2xLP: Steve Reid Ensemble - Spirit Walk

Artist: Steve Reid Ensemble
Album: Spirit Walk
Label: Soul Jazz
List Price: $25.49
Released: November 2005

Review: In an interview with Mike Barnes in the February, 2006 issue of The Wire, 62 year-old drummer Steve Reid had this to say about the state of modern jazz music:

"I always stay with people younger than me, because my generation's retired, man... you're sitting at home listening to your custom CDs, special editions. So I need some people who are out there with me, you know? So that's why I go with the youth, man. It's always about the youth - keep the shit fired up."

Reid, who has played with such music visionaries as Sun Ra, James Brown, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Ornette Coleman and more, knows a thing or two about keeping the "shit fired up." A tireless touring musician, Reid got his start in high school when Motown's Martha and the Vandellas performed and needed a replacement for their drummer who was snowed in in Detroit. Reid sat in, recorded the song "Heat Wave" with the group and hasn't looked back since. By the time he was twenty, Reid was playing in Fela Kuti's Africa 70 in Nigeria where he learned the art of improvisation and environmental adjustment.

With the release of 2005's Spirit Walk, Reid is garnering a long deserved fame outside of the jazz sphere. In keeping with his desire to work with the young people, few, if any of the other musicians on this album are over the age of 30. Most notably and surprisingly, is Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet), the laptop noise musician known more in the electronic music scene than among the folks who have a copy of Love Supreme and Kind of Blue on their shelves. Hebden and Reid's pairing results in an album that ranges from tightly orchestrated jazz and funk grooves to cacophonous free jazz freak outs that only come from musicians who have mastered their craft.

At its most extreme, Spirit Walk approaches sound collage. The album's second track, "Drum Story," is a duet between Reid on drum and Hebden on electronic squelches. Free of almost any structure, this fourteen minute long song features at least seven different alternating rhythms, digital noise pulled to its extreme and a frenetic monologue by Reid himself, pontificating about the power of rhythm and the apolitical importance of music. At the other end of the spectrum lies the track, "For Coltrane," which is a sax-driven number featuring a bold organ backup, a steady beat and only the most essential electronic accompaniment to remind the listener that this is nothinglike they have heard before. Having spent a lot of time with Coltrane as a young man (though never recording with him), Reid's homage does more justice than any variation on one of Trane's song could ever achieve. Reid and co. capture several of the late horn player's periods inside of a song only eight minutes long. An impressive feat for such a young group of musicians, who will hopefully take copious notes from Reid's own visionariness.

At seventy minutes long, this double LP frames itself between two strong numbers, beginning with the mildly frenetic "Lugano" which begins with the sound drums would make if they could clear their throats. From there through the last track, "Unity," the instruments on this recording come through loud and clear. At nine minutes, the last cut lets each musician on the album have their time in the spotlight, proving that, regardless of his experience and talent, Reid is an astute listener as well as performer. Collaboration and improvisation are his strengths, and knowing when to let the other players scream only highlights his amazing talents.

British record label, Soul Jazz, is known more for their historical compilations, but their modern releases should not be overlooked. Spirit Walk is proof that archiving and the study of music only sharpens your sense of what music will stand the test of time. Steve Reid is well on his way to being a household name like the greats he has worked with in the past.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Buy Spirit Walk on CD from Amazon.com: Consume.
Image from Amazon.com

Book: Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside Out by Douglas Rushkoff

Title: Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside Out
Author: Douglas Rushkoff
Publisher: Collins
ISBN: 0060758694
List Price: $23.95

Review: Remember when eBay hit it big in the 1990s and shortly after, there was a multitude of sites offering to sell your old moldy toys for you? Name five of those other companies right now. Can't do it, can you? That's because most of those other companies weren't innovating, but adopting and quickly implementing a business model that eBay had spent years developing and perfecting. Those other companies couldn't swing it because they were jumping into an area of customer service and selling that was not at all familiar to them. Instead of concentrating on hosting web sites or selling their own widgets, they tried to think outside of the box and failed. When they should have reworked their tired business strategy, they just heaped someone else's on top.

They should have stayed in the box. Reworked the box. Brought excited new customers and employees into the box as innovators. Made the box not such a box after all.

That is the main thesis of media theorist, Douglas Rushkoff's new book, Get Back In The Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. If you are at all familiar with Rushkoff's work, then you already know that this thesis is only the beginning. Having spent time as an outside consultant to many major corporations after the success of his previous books on culture and technology (Media Virus, Coercion), Rushkoff realized that most companies were far more focused on increased profits, quick fixes and hoodwinking customers rather than listening to them or improving their core business at all. It may seem strange that an author known for such proletarian and subversive causes such as consumer awareness would write a book that gets shelved in the business section at your local bookseller. As you read, it just seems right.

The first half of the book spends much of its time diagnosing our business culture, the emerging technologies around us and the desires of any given audience. In chapter three, Social Currency: What People Really Value, And Why, time is spent examining the effects of technology on a culture that seems to be ravaged by a race for commodity. Some of the most successful products and services in history are the products that rely on interpretation, interactivity and a need to be shared. Rushkoff's diagnosis of people's needs seems to be spot on:

"In an era like ours, where the ravages of fragmentation and isolation are felt more than ever, consumers and workers alike are looking for forms of social currency that can help them relate to one another and reforge the bonds of community and intimacy."

In this closing of the gap between consumer and producer, Rushkoff reminds us that we are all important pieces in the symbiotic relationship called business. We may not even be that different at all.

From here, Get Back In The Box argues for a full participation in the new renaissance that is already upon us. This is where the box opens wide and the cycle of innovation begins. Citing examples of companies who have concentrated on their core competence and reworked their strategies from the bottom up, Rushkoff illustrates that some of the most successful businesses are the ones that are the most fun, most participative in modern culture and most receptive to their customers. Instead of following the trends and calling in the latest corporate witch-doctor consultant, successful companies engage in real conversation and interaction with their customers and answer the needs and wants thereof.

In the final, and arguably most controversial, of the chapters, Rushkoff calls for companies to rethink their goals and activities on an even more fundamental level. Is your business helping culture to progress or stay in stasis, he seems to ask as he questions outsourcing strategies, sustainability vs. short term profits and duplicitous charitable donations made on behalf of a company. One of the most respected and charitable companies in America is even taken to task as Rushkoff questions whether all of Ben and Jerry's social consciousness is worth anything when the company is dedicated to selling sugar and fat to an already obese culture.

Whether you are looking to improve your business, work in a cubicle where their idea of fun is a biannual pizza party, or are simply a consumer who is tired of the barrage of profit-making schemes that seem to do nothing but fill your life with junk, Get Back In The Box is a book you should keep near you at all times.

According to Rushkoff, this new renaissance we find ourselves in "brings us to a place of almost absolute simplicity. Having exhausted the alternatives, we come to realize that the easiest path to both satisfaction and profitability is to do something well, and to do it with and for other people." You can start by leaving a copy of this book in the office of the nearest CEO. If more companies engaged this new, open-source model that Rushkoff has suggested, perhaps the culture of business wouldn't be such a menacing place.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Buy a copy of Get Back In The Box from Amazon.com: Consume.
Buy any and all of Douglas Rushkoff's other books from Amazon.com: Consume.

Read Douglas Rushkoff's mind-expanding blog: Rushkoff Blog.

Book: Crickets #1 by Sammy Harkham

Title: Crickets #1
Author/Artist: Sammy Harkham
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Released: January 2006
List Price: $3.95

Review: I'm not the avid comic book reader I used to be. I have my favorites, but instead of single issues, I tend to wait for graphic novels and other collections before checking a new title out. I do this for the same reason I watch most television shows only after they come out on DVD: I don't like to impose unnecessary schedules in my life. I already have to get to work on time and get out of bed before that. No way am I going to commit to being home on Thursdays at eight or at the comic shop on Tuesdays. Sammy Harkham may have just ruined this all for me. Fortunately, this new title published by Drawn & Quarterly seems as if it will take its sweet time getting to your local wire racks. Good. There is nothing worse than a regular publication that suffers under its own deadline.

Those of you who pay close attention to the indie comics world will recognize Sammy Harkham as the editor of the comics anthology Kramers Ergot or recognize his drawing style, which borders on simplistic but is better described as essential, from Drawn & Quarterly's Showcase #3 where his story Somersaulting appeared. Folks who do not stay within the loop of the demanding and saturated comics world (like me) will find Harkham's line work familiar but will be hardpressed to recall where they have encountered it before.

Despite the irreverent sense of humor gleaned from the inside front cover of Crickets #1, the single story in this issue, Black Death, introduces a reflective and mysterious writer who may be trying to learn something himself while spinning a tale for his audience. Black Death begins as a reinterpretation of the Jewish myth of the Golem. A recently slaughtered man with several wooden arrows protruding from his body is resurrected by just such a creature. With an apparant guilt hanging over his head, the man is eager to continue on his way only to find that close proximity to the Golem is the only thing keeping him from death. With his unlikely savior in tow and a midnight hunger, the man comes across a father and son in the dark woods who are on their way to bury the boy's brother. Fear and hurried greed result in a disastrous violence that, once again, leaves the man and his Golem alone to wander the land in search of a town called Liadi. A panel of blackness and death ends the comic and readers are left with questions that will be illuminated (though maybe not answered) in the next issue.

With very little dialogue, Crickets #1 is a meditative dream-like comic that leaves the reader eager to discover the characters' motives and the reasons for the rain of arrows that left him in his assisted undead state. The illustrations are all tinted with a greyish green that furthers the story's cold mystery, though I would have liked to have seen more of the beautiful splotchy color featured on the front and back covers. Harkham's character development progresses at a steady pace, giving the reader just enough information to keep them wondering. His storytelling, much like his artwork, is eerily familiar and essential. Harkham avoids minimalist masturbation in his comics and though he has a penchant for violence, it is not of the mindless superhero sort and usually serves the flow of the narrative.

Now if I could just find my calendar to add yet another schedule to my life. Of course, if the quality of Harkham's storytelling is all this good, this is one intermittant schedule I will hapily accept.

Rating: 4 / 5

Buy Crickets #1 from Drawn & Quarterly's Website: Consume!

Buy other books by Sammy Harkham at Amazon.com

-Drawn & Quarterly Showcase: Book Three
-Kramer's Ergot 5 (regular comics anthology edited by Sammy Harkham)

CD: Quantazelle - Coaster

Artist: Quantazelle
Title: Coaster
Label: subVariant Recordings
Release: 2004

I approach electronic music with great hesitancy. Sure, I used to listen to boring rave trance music, and had I moved to Chicago a few years earlier than I did, I probably would have delved into the House scene wholeheartedly and with vigor. As it stands, with the exception of the occasional listen to some of my old Plastikman albums, I demand more than a thumping drum beat and some knob-twiddling from electronic musicians. I need texture. I need to be challenged! I need passion!

Quantazelle's music has all of these things and much more.

On her first album, "Coaster," this Chicago native wrangles, weaves and wraps sounds disparate and discordant into warm double-knit sweaters of melody and momentum. Each track contains its own underlying sweet melody that, if played alone, would send the most temperamental of babes into blissful slumber. Layered on top of these melodies, however, are some of the most interesting pops, clicks, glitches and bass hits this side of the computer screen. From the sound a CD player makes when it skips to the bleeps of an arcade you pass on your morning power walks in the mall, the electronic soundscape exists here in top form.

The opening track, "Braking (Hushed)," sets the pace by accelerating straight into a danceable beat that stutters along with several scratchy synth sounds you will wish you could sing along to. Triumphant like a modern day "Chariots of Fire" anthem, this track is guaranteed to make even the most stubborn wallflower move to the rhythm (I want to dance, when I hear it...which says a lot). Only two tracks later, we are given a much needed breather with my personal favorite, "Late Blazing Kinch." Like a lullaby remembered, "Kinch" dances through your head with its harp string hook yet doesn't relent enough to bring you all the way down. Many of Quantazelle's tracks take this road, both lulling and motivating simultaneously. "Wineglass Chopstick Clinkrush's" piano melody would fit just as comfortably in a ballet as it would a nightclub.

Finishing off the album is a track that channels Edgard Varese and hands him a gameboy. Kicking off with a distorted and dirty drumbeat that erects a wall of sound, "Stereofoam" soon attacks itself with sporadic video game effects that create their own complicated pattern and niche.

Creating her own complicated pattern and niche is exactly what Quantazelle has done. "Coaster" is only the beginning.

Though her sound is reminiscent of a few other seminal electronic musicians such as Aphex Twin or the scratching techniques of DJ Spooky's later output, Quantazelle has managed to infuse more warmth and emotion into her laptop compositions than most other musicians are able to create with any traditional instruments. The depth of "Coaster" strikes you on the first listen, but keeps you coming back in an attempt to decipher its complexities. She has managed to coax a welcoming soundscape out of a technology that is too often cold and mechanical.

In keeping with the far-reaching nature of her music, the tongue-in-cheek packaging of this album is also expandable and organic. Quantazelle has included instructions for turning this album into an actual coaster for your drinks, complete with an optional coaster case and custom surfaces available for purchase from subVariant Recording's website. Perhaps an elaborate joke, but it all suggests an opportunity for true interactivity with Quantazelle, whether you are a musician or not.

With her own record label, online forum for electronic musicians (modsquare.com) and line of unique handcrafted jewelry made from computer and other electronic components (zellestyle.com), it is almost unbelievable that Quantazelle is only one person. She is a valuable asset to the Chicago music scene, electro or not, and I eagerly await her next project whether it be musical in nature or otherwise. One thing is for sure... This girl is genuine. It's good to know that there are people out there like Quantazelle, refusing to limit themselves and doing what they love while bringing the love to the masses. One passionate project at a time (or several).

Rating: 4.75 / 5

Links to Quantazelle's Empire

-Quantazelle.com
-Modsquare.com (Online music magazine out of Chicago devoted to experimental electronic music)
-subVariant.com (Record label headed by Quantazelle)
-Zellestyle.com ( Quantazelle's jewelry and fashion design company)
-Fractalspin.com ( Online store selling Quantazelle's music, Zelle jewelry, and other neat and geeky things)

Read my review of one of Quantazelle's Chicago performances here: Link