Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Party Knüllers meets Jim Baker: Four Images of Wank

7

Party Knüllers meets Jim Baker: Four Images of Wank

By

Sign in to view read count
Party Knüllers meets Jim Baker: Four Images of Wank
The duo Party Knüllers—Chicagoan cellist and electronics player Fred Lonberg-Holm and Norwegian drummer Ståle Liavik Solberg—wanted to intensify its already dense mix of sounds and added Lonberg-Holm's frequent comrade, synth player Jim Baker. The trio did a short tour in the United States before recording recording Four Images of Wank in the studio.

Apparently, according to the amused liner notes of Baker, presented as a letter from him to Lonberg-Holm and Solberg, Baker was not happy about the recorded outcome of this sonic match. He did not like the bilingual pun in the duo name, the pun-ish aspect of the album title, the grammar of the duo name with him but eventually agreed that recorded session was "encouraging, listenable."

But despite Baker's complaints he fits perfectly with the playful, eccentric spirit of Party Knüllers and expands its sonic mayhem with weird, otherworldly sounds produced from his vintage synth. The four free improvisations feature game-like explorations of sounds, shaping the new found sounds, make these sounds collide, explode in hope of finding new, exciting ones or at least an agreed dynamic that all three can tune in to, before all begin afresh.

Baker turns up the heat on the open-ended yet nuanced sonic journeys and his electronic sounds extend the manipulated cello sounds of Lonberg-Holm and the invented percussive techniques of Solberg. The improvisations are structured with a sense of tension, drama and dark humor, almost as cinematic images for a film made by some hyper-active species of aliens, using dissonant, noisy sounds as vocabulary of too enthusiastic courtship. Maybe Baker was right after all and Party Knüllers should have adopted his advise that "the music might arrive with fewer potentially self-disparaging description...."

Track Listing

Mühldörfl; Wallgau; Krün; Schlattan-Höfle.

Personnel

Jim Baker: analog synthesizer; Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello, electronics; Ståle Liavik Solberg: drums, percussion.

Album information

Title: Four Images of Wank | Year Released: 2014 | Record Label: Hispid

Comments

Tags


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

What Was Happening
Bobby Wellins Quartet
Laugh Ash
Ches Smith
A New Beat
Ulysses Owens, Jr. and Generation Y

Popular

Eagle's Point
Chris Potter
Light Streams
John Donegan - The Irish Sextet

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.