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#1 by Megan Hodgkinson, #2, 3 by Cody Oliver. ------------------------------------------------------ Press/Reviews description of I'd Drive Your Ass Across The World, If I Had To: There is a reason that drums are typically used in a certain way, in certain settings; been a hundred or so years since Edison [or de Martinville if yr so inclined] and few solo percussion records worth mentioning. Do the math. I’d Drive Your Ass Across The World, If I Had To is a reboot of a cd-r that Dadge himself put out and sent in to brokenresearch and we we’re really taken. It is a totally facile use of rudiments, sound and electronics. It’s clear, articulate and undeniably inventive. When we first cked it it had a stamp of Cyrille’s “What About”-which when mentioned to Dadge he readily admitted to owning and knowing. Over time that stamp has faded and what is left is one of the better improvised percussion records ever released. Worlds ahead of most of any “brainy” approach to drums and much more restrained and clear than George Stone acolytes and more temporal than the chest-beaters. from foxydigitalis.com: Chris Dadge - Silk Thousand (Bug Incision Records) Chris Dadge, from taking a glance at his body of work, is a very prolific and industrious Canadian. Alongside running his own label, Bug Incision, he has worked with Christopher Riggs, Eric Chanaux, Chad van Gaalen, and many others. Though a multi-instrumentalist, Dadge’s primary instrument is the drum kit, and like unconventional guitarist Christopher Riggs attains a signature sound in his playing. Many say that certain people march to the beat of their own drummer, and for that matter, Dadge drums to the beat of his own metronome. “Silk Thousand” doesn’t showcase the abusive triplets of what the likes of Zach Hill do; these 30 minutes are much more textural. The cymbals conglomerate into a hissing murmur while the snare and kick drum form a tangled mass of rhythmic sputters. Across these six tracks, Dadge ceases to revisit previous structures and brings forth a new accent with each piece. This disc could be interpreted as just another free-form freak-out, but there is much more depth to be found with further observation. Chris Dadge displays great restraint in his drumming technique: while confounding, his drumming remains heavily focused and refrains from venturing into discombobulated noise. Eric Normand + Bent Spoon Duo - Circuitry (Bug Incision Records) For years now Scott Munro and Chris Dadge have played together as the Bent Spoon Duo, chasing after sounds previously unheard in their electro-acoustic improvisations without letting their brains slow them down. Neither the Duo nor Éric Normand, who brings his electric bass and “homemade devices” to the party, are much for premeditated composition, preferring to let spontaneous play shape their output and going with the flow. Two multi-instrumentalists and a man armed with self-designed effects could make for some pretty dense fare, but thankfully everyone involved understands the value of leaving some space in the mix. Each player leaves room for the contributions of the others and a little extra for silence, so while there’s always a lot going on, there’s never so much that it becomes overwhelming, distracting, or exhausting. And no one player dictates the flow for two long – these fellows are really good at taking turns up front and falling back into supporting roles. They know how to make each other look good. Chris Dadge, an adventurous and accomplished percussionist, pursues his ideal of “non-idiomatic playing” and even attains it for stretches at a time, mapping out and mining the possibilities of his instruments past the traditional bounds of musicality. Drums, cymbals, things of metal, wood, and membrane – what sounds like a great and inexhaustible heap of junk – are treated not as unified wholes, but an assemblage of percussive surfaces. As he plays, he disassembles, exploring the substance of his instruments with microscopic attention, teasing out details that a musician more married to any particular style could never hope to discover. He never gets stuck and he doesn’t repeat himself. Scott Munro’s contributions – he’s credited with viola, SK-1, electronics, and voice – are no less important, but often more subtle. While Dadge is busy scurrying around in minutia, Munro handles the big picture, defining the sonic space in which his partner’s efforts find their purchase. If this were theatre, then Munro would be running the curtains and backdrops, swapping out the sets, moving false walls to expand and contract the performance space. The first track starts spare, music over a void, but out of that void blows a howling wind laden with grain and dust, turning that initial silence into an undulating, textured surface that recontextualizes the rest of the music. What was the sound of an engine struggling to turn over now seems more like poltergeist mischief, objects come suddenly to life. Then that wind starts to stutter, to shudder, its natural ebb and flow stopped up into the reverberation of a gong that signals another transition: the haunted house is leveled, leaving behind some lonesome whistling and harmonica/string drones that sound like a gate creaking on a rusted hinge. Though it’s a bit simplistic to be entirely true, I’ll say that Munro provides the circuit through which Dadge’s current flows. And he provides my favorite moment of the album, some slo-mo horn mourning that plays the first track out. It conjures up fog-shrouded images of jazz staring off the edge of the docks at night, lowing at distant lights on the water. It’s romantic, it’s unexpected, it’s suffused with nostalgia for a bygone age. It packs a wallop. The role of bassist Éric Normand is a bit harder to discern. Like Dadge and Munro, he’s committed to the magic of extemporaneous musical exchange. And it’s not only music that he improvises, but his means of making it: Normand designs pedals and other homemade instruments, and it’s precisely those inventions that make his additions to Circuitry so difficult to detect. See, his bass only sometimes sounds like a bass, and the rest of the time it’s hiding in plain sight, a chameleon cloaked by effects and filters, appearing only when the time is right to strike. That’s definitely Normand with those high-gain scrapes and pops in the first track’s pointillistic final third. There he is again, burbling some walking lines in the track’s beatnik jazz outro. Here and there are some beautiful creaks and buzzes, fat hits and moans. But Normand’s standout performance is on the second track, seven minutes of a shy groove, dislocated and stop motion almost, that degenerates into electric crackle as the Bent Spoon Duo deploy some samples from space with their SK-1s. It’s lucky he was passing through when this was recorded! Extemporaneous music, especially in the lawless territory trod by Normand and the Bent Spoon Duo, usually results in rare moments of inspiration surrounded by boring rough-draft attempts at inspiration. By trying to create perfect moments, those moments are lost. Without a truly open mind and the flexibility to go where the music wants to go, improvisers wind up with records of half-baked ideas, frustrated attempts, and way too much filler to bother with any of it. Circuitry is not one of those records. Through their commitment to freeform musical motion rather than preconceived endpoints, and with the chops and endurance to keep it up, this talented group of musicians has once again gotten it right on the first try. from The Squid's Ear: Chris Dadge - A Moth That Smiles As It Burns Is Better Than You (Bug Incision Records) The records (and tapes) from label Bug Incision all retain an innocence of invention and unpredictability. Sure the artists probably spend plenty of time behind the scenes in their labs, but the results imagine as a coarsely exciting physical and emotional set of investigations. In the case of A Moth That Smiles As It Burns Is Better Than You, Chris Dadge (also one half of Bent Spoon Duo) threw this live set of improvised violin, acoustic guitar and myriad percussion together "at the last minute". For nearly twenty-three minutes, Dadge wrangles everything within reach into a deft octodextrous mélange, nagging this reviewer to query the label about the conspiracy of a secret post-gig overdub session (nope, all live). Scratching, droning, plucking violin with the right hand and feverish taps on bells, rims and wooden objects with the other, Dadge can juggle a hurricane. He exploits every angle and sonic possibility of each instrument, focusing as much on, for example, the potential of a snare drum: bouncing sticks on the head while depressing the springs lever is interesting, but add fingernail scratches and rubber beaters and slamming dinner bells and coaxed melodies from the squeaks of the lever mechanism, then stretch the membrane and you're near Dadge's universe — or microcosm, as this type of gesture might endure a ten-second shelf life before he jumps to another (and of course each of his limbs are in simultaneous realization of wringing a guitar neck and creating natural delays via cymbals moved near, then away from a microphone etc.) With some musicians, this wall-splat of idea after idea tires. But while some ramble, Dadge expounds. He simply never ceases with his conjuration act of stunted thoughts and elision that give way to even more attractive designs While a methodology is a nice way to nudge orientation, free improvising musicians who spend too long in rehearsal can end up sounding...rehearsed. It's called improvisation for a reason: you're supposed to be making stuff up. Shouldn't the searches between the cracks be the crux of the performance? Isn't communion with space, time, your instrument(s) and the direction they take you more important than fixed forms and scales? Complicated questions — ones that Dadge understands and capably answers with solid, literal riposte. Eric Normand + Bent Spoon Duo - Cicuitry (Bug Incision Records) A really intriguing, albeit short, set of kitchen sink improvising from the long-standing Bent Spoon Duo with added friend Eric Normand, who stopped in Calgary, Alberta Canada during his tour last year just long enough to hook-up with Chris Dadge and Scott Munro and stamp some sonic impressions into people's ears and this disc. A bit difficult to describe in a few words, this music has the always-admirable quality of fusion, wherein the sounds aren't readily definable or attributable to any one player. Some bits resemble swarms of insects in close proximity while a nearby construction crew winds down for lunch. Things happen rather quickly, and even when the trio stays relatively static there's a lot of tiny variation happening, sounds colliding and glancing off one another in a myriad of ways. Things billow up and recede often enough that if your mind blinks, you'll miss something. About 13 minutes in someone starts bowing on some kind of string instrument and is quickly enveloped in clouds of electronic gook and honest-to-goodness B-movie echoplex. Then someone is beating on some metal tins with springs attached as a far-off radio gargles. Some quiet wind storms and a stately march comes from a toy record player in the next apartment complex while a frustrated guitarist hacks away at some tiny strings. The insects swarm again, along with an army of tapes fast-forwarding toward their end. Thankfully, the guitar stops and some quick drumming ensues to backup the loopy mangled voices. A trombone? An actual bass? And then they're a more than slightly off-kilter JAZZ trio, like a Dixie Land player trying to lay lines atop a free jazz bassist and a modern British drummer, with slight Jamie Muir-isms amid the flight. I can imagine that this sort of thing goes on almost nightly somewhere in the world, but not where I live, so I'm happy for recordings like this one, as short as it is. from feedbackzine.ca by Kat Dornian: Chris Dadge - Tangled Woof of Fact (Bug Incision Records) Here Chris Dadge picks up the drum kit and various other percussive instruments for a solo performance. At times, the pieces are intense and at others, like on track 3, the feel is much more downplayed. Throughout the album Dadge never falls into a rhythm, always challenging the listener to keep up and never giving a chance to predict the next step. It’s frantic and schizophrenic for sure. Each step a different story, a different character and a different mood. I cannot think of a better opening for this recording than the one Dadge implements. A few well-spaced beats on a drum before breaking into a short and fitful explosion of percussion. The second track follows with a track less fitful, maybe more rhythmic but still completely unpredictable. Chris Dadge - A Moth That Smiles As It Burns Is Better Than You (Bug Incision Records) A solo composition consisting of strings and percussion, neither of which are played in an ordinary style. The recording starts off minimal. Chris uses his layers sparsely for the first few minutes giving just enough noise to engage the listener. He builds just slowly enough to have you ignore what’s happening. The piece gradually becomes more and more frenzied. Interesting sounds, some satisfying and some alarming, are summoned along the way giving the music an element of surprise and unpredictability. It builds to a full and satisfying momentum about halfway through the twenty-two and a half minute piece. It’s around this point when more drum rolls are used and the strings play a more prominent part. The post-climatic story is the most on edge moment of the album. Longer percussion parts are drawn out and the strings feel more drowned and smothered. What will happen next? The finale to the piece comes around in a similar vein as the climax, with a due intensity. A frenetic pace takes hold and plows through the last minute, ending with a very ceremonious ride on the cymbals. All in all, the single track moves along quite quickly providing a satisfyingly unpredictable journey to the listener. Check it out. Eric Chenaux & Bent Spoon Duo - Live In Calgary (Bug Incision Records) This album is quite unique from other works by Bent Spoon Duo. Eric Chenaux brings in a nylon string guitar, and with it an almost freak-latin-folk feeling, heavy on the freak. For the most part, the performance is subdued with traces of melody coming from Chenaux’ guitar and at rare points from Munro’s trombone as well. Otherwise there are restrained explosions from the Bent Spoon Duo’s mix of percussion, strings and brass. About a third of the way through a much more eerie atmosphere begins to sneak in with an increased use of electronics. This marks a notable shift from the soft mood created up until then, however the playing is for the most part quite minimal allowing each player to take the lead at some point. At some parts all three play together with equal importance. Another departure occurs another third of the way in. Discordance takes hold and sound prevails to build a chaotic climax of sounds. The electronic exposure takes an all time high until it slowly dissipates into a lo-fi and strange cacophony of winds, percussion and strings. The ending is muted, soft, and almost too quiet to be real although you could hear a pin drop. The players retire to a confused and reflective state. This is the moment where they summarize the past half an hour of performance in a haze and end it off with a brilliant resolved discordance from the guitar. Chris Dadge - What Comes After Dust (Holy Cheever Church) Taking off in the solo route Chris Dadge pursues the swamp using percussive experimentation in a very progressive way. By this I mean that Dadge may be using a drum kit but draws out the reverberation of a symbol with scrapes and scratches for a more sustained harmonic quality not typical of a drum kit. On other songs he uses repetitive stomping or grinding of strings, perhaps, for percussive ambience. This inventive technique creates engaging and hypnotic tracks that are not simple to figure out. The tracks, combined with discordant strings wobbling away, conjure the imagery of a disparaged warehouse consumed by a marshy swamp and run by the periodic tides and curious aquatic creatures. Side A remains rather vigilant with repetitive structure and slow, mechanic chugging. Side B breaks off into more frantic danger. Strings play like sirens and the tempo is heavily sped up. Sounds abstain from spending too much time on the floor. The notes are ones of urgency and confusion speaking to a definite disaster. This is a fantastic release from Dadge. It shows some clear ideas in using percussion uniquely and not being bound to traditional playing. from temporaryfault.blogspot.com by Massimo Ricci: CHRIS DADGE – I’d Drive Your Ass Across The World, If I Had To CHRIS DADGE & RACHAEL WADHAM – 100 Silk Buttons From The Room Upstairs from www.exclaim.ca: Bent Spoon Trio + Danny Meichel from earconditionednightmare.blogspot.com by Henry Smith: Bent Spoon Duo - Fossils of Summer (Holy Cheever Church Records CS)Bug Incision label head Chris Dadge and fellow improv pursuant Scott Munro have a go on Holy Cheever with this tape,which the Calgary duo recorded in Toronto. Combining percussion and strings, the two approach improvisation from an anti-classicist stance, instead opting for a scrape and drape sound that finds the two moving between instruments and mood in rapid fire succession. Simeon Abbott & Chris Dadge - A Menu Isn't A Meal (Bug Incision Records CDR) On the Riggs tip I just mentioned, it's great to see established dudes taking new blood under the wings and giving them some exposure. Riggs certainly deserves it, and so does Chris Dadge, Bug Incision head honcho and percussion maestro deluxe. Fresh off a trip playing with dudes like Eugene Chadbourne (a personal favorite...) Mats Gustafsson, Dadge met up with electric guitarist Simeon Abbott for these two jams, and he sounds stronger than ever. Maybe it's that special Chadbourne punch, but me thinks it's just Dadge doing what Dadge do best, collaborating in super loose improv sessions that dangle ideas around like fireflies over a pond. Bent Spoon Trio +3 - Dead Salems Dance in Their Ashtray (Bug Incision Records CDR) An expanded version of the amorphous Bent Spoon lineup, this disc features mainstays Chris Dadge and Scott Monro alongside frequent associate David Laing (that's the Bent Spoon Trio lineup) PLUS bassist Thom Golub, guitar/electronics dude Jay Crocker, and tenor saxophonist Daniel Meichel (Golub on the last two tracks and the whole sextet on the last track only). The change in lineup means that this disc has some extrmeely different dimensions on it, moving from the trio tracks to a quartet and finally to a sextet. Nice to hear the consistency in approach and the broad variety of sounds culled from it, making this one feel more like some Archie Shepp Impulse! record in terms of approach. Raw Kites - I Can See the Light, I Just Can't Feel It (Bug Incision Records CD-R)Here's another disc from Chris Dadge's Bug Incision label, and this time around it's Chris in a duet with baritone saxophone/bass clarinetist Shane Krause. With Dadge on percussion, violin and amplified objects, the sound treads toward the starker side usually, never straying too far from what seems to be more or less the signature Bug Incision sound. Sort of a meeting between AACM and AMM I guess... |
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