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Escapade is one of those bands that I’ve heard mentioned dozens of times but never been fortunate to hear myself. Remembrance of Things Unknown is a collection of six previously unreleased live and rehearsal tracks recorded between 1996-1998. The opening "Maelstrom Machine" is a full-throttle voyage into the realms of supersonic guitars and keyboards. This sort of primordial spacey improvisational Krautrock dominates the record but most tracks also include elements of driving psychedelic jamming, jazz and avant-garde. The latter comes particularly to mind in the dark "Crawlspace" which sees almost industrial percussive sounds and pulsing bass riffs in the middle of an array of found sounds. As the track progress it slowly finds its groove, an amazing sonic metamorphous with great jaw-dropping qualities. "When Whenever Comes" is another favorite track, a tribal feast of stormy electronics, jazz-induced guitar work and throbbing drums. To tell you the truth, cosmic heaviness with a jazz feel has only briefly sounded this great since the early days of Amon Düül 2. Other bands that come to mind when listening to this disc are King Crimson, Guru Guru and early Floyd at their most alienated. Whether Escapade will gain such legendary status or not remains to be seen but Remembrance of Things Unknown guarantees that I won’t miss out any longer. -Mats Gustafsson
ACID ATTACK E-ZINE (U.K.) Right, you’ve gotta be quick with this one. The latest c.d. from top U.S. space psych rockers is a limited edition of 500 only! It contains previously unreleased live and rehearsal room recordings. My review copy is number 86 so order one a.s.a.p. before they go. As always with a release from Escapade, the playing is immaculate and yet again recorded on a single stereo room mike. Composed spontaneously, these guys must be psychic; they follow each other’s twists and turns exactly leaving no space for boring fills or preconceived set pieces. The sound is full and rich space rock of the highest order. Really, this could be the music for a joy ride on the Millennium Falcon or even Hot Black Desiato’s ship (obscure reference dept). Just the stuff for dodging asteroids in the Gamma quadrant. Sorry getting a bit carried away there but this stuff is VERY VERY GOOD! At times the band break it down to just drums and quiet guitar but it always builds back up with tribal drums and analogue synths at full blast. All of the tracks are live in a studio except ‘Crawlspace’; here they get really spacey, with pulsing bass and freeform guitar opening the tune, in front of an audience they seem to get even more experimental. Sadly this track is edited to only 6 minutes long as opposed to the sometimes-lengthier studio tunes. The set closes with the 20-minute epic ‘A Useful Obsession’ that I can’t even begin to do justice to in print so you’ll just have to get the c.d., but remember HURRY there are only limited numbers of the c.d. -Cris Baldwin
DEAD FLOWERS I dug the last recording of theirs I heard to the utmost, and was exceedingly disappointed to find that when I moved, the CD got lost in the shuffle. But I remember well the heat this improvisational collective generated on those songs, and this limited-edition recording is every bit as warm. Sure, it meanders on occasion, choogling along in a sub-Dead directionless trajectory, but mostly it throws fascinating and beautifully conceived sound effects and full-palette playing over an oftentimes Dark Magus-inspired rhythm carpet. Improvisation in a non-jazz context is rarely this good, and you'd be a stupe to pass it up. -Jonathan Dixon
pOoTer's pSycheDelic shAcK (U.K.) pOoTers pSycheDelic shAcK were lucky enough to get their hands on a copy of this limited edition (500 only, so you better get your butt in gear and buy one quick) collection of previously unreleased material from New York's Escapade. For the uninitiated, Escapade play unusual, Krautrock tinged experimental psychedelia that is rich in content and constantly in a state of flux. Their music spirals in and out of your head, with complex layers carried along by often hypnotic drumming and eerie analogue synthesizers, frequently diving into extended free form segments full of rich sound effects. "When Whenever Comes" is in a similar vein to the underlying theme on Red Crayola's "Parable To Arable Land", with a nice tribal beat surrounded by spontaneous but fluid bass and guitar. "Flat Fair" opens with a loose rhythm beating out and synths/guitars slowly creeping in to build a loose structure that twists and leaps around the percussion to hypnotize you. "Squelch" is an eerie tribal stomp saturated in fusion, "Crawlspace (Live)" is a disturbing, Floyd-esque journey into a dark and alien psychedelic world. Haunting sound effects tug at you from out of the shadows and out from the darkness comes a hypnotic bass riff. At 19:35, "A Useful Obsession" is by far the lengthiest track here, beginning with a trancelike beat and developing into an extended jam with, for Escapade, some unusually structured guitar breaks and a beautiful cyclic bass riff that carries you away, all the time Hadley's jazz drumming style tying it together into a cool space rock/fusion jam.
SPLENDID E-ZINE This is music that gets work done. When coffee no longer does the trick, up the ante with this speed for cubicle dwellers. Escapade presents six cuts, most of them quite beefy -- as in ten-plus minutes -- and each of them recorded with a single stereo microphone. While long on improvisation and completely bereft of vocals, Remembrance of Things Unknown rarely stoops to Phish-style self-indulgence. Most tracks, cleverly arranged and teasingly presented, keep the momentum up. "Flat Fair", for example, lays simple percussion over a bed of alien gurgles to form an otherworldly atmospheric effect, as if Eno had the shakes. Over this creeps a heavily altered guitar -- sometimes noodling and at other times anxious. The upshot is a tasty ambient track that's somewhat prickly, yet unobtrusive.Other cuts, such as "Crawlspace", take a decidedly Labradford-esque turn. Plodding along with odd percussive sounds and echoing bass bellows, it sounds like a crippled drum struggling to crawl up an angry and oily giant's back. As the track progresses, however, the percussion finds its groove -- aided, it seems, by tinkling keyboards. By the cut's end, the distorted bass has taken charge, morphing the song into a more traditional rock tune. Clocking in at just under twenty minutes, Remembrance of Things Unknown's final cut, "A Useful Obsession," begins as if it was background music for Starsky and Hutch on a stakeout. The song collapses into near silence, only to resurrect itself with a wall of noise. While powerful, this onslaught lacks the chutzpah of, say, a balls-to-the-wall Nurse With Wound assault. A more forceful punch would have contrasted well with the gradual decline that follows as the track diffuses, breaking apart into its core elements of drums, guitar and bass. As with the other cuts, this is ambient music for people who hate ambience. I don't so much hear the music as I subconsciously react to it. Perhaps our Phish friends would suggest a little herb to sweeten the experience, but I'll just keep toiling away, letting Escapade spur my anxious impulses. -- Rodney Gibbs PROGRESSIVE WORLD Escapade's Remembrance Of Things Unknown is a collection of unreleased tracks, one live and the rest rehearsal room recordings. Hadley Kahn, drummer with the band, wrote to tell me about the recording conditions, saying, in part, "None of the tracks were professionally recorded [...but] recorded with one stereo microphone. Consequently, the sound quality is a bit rougher than the rest of our releases, made even more so by the fact that tracks recorded this way can't be mixed later. Over time, however, I felt that we had accumulated a number of interesting pieces of music from the 'non-recording sessions' and decided to extract & compile them." He needn't have worried, as it's the raw feel that gives these percussion heavy tracks their character. And when I say percussion heavy, I mean it. Kahn's drums are right there, setting the pace and driving things forward. I dare say, it's infectious, as I really had to keep myself from air-drumming (and I'll admit I wasn't entirely successful). Although Kahn's cymbal crashes and throbbing drums are the most prominent, it isn't all Kahn. John Ortega and (or) Joey Murphy provide the raw bass pulse in "Maelstrom Machine." And it is a maelstrom, as harsh sounds swirl around you, a living breathing entity prepared to hurtle you somewhere. It's dark and dangerous. Part of this is down to Paul Casanova's acidic and "dirty" guitar lines. I can't really describe "When Whenever Comes," except to say it's as if King Crimson has gone over the edge into insanity, bringing you along for the ride, grinning all the way. Casanova's playful plucking soon becomes a wild epileptic seizure of frenetic but brief bursts of beautiful and harsh noise. Even when the violent eddies of sound subside, you get the feeling it's only a momentary calm. The album features no fewer than 4 bassists: Joey Murphy (as mentioned), Russell Giffen, David G., and Charles DeLozier (to whose memory the album is dedicated). This aside from Ortega's processed bass and bass pedals. Rounding out the line up is Paul Hilzinger on various keyboards and synths (and drums on one track). Listening to parts of "Flat Fair," I thought of Djam Karet and Suspended Memories (Steve Roach, Suso Saiz and Jorge Reyes) stylistically, mainly down to the fourth world feel of the percussion - very metallic sounding, and extremely rhythmic. Bass tones undulate beneath, while keys breathe in and out of the mix. "Squelch" is a very tight, very dense track, with a repeated phrase that sounds like the guitar phrase in Robert Plant's "Your Ma Said..." (Manic Nirvana), this along with odd bleeps, burps, twings and twangs. Interesting to say the least. But if you remember that spacey, psychedelic intro to Zep's "In The Evening" (speaking of Plant), combine that with a dash of "Riders On The Storm," a pulsing, strobing bass line, wah-wahing guitar crying out like a lonely wolf on a chilly night in the desert and you'll have an idea, sort of, of the first two minutes of "Crawlspace," the live track recorded at the Rhinecliff Hotel in New York in 1998. This fades leaving only lumbering, industrial sounding percussion, yet warm, like brass or copper. It's like something out of a dystopic sci-fi film - oh, didn't I say that about Due To A Faulty Premonition? This is what I would have imagined Tarkus to sound like. Perhaps if Tarkus had been Crimson, not ELP, it would have. This builds, the bass grinding out a low, slow, but almost funky line. And yes, Kahn's stellar percussion is right there. The album closes with the 19 minute plus "A Useful Obsession," another intriguing track. The album is in a limited edition of 500, released by Mother West. So you'd better hurry if you want your copy. - Stephanie Sollow
EXPOSÉ - Issue #21 If you dig what Escapade does, go get this now. It's a limited
numbered edition of 500 units and you'll most certainly want a copy
before it's gone. If you don't know what Escapade does, it's time to
get with the program! They are nominally a five-piece playing
guitars, bass, keys, drums and a number of other instruments in an
improvisational free-rock style somewhat along the lines of early
psychedelic krautrock. The music soars and churns, with a solid
driving force and a strong sense of purpose, but with no single
instrument standing out above all others. A true band effort. As
improvisational music goes, this is far better than most, with an
"airborne" factor of at least 70%. This is their sixth album, a
special collection of better rehearsal and live recordings recorded
in the '96-'98 timeframe. Since the recordings here are a little raw
sonically (emphasis on the little, as this writer finds absolutely
no problem with the sound quality herein), it is released as a
limited edition, a treat presumably intended for hardcore fans only.
Escapade does this with regularity in between their regular releases
("Obscured Dialogues" was another such release), but it should be
noted that aside from the lack of multi-track studio and subsequent
mix-down these recordings are as good as anything Escapade has ever
done. Recommended. - Peter Thelen
C&D SERVICES (UK) A CD of previously unreleased archive tracks recorded live in the
studio and it's a really different kettle of Kraut from things that have
gone before. Instead of the polished,
multi-textured soundscapes, you will hear long tracks of raw and
wild electric guitar, bass and drums jamming, sounding for all the
world like something from the archive
cupboard of early Guru Guru more than anything, and, despite the
presence of synth and treatments very much in the background, this
album's stars are the players of the
aforementioned instruments. From space music, in an early seventies
guitar-based Krautrock vein, through more driving psychedelic jamming,
this is one seriously hot album
and comes unhesitatingly recommended to all those who like to hear
great playing with a primitive emotive feel and a raw edge but also
with atmosphere and heart. Totally far
out, and then some. - Andy Garibaldi, CD Services, Dundee, Scotland
AURAL INNOVATIONS Escapade's newest release is a collection of unissued live and rehearsal room tracks recorded between 1996-1998. The six songs are well chosen as they represent both the overtly space Kosmiche side of the band as well as their more general avant-rock leanings. And, of course, all the music is improvised, or, as the band like to say, "composed collectively and spontaneously". "Maelstrom Machine" and "When Whenever Comes" are the two major space/kosmiche tunes on the disc. "Maelstrom Machine" opens slowly with mucho wah'd guitar, pounding drums, and a searing sonic backdrop. The bass soon joins and along with the drums makes a steady driving rhythm section that keeps the pace moving as the band builds intensity throughout. This is wonderfully reminiscent of the best of Amon Düül II and other similar instrumental space explorers. "When Whenever Comes" is also a freeform kosmiche freakout, though it has a jazzier feel, and has that sense of having been composed that so much of Escapade's music communicates to me. Either way, this sucker jams hard, the guitar giving the music the jazz element, the synths swirling in a cosmic haze, and the reliable rhythm section steering a steady course. "Flat Fair", "Squelch", and "Crawlspace" all feature the more avant-rock side of the band. On "Flat Fair" we hear what sounds like "prepared" guitar and prominent drumming on what could be a table-top. There's something of a dance feel to the rhythms, but the music also includes some of the most completely spaced out synths I've heard from the band yet. It's an odd contrast between the synths and rhythm section but after several listens I've decided I like it for being so strangely freaky and it genuinely seems to work. "Squelch" sounds to my ears like a trippier version of Fred Frith's Gravity or Speechless albums. The guitar itself is very similar, as are the rhythms which are really trademark Escapade. This is a chaotic but controlled head bopper of a tune that I've really grown to like and illustrates the band's capacity for many forms of improvisational music, both in the space and general avant-rock realms. "Crawlspace" strikes me as sounding like a sort of avant-garde theater piece. There are loads of varied sounds, crashes, and bangs, and it has an echoed sound that embellishes the atmosphere nicely. But it doesn't quite evolve as smoothly as the other tracks. Finally, "A Useful Obsession" consists of 20 minutes of classic Escapade with pounding rhythms that set the pace for a primordial soup jam of various synth and guitars. The music has a mechanical machine-shop feel, is somewhat tribal in parts, and also includes those freaky Fred Frith type guitar sounds that I dig so much in their music. But like most longer Escapade tracks there are quieter spacey ambient segments, and on this track they have a gorgeous flowing space and jazzy quality that smoothly mixes both the spacey Krautrock and avant-rock sides of the band. In summary, this is a solid set of tracks from the Escapade archives. And due to the varied sides of the band represented I'd say this is a great place for the uninitiated to get their feet wet. But also note that this is a numbered limited edition of 500 so move fast before they're gone. -Jerry Kranitz
ACID DRAGON (France) Usually I like music to have a good melody or two, a lyrical message,
a hook, a good riff even, something that makes an emotional impact on
me. This CD has none of these things (riffs excepted perhaps) yet I
was sufficiently intrigued by this collection of spontaneous
compositions recorded through one stereo mike to want to hear more of
this band that has been releasing CDs annually since 1996.
My worry about Escapade's music is that, on this evidence, the impact
is cerebral rather than visceral and the detractors from the broad
church that is progressive rock might consider such an uncompromising
improvisational approach as somewhat self-indulgent. Jazz purists
would presumably take no exception and I personally have no such
quibbles!
I was surprised at how often I turned to the CD despite my
reservations- maybe I was scanning for the 'hooks', allowing time for
my brain to resolve the images assembled here (There is such a lot to
take in) or maybe this is just damned compelling music!
In fact it felt a bit like hearing Djam Karet for the first time
although I have to say Escapade is even more of an acquired taste.
It's well worth the effort though.
What stood out for me was the atmospheric use of synths including
some analogue ones (with electric piano and feedback generator also
used) and the prominent drums and cymbals (supplemented by octapads).
Add to that the occasionally wild electric guitar and captivating
bass guitar riffs (There are 4 different bass players augmented by
'processed bass' and bass pedals.) and you've got a pretty potent
combination.
The CD is dedicated to the memory of one of the bass players, Charles
DeLozier, whose work on the live recording of 'Crawlspace' is
excellent.
The music is experimental of course, with comparisons to Krautrock
artists like Amon Düül II and descriptions like 'avant garde space
rock'.
In 'Maelstrom Machine' I thought I could hear a reference to
Hendrix's 'Voodoo Chile' in the wah-wah guitar but this music is so
original that such connections with the past are hard to find.
I cannot fault the commitment, talent or courage of these musicians
for choosing to work in this totally 'free' way. This is 'far out'
music and I mean that as a compliment!
-Phil Jackson PROGRESSOR (Russia) Remembrance of Things Unknown is an album of unreleased tracks recorded by Escapade mainly on their rehearsals in 1996, 1997 & 1998. Although I've heard so far only two works of Escapade (including this new one), I have already comprehended what these guys music is all about. What is more, I'm quite sure all their albums were composed collectively and spontaneously, practically on the spur of the moment, and so now I understand these guys are really HUGE, as the method they use to create their music is probably the most unique in the history of Progressive Rock. It seems to me now it was so simple to 'interpret' the way Escapade works already after listening to their only album I had before I got this one, but then I was just amazed with their ability to work in such a 'free' way, and as a result to have in the discography such an interesting and very original CD as their previous one so easily. Then I assumed Due to a Faulty Premonition was just a successful experiment, but now I should obviously add another star to the rating of that album. No, it's not just curious, it's really amazing to hear the Escapade musicians work. They work the same way as the free jazz musicians! But though they open the door to their creation with a key of free jazz or without a key, even though they don't follow the laws of Progressive Rock that favour only thorough composing, they don't end up with a set of free improvisations or some chaotic accords and solos. Even these "Unknown Things" that actually are probably just out-takes of their previous full-fledged albums, consist of structures we used to name as progressive. Each "Unknown Thing" has its beginning, a logical development (without repetitions and returns to some "old" themes, by the way) and finishing. The things become really clear, but if a usual description of Escapade's style "avant-garde space Rock" practically suits to the music from their previous album, I would dare to define the Remembrance album's stylistics slightly (?) differently. This is the avant-garde "side" of Progressive Rock with "spacey" structures and RIO tendencies (!). I've rated this actually excellent album a bit lower than its predecessor just because some of its pieces have a little rough and seemingly a bit illogical finish owing exactly to the rehearsal mixing. Also, I wonder why only 500 copies of such an interesting thing were pressed. Highly recommended to anyone into adventurous and unusual forms of progressive music. |
