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ARAM SHELTON AND STEINI GUNNARSON.
Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel

Edgetone EDT-4055, 43:59.
edgetonerecords.com

by Steve Koenig

Gudmundur Steinn Gunnarsson plays sax, bass clarinet, trumpet and does processing. He was born in Reykjavik and has studied with Alvin Curran, Fred Frith and Annie Gosfield at Mills. He does processing and plays prepared guitar. Aram Shelton is a Floridian gone Chicagoan (1999) gone Bay Area (2005) and has collaborated with the usual suspects in those locales.

The nine minutes of "In Circulation" is fun for the ears with its funhouse of instruments and toys and effects done free-improvisation style, yet drone-ism and beats enter and go as it works its way through. Not as austere as AMM can sometimes be, it has similar richness for close listening.

The reed and plink "Consitutution (In Three Parts)," running fifteen minutes, is beautifully hypnotic in a way that recalls all at once John Fahey, Ud. Bismallah Khan, and parts of Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill. Most of the tracks are around ten minutes, and the boys have the ears to sustain interest throughout.

The website has a free download of the clarinet-bassed (couldn't resist) "A Charming Decoy," which will give you a good sense of the flavor of the disc. Note that despite my headnote, only the group name is on the outside packaging, and is the actual title of the disc.

Highly recommended.

 



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