The Squid's Ear Magazine


CARL (Damon Smith / Daniel Kamins /  Andrew Durham): Solid Bottom [CASSETTE w/ DOWNLOAD] (Astral Spirits)

Two basses and a lower-end saxophone from the trio of Damon Smith on double bass, Andrew Durham on electric bass, and Danny Kamins on baritone sax, Durham also adding effects and "Radio Manipulation" to their deep sound, Durham & Kamins the core of CARL with Damon Smith adding extra underpinnings to their slowly developing, sometimes pensive, sometimes cantankerous, profound improvisation.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Damon Smith-double bass

Andrew Durham-electric bass, radio manipulation, effects

Danny Kamins-baritone saxophone


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Label: Astral Spirits
Catalog ID: AS091
Squidco Product Code: 27912

Format: CASSETTE
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: USA
Packaging: Cassette
Recorded at Sugarhill Studios, in Houston, Texas on June 15th, 2016, by Jonathan Chan.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Andrew Durham and Danny Kamins grew up together in Houston, meeting toward the end of grade school at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in the Montrose. While attending different high schools, they still managed to go to shows and compete in an occasional fencing match.

And then they pretty much went in opposite directions.

Durham, a St. Pius X High School graduate, worked in Mississippi on a barge for the summer before landing at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Kamins, the son of Benjamin Kamins, principal bassoonist of the Houston Symphony from 1981 to 2003 and current professor of bassoon at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, headed to Ohio's Oberlin Conservatory of Music after completing his education at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts's jazz department.

Durham bounced back and forth between Texas and the West Coast, going to Evergreen and the University of Texas at Austin. He was introduced to metal, noise, grindcore and power violence. He bought an electric bass. He worked hard labor gigs.

"The sounds from these jobs definitely have a lot to do with my playing. I remember the constant throbbing drone from the diesel generator that ran the cannery in Alaska where I worked," says Durham. "Also, the chugging and screeching of a chainsaw, the fall of timber and the silence on either end. I would also go shooting in Capitol Forest, a heavily logged state forest. I really fell in love with huge sounds that dominate the space for a moment, but are framed by silence."

Meanwhile, at Oberlin, Kamins, who plays almost all of the saxes (baritone, tenor, alto, soprano) as well as flute, clarinet and bass clarinet, studied with the greats such as Gary Bartz, Wendell Logan, Billy Hart and classical saxophonist Paul Cohen. After college, Kamins played and taught in the Cleveland area, moved to Chicago for about four years and then made his way back to Houston in 2015.

When Durham returned to Houston in 2013, he first sought out a similar noise and punk scene he had become involved with in Olympia. Then he attended a They, Who Sound event, the weekly Monday-night Houston improv series at AvantGarden curated by David Dove of Nameless Sound. At first, he wasn't really feeling the music, but then he started working with mainstays Rebecca Novak, Sandy Ewen and Damon Smith.

"I had already been doing that a little but that technique grew a lot from my exposure to the Houston improv scene," says Durham. "I use a whippet cracker as a slide [and] a screwdriver to lift the strings so I have an angle for bowing them. I copied Sandy's technique of using steel wool over the pickups." [...]"-Steve Jansen, Houston Press


Get additional information at Houston Press

Artist Biographies

"Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and has had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser and others. Damon's explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson's Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

Damon has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including: Cecil Taylor, Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra's Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Roscoe Mitchell, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and five great years in Houston, Texas working regularly with Alvin Fielder, Sandy Ewen, David Dove & Chris Cogburn, Damon will move to the Boston area in the fall of 2016. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics record label since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians."

-Balance Point Acoustic Website (https://www.balancepointacoustics.com/damon-smith/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Andrew Durham is a Houston, TX bassist known for the band CARL with saxophonist Danny Kamins.

-Squidco 3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Danny Kamins is an improvising saxophonist based out of Houston, TX. His current musical endeavors include playing in the bands CARL and Etched in the Eye as well as directing two ensembles at Rice University. He also maintains a studio of 25 young private saxophone students from the Houston, Klein and Cypress areas. in He holds his B.M. in Jazz Saxophone Performance from Oberlin Conservatory, and is a graduate of Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts."

-Danny Kamins Website (https://dannykamins.com/about/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Double Crime, Pt. I 4:01

2. Structural Integration 0:28

3. Responses To Stress, Pt II 10:55

4. Improvised Music 2:59

5. A Product Of Superior Coaching 5:55

SIDE B



1. Social Fragmentation 1:46

2. The Museum Of Capitalism 8:44

3. Double Crime, Pt. II 4:33

4. The Arboretum 5:52

Related Categories of Interest:


Cassettes
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
West Coast/Pacific US Jazz
Trio Recordings
Physical Releases that include Download Codes

Cassettes
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
West Coast/Pacific US Jazz
Trio Recordings
Physical Releases that include Download Codes

Search for other titles on the label:
Astral Spirits.


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