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"Sense of Hearing - bpa006"
Players: Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon/Lonberg-Holm, Fred
Reviewed by: François Couture, All Music
For a while, bassist {Damon Smith}s preferred free improvising unit was the trio, as his previous releases on {Balance Point Acoustics} testify. But despite its triple bill, {Sense of Hearing} consists mostly of duets with singer {Carol Genetti} -- cellist {Fred Lonberg-Holm} joins in only for the last four pieces, representing half an hour of music. The duets have been recorded in the studio; the trio tracks are taken from a live performance at the {Empty Bottle} in Chicago. Genetti plays her voice like an instrument, drawing on the legacy of {Phil Minton} and {Maggie Niccols} to develop her own identity. Several of her idiosyncrasies evoke bird songs (ululating, in particular), but she also uses a lot of croaking and half-enunciated nonsense sentences , along with jazzier-sounding scat lines. Her tone is raspier than {Aurora Josephson}, another Bay Area singer often performing with {Damon Smith} (see their quintet CD {Zero Plus}) and if shes not the most striking improv vocalist in America, she delivers a touching performance. The eight duets presented on this disc range in duration between two and seven minutes. They showcase a musical language that is still growing or undergoing a certain mutation: the vocabulary isnt fixed, there is tension in the delivery, like an incertitude in how to interpret given signifiers. That provides an attention-grabbing level of unrest, especially in {"The Hard and the Soft I"} and {"Experimental Sentences,"} the latter exploring softer, more fragile sounds. The trio pieces, performed the day after the studio session, are more assured, transmuting the previous tension into confident energy. {"Self-Perpetuating Duplicity,"} with its train whistles, stands out as a potent free improv statement.
1.Wuppertal is an Idyll~7:32~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
2.The Hard and the Soft I~3:56~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
3.Urbanch Method~2:22~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
4.Simulate Bearability~2:48~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
5.Fragility Itself~6:12~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
6.Experimental Sentences~4:02~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
7.Ore, Oil, Open~4:36~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
8.Overhearing~4:04~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon
9.Deadly Togetherness~6:12~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon/Lonberg-Holm, Fred
10.Pouring Out Civilities~7:41~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon/Lonberg-Holm, Fred
11.Self-Perpetuating Duplicity~9:32~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon/Lonberg-Holm, Fred
12.A Sudden Fit of Abstraction~4:06~~Genetti, Carol/Smith, Damon/Lonberg-Holm, Fred
Genetti, Carol/voice/executive producer
Smith, Damon/voice
Lonberg-Holm, Fred/cello
Falesch, Bob/engineer
Looney, Scott R./mastering
Brightbill, Edgar Alan/artwork
Anzalone, Alan/graphic design/photo
-Avntg
-Free Improvisation
-66:13 | 
