Plucking the Baroque: Walter Gerwig and Bach

I am a devotee of thrift stores, not least because it is easy to pick up great music for (ahem) a song. My latest find: a Japanese import cd (Nippon Columbia/Musicaphon, 1992) of Walter Gerwig's Bach recordings on the lute. The photo at left is the same recording, but not as cool as mine--my liner notes are entirely in Japanese.

If I didn't cruise the thrift stores I'd never have sought out this fantastic 1964 recording of Bach on the lute. To be honest, I had never heard of Mr. Gerwig before picking this up for a paltry $1.99. The cd transfer is immaculate and could have been recorded last week rather than 45 years ago.

Generally the lute, like the nylon-stringed guitar, does not fare well in ensemble playing--it is too quiet an instrument to be heard clearly amidst a group of players. But as a solo instrument in the hands of a talented player it is every bit as compelling as the cello or the violin. And it has a more versatile and varied sound than its descendant, the guitar.

Bach's music for the lute (and transcriptions of music written for other instruments) sounds best unornamented, particularly given the contemplative and quiet nature of the lute, and here Gerwig shines. The simple rhythms of the music are allowed to flow freely, and what might sound sparse on the piano (or, egad! the harpsichord) is refreshingly straightforward here. The Archiv recording in the YouTube video below may or may not be from these sessions (I don't believe it is) and it certainly doesn't do the Nippon recoding justice, but it's something I can include to give a general idea of the sound, though the analog hiss is entirely absent on the cd.

The cd is a generous 67.35 in length, and all of it is compelling. If you are one of those who prefers your classical as background music for turtleneck and cabernet parties it will work that way, too, though the sheer beauty of the music might get you talking about something other than the usual art party gossip.

If it doesn't, your soul may already be terminally damaged.



# Performer: Walter Gerwig
# Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
# Audio CD (April 15, 2000)
# SPARS Code: ADD
# Number of Discs: 1
# Format: Import
# Label: Musicaphon
# ASIN: B00004SZWZ

The Weird Turn Pro: Animal Collective and Merriweather Post Pavilion

It can't really be their ninth record, can it? As Animal Collective plugged along throughout the 00s releasing their unique sonic artifacts, it came to seem as though they'd been around forever. You can be forgiven for not hearing or knowing more about this unclassifiable band. The records are not exactly your typical radio fodder: each seems like something unearthed in a future age, like the detritus that Wall-E socked away. They are all unique and each belongs to its own genre of off-kilter folk/electronic/world music. It's even been proposed that AC constitute a new folk music. There might be a point in there somewhere--electronic music, samples and dubbing are becoming less a separate genre of music than a kind of musical currency or method that is more common than the traditional acoustic/electric dynamic that has controlled popular music since, well, since there has been pop music. But when reviewers start tossing around terms like "freak folk", "experimental" and "psych-pop" you can bet there's no real consensus and that you're in uncharted waters, musically speaking.

Merriweather Post Pavilion has met with nearly universal acclaim and has already been dubbed the album of 2009 in some corners. Personally, I'm not much for Top Ten lists--there's far too much new music released each year for anyone to honestly get their ears around and it's unfair to claim the breadth of knowledge that would be required to make such a list, but I can see this disc making a lot of friends. For one thing it is irrepressibly upbeat--the band sounds like they're romping through an aural funhouse. The lack of guitar (if there's one here it is hard to recognize) has forced the band to go heavy on the synth and samples. In lesser hands this could create more problems than it solves but here the music washes over disjointed beats and the vocals ride in and out of the noise like a bodysurfer riding the tide. And if all that doesn't give you an idea of what the music sounds like, well, it is difficult to describe. I suppose you could call it an upbeat OK Computer, which is also a contradiction in terms. I've heard it described as dance music, which is really pretty funny: I can't imagine what dancing to this would look like--perhaps an epileptic fit?

There is a lot of hyperbole rolling around out there with regards to this record and I won't add to it. It is fun to listen to, even though I've always found electronic music fatiguing. It is peppered with memorable lyrics about love, family and growing into the ill-fitting clothes of adulthood. It is discouraging for a reviewer to fall back on the phrase "it rewards repeated listenings" but in this case it is true. If someone like Coldplay had made this record it would already be in half the cd players in the world and hailed as the new Sergeant Pepper. "Am I really all the things that are outside of me?" goes one Zen-like refrain that owes something to Alan Watts, or Jung. With the record industry suffering through a transformation in which the single track iTunes/Amazon download is the new standard, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a reminder that, when inspired, bands can still make records that hold together as more than the sum of their tracks.

Length	54:42
Label	Domino
Producer	Ben H. Allen, Animal Collective

Track listing

1. "In the Flowers" – 5:24
2. "My Girls" – 5:41
3. "Also Frightened" – 5:14
4. "Summertime Clothes" – 4:30
5. "Daily Routine" – 5:46
6. "Bluish" – 5:14
7. "Guys Eyes" – 4:31
8. "Taste" – 3:53
9. "Lion in a Coma" – 4:12
10. "No More Runnin" – 4:23
11. "Brother Sport" – 5:59