Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Music / Post No Bills Tobin Summerfield Pares Down His Sound
Posted by Peter Margasak on 11.04.09 at 01:22 PM
- Tobin Summerfield
He’s crafted a kind of improvised, meditative bedroom record, yet despite the spontaneity that went into its creation, it’s anything but free improv; Summerfield breathes rock. On “The Letter C” you can’t miss the overdubbed electric guitar lines—several layers of keening long tones (he doesn't use an E-bow, though it sort of sounds that way) that generate a muted melancholia. For “Love at Its Best” he laid down all the tracks using a wonky cassette-tape recorder, which introduced distortion and tonal wobbliness to rustic parts for guitar, pump organ, and double bass. On other pieces he played along with and/or sampled bits of an improvised track he’d already committed to tape; Summerfield tells me he’ll be employing the same additive methodology at the Hideout, but since nothing on the album is really composed, it’s anyone’s guess what it will sound like live.
Today’s playlist:
Katherine Young, Further Secret Origins (Porter)
Eliane Radigue, Tryptych (Important)
Ignacio Piñeiro & His Septeto Nacional, Ignacio Piñeiro & His Septeto Nacional (Tumbao)
Margareth Kammerer, Ruby Ruby Ruby: The Shadow of Your Smile (Zarek)
Henry Threadgill Zooid, This Brings Us to Volume 1 (Pi)
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