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The Nels Cline Singers: The Giant Pin
by John Kelman
What is jazz? Improvisation is a big part of it, sure, but improvisation can be found in other genres. Is it an innate sense of swing? Maybe, but there are plenty of artists out there who are considered jazz artists and don't swing at all. Is it improvisation in a context where styles are cross-fused? Closer, but there are artists who stick faithfully to one clearly defined sub-genre and are absolutely pure in their approach. Guitarist Nels Cline and his ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline/Vinny Golia: The Entire Time
by John Kelman
The one constant with a new record from guitarist Nels Cline is the element of surprise. From the ambient industrial sound of his recent collaboration with bassist Devin Sarno, Buried on Bunker Hill , to the avant but occasionally groove-centric work with his band, Nels Cline Singers, and their latest, The Giant Pin , to everything from lyrical country-tinged work to serious shredding with Wilco , the one thing that defines Cline is his voracious appetite to try anything, to ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline: Intrepid Guitarist
by John Kelman
Some musicians lead double lives, working in a couple of seemingly disparate contexts that still manage to come together into a cohesive musical vision. Intrepid guitarist Nels Cline has led far more than two, involved in everything from the acoustic Ralph Towner-informed work of Quartet Music to the post-punk of Mike Watt. His own work is equally diverse. Just take a listen to his latest release, The Giant Pin, due out October 26, and you'll hear a guitarist whose influences ...
Continue ReadingThe Nels Cline Singers: The Giant Pin
by Franz A. Matzner
Pushing jazz into territory usually reserved for hardcore, ambient, and dark wave electronica, the Nels Cline Singers' latest release, The Giant Pin , employs a wide array of electronics, musical technique, and compositional audacity to produce a sonically varied, deadly experimental amalgam of genres and styles. Incorporating undulating waves of pure texture, metal-loud drum beats, and distortion-laden guitar--as well as minimalist, floating soundscapes--with traditional jazz vernacular and improvisational structures, the Nels Cline Singers have done what all of jazz's pantheon ...
Continue ReadingA Fireside Chat with Nels Cline
by AAJ Staff
I could refer to myself as having long been a Nels Cline enthusiast, but I cannot tell a lie. In fact, I am a recent convert, having listened to Interstellar Space Revisited (The Music of John Coltrane) in the summer of '99 (which doesn't have nearly the ring that the Bryan Adams ditty has). But I have since been a quick study. Cline, like Vinny Golia, Horace Tapscott, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Adam Rudolph, and too many others to mention ...
Continue ReadingThe Nels Cline Singers: Instrumentals
by AAJ Staff
From the opening notes of Instrumentals, it rapidly becomes clear that the (entirely vocal-free) Nels Cline Singers are out to make some noise. Guitarist Nels Cline, who has eagerly straddled the divide between jazz and rock, maintains an open ear for dissonance--and this is a big reason he's received such broad recognition. “A Mug Like Mine" takes a nine-minute voyage into the higher-order melodies, harmonies and rhythms of energy music, an opening salvo announcing things to come.But like ...
Continue ReadingGregg Bendian's Interzone: Requiem for Jack Kirby
by Todd S. Jenkins
An impeccable tribute to an incomparable artist. Jack Kirby was one of the great comic-book creators, a dweller in places of long shadows and stark colors who fathered the Fantastic Four, Captain America, the X-Men and other legendary Marvel Comics. A musical tribute to a visual artist working in that medium might seem strange, but Interzone managed to pull off a coup. The music on Requiem is dead-on evocative of Kirby's grotesque otherworlds, and fascinating at that. From ...
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