New Music From Warren Defever and Johnny Evans, Monster Rally
Warren Defever and Johnny Evans
Mirror Dream #2
(hisnameisalive.bandcamp.com)
The Michigan musical genius Warren Defever is best known for his almost absurdly diverse career as the sole consistent member of His Name Is Alive, which has offered its distinctive off-kilter spin wherever its mood lands—from ethereal gloom to soul to hard rock—and occasionally sporting its bursting obsessions with acts including the Beach Boys and Thin Lizzy.
Apparently, His Name Is Alive isn’t a big enough bucket to hold Defever’s creativity, so it spills out into various side projects and also material released under Defever’s name, including folk, serene nature jams and cosmic ambient music.
Defever’s new Mirror Dream series so far features atypical duets; the first installment paired string arrangements from Jean Cook with Defever’s field recordings of freeway traffic and rainfall heard from his Detroit apartment. Mirror Dream #2, released as a digital download and on cassette and CD, features Defever collaborating with saxophonist Johnny Evans of Howling Diablos.
The album is closest in spirit to His Name Is Alive’s dalliances with spiritual jazz and free jazz, including Brown Rice (likely named with Don Cherry in mind) and Sweet Earth Flower, which was a tribute to free jazz saxophonist Marion Brown.
Defever limits himself to keyboards—organ, harmonium and Moog synthesizer—laying down drone beds, percolating patterns or wandering counterpoint to Evans’ spry and inspired melodies on soprano and tenor saxophone.
On “Spirit Levels,” Defever’s pulsating one-note drones are a nest from which Evans departs with his lively flights—only occasionally pushing into harsh timbres—and to which he returns to re-charge and re-orient himself.
“Wavelength” is in line with hard-blowing mid-’60s avant-garde jazz saxophone (think Albert Ayler) with Evans spitting out a relentless stream of microtonal squawks, while Defever paints a heavenly watercolor atmospheric background, offering a remarkable duality of agitation and tranquility.
Following the density of “Wavelength” is the closing 10-minute track “Chrysalix” which offers much more space and room to breathe, with Defever’s space drones providing ectoplasm for Evans to dive in and squirm soulfully.
Monster Rally
Flowering Jungle
(Gold Robot)
Tiki bars with tropical cocktails and Polynesian décor flourished in the mid-20th century, and although their popularity has waned since then, devotees that carry the (tiki) torch today understand their appeal and charm—they offer an escapist fantasy with welcoming, artificial environments that point to exotic getaways.
Ted Feighan delivers his own escapist fantasies in musical form as the one-man band Monster Rally, plundering old exotica (the music genre most closely associated with tiki) and easy listening mid-century vinyl records to create his largely sample-based rhapsodies.
The other notable feature of Monster Rally is the frequent use of overlaid hip-hop drum loops which push forward the breezy aural collages, like a hammock being swayed in a strict cyclic tempo.
Monster Rally’s latest full-length, Flowering Jungle, doesn’t stray from Feighan’s typical strategies, with glistening and enchanting tidbits, enticingly looped with no attempt to remove the pops and clicks of vinyl surface noise.
The exotica/hip-hop duality might be jarring for some—take “Toucans” with its lush string loops and prominent breakbeats, which may inspire listeners to lie back and relax or nod their heads to the beat.
The forced repetition of samples provides an extra layer of artificiality to Monster Rally’s pieces—and stuttering samples like on “Niñas De La Selva” (“Girls of the Jungle”) force the point even further.
There was a time in the ‘60s when cheesy, catchy instrumentals had the potential to be big hits (think Herb Alpert), and Flowering Junglefully embraces that aesthetic.
“Giant Leaves” uses a repeated high-note piano sample to an almost maddening effect, as if applying a water-torture slow drip of corn syrup. The mid-century window is broken at a few choice times, like on “Rio” which sounds like it has an ‘80s recording style for easy listening.
Tiki pioneer Don the Beachcomber said, “If you can’t get to paradise, I’ll bring it to you,” and with that spirit, Flowering Jungle delivers its sunny and alluring facsimile of a tropical paradise.