HR174 - David Prescott - C60 — 1990
SIDE 1:
LIVE AT THE PARADISE, BOSTON, 4/21/88 |
SIDE 2:
4/21/88 CONCLUSION AFTERTHOUGHT (10/89-2/90) |
Review by Jerry Kranitz
The majority of David Prescott’s self-titled cassette album consists of his April 21, 1988 performance at the Interference: The Cultural Politics Of Alternative Music Festival, hosted by the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston. Prescott recalls that among the acts at the festival were Boston based Cxema, and the main act was Strafe Für Rebellion (The Punishment for Rebellion). I’ll quote Prescott’s humorous recollection of Strafe Für Rebellion: “This was a pair of guys from Germany who made insane music. I think it was backing tapes and then admonishing the audience in German. They had lots of demands that couldn’t be met, like a 500 foot high superstructure over the stage and they wanted to release bees into the audience. They were great guys and the whole thing was unforgettable.”
Prescott is one of the 1980s-90s stellar electronic space explorers. The sound quality of this live recording is pretty good and listeners easily get a sense of Prescott’s performance. For gear, Prescott used his ARP 2600, and as he recalls also an ARP 2500, Moog Sonic 5 and Sonic 6, a couple racks of Aries modules, a Korg MS20/SQ10 combo, an ARP Little Brother and a couple small Rolands. Per Prescott, “My system was basically to move from one synth to the next, combining sounds and mutating them.”
Prescott also has fond memories of the light show provided by Gen Ken Montgomery: “He made all these white circles, maybe two and three feet across and shined various lights on them. It was great!” Other luminaries that contributed but didn’t perform included recording by Jim ‘Croiners’ Levine, and stage assistance by the late Kenny Ryman from the California based improv band Paper Bag.
The 40+ minute set opens quietly, with a subtle percussive pattern, soon adding pulsating alien tones, howls and rumbling drones. But the mood becomes increasingly active, ebbing and flowing between intense windmill fluttering waves, sirens and more understated sound focused passages. Some of it feels like navigating a dark cavern, with dripping water, echoes, drone tones, mind-bending pulsations, and ear-challenging squalls. At others it’s a master class of sound and effects deployment. And sometimes it even feels ‘musical’. In summary, it’s a great combination of space/sound exploration and sci-fi soundtrack. It must have been fun to experience live.
The album is rounded out with a 20-minute studio piece titled ‘Afterthought’. It begins with clatterous percussion, gurgling drone waves, and a darkly ominous atmospheric vibe. Soon a repetitive synth pattern sets a rhythmic pulse but quickly returns to the noisy percussion and drone theme, which develops into a bang-clang jumble of percussion and tossed tables in a cave, bleepity alien effects, backwards scratch textures, and even some whimsical bits. Overall, this is an interesting spacey noise, effects and sound meditation.
Photos of Prescott’s performance courtesy of Gen Ken Montgomery.
The majority of David Prescott’s self-titled cassette album consists of his April 21, 1988 performance at the Interference: The Cultural Politics Of Alternative Music Festival, hosted by the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston. Prescott recalls that among the acts at the festival were Boston based Cxema, and the main act was Strafe Für Rebellion (The Punishment for Rebellion). I’ll quote Prescott’s humorous recollection of Strafe Für Rebellion: “This was a pair of guys from Germany who made insane music. I think it was backing tapes and then admonishing the audience in German. They had lots of demands that couldn’t be met, like a 500 foot high superstructure over the stage and they wanted to release bees into the audience. They were great guys and the whole thing was unforgettable.”
Prescott is one of the 1980s-90s stellar electronic space explorers. The sound quality of this live recording is pretty good and listeners easily get a sense of Prescott’s performance. For gear, Prescott used his ARP 2600, and as he recalls also an ARP 2500, Moog Sonic 5 and Sonic 6, a couple racks of Aries modules, a Korg MS20/SQ10 combo, an ARP Little Brother and a couple small Rolands. Per Prescott, “My system was basically to move from one synth to the next, combining sounds and mutating them.”
Prescott also has fond memories of the light show provided by Gen Ken Montgomery: “He made all these white circles, maybe two and three feet across and shined various lights on them. It was great!” Other luminaries that contributed but didn’t perform included recording by Jim ‘Croiners’ Levine, and stage assistance by the late Kenny Ryman from the California based improv band Paper Bag.
The 40+ minute set opens quietly, with a subtle percussive pattern, soon adding pulsating alien tones, howls and rumbling drones. But the mood becomes increasingly active, ebbing and flowing between intense windmill fluttering waves, sirens and more understated sound focused passages. Some of it feels like navigating a dark cavern, with dripping water, echoes, drone tones, mind-bending pulsations, and ear-challenging squalls. At others it’s a master class of sound and effects deployment. And sometimes it even feels ‘musical’. In summary, it’s a great combination of space/sound exploration and sci-fi soundtrack. It must have been fun to experience live.
The album is rounded out with a 20-minute studio piece titled ‘Afterthought’. It begins with clatterous percussion, gurgling drone waves, and a darkly ominous atmospheric vibe. Soon a repetitive synth pattern sets a rhythmic pulse but quickly returns to the noisy percussion and drone theme, which develops into a bang-clang jumble of percussion and tossed tables in a cave, bleepity alien effects, backwards scratch textures, and even some whimsical bits. Overall, this is an interesting spacey noise, effects and sound meditation.
Photos of Prescott’s performance courtesy of Gen Ken Montgomery.
