HR107 - If, Bwana - The Bwana All - Stars Godfather Revue - C90 — 1989
SIDE 1:
BWANA HATERS ALLEGORY BWANA |
SIDE 2:
ALLEGORY BWANA (CONTINUES) BWANA TARTS |
REVIEW by Jerry Kranitz
In addition to his long running If, Bwana and countless collaborations, Al Margolis ran the Sound of Pig cassette label which throughout the 1980s released 301 cassette albums. Sound of Pig later morphed into the Pogus label.
During September 1988, Al took his If, Bwana show on the road for nine performances in California and Colorado. One of his stops was an on-air at KZSC radio in Santa Cruz, joined by The Haters (G.X. Jupitter-Larsen), Allegory Chapel (Elden M.), and Crawling With Tarts (Michael Gendreau and Suzanne Dycus-Gendreau).
Of that date, I’ll quote from Al’s tour diary published in the debut issue (April 1989) of Electronic Cottage Magazine:
“We were joined that evening by Elden, G.X. Mic & Suz of Crawling With Tarts, the people from Lint Festival, and a special guest appearance by Don Campau in a delivering capacity. We were on the air from 8 P.M. to around 2:30 A.M. Between playing lots of tapes, round robin interviews, and lots of live music we had a blast, as most people who do Das’ show will agree. First, Bwana did separate sets with The Haters, Allegory Chapel and Crawling With Tarts. This was followed by a massive Bwana All-Star session, with everyone running around, switching instruments. There were synths, percussion things, records and tape loops, trombone and harmonica, and whatever other goodies that were around the studio. Two and a half hours of music – some of it quite sick – made and broadcast live.”
What we have on this 90 minute cassette album is the separate sets Al did with The Haters, Allegory Chapel, and Crawling With Tarts. Al believes the All-Star session was never released and doesn’t think he has a copy himself. So that may be lost to history. But what we do have is pretty nifty stuff.
‘Bwana Haters’ opens the set with repetitive microphone blowing and medical voice samples that provide a kind of rhythmic pulse. This is soon joined by scrapes, paper or rain crinkling, and other noise and soundscape textures, which builds up to a rolling sound collage groove. Intermittent disruptions inject variety, like spacey synth squonks and other effects, cut-in voices and other abrupt blasts of noise, telephones ringing, sirens, harmonica (maybe?), synth notes, machinery, and shifts in the pace and delivery of the sounds that make up the ensemble. It’s a free-wheeling psychedelic cut-up collage of sound, and at times feels like the guys are jamming out like a ‘band’.
‘Allegory Bwana’ conjures up a cavernously lysergic orchestral morphing and mixing of piano, strings, horn blasts, trippy, mesmerizing melodies, and voices. I love the way it all psychedelically wavers between industrial piano recital, floating atmospherics, freaked out howling voices, rocking spacecraft groove, and drone. Later in the piece it gets more overtly tripped out in space, with bubbling drones, sludgy rumbles, and hypnotic oscillations, all colored by creepy atmospherics and fun effects.
‘Bwana Tarts’ are next with what sounds like droning free-jazz trumpet, followed by bells, soundscapes, feedback, and guitar. It’s moodily spacey and infuses the avant-improvisational sound exploration with a cool and strange blend of mesmerizing psychedelia and spooky horror show vibe, though later it all explodes in a cacophony of horns blaring, bells rattling and chiming, and an array of percussive clatter and effects. It gradually gels into an intensely tribal jam of metallic and block percussion, noise-jazz, tinkly melody, whimsically spectral voices that howl and sing, and sundry soundscapes and effects. Let the experimental improv music freak flag fly!
In addition to his long running If, Bwana and countless collaborations, Al Margolis ran the Sound of Pig cassette label which throughout the 1980s released 301 cassette albums. Sound of Pig later morphed into the Pogus label.
During September 1988, Al took his If, Bwana show on the road for nine performances in California and Colorado. One of his stops was an on-air at KZSC radio in Santa Cruz, joined by The Haters (G.X. Jupitter-Larsen), Allegory Chapel (Elden M.), and Crawling With Tarts (Michael Gendreau and Suzanne Dycus-Gendreau).
Of that date, I’ll quote from Al’s tour diary published in the debut issue (April 1989) of Electronic Cottage Magazine:
“We were joined that evening by Elden, G.X. Mic & Suz of Crawling With Tarts, the people from Lint Festival, and a special guest appearance by Don Campau in a delivering capacity. We were on the air from 8 P.M. to around 2:30 A.M. Between playing lots of tapes, round robin interviews, and lots of live music we had a blast, as most people who do Das’ show will agree. First, Bwana did separate sets with The Haters, Allegory Chapel and Crawling With Tarts. This was followed by a massive Bwana All-Star session, with everyone running around, switching instruments. There were synths, percussion things, records and tape loops, trombone and harmonica, and whatever other goodies that were around the studio. Two and a half hours of music – some of it quite sick – made and broadcast live.”
What we have on this 90 minute cassette album is the separate sets Al did with The Haters, Allegory Chapel, and Crawling With Tarts. Al believes the All-Star session was never released and doesn’t think he has a copy himself. So that may be lost to history. But what we do have is pretty nifty stuff.
‘Bwana Haters’ opens the set with repetitive microphone blowing and medical voice samples that provide a kind of rhythmic pulse. This is soon joined by scrapes, paper or rain crinkling, and other noise and soundscape textures, which builds up to a rolling sound collage groove. Intermittent disruptions inject variety, like spacey synth squonks and other effects, cut-in voices and other abrupt blasts of noise, telephones ringing, sirens, harmonica (maybe?), synth notes, machinery, and shifts in the pace and delivery of the sounds that make up the ensemble. It’s a free-wheeling psychedelic cut-up collage of sound, and at times feels like the guys are jamming out like a ‘band’.
‘Allegory Bwana’ conjures up a cavernously lysergic orchestral morphing and mixing of piano, strings, horn blasts, trippy, mesmerizing melodies, and voices. I love the way it all psychedelically wavers between industrial piano recital, floating atmospherics, freaked out howling voices, rocking spacecraft groove, and drone. Later in the piece it gets more overtly tripped out in space, with bubbling drones, sludgy rumbles, and hypnotic oscillations, all colored by creepy atmospherics and fun effects.
‘Bwana Tarts’ are next with what sounds like droning free-jazz trumpet, followed by bells, soundscapes, feedback, and guitar. It’s moodily spacey and infuses the avant-improvisational sound exploration with a cool and strange blend of mesmerizing psychedelia and spooky horror show vibe, though later it all explodes in a cacophony of horns blaring, bells rattling and chiming, and an array of percussive clatter and effects. It gradually gels into an intensely tribal jam of metallic and block percussion, noise-jazz, tinkly melody, whimsically spectral voices that howl and sing, and sundry soundscapes and effects. Let the experimental improv music freak flag fly!