Current prices for a mint copy of Jackie Gleason's 1955 sexy parlor classic The Lonesome Echo are around $150. How does the ever-enigmatic plunderphonist A.M.K. preserve his copy? Time capsule? Safety deposit box?
He broke it into pieces, glued them back together and made his own re-contextualized version, even slightly skewing the Salvador Dalí painted front cover art with subtle changes — and a not-so-subtle Photoshop removal of Gleason/insertion of A.M.K. shaking Dalí's hand on the back of the case.
Taking Gleason's lounging, Italian flavored arrangements (one reviewer describes the music as, "He hired his own studio orchestra, pulled some orchestrators together, and began describing what he was looking for, occasionally picking out passages with one finger on the piano... Listeners liked how Gleason smoothed down the tunes, making them perfect background music for making out on the couch"), A.M.K. fires up his dusty record players, "montage flexi discs" and field recordings, and together with a contributed palette from fellow turntablists Howard Stelzer, Mark Brooks and Jay Sullivan via a pen-pal sound exchange program, peels the wax from the original 10".
For the first quarter of the disc, A.M.K. focuses more on the mechanics of his machines than on the sound source (hence and opening title, "Men and Their Machines"). Working with buzzing electrical hum, pulsing loop points, bumped styli and crackle, he, at a glance, leaves the needle at the end of its rope, skipping and waiting for its owner to flip to the B-side; with a little inspection, however, you notice the gradually augmenting ideas (i.e. polyrhythmic and formal shifts), realizing these intensely hypnotic works as brilliant grandchildren of classic Minimalists such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley. On track five ("Gen-Ken and the Birds"), A.M.K. breaks rank with a sped-up, high-pitched squiggle — like a cassette deck malfunction — and segues to the chirping "Undertow", an even more spacious, musically economical work that resembles an evening fishing alone on a forest dock. After seven minutes of calming Zen, he abruptly turns up the P.A. with the literally shrieking "Tangram", the jarring surprise that reminds you of your discovery of the hidden George Martin tape manipulations at the end of "Day In the Life" (were you also dead asleep when that happened?)
From "Forever Only" (track nine) and on, A.M.K. moves to a relatively apparent remix style: he still manipulates the music with shorthand and in a trance-like fashion, but places Gleason's work under the filmy spotlight. For "Sex J'Aime", he lays down a strings/oboe ostinato, then fusses about with a trilling mandolin sample and ripping scratched vocals — possibly Gleason screaming "Norton!" and "one of these days..."? He follows suit with "Bellsa Aime", whisking layers of brass, chimes and orchestra swells into a discordant Twilight Zone tension (think the moment when the room spins as the protagonist figures out he's an amnesiac alien), then deflates the bubble with a horn-y cadence.
With the gently lapping waves of the closer, "Salton Sea" (a "hidden track"), A.M.K. returns you to your previous iTunes selections. Relaxed yet perplexed, you will feel fortunate to have taken this disfigured musical non-musical journey — one as enigmatic and mysterious as the defiance of gravity above Dalí's lip.
Comments and Feedback:
|