"Menaechmus is famed for his discovery of the conic sections and he was the first to show that ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas are obtained by cutting a cone in a plane not parallel to the base." ~ From Wikipedia
And if a bird can speak, who once was a dinosaur, and a dog can dream; should it be implausible that a man might supervise the construction of light the construction of light ~ From "The ConstruKction of Light" by Adrian Belew
Out of the earth to rest or range Perpetual in perpetual change, The unknown passing through the strange. * * * But gathering, as we stray, a sense Of Life, so lovely and intense, It lingers when we wander hence,
That those who follow feel behind Their backs, when all before is blind, Our joy, a rampart to the mind." ~ From The Passing Strange by John Masefield
It's not that easy to describe music in words, so I sometimes hang close to the words that get attached to it. Parabola is a great word. The image of DaVinci's drawing of a parabola is magical to me, and isn't it just too cool that parabolic can refer to the geometry of a thing created by slicing a cone, or the completely unrelated thought of a parable? I can learn the meaning of that drawing and know how to use the invention it describes, but I prefer to see it as art and magic. The same is true of the music on this album. There is math involved in all music, but that's not why we listen to it. These two guys from Massachusetts, USA and far off Hungary are playing guitar together in some strange and wonderful way. At first I want to call it jazz, but that's a little dumb. Here's a magic incantation to change the world: Everybody everywhere has been improvising all the time in everything. Jazz didn't invent improvisation. This album is something else. All those stock phrases, trills, chords, riffs, and scales we know and love in that same new thing we call pop, rock, blues, jazz or folk are seldom heard at all in this Parabola. Imagine that!
Improvisers have a bag of tricks without doubt, but Kevin and Sándor are like Santa Claus with a big bag of joy for all the boys and girls from another part of the galaxy. Hey Billy, here's a melody. Jimmy gets a lullaby. Jen and Mei get some sparkling thing I don't know what it is. I am falling for this album pretty hard, but the Peter, Paul and Mary Christmas tune still circles in my head like a joke at the party: "I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will." Bullwinkle ends the cycle of thought in that big moose voice: "Just listen!"
Alright! Alright! I sit back and take the journey. I just woke up and the coffee is just starting to work, but my feet aren't quite touching the ground. Maybe I'm not floating in space past icy Pluto, but I have no sensation of linoleum on my bare feet. What focused light has so changed my perception? Isn't that what Wikipedia tells me a parabola is all about? These guys are tour guides through rhythms and tonalities from another part of the system. I've been here in a way on the Sargasso Sea of John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner, but that's probably no more of an analogy than a brush with the comfortable unfamiliar.
I was at a Toru Takamitsu concert in Los Angeles one fine evening when I got a tap on the shoulder from composer Daniel Lentz. "What is the most important thing to know about any composer? he asked. I didn't even try, but treated the question like a knock knock joke: "Who's there?" Daniel had a very good answer: "How do they repeat musical ideas." Wow! That defines a great deal! A blues or a sonata are defined by the repetition. Here's the paradox to this Parabola: There really isn't much in the way of repetition to hold onto for long. Melodies bubble up and burst the way they do in Takamitsu's music, and in Debussey. Szabo may be playing a folk tune one moment only to stop and take another road altogether after a little caesura. Kevin sometimes plays a bass line on the baritone guitar only to turn his ax into a harpsichord of a thing as he slips forward to take the lead. None of it sounds like the usually noodling jam band guitar work I can trance to at a rave. I can't zone out under these conditions. This music is a little like meditating in a Zen temple where the master walks the room with a stick to keep the devotees from nodding off. By God, this is some sort of deeper form of improvisation. I don't know how they do it, but this music takes me someplace full of promise just this side of a druggy dream at a party populated by themes and counter-themes, contrapuntal dances, sweet folk melodies, and extended tonality where composers hang out to find something lost and something new.
This here Parabola is music that doesn't make me feel smart or dumb or anything of the sort. It's full of stars like the phrase from 2010. It may move in fits and starts like the rickety cart of pop band Primus, but I think those guys stole that from composers hither and thither. I've always wanted to know what goes on behind the eyes of serious music, but never felt I had the chops to see the imagination behind the finished work. This slice of the cone called Parabola provides my best window into that alternate reality. What goes on behind that curtain? Here in this time/space continuum of improvisation between two serious and joyous musicians is a key: They are at play in the world of extended sound. I might have thought there need be a controlling musical diagram written precisely in some late night back room somewhere to get where they get to, but they seem to be playing free. I guess it's possible to be so full of new music, it can seep out fully formed in a passing collaborative moment. It's the damnedest thing! What might it be like to think a song together and have it take form right there in the studio? There is a state of consciousness possible from listening to this album seldom available from cogitating solo. Here's the kicker: There is joy in the journey accessible and interesting right here in my stereo from this album. I don't enjoy feeling impressed and prefer to be moved.
Wild thing, I think you move me But I wanna know for sure So come on, hold me tight You move me ~ From Wild Thing by The Troggs
THE SONGS
1. Hyperbola 2. Vortex I 3. Vortex II 4. Vortex III 5. Trilateration 6. Cartesian Other 7. Trencadis 8. Reflective Assymetry 9. Third Pleochroism 10. Vortex IV
THE BAND
When I first met Kevin Kastning, I felt that he is first of all a brilliant musician, an improviser who was able to make me forget what instruments he plays. He instinctively avoided the usual way of musical solutions on his guitars. It was as if he was from another solar system. When we finished our first recordings, I felt that we were both elevated to a different level of playing music. We mutually fertilized each other's soul. Being supported on this recognition, we decided to record more music in duo. One year later, we met again and in the same way we recorded two more albums using the same approach. It seemed that no matter which tunings we used, we just played and it sounded as if it were composed. The music we played had a consciousness and an instinctive side. As we both played baritone guitars, we had the possibility to consciously shape the voicing of the different music layers, and as a result it was like a two-member string quartet. This instinctively played music showed an incredibly strong structure, never before heard chords with mysterious inner logic. This was the point when I could formulate to myself that the music just happens. We are a psycho-somatic interface to manifest the music. The composed or improvised music shows only one thing for me: where the soul is just wandering. The music sometimes seems to me as a result living resonant entity that comes, touches, and washes through our soul; then vanishes. Sándor Szabó Vac, Hungary October 2008
One of the definitions of a parabola is that of a parabolic reflector, which is a curved mirror or similar device which concentrates various reflected light sources into a common focal point. Using a parabola of this configuration, sunlight may be captured and focused into a burning light. In July 2008, Sándor Szabó and I again met in the recording studio. In the year which had passed since we recorded the albums "Resonance" and "Parallel Crossings,"we had both been experimenting with new tunings for the extended 12-string baritone. Though each of us were exploring unknown territory, we simultaneously arrived at divergent locations with different tunings. We blended the new intervallic tunings, and these previously unheard and undiscovered harmonic environments and textural atmospheres impacted our new compositions. The compositions on this album were strongly influenced by these experimental tunings; the shape, the form, the textures, the content; all unique. This parabola blended both our instrumental voices, along with the discoveries of new tunings, into sharply focused new compositions. Kevin Kastning Groton, Massachusetts USA November 2008
The image at the top of this review is linked to the website of the band. Click on top image of this review to visit the band website.
Click the pics below to visit the websites of Sándor Szabó and Kevin Kastning:
