Pat Battstone's The Last Taxi: New Destinations

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, of Pat Battstone's The Last Taxi: New Destinations, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Pat Battstone Sextet's Elements

First things first--I hope I don't get in trouble for calling this an album from the Pat Battstone Sextet. The six names you see on the cover are the designated performers, and I can't see typing that over and over. On Pat Battstone's website, he has this album listed under the Pat Battstone Sextet.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about this very interesting experimental album. I've listened to Battstone before, having reviewed The Voice of Robert Desnos just last October. That spoken word album, backed by Battstone's intriguing turn on piano, was lifted by the incredibly charming voice of Antonella Chionna. The entire recording was somewhat off the beaten path, as spoken work recordings often are, but it was far more mainstream than Elements. This abstract project seeks to provide a musical rendering of the four elements of the ancient world--fire, water, wind and earth--and explain how these combine to form an elusive fifth element known as spirit.

This is accomplished with these six musicians creating sounds that are designed as "conversation between friends," an approach that naturally limited both solos and all six playing through a single song at once. "Everything was spontaneous, including each's silence."

That opens up the door for a wide range of sounds and ideas. Some of them are odd and disjointed, full of shouts and persistent percussion, while other moments abound in a gentle beauty uttered by a lone clarinet, piano or flute. These exchanges are peppered with both acoustic and electric sounds, performed live in the studio so that nothing sounds like a studio concoction. We're witnessing six skilled musicians letting go of their training, their ideas and beliefs about structure, and spending a single day with each other to act on their intuitions. Yes, this recording was captured in a single day when Battstone and his five Italian colleagues were in the same place at once, and the result was three long pieces that added up to 79 minutes. Editing was minimal, and only done to divide up sections and to eliminate talking between the performers.

This is a strange and slightly chaotic project to be sure, but it's also a valuable exercise into the nature of the purest improvisation. You always read about musicians playing off each other, and here that inspiration is channeled into its primal form. Elements reminds me of some of the more esoteric recordings from 2L Recordings of Norway, the ones that dwell on the outer edges of what's musical and what isn't. But the value and excitement is found in the definition of space, and how sound interacts with its surroundings.

The Voice of Robert Desnos on CD

I'm not sure if audiophiles dig spoken word pieces or not. I can't think of a famous reference disc that consists of someone reciting poetry or prose with musical accompaniment. The closest thing I have to that in my music collection is an LP, part of the Jack Kerouac box set that came out a couple of decades ago, that includes Jack reading from the last few paragraphs of On the Road while Steve Allen improvises on the piano.

I fondly remember going to the Anti-Club in Hollywood back in the late '80s and seeing Henry Rollins and Exene Cervenka reading their poetry with spare musical accompaniment. I vividly remember those recitals. So I'm not sure why spoken word pieces aren't more popular. The voice alone, clear and naked, could be used as a true reference point for audiophile since most of them don't have access to a singer who can perform in their living rooms at a moment's notice. Throw in something substantial, such as a grand piano, and you might be able to start a new trend for the old dogs among us.

So I submit The Voice of Robert Desnos, with Antonella Chionna reciting Desnos' dreamy, surreal poetry backed by Pat Battstone's light and versatile piano. The sound quality is spectacular, precise and direct. But it's spoken word, the whole way through. Will that be interesting to us?

I say yes, and wholeheartedly. First of all, Chionna's voice is utterly charming with its moderate Italian accident--she sounds a lot like Valeria Golina's character in Rain Man. Even when she's digging into terse and repetitive poetry--Desnos had a habit of repeating words and phrases over and over for emphasis--her voice casts a spell. Desnos' poetry deserves equal attention since it's dreamy and surreal and delves deep into the human subconsciousness. Finally, Battstone's flowing keys provide the momentum as well as the actual direction. This is Battstone's project, after all, and he's the one who found the Desnos poems and sent them on to Chionna to see if she'd be interested. She was, as you see.

As much as I enjoy this CD and admire such a cerebral effort, my audiophile side still resists a little. To illustrate, I've listened to this recording a few times and two different people burst into the room and asked me what the hell was I was listening to. So enjoying this CD will depend upon a simple realignment of the way you listen to music, something to push you past the novelty. It's certainly something to think about.