reviews
“I very much enjoyed the overload of it all; best enjoyed in one long session.” — Vital Weekly
“This triple CD collects choice bits from dozens of collaborative performances from 2009 to 2019” — The Answer Is In The Beat
“It is a lifetime of listening, and a smorgasbord of emotions and atmospheres that would provide something for any mood.” — Freq.org
“I can honestly say that I’m looking forward to the next spin. The sounds, as strange as they are, are nonetheless immersive and relaxing.” — Exposé
“Dimuzio takes his Buchla synth rig and his sampler and hooks up with a roster of artists that goes on and on… ” — KFJC
Vital Weekly
"San Francisco-based Thomas Dimuzio is one of those unsung artistic figures whose influence and abilities have substantially outstripped his visibility", it says on Dimuzio's website and for once that is true. Modest, of course, too, but true. Since the late 80s', Dimuzio has been releasing records and working with others, as well as running a studio for recording, post-production and mastering. Much of his work can be found in the world of musique concrète. Normally, at this point in a review, I would list a bunch of his collaborators, but let's skip right through to the review as 'Balance' is a release that is about collaborations.
The first disc is 'duos', the second 'trios' and the fourth 'combos'. A large portion of the work of Dimuzio is dedicated to playing with other people and quite often in concert situations. On these three CDs, there are 49 artists, with recordings from 28 shows over ten years. At the end of the review, I will copy and paste the whole list of people involved. Dimuzio takes credit for modular electronics and live-sampling (as mentioned on his Bandcamp site), but it is not always clear what the others are playing. Take, for instance, now playing, 'The Dildo Factory', with Kanoko Nishi-Smith Moe Staiano, also known as KaMoTo Trio, of whom I had not heard before. I believe to hear a violin among various forms of electronics. With the growing number of participants from disc one to three, the music expands from quite transparent to mildly chaotic and dense. In the middle, disc two, we have a mixture of both ends. Whereas disc one and two sometimes show forms of organization, the third one is all about pure improvisation and that ranges from a bunch of electronics to combinations with real instruments. For 'Duos' I had the impression it was all about electronic duets, analogue, modular, digital or a combination of such, but without too many 'real' instruments, except maybe with David Molina. As said, on disc two, we see the most different combinations at work; from all-out electronic (with Matmos for instance, also one of the few more rhythmic pieces), to works with instrumentalists and from chaos to order. With all three discs, it is not easy to say what Dimuzio is doing, but I very much enjoyed the overload of it all; best enjoyed in one long session.
(The complete cast for the three 'Balance' releases; Scott Amendola, Cilla Vee, Bob Bellerue, Chuck Bettis, Easy Bake Oven, Illusion Of Safety, Demonsleeper, Fugitive Pope, Alan Courtis, Beth Custer, Matmos, Antimatter, Evelyn Davis, Doctor Nerve, Sharkiface, Jon Evans, Thea Farhadian, Kris Force, Phillip Greenlief, Solid Eye, Emily Hay, Shelley Hirsch, Motoko Honda, Aurora Josephson, Blevin Blectum, Joe Lasqo, Wobbly, Scott Looney, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Ava Mendoza, T.D. Skatchit, Transient, Arcane Device, Kanoko Nishi-Smith, Rick Reed, Gino Robair, Xambuca, Moe! Staiano, Amma Ateria, Larry Thrasher, Richard Teitelbaum, Lori Varga, Music For Hard Times, and Kit Young) — Frans de Waard
The Answer Is In The Beat
Longtime synth alchemist Thomas Dimuzio has collaborated with countless figures from throughout the world of experimental music, in concert and on record. This triple CD collects choice bits from dozens of collaborative performances from 2009 to 2019, with each disc arranged by configuration. Disc one is all duos, and fittingly enough, it’s the most minimal of the three. Much of these pieces are dark drone of some sort or another, from the haunted electro-acoustic of “Gnomon” with Blevin Blectum, full of tiny shreds of voices, to the shifting sci-fi throb of “Yesterday Died and Tomorrow Won’t Be Born” with Greg Bielski (Easy Bake Oven). “Ideal Cycle” with Xopher Davidson (Antimatter) is sort of a cosmic acid rain air raid, then the almighty Wobbly turns up on “Voluntary Limit”, which starts out with blasts of shredded Booper noise before dissipating into the cold night air. His Negativland bandmate The Weatherman pops up in the intro to the following “Directions From Hangar 23A”, giving a legal station ID for KPFA, where the session was (with Lori Varga) recorded. The track is another eerie one filled with scattered voices, wild oscillations, and some strangely comforting ding-dong audio logo tones near the end. “Collecting Particles Under a Dying Sun” with David Molina (Transient) takes things in a different direction, with gentle guitar repetitions and a distant clanging rhythm, later shuddering and whirring to a close. The second disc focuses on trio collaborations, adding an extra dimension to the pieces: mangled guitar strings, momentary bass pulsations, bird chirps, extra sizzles. Wobbly returns, this time with Alan Courtis of South American legends Reynols, and it’s one of the spaciest pieces here, with a few bursts of electricity pushing it in one way or another, and some whirling guitar loops at the end. Joseph Hammer and Rick Potts, prominent members of the highly influential Los Angeles Free Music Society, contribute trails of piercing, squidging guitar noise to “Fluorescent Brown”. Both members of Matmos go into improv mode and play around with skeletal hi-hat rhythms and glitchy oscillations. The track with Aurora Josephson and Chandra Shukla (and actually a few others) is more of an industrial doom trip, before it levels off into floating, meditative vocals. The one with Alexandra Buschman and Angela Edwards is weird because it’s filled with garbled distorted tones and then there’s these sudden loud but comforting bursts that are sort of like the very beginning of “Let’s Go Crazy” and even though they aren’t harsh or noisy, they’re still super jarring when they come at you. This is definitely not easy music to fall asleep to. With the last disc, two or three musicians accompany Dimuzio, and these edge closer to free jazz-like improv, featuring more acoustic instrumentation than the first two discs, starting with a noisy, sax-shredding piece featuring Chuck Bettis, Nick Didkovsky, and Michael Lytle. Scott Amendola and Phillip Greenlief particularly shine with the whirling drums, fluttering woodwinds, and muffled voices of “Paging Rubber Chickens”, which ends up turning into a Zorn-like rage-skronk, but with extra smoldering electronics. “We Are Water” (with Emily Hay and Motoko Honda) is one of the more joyful moments, with expressive vocal acrobatics and busy pianos underscored by electronic fuzz. A bit more startling a performance art-like is “I’m One of ‘Em” (with Shelley Hirsch, Thea Farhadian, and Gino Robair), which has a few violent interjections (“You woke me out of my nightmare!”) and crooked, creaking violin. At the end, “The Talisman of Market Street” (with Scott Amendola, Jon Evans, and Ava Mendoza) ventures into more groove-based (but also heavily spacey) electric jazz improv.
Freq.org
Thomas Dimuzio‘s presence in the alternative noise underground over the past thirty years or so is something that is hard to overlook. The ranks of artists with whom he has collaborated and the slew of labels on which his work has appeared are almost endless. The latest two releases from Thomas attempt to give a taster of just how varied and far-reaching his body of work is and serve as good starting points before diving in fully.
The second set is a three-disc compilation of collaborations that is nothing if not expansive. Each is sorted into duos, trios and combos, and the amount of names that appear here is huge. There must be the best part of sixty collaborators on Balance and therefore you can probably work out just how much variation there is.
It is probably safe to say that as you progress through the discs, so the scope expands just due to the fact that there are more ideas being thrown into each pot. The duo disc obviously finds Thomas either going head to head or running in tandem with an array of names. Larry Thrasher brings a really subversive air to the opener “Dangerfield”, its distorted bluster and shimmering whine of heat haze is blurry and pressure-laden, while the magnetic resonance and cut up chit-chat of “Gnomon” with Bevin Kelley is more disturbing, the sound of bells cutting through road drill chatter unable to stay still.
In fact, the whole disc leaps from one risk to another. David Lee Myers‘ “Mound” is a stormy, blustering blister whereas Gregg Bielski‘s “Yesterday Died” feels more like an overture somehow, and the grandeur of the drone here is oddly welcoming. Apparitions and dazed conversation haunt Bob Bellerye‘s “Harmonic Transients”, which grows gradually more ravaged and manic as the piece proceeds. Lightness does show itself from time to time though. The lunar tones and playful air of Xopher Davidson‘s “Ideal Cycle”, with its static choir beamed in from somewhere, releases the pressure a little, as does the split-level avalanche of sounds on Lori Varga‘s “Directions From Hangar 23A”. Here, the two feel as if they are playing against one another, egging one another on to greater levels of oddly uplifting mania.
Things do actually take a turn for the calmer as the disc winds down; Kris Force‘s “Shortening Of The Way” is strangely drowsy. It would be interesting to know who is doing what here as the tones press with some intensity. The closing “Collecting Particles” with David Molina is all guitar tones and deep metallic gongs. It is the most gentle sounding thing on the disc, with its gradually blurring exit lending a weary yet hypnotic air to the tail end of a dramatic hour or so; and yet there are still two more to go.
Disc two, the trios, finds the pieces generally longer and more expansive, with some tracks veering through a number of ideas before coming to rest. There are no easy rides here, although some are perhaps more subdued than others, but they are all rambling tales. There is a kind of latin section on the opener that merges with various squeals, scrapes and escaped birdsong; there is animal conversation on “To Claim The Look Of Exterminated Moons” (with Nick Didkovsky / Doctor Nerve and Richard Teitelbaum) that merges with scraped guitar and stretched strings.
The selection of sounds that they cover is vast and each piece describes a new world or some distant point out of our mind’s eye. Metallic werewolves abound on “Lord Crowning Majesties” (with Alexandra Buschman / Demonsleeper and Angela Edwards / Sharkiface), while the roars, hisses and stomps of the immolating “Fluorescent Brown” (with Joseph Hammer and Rick Potts / Solid Eye) are such that you can almost feel the flames. The awkwardness and unnevenness of “Skin, String, Rump”, a Matmos collaboration, is at odds with the sweet little rhythm that appears at points. Its drift into reverie towards the end is a pleasant respite as is the wind sweeping through the wires of “Submersion” (with Aurora Josephson and Chandra Shukla / Xambuca), where the tired beat flashes like broken striplights and highlights the bare bones of memory.
I thought I could hear the sound of Krazy Kong on the final track with Barry Conley (Fugitive Pope) and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, its stricken heartbeat and descent into silence is disconcerting. Some noises shock you with their sharpness and you can’t help visualising the trio as they watch one another to see who blinks first around the random bleeps and squelches.
The third and final disc, involving the combos, is an even broader selection and what feels like an increase in volume as well. The selection of instrumentation is greater, with reed and voice appearing as well as guitar. There is a blare of clarinet over the deep delicious drones of “Irritable Distance (Excruciating Proximity)” (with Chuck Bettis, Nick Didkovsky and Michael Lytle / Doctor Nerve), while there is a lovely found soundscape to “Suspension If Disbelief” (with Dan Burke / Illusion Of Safety, Evelyn Davis and Jeanie-Aprille Tang / Amma Ateria), with its tinnitus ring and hidden laughter.
The feelings and atmospheres evinced here are greater as well. Tibetan bells are playful and distant on the combo with Kanoko Nishi-Smith and Moe Staiano (KaMoTo Trio) on “The Dildo Factory” (a great title), and it sounds as though someone is going through the rubbish on the tribal-vibed “Paging Rubber Chickens” with Scott Amendola and Phillip Greenlief .
The breadth of imagination at play here is constantly surprising and the way that Thomas finds his place amongst the varied lineups is testament to his collaborative capabilities. The themes covered by Thomas, Scott Looney, David Michalak and Tom Nunn (T.D.Skatchit) on “‘Once Were Were” are far reaching from the rolling piano to the insistent Eastern groove, a scattering of raspberries and animal noises. Emily Hay‘s excited vocal yelp on “We Are Water” battles with the headlong tumbling guitar, while Beth Custer‘s gargling on the haunted “Night Run At Klamath Falls” is joined by Joe Lasqo on a modern classical attack of mellow piano and sax.
The scuttling alien sounds of “Always A Minefield” (with Tom Nunn and Paul Winstanley / Music For Hard Times) find you checking under the bed and Scott Amendola, Jon Evans and Ava Mendoza join Thomas for “The Talisman Of Market Street”, a final track that sees the whole collection out in a jazzy bass, guitar and drum workout — and possibly the least expected thing on here.
There is something for everybody on Balance, and you will really struggle to find so many ideas stuffed into one little package. It is a lifetime of listening, and a smorgasbord of emotions and atmospheres that would provide something for any mood.
-Mr Olivetti-
Exposé
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dimuzio has been flying under the radar of most listeners since he first arrived on the local music scene in the late 80s. A composer, multi-instrumentalist, experimental electronic musician, sound sculptor, improvisor, collaborator, and mastering engineer, he has been busy honing his craft all these years with little or even less recognition from the music world as a whole, perhaps with the exception of a small cadre of experimental music enthusiasts from around the globe. Early on, his work caught the attention of Chris Cutler and Fred Frith, with whom he’s collaborated numerous times in recordings and live performances, as well as like-minded musicians like David Lee Myers, Wobbly, Dan Burke, Voice of Eye, and many more. When a musician is defined as an electronic musician, the image that typically comes to mind is that of a keyboardist with synthesizers in tow, but with Dimuzio nothing could be further from the truth. His sound sculptures bear little resemblance to any conventional music — typically there is no rhythm, meter or cadence, little melody or key to be found therein, and rather than the convention of a keyboard, his sound sources can include just about anything, from twiddling the knobs on a modular rack synth, field recordings, samples, loops, extreme signal processing, microphones, and intercepted signal feeds from his collaborators, or in some cases even conventional musical instruments being played in unconventional ways. Most of the time it’s nearly impossible to listen to the sounds he’s making and know exactly (or even roughly) how they are being made. Welcome to Dimuzio’s world of experimental sounds. Expect the unexpected.
With Balance, Dimuzio has assembled three full-length CDs of live collaborations featuring 49 different artists culled from 28 live performances spanning ten years. The pieces span the range of textural, dark ambient, noise, experimental and electro-acoustic sounds, using live sampling and modular electronics in various configurations. Some of his collaborators in these endeavors will be known to most Exposé readers, others will be relatively unknown to anyone outside of experimental music circles, refer to Dimuzio’s Bandcamp page (link below) for all of the details of the 28 tracks and who the collaborators are on each of them. The first of the three discs focuses on duo collaboration performances, the second disc on trios, and the third disc on combos of four or more performers (although some trios snuck in on the last disc). As one might suspect, the first disc of duos tends to be the most experimental of the three, but there are no hard fast rules here, and in fact what the listener hears in general is not particularly abrasive or what one would call difficult listening, though for persons who are only used to hearing rock music — even progressive rock music, the sounds on any of these three discs may certainly be somewhat challenging the first time through. Listening to all three discs back to back — they are roughly seventy minutes each, might also be an endurance challenge, but after four or five spins of the full set, I can honestly say that I’m looking forward to the next spin. The sounds, as strange as they are, are nonetheless immersive and relaxing. Probably it’s best to take it on one disc at a time for better assimilation. I could try and describe a number of these pieces, but as one might imagine, these sounds are pretty difficult to describe, so it’s probably best to jump over to Dimuzio’s Bandcamp page and hear them for yourself. —Peter Thelan
KFJC
Wow! Local sound wizard Dimuzio has always been known for his collaborations as well as his solo work, and here is a triple-CD overview of ten years of collaborations 2009-2019, all of them live improvisations recorded at shows. Dimuzio takes his Buchla synth rig and his sampler and hooks up with a roster of artists that goes on and on… Matmos, Nick Didkovsky, Beth Custer, Alan/Anla Courtis, Aurora Josephson, Wobbly, Phillip Greenlief, Scott Amendola, Emily Hay, Gino Robair, Tom Nunn, Ava Mendoza, to name just a few… in duos, trios, and various combinations. A wide range of sounds are offered, from pleasantly musical to drone to quirky spoken word to moderately harsh noise. It’s all here. The final track on CD-3 was recorded by KFJC in 2010 at Cafe Du Nord in SF and it has that electric-Miles rock/jazz fusion thing going on. Dimuzio is a good friend of the station and always a force to be reckoned with. He curated these tracks, did the editing and mastering, and even the package design. Dive deep into this one! —Max Level
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