review 2 Marc Medwin Bagaltellan

I have always enjoyed the mystery in Eddie Prévost’s music making, in both group and solo contexts. I’m pleased when I’m not quite sure how a sound is made, part of the fun arising from the schoolboy’s adventure in figuring it out, or just in enjoying the sound as sound, elucidation unnecessary. That’s why I was initially a bit put off by the rather mundanely descriptive titles of these solo tam-tam pieces—“Mixed” and “bowed” seeming a bit too simplistically prim, especially when compared to the enormously weighty concerns of John Lely’s notes! They attack such fundamentals as improvisation, composition, the active/passive role of the composer/performer/audience—usual fare for Matchless liners, but in this instance, it first felt like a bit of rhetorical overkill.

Yet, by the end of the disc, I understood better the need for such pontification. The story of the title track and its battery-operated genesis and execution has already made the internet rounds, so no need to repeat it here. I found it to be a beautifully subtle experience, making the tam-tam sound orchestral, even choral, as I listened below and around the rata-tat-tat of the wires as they struck. I heard organs, church bells and ghostly voices, shifting tonalities that crossed many cultural boundaries in pitch space alone. Sure, it can all be explained away by overtones, but the net effect transcends the means of its construction. As the liners intimate, at least in part, the instrument’s essence is simultaneously exposed and concealed; I would recommend listening to the track in different environments, with and without headphones, as the sonic spectrum is huge and multilayered.

I’ve given the other pieces short shrift, and they don’t deserve it. Each exists quite nicely in its own universe, “Beaten” presenting an especially fascinating study in silence and varied attack, but I still can’t help feeling that “Entelechy” is the point, and that even the epic “Mixed” is a substantial appetizer. It’s a fine disc, reflective and abrasive by turn, and I look forward to anything further from Prévost on the instrument.

Marc Medwin
Bagaltellan - June 2006