VOTD 12/20/2023

Dawn of Midi: Dysnomia (Erased Tapes)

Purchased used at Mind Cure Records

In my previous missive, considering the passing of Andre Braugher and listening to some of the Disintegration Loops, I started pondering my own age and the state of my body. As I listen to this I think, this music is a young men's game, music created by someone at an age where you can just devote the time to develop something such as this.

I didn't know who Dawn of Midi was when I came across this record (really, an album length split over four 12" sides). There was a sticker on the cover: "Great". Used. Because it was opened, I could give it a spin on the store turntable. A few seconds in, I knew it be my next purchase.

At this point in my life it takes a lot for me to think, I haven't heard that before. Nothing is entirely separated from any other music, and I'm sure I could string together a "This artist meets that artist in a dark alley on a Sunday night" kind of cute comparison. While I don't take my blogging terribly seriously, I also don't want to resort to that sort of lazy record reviewing.

The lineup: piano, upright bass, drums. Sounds like it could be the Bud Powell Trio, but there isn't so much of a whiff of jazz here. The piano is a combination of muted and open strings; the bass tends to play percussively; the drums play without cymbals. There's clearly the influence of sequenced music, particularly drum machines, and yet it doesn't sound like a beatbox at all. Ideas play over time, a polyrhythm at one tempo becomes a simple rhythm in a shifted tempo. I think there's a touch of Steve Reich-ian style minimalism, but even that doesn't adequately explain what's going on here. 

What is clear is that they spent a tremendous amount of time developing and rehearsing this work, which despite separate work titles (two or three a side) is played as one long evolving composition. Hence the comment about a young men's game. All of the pieces are credited to the pianist, or co-credited to the bassist. It's brilliantly performed and sounds like a continuous performance.

That's entirely possible, because I saw the group a few years ago at the Warhol Museum. It was exciting to hear this performed live, but a touch disappointing too. I don't hear that there was a note difference between that performance and this record, which I knew well enough to know that it was very close. I didn't expect them to stretch the material. The entire performance was basically this record. I thought, anything else?

And similar to Disintegration Loops, this actually might have been better experienced as a single CD rather than four 12" sides. The limited edition clear vinyl does look very attractive though. And if Michael from Mind Cure hadn't put the "great" comment on a sticker, I might have paid attention to it. I later found out that Michael would occasionally open a new LP and play it in the store for his own enjoyment and curiosity, then mark it down a few dollars and sell it used. That's probably how I found the soundtrack to Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers used on vinyl.

I started writing this blog to force myself to dig into my own library of records and CDs and give purpose to listening to different things. While I maintained that discipline regularly at first, now I do it when I can spare the time and effort, as well as for my own satisfaction. I'm reminded that I need to keep plugging away at my own work too, keep putting in the time to continue to create while I still have the ability to do so.