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  Barry Chabala / David Forlano / Drew Gowran 
  Juno
  (Confront Recordings) 


  
   review by Jeph Jerman
  2024-12-09
Barry Chabala / David Forlano / Drew Gowran: Juno (Confront Recordings)

A fun live improv recording from Albuquerque, of all places. There is some serious sound warp-age going on here, as familiar sounds lay alongside twisted repeats and uncanny transformations. Birdsong pops up a lot on the first track, with acoustic guitar and percussion scrabbling amid morphing mangled electronics. Funhouse mirror samplings distort and comment on the acoustic interplay, and everything happens really (really!) quickly — don't let your mind blink.

There's humor a-plenty here, as serious sounding chordage gets twisted into parody or slathered with tape rewind and jeered at by elfin voices. A siren, seesawing toy alarms, motors and kids on swings amid metal clatter and insistent knocks. Space will open up here and there for a few seconds and then collapse as fruity tuba belches and the birds are back. Cowbell. Toward the end of the first track Robert Fripp and John Martyn drop by to add their two cents-worth. No, really, I laughed a lot.

This is topnotch 21st century improvising by three skilled purveyors: Barry Chabala on acoustic guitar/objects/radio/iPhone, David Forlano using laptop, EWI and live sampling, and Drew Gowran manning drums and percussion. It careens wildly at times, shifts into low gear at others, ratcheting between all-out mayhem and serviceable folk stylings with snide asides. I can easily imagine a lone finger-picker struggling to complete a tune while the lysergics come on and his efforts get blenderized as he frantically tries to make things coalesce. That's just my take on things though, you can assemble your own. This is true genre-less music, held aloft by seasoned fingers and tossed between agile minds. Is that Johnny Cash? It is dressed in black.







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