One of our great progarchists has reached the very old age of 20!  Congratulations, Connor.  We love what you write.  Glad to have you with us.

There are always confessions to be made at the outset.  Seldom are any of them actually made, and never are all of them made, but they are always “there.”  The one that I will make right away here is that I never developed any strong liking for Echo and the Bunnymen.  It’s not that I actively or particularly dislike them; it’s just that hearing their songs now and then during the 1980’s never really sparked my interest.  My consciousness of “popular” (as opposed to “classical”) music in general was very spotty during the 1980’s for various reasons, or you could say “selective” if you’re open to having it sound a bit less negative or indifferent.

The confession is relevant because Poltergeist consists of original Bunnymen Will Sergeant (guitar) and Les Pattinson (bass), along with Nick Kilroe on drums.  Their 2013 release, Your Mind is a Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) is the second “instrumental prog” disc passed on to me by Brad “I-WAS-paying-attention-in-the-80’s” Birzer.  The confession is called for because I came to the disc with that perception:  “Oh, this is, like, Echo and the Bunnymen without Ian McCulloch.”  …  Aaaand get ready for ass-kick number two.

I found a helpful quote online from Sergeant.  (It appears several places, but I first found it in a blurb on amazon.com.)

We do not want to fence the project in… with vocal barbed-wire so to this end we are an instrumental band and are very happy about that.

Now, we could argue about whether or not this is too harsh.  The kind of containment suggested by the metaphor of barbed-wire could have all sorts of nasty connotations.  But let’s not get bogged down by considering them all.  There are times when you want fences that divide clearly, that enforce division and containment, right?  And there are times when, however right it may be other times, barbed-wire is the last thing you want.  To give up whatever it is you are seeing (at the moment) as barbed-wire is hardly to give up division and containment in general.

Following this lead, I’m asking myself:  What’s freed up when these guys decide to do without vocals, seen at least from here, now, as barbed-wire?  The answer is the kick:  On the one hand, a multitude of constraints remain in place; if you expect radical departure, something “free” in the sense of “free jazz,” that’s definitely not what happens.  On the other hand (and nonetheless, we might say), everything is freed up!  So much of the texture here remains nicely tethered to an “80’s” “poppish” feel.  To say that may seem like a put-down, but I think it turns out NOT to be.  It’s a revelation for me to hear this instrumental exploration of that feel, placing more emphasis than I’m used to on how broadly prog sensibilities have always been there in a lot of the supposedly “post-punk” or “new wave,” often electronics-laden music to which I paid less attention (but never no attention at all, I now see more clearly).  Everything is freed up here in the sense that I can hear the pleasing resonance of those sensibilities better without the “vocal barbed-wire.”

I’m very aware, as I write this, how it may come across as “damning with faint praise.” I doubt that I can wholly avoid that impression, but I hope you will see that it is not meant as such.  While it is true that Your Mind is a Box is less category-resistant than the other two instrumental albums I’m considering, it definitely hits my ear as indifference-resistant.  Because the members of Poltergeist allow themselves to stretch out in quite specific ways, experimenting without being “experimental” in an in-your-face fashion, I hear this disc as a warm invitation to reconsider that era during which I was spending a lot more time with Mahler, Reich, Penderecki, Glass, Schnittke, Boulez and Zappa.  Your Mind is a Box helps me to hear the elements of early prog, funneled through 7o’s Bowie, Fripp, and Eno, moderately seasoned by the legacy of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, that kept me watching MTV a fair amount in the 80’s (back when they were a network that played music videos).  I would suggest that a major ingredient of the wonder with which Poltergeist wishes to fill our minds is the abiding presence of broadly prog influences in popular music since the 1970’s.

That Poltergeist comes across as this sort of invitation suggests two more  things to me:  The first thing is that referring to “vocal barbed-wire” in this context involves no particular negative reflection at all on McCulloch or any other prominent vocalists of that (or any other) era.  The semantic constraints introduced by vocals are often what allows music to be profoundly accessible to so many people.  But music is never only the words that are sung or the voice(s) of the singer(s); it’s much more than that even in a capella music!  What one can hear (in the sense of perceiving) more clearly by listening to a delightful romp like Your Mind is a Box is how there is a danger that vocals can be barbed-wire.  So the second thing is that this is another way in which the moniker “instrumental” fits this music.  It can serve that aesthetically valuable end.

French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty suggested that we do not so much see a painting as we see according to it.  Poltergeist give us the wonderful (in line with the intention expressed in their title) gift of music according to which we can hear other music.

So, I was talking to Brad Birzer a little while back, and he said he wanted me to listen to some recent “instrumental prog,” and to write about it for Progarchy.  Well, sure!  Why not?

Of course, I knew what Brad meant, but I was still rather struck that particular day by the usage of that word, ‘instrumental.’  I teach social theory and philosophy, and in that context, I’m used to the word ‘instrumental’ meaning “serving as a means toward some end or goal.”  I’m also used to that meaning carrying a rather negative connotation at times, as in “merely instrumental,” meaning valuable only so far as it it a means to an end.  I guess it was that sort of connotation that especially hit me when Brad used it, even though he certainly did not mean it that way.  (I’m pretty sure his main agenda was to get me to listen to stuff that’s not from the 1960’s or 70’s.)

Thinking about that, the musical memories associated with the word ‘instrumental’ washed over me for the next few minutes, and I knew (even before I listened to the three CD’s Brad was sending my way) that a strange convergence of these two semantic streams was setting a particular context for my listening.  I knew that I could not avoid explicit awareness of “instrumental” as descriptor for what I was hearing.  So let me tell you about how that listening went in each case, and why you should listen to these discs too.  Oh, sure, you may just think of what I’m doing as reviewing the three discs, if you’re more comfortable with that.  But I do want you to know that I’m always hoping for something that spills out over the mundane edges of a “review.”

I considered telling you about all three in a single post.  Then I wondered if that would be most friendly to the artists.  But then, when I actually listened, I realized more was at stake.  Because I was prepared by that funny adjective, ‘instrumental,’ what I really heard was everything that refused to be contained by it.  For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that the boundaries of instrumentality, however vaguely they may have been set, were blown down/past/apart in three different ways.  Hence, three parts.

I begin here in part 1 with Rafart’s The Handbook of the Acid Rider (2013).  Francisco Rafart is a Chilean composer and Chapman Stick performer.  I’ve heard music employing several incarnations of the Chapman Stick, and never quite known what I really thought of it.  All along, I’ve had the sense that the greatest strength of the Stick is also its greatest weakness.  (Duh.  As if this were not generally true of strengths and weaknesses.)  That strength/weakness, from what I can tell, is the precarious perch that it seems to occupy between “guitar-like” and “keyboard-like.”

I didn’t realize until I heard Rafart’s Handbook how ambivalent I must have been toward the Stick up to now.  I’ve generally liked what Tony Levin has done with it, and been favorably impressed by others at times.  But I guess I’ve not been excited about the instrument per se, and have not ever really purposely or systematically sought out exemplary recordings or videos.

Rafert brings my ambivalence into a harsh light, precisely by shoving it firmly but pleasantly aside!  It’s not only that Francisco Rafart’s playing is outstanding.  (Oh yes, it definitely is!)  It’s even more the deeply satisfying musical integration of his trio (with Fernando Daza on guitars and Pablo Martinez on drums).  I expected to be distracted by the effort to pick up on what comes from the Stick versus what comes from the guitar.  But what I heard on Handbook is an ensemble in the best sense.

This was where my associations with the word ‘instrumental’ got their first ass-kick.  I expected instruments, and I was thoroughly won over by an ensemble playing as a single joyous sound-source.  The depth and supple texture of the compositions would not allow me to dwell upon distinct instruments.  And this is also because I expected “songs,” or musical pieces (suggesting detachment), and I was thoroughly won over by compositions, in the fullest sense of that word.  I found myself attending less to the question of when I was hearing Stick and when I was hearing guitar, and more to the experience of a unified musical event.  Looking at videos after my first listen, I get a clear sense that Rafart is achieving a new level of success in making the Stick an integral part of a band.

You know those memories that I mentioned before, that washed over me and caught me off-guard?  One of them is the memory of how I generally reacted as a young listener upon seeing a song referred to as an “instrumental.”  When the album cover included the lyrics to other songs, but when there were no lyrics, you’d still find the name of the song printed there, followed by that lonely word (seeming lonely in this case, anyway):  INSTRUMENTAL.  I expected an instrumental to provide a framework within which each of the members of a band may”solo” (read: show off).  Increasing exposure to a variety of jazz de-centered such expectations over time.  But even jazz can often allow itself to fit into that “showing off within a supporting framework” mold.  The supporting framework, in that case, would be…  Yeah, you guessed it.  Merely instrumental.

It is these memories and expectations that were blown away, for me, by the intricate beauty of Rafart’s music.

The Handbook of the Acid Rider bears some of the contours of several molds, but its tracks are clearly compositions.  This is music that has benefited every bit as much from the explorations of Steve Reich and other contemporary composers as from progressive rock or jazz.  (Also look for Francisco Rafart on YouTube for some of his “chamber music.”)  But if there are molds here, they are springboards rather than constraints or blinders.  When he first talked to me, Brad suggested a comparison with some of Pat Metheny’s work, and that does fit pretty well as a first approximation.  One can also hear the complex rhythmic sensibilities that trace back to early prog, and — if I’m not mistaken — a healthy dose of Zappa-esque compositional deftness.  But listen for how Rafart overflows these banks.  Yes, I will confirm our fearless leader’s characterization of this as great “instrumental prog,” but most emphatically not as a mere means to an end, or as a mere concatenation of singular instrumental voices.

You can see videos of Rafart in action, but I recommend listening and palpating the aural textures first, adding the visuals after at least one hearing without them.

Links:

• www.rafartmusic.com
• Rafart at SoundCloud
• Rafart on Facebook
• Francisco Rafart at YouTube