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  Praed 
  The Muesli Man
  (Creative Sources Recordings) 


  
   review by Jeph Jerman
  2008-08-13
Praed: The Muesli Man (Creative Sources Recordings)

Praed is Paed Conca on electric bass, clarinet and electronics and Raed Yassin on double bass, tapes and electronics conjuring up soundtracks to movies for your ears. The lead track "The Man Who Lost All His Friends (with japanese subtitles)", is split up into 34 (!) short pieces that sometimes dovetail together and sometimes change abruptly like the scene changes in a dream. It starts with a smash and continues with bass improvisation accompanied by gunshots, explosions and anxious vocalizing before stacking together rumbles and, in succession: slides; string bounce with electronics and hisses; clarinet notes and loops; basses and percussives; clarinet and dialogue in some unknown language; bass strumming and electronics; breathy and tube-sound; taped music looped with clarinet and hiss; scraped strings with rumbling percussives. This is all in the first 2 minutes, a dizzying collection of short scenes that continues to surprise.

The remainder of the pieces adheres to this abrupt juxtapositioning style, but the sections between changes are a bit longer and there's more development. "Bambi, Bambi" begins with a loop of middle-eastern pop music that's gradually swallowed in glitchy static, which stops for a short bass solo before whistling electronics fade in with percussive clacks and pie-tin rattling rhythms. This fades out to bass notes and distorted backwards singing. It ends with a marbles in mouth and bass coda.

These chaps manage to keep things interesting with modest means, juggling conventional instrumental sounds with more abstract sources. I listen forward to more.







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