The culmination of 11 years working on music for this band, Wild Red Yellow was recorded in 2011 by an expanded version of Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core. With very critical help from engineer Philip Perkins, Ochs then slowly mixed and edited the two soundscapes on this new 2017 release, dedicated to film-makers Julie Taymor and David Cronenberg.
The Sax & Drumming Core was originally a trio of Ochs on saxophones and two drummers – Scott Amendola and Don Robinson. They released two CDs and toured together between 2000 and 2006. In 2007 the band expanded to a quintet with the additions of Satoko Fujii (synthesizer, pian) and Natsuki Tamua (trumpet). A 3rd CD was recorded by the quintet in 2007; released in 2009.
On that quintet release, LOS&D recorded a first soundscape dedicated to Akira Kurosawa. Ochs heard more, but also felt he needed 3 percussionists to expand the sound combinations and to be able to eradicate any sense of order, when the music called for that. Thus the inclusion of Winant and Bossi on this CD. Bossi and Amendola had played as a duo for years. Winant had worked with both drummers for special projects, as well as working with Ochs for years in the groups Room and Glenn Spearman Double Trio.
Ochs: “These soundscapes are dedicated to film-makers I deeply admire and am (conceptually) inviting to create imagery for the already-created sounds. But more to the point, I’m inviting every listener to close his or her eyes and create images or a story or a place for contemplation within the context of the musical time-lapse.”
“This is a group of equals and a group in which the implied hierarchy of horn / harmony / rhythm has been suspended”
released July 17, 2017
Larry Ochs: tenor and sopranino saxophones
Natsuki Tamura: trumpet
Satoko Fujii: piano, synthesizer
Scott Amendola: drums, percussion, electronics
Matthias Bossi: thunder drum, Chinese gongs, shaky flotsam, percussion
William Winant: timpani, roto-toms, percussion
Track 1. Omenicity (for Julie Taymor) (23:13)
Track 2. A Sorcerer’s Fate (9:11 )
Track 3. Wild Red Yellow (for David Cronenberg) (22:39)
All compositions by Larry Ochs, Trobar/ASCAP administered by BMG-Chrysalis.
Recorded in June 2011 by Adam Munoz (assistant: Alberto Hernandez) at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California, USA.
Mixing and creative consulting: Philip Perkins
Mastering: Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha Lab, Oakland, CA
Liner notes: Brian Morton
Photographs: Peter Gannushkin
Cover design: Max Schoendorff
Cover realization: David Bourguignon
Producer: Larry Ochs
Executive producer: Michel Dorbon
From the liner notes by Brian Morton:
Despite a well-documented incident where Larry Ochs was legally challenged for inflicting psychological damage on a festival goer who’d been expecting “jazz” (it’s a great modern parable), he doesn’t have quite that confrontational a vision. Likewise Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, who have embraced populism as well as the avant- garde. This isn’t music that furrows the brow, but it is not without challenge and its greatest challenge is that it delivers rich complexities as natural forms and allows us to inhabit them for extended periods. This music doesn’t take time; it creates time and suspends our usual functional attitude to it.
Available from: Rogue Art website / Larry Ochs’ Bandcamp site,
downtownmusicgallery.com /
squidco.com. / etc.
Released by Rogue Art (ROG 0075 / July, 2017)
