remember reading an announcement years ago about a revolutionary new radio station that would only play strung-together snippets of popular songs-each just long enough to capture the essence of a song, without any repetition. It turned out to be a hoax, but I find a sort of odd appeal in the notion of such a station. The Residents’ 1980 album The Commercial Album, consisting of 40 one-minute pop jingles, had a similar idea, but likely, the artist that is closest in spirit to that fictional radio station is the sampling fiend Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk.

A typical Girl Talk song may use a dozen or more song excerpts, overlaid in pairs or groups, constructing paradoxically scattered-yet-cohesive tracks. Music geeks will be quick to point out that such mash-ups are nothing new, with precursors including musique concrète or John Oswald’s visionary 1975 Led Zeppelin/preacher concoction entitled “Power.” It’s certainly fair to compare Girl Talk’s material to Oswald’s audio collages, particularly his Plunderphonics album, but the difference is that Girl Talk has a devotion to maintaining a beat. This makes Feed the Animals possibly the best party album for 2008, good for impromptu games of “identify that sample” along with its dance-friendly style.

Feed the Animals is not quite as adventurous as the excellent, overlooked debut album Secret Diary; it’s like an extension of Gillis’s 2006 breakthrough album Night Ripper, with tracks where hip-hop, Top 40 rock and pop, and occasional indie numbers occupy the same room. Familiar songs are placed in unfamiliar settings, like Pras’s “Ghetto Supastar” comfortably lying atop Yo La Tengo’s “Autumn Sweater” or Flo Rida’s “Low” serenaded by the Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning.” Feed the Animals is another masterfully crafted collage that hits one pleasure center after another, and I think it’s safe to say that Girl Talk now has another purpose: as a musician, you know you’ve really made it when Girl Talk samples you.