New Music From Dikeman & Glerum, Endon
John Dikeman, Ernst Glerum
Spirituals
(Doek)
The American-born saxophonist John Dikeman is known as a ferocious and creative improviser in groups including Cactus Truck and Universal Indians and as a part of the Dutch jazz/improv scene.
The celebrated Dutch musician Ernst Glerum is a world-class double bassist and composer who’s recognized for his frequent improvisations and collaborations, often with percussionist Han Bennink.
However, on the new, live mini-album Spirituals—recorded at the Amsterdam concert hall Bimhuis as part of the “Space is the Place” improv concert series—both performers defy expectations with their take on gospel hymns.
For Dikeman, although there are moments of intense outbursts, the tone and mood is often reverent, and the material allows him to linger, compressing a complex range of emotions into each note; for example, a note on “I Wish I Knew How It Felt to Be Free–Psalm” goes from a brassy flare on its opening to a hearty, barrel-aged tone, to a calm yet persistent, breathy ending.
While Glerum is best known for his bass playing, on Spirituals he sits behind a piano and holds his own on that instrument, offering a warm and reflective style that is reminiscent of the kind of sentimental barroom piano parts heard on early Tom Waits albums.
While Glerum doesn’t overextend himself, he confidently lays down chords and flourishes and manages to evoke gospel veneration, but within an imaginary smoky jazz bar.
At one point in “Angels Watching over Me”, the tempo picks up, cueing Dikeman to produce wilder tones and harsher timbres, with the same amount of nuance as before, and his wide vibrato sounds are practically luxurious.
The songs’ structures and pacing keep the listeners guessing as the performers stroll through their head melodies, and when one might expect the familiar two-note closing “A-men” of a hymn, another path is taken rather than ending the number—providing yet another way expectations are defied.
Endon
Boy Meets Girl
(Thrill Jockey)
According to the Tokyo, Japan quintet Endon, its new album Boy Meets Girl was imagined as the soundtrack to a romance film. Well, a horror/romance film. Listening to the loud and intense album, apart from the title, there is no evidence of any romance involved, but who knows?
Maybe there are people out there who consider Tetsuo: The Iron Man and David Cronenberg’s Crash to be romance movies, but they are probably not good “first date” movies.
Boy Meets Girl is a huge, molten mass of abrasive thrash, rapid hardcore, grinding and chugging metal, and caustic noise, with singer Taichi Nagura providing throat-shredding vocals that make this writer wonder what his monthly budget for lozenges must be.
On “Born Again”, Nagura is seemingly in a battle for attention with noise, and he’s figuratively engulfed in quicksand made of sonic shrapnel, flailing away and sinking before the track ends in squeals and the clipping noises of sloppy sample loops.
The album’s centerpiece is the 12-minute “Doubts as a Source”, which forces the listener to navigate through a labyrinth paved with broken glass; Nagura uncomfortably inhales and exhales forcefully, as if hyperventilating in a panic attack, and it’s unclear if he is being terrorized or the one trying to terrorize.
Metal crunches and quick hi-hat taps lead to a slow death march with long, drawn-out screams of pain before automated and sequenced synth notes perhaps signify our new computer overlords overthrowing humanity.
“Final Acting Out” is possibly like a more corrosive version of Motorhead—the aural equivalent of a white-hot re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere—and “Red Shoes” has the greasy, bluesy swagger of some dreamworld roadhouse band, with some added, sinister chuckles.
It’s an aggressively overloaded and eardrum-scouring album that’s about as subtle as a kick in the ass, but sometimes you just need a good kick in the ass.