The Squid's Ear Magazine


Semantics (Elliott Sharp / Ned Rothenberg / Samm Bennett): Bone Of Contention (Klanggalerie)

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.
 

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product information:

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


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 552571097427

Label: Klanggalerie
Catalog ID: GG398
Squidco Product Code: 31804

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.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"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


Get additional information at All Music

Artist Biographies

"Samm Bennett [born on May 25, 1957 in Birmingham, Alabama] is a singer and songwriter, a drummer and percussionist, and a player of string instruments such as the stick dulcimer (sometimes called a dulcitar) and the diddley bow. He also works occasionally in electronic music, using synthesizers, WaveDrum, effects and various toys and gadgets. He is also a player of the Đàn môi (Vietnamese jaw harp), as well as the mouth bow. His musical activities include membership in several different bands, all based in Tokyo, where he resides. He is also a solo performer."

See also Polarity Records (Samm Bennett website).-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samm_Bennett)
3/13/2024

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

"Composer/Performer Ned Rothenberg 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. In an ensemble setting, he leads the trio Sync, with Jerome Harris, guitars and Samir Chatterjee, tabla, works with the Mivos string quartet playing his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and collaborates around the world with fellow improvisors. Recent recordings include this Quintet, The World of Odd Harmonics, Ryu Nashi (new music for shakuhachi), and Inner Diaspora, all on John Zorn's Tzadik label, as well as Live at Roulette with Evan Parker, and The Fell Clutch, on Rothenberg's Animul label."

-Ned Rothenberg Website (http://www.nedrothenberg.com/short&extended_biography.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.

A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 30 years, Elliott Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He leads the projects Carbon and Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction.

His collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; pop singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Kronos String Quartet; Ensemble Resonanz; cello innovator Frances Marie Uitti; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pipa virtuoso Min-Xiao Feng; jazz greats Jack deJohnette, Oliver Lake, and Sonny Sharrock; multimedia artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka.

Sharp is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2014 Fellow at Parson's Center for Transformative Media. He received the 2015 Berlin Prize in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Berlin. He has composed scores for feature films and documentaries; created sound-design for interstitials on The Sundance Channel, MTV and Bravo networks; and has presented numerous sound installations in art galleries and museums. He is the subject of a new documentary "Doing The Don't" by filmmaker Bert Shapiro."-Elliott Sharp

-Elliott Sharp website (http://www.elliottsharp.com/bio.html)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. R-Byte Mock Fry 2:11

2. Trumped Up Charges 3:57

3. Addressee Unknown 3:43

4. Subsequential 5:46

5. Shredded 3:44

6. Revolver 7:01

7. Animal Farm 3:05

8. Pay For Their Crimes 2:29

9. Code Ring 2:39

10. The Big Sleep 5:24

11. Proton Shake (Live) 7:56

12. Tark Zone (Live) 3:58

13. One For Yogi (Live) 6:43

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Trio Recordings
Jazz Reissues
Rothenberg, Ned
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Improvised Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Klanggalerie.


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