Including three previously unreleased live tracks, one of Downtown NY's supergroups of drummer Samm Bennett, reed & wind player Ned Rothenberg and guitar & bass player Elliott Sharp's 2nd album is reissued, bringing this collection of seemingly endless possibility in improvisation back to the foreground, sounding as modern today as it did in the percolating creativity of 1987.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2022 Country: Austria Packaging: Digipack Recorded at Radio City Studio, in New York, New York, in September, 1987, by Don Hunerberg.
Personnel:
Samm Bennett-drums, acoustic percussion, electric percussion, voice, synth
Ned Rothenberg-alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, ocarina, panpipe, synthesizer
Elliott Sharp-guitarbass, guitar, 6 string bass, lap steel, synesizer
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"When you hear the powerful, dissonant blast of "R-Byte Mock Fry," the first cut on Bone of Contention, it's hard to believe that the album could possibly all be this confrontational. Surprise! You're listening to what is probably the most accessible and conventional cut. The Semantics pulled no punches anywhere on this amazing release, which ranks with the most daring and successful examples of avant-garde rock. Elliott Sharp's guitars and basses howl, pound, and occasionally soothe; Ned Rothenburg blows up a jazz fury on not only saxes and clarinet, but ocarina and panpipe, and it's a measure of how good he is that he can get demonic riffs out of the latter two instruments. Samm Bennett pounds the heck out of all sorts of drums, often playing in time signatures that at first seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the music, but somehow make sense. It's an overpowering sound that can leave a listener sonically bruised and exhausted, but amazed at the passion, power, and inventiveness of it all."-Richard Foss, All Music
"Semantics was a jazz supergroup consisting of Elliott Sharp, Ned Rothenberg and Samm Bennett. Elliott Sharp, born in Ohio in 1951, began playing the piano at the age of six and started to perform concerts two years later. He soon gave up the piano, first in favour of the clarinet and later for the guitar. Sharp became intrigued with all types of experimental music, from contemporary classical to free jazz and sophisticated rock. He studied anthropology at Cornell University, where he played in a band and took an electronics class with synthesizer inventor Robert Moog.
Ned Rothenberg is an American multi-instrumentalist who was born in 1956 in Massachusetts. He has been internationally acclaimed for both his solo and ensemble music, presented for the past 33 years on 5 continents. He performs primarily on alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and the shakuhachi - an endblown Japanese bamboo flute. His solo work utilizes an expanded palette of sonic language, creating a kind of personal idiom all its own.
Samm Bennett was born in 1957 in Alabama. In 1977 he moved to Boston, a town that seemed to offer broader possibilities for a young musician eager to play and grow and try new things. It was there that he was first exposed to African drumming styles, mostly through attending weekly drum ensemble workshops led by Boston underground percussion legend Syd Smart. In late 1980, he went to Nigeria, West Africa. Traveling with a friend who introduced him to a family in Benin City, Nigeria, he remained there as their guest for six months, making daily trips to the home of drum master Idemudia Izevbihen. Later Bennett lived in Brussels and played many solo shows.
The short lived Semantics were active in the middle of the 1980s and released two albums. The second, Bone of Contention, was released in 1987 on SST Records. This new expanded CD version features three previously unreleased live tracks."-Klanggalerie