[KJU:]: Information from Answers.com Mobile

[KJU:]

Artist: Quatuohr
Rating:
Release Date: 2003
Total Time: 57:07
Genre: Avant-Garde

Review

On [KJU:] you have Marc Charig in an unusual context and on an unusually small and experimental independent label. This two-day free improv session was recorded in January 2002 with Charig playing his trusty cornet plus some alto horn, guitarist Hans Schneider, reedsman Joachim Zoepf, and percussionist Wolfgang Schliemann. The latter is not your average drummer, even by improv standards. His reluctance to engage the drum set in any traditional way and his fondness for light flurries of sharp hits on various pieces of junk metal force a high level of self-introspection upon the music. Wild outburst of free jazz this is not. On the contrary, minute sonic relationships are explored, each player digging deep within his instrument to find the blurt, the pop, the twang, or the click that will make things stranger than they already are. There is still too much simultaneous action to label [KJU:] as "reductionist," but the music remains highly abstract and consistently frustrating, since you keep interpreting the musicians' efforts of restraint as a sign of an upcoming release -- which, you've guessed, never comes. Truth be told, and despite occasional luminous contributions from each player -- especially Zoepf, whose bass clarinet turns into an elusive wild animal in "Hylocereus Undatus" -- the session lacks the focus or the poetry (however abstract) it would need to compensate for the listener's effort. There is one important exception though: "Stenocereus" delivers a stunning five minutes of music where Zoepf and Charig blow long notes over Schneider's strummed chord (yes, singular) while Schliemann sounds like he's rummaging through a drawer of kitchen utensils. ~ François Couture, Rovi

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