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The Naked Future: Gigantomachia
ByFrom de Dionyso's perspective, this music is created to reflect a world that is in a constant state of mesmerism by a new yet ancient kind of iconography. This may hark back to his days of apocalyptic shouting from the pulpit of an early band, Old Time Relijun. Then, as now, de Dionyso appeared drained by the experience of the ritualized religious practice that propelled society on an almost certain path of crooked violence. And this time too his existential angst enabled the creation of long improvisations that take the form of social commentary. Their titles are self-explanatory: "We Binge on a Bloodthirsty God," "We Boil the Raven's Skull into Gold," "We Engage then Monstrous with Our Mirrors," and so on. These are extended improvisations that recall the intense instrumental collisions of Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, and the flock of existentialists that resurrected a dystrophic musical idiom in the 1960s.
That this music is on record implies that it is superbly interpreted. The music chooses to navigate a tonal middle passagea route that suggests enclosure or severe restriction to reflect, obviously, the state of mind and state of society in this day and age. De Dionyso's virtuosity is unparalleled. He appears, at times, to pick up where Eric Dolphy left off. "...Bloodthirsty God" and "...Our Mirrors" are extraordinary examples of how masterfully he can develop a whole narrative by spinning breath through the horn's tonal center and chasing it wildly through the length of the various registersupper and lower, both. He plays excellently off Skloff's arco bass playing and drummer John Niekrasz's machine-gun rattle. But the foil for the music is almost always Thollem McDonas' piano. In "We Fly Beneath and Above the Flux," for instance, the dazzling atonal runs and angular major and minor sevenths add the kind of maddeningly distorted reflection of the song's melodic line as if the narrative were seen and heard from a shattered mirror.
On the rare occasion, the song emerges from within the seemingly random noise of each of the narrative sketches. It is almost as if an oyster is popped open to reveal a pearl.
Track Listing
We Binge on a Bloodthirsty God; We Boil the Raven's Skull into Gold; We Engage the Monstrous with Our Mirrors; We Fly Beneath and Above the Flux; We Sleep in a Rabbit Hole.
Personnel
Arrington de Dionyso: bass clarinet, contralto clarinet; Thollem McDonas: piano; John Niekrasz: drums; Gregg Skloff: amplified upright bass.
Album information
Title: Gigantomachia | Year Released: 2009 | Record Label: ESP Disk