David Greenberger and Prime Lens My Thoughts Approximately, Yoko Ono Fly
David Greenberger and Prime Lens
My Thoughts Approximately
(PelPel)
Your humble reviewer was recently physically attacked (in a brotherly, horseplaying way) by a friend who apparently didn’t appreciate his stance that all art and music has a degree of artificiality and that no matter how “authentic” a conveyed emotion seems to be, it’s always framed by the artist.
In other words, art-making requires decision-making in some form or fashion, even if decisions are consciously left to chance (see John Cage’s indeterminacy, for example).
For four decades, David Greenberger has been having conversations with senior citizens and documenting them, culling stories for his long-running zine The Duplex Planet and also for numerous musical collaborations. It might be easy to overlook, but Greenberger’s role involves its own nuanced artistry and decision-making: which passages to include, how to sequence and group them and what mood to express as he uses his own voice to recite the stories of others.
Greenberger’s latest album, My Thoughts Approximately, is a collaboration with Prime Lens—actually, “and Prime Lens,” which is an anagram of “Dennis Palmer”—an ensemble formed after Palmer’s passing in 2013, including Palmer’s bandmate Bob Stagner in the improvisational group The Shaking Ray Levis, bassist Evan Lipson and keyboardist Tyson Rogers.
(Disclosure: I know these artists personally and stand firmly in the Pauline Kael-esque “screw objectivity” camp of criticism.)
Multi-instrumentalist Amanda Rose Cagle sings or plays (over a dozen instruments) on a majority of tracks, and guests Frank Pahl, trumpeter Dan Dorrill and organist Steve Hickman have brief yet welcome contributions.
As with other Greenberger albums, the anecdotes used vary wildly in mood, from touching stories to humorous moments to more complicated, disquieting glimpses.
“Refugees” is a tense recollection from Ilona Kaba about sneaking over the Hungary-Austria border and being a refugee in a women’s prison, and Charlie Hewis’ war story “Home at Last” is delivered matter-of-factly, with floating, gentle music tracing his path from turmoil to domestic tranquility.
Although there’s some frolicking genre-hopping, dominant styles include jaunty piano-driven jingles and slithering, amorphous jazz. Moments of agitated comedy are mirrored in manic accompaniments, like the revved-up track “Dynamo,” and adept uses of instruments for foley art pop up, like the cat-clawing sounds that end “My Princess.”
My Thoughts Approximately is a potpourri of emotions and charming musical arrangements, providing keen glimpses viewed through the artists’ lens and framed with perceptive care.
Yoko Ono
Fly
(Secretly Canadian/Chimera)
“Everyone knows her name, but no one knows what she actually does.” That’s a quote from John Lennon about Yoko Ono—the pioneering singer, Fluxus performance artist and filmmaker and, yes, Lennon’s wife.
Actually, many bitter Beatles fans would claim that they did in fact know what she did: break up the Beatles. (This has been refuted.)
Just mentioning the name “Yoko” would be a joke for some, but in the avant-garde world, she is rightfully considered to be a visionary artist who also belongs in the “Unconventional Vocalist” hall of fame if one were to exist.
A deep-dive reissue project of Ono’s works from 1968 to 1985 is underway from Secretly Canadian and Chimera Music, with deluxe vinyl, CD and digital-download editions, and one of the highlights so far is the 1971 double-album Fly.
It’s a wild trip that at times is deeply uncomfortable to hear, shattering notions about femininity with its relation to aesthetics.
Ono’s eccentric vocalizations—with peculiar enunciations and primal, wordless cackling—are boldly difficult, and even when she dials down the strangeness, her singing can smolder with a bleak, raw emotion, like on the piano/guitar ballad “Mrs. Lennon” (the tune of which was subconsciously borrowed by Alex Chilton for Big Star’s “Holocaust.”)
Fly opens with “Midsummer New York,” which sounds like it could be from a roadhouse blues-rock bar band if it weren’t for Ono’s “Janis Joplin from another planet” vocalizations; it’s followed by the 17-minute “Mindtrain,” with slide-guitar licks and an irresistible bass groove, serving as a bed for Ono’s freestyle, unhinged spoutings.
When it comes to deliciously maddening delirium-inducing repetition, “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For a Hand in the Snow)” takes the cake, with a single riff hammered into the ground from a dream-team lineup including Lennon, Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr, with Ono chanting “Don’t worry!” in an unsettling way.
The second half of Fly goes into more abstract territory, with the metallic junkyard clatter and echoing vocals of “Airmale” and the baby-babble, violent outbursts and tape-manipulation of the 23-minute title track. This edition includes four bonus tracks, including the notable “The Path” with electronic bubbling and reverberating panting, evoking sci-fi suspense.
Make no mistake—this is “out there” stuff, but it’s inspired, uncompromising and unforgettable. As actress/musician Ann Magnuson put it, “There’s a reason the coolest guy in the world fell in love with her.”