Art Decade refers to a musical decade, the 1970s, rich in creativity in rock, particularly the Art Rock movement and its Prog ramifications. Here, clarinettist Ziporyn (of Bang on a Can, among others) joins the Toronto ensemble ContaQt, specialising in contemporary music crossed with popular genres, to stimulate chamber reconstructions of masterpieces by David Bowie, Harold Budd, and Robert Fripp (King Crimson).
Ziporyn’s four-handed arrangements with ContaQt percussionist Jerry Pergolesi don’t seek to create a “purely acoustic translation” of the original electro-acoustic landscapes. Piano, Rhodes and organ float alongside electric guitars, cello, violin, doublebass, percussion, trumpet, drums and, of course, Ziporyn’s clarinet, in undulating, generally peaceful expanses of delicately layered sound. For example, Bowie’s Moss Garden (twice as long here as the original) reminds us of this music’s precursor links to the (generally much less substantial) New Age explosion of the 1980s. Neuköln, also by Bowie, calls for some active flights by Ziporyn that clearly reference the Turkish population well represented in the Berlin district of Neukölnn. In this, Ziporyn echoes the saxophone played by Bowie himself in the piece from the album Heroes. Comparing the two, we notice that the clarinet brings a more peaceful, more coloristic and impressionistic feeling to this arrangement than the expressionism of Bowie’s sax. Another vision, certainly, but very seductive.
Bowie is represented by three tracks, as is Fripp, while the very ethereal Harold Budd is played once with Not Yet Remembered.
It is Fripp’s music that generates the only real sonic turbulence on the album, especially Lark’s Tongue in Aspic. The insistent theme is supported by robust guitars and coloured by an effective violin solo by Sarah Fraser Raff. A rather polite version of this cult piece, but not bad at all. The group concludes the program by returning to the relaxed spirit of the rest of the album, with a light and airy reading of Evening Star, also by Fripp. The fleeting ripples of clarinet and violin over the light breeze of electric instruments create a very seductive, almost fairy-like effect. Perhaps the most beautiful achievement of the program.
A tribute that is both respectful and personal to the avant-garde rock music of about 50 years ago.
