Sedimental
EHC started, essentially, as a casual outlet for an undefined number of
active, Boston-area musicians. Boasting current and former members of
the Thalia Zedek band, Willard Grant Conspiracy, The New Year,
Molasses, and even Godspeed You Black Emperor, EHC enjoyed a humble
genesis, organizing around brunch dates at the home of central member
David Michael Curry. Since 1997, the group has attracted over 30
contributors in the creation of moody, improvisational music that
bridges the gap between the potent emotional directness of its parent
groups and the recklessness and vulnerability of the live setting. This
session, selected from the many hours of EHC tape archives, is a
particularly melancholic trio performance from 2000 featuring Boston
guitar-champion Chris Brokaw, cellist Jonah Sacks, and Curry, who plays
primarily viola, but contributes splashes of horn, guitar and live
sampling to round out what is still a rather sparse affair. Curry's
viola
owns
each of these six extended pieces, and his style will be familiar to
fans of The Dirty Three or Godspeed, with enough of a studied, melodic
base to cover for his frequent drifts into trance oblivion. He sets
himself apart by rarely locking into a repeating structure or calling
on too "easy" or explicitly emotive phrases. Brokaw's and Sacks'
strings make up a grounding layer of droning interplay, a seamless
shuffle between quietly plucked harmonics, tempered feedback, and
swooning runs that rise to match Curry's more exultant moments. The
songs borrow from the drifting, autumnal chamber style of Willard
Grant, and from Godspeed's anthemic surging, but any references are
never more than
suggestions in the music, its intimate
character leading always back to an unpredictable present. EHC's
improvised doctrine places them in a territory as complex and
difficult-to-reduce as anything I've heard from their closest
comparisons. The feeling, throughout this disc, is an ultimate trust in
the players' intuition, and when a track ends, miles away from where it
began, never does a certain section feel neglected or the song led
through aimless motions. This is a record for the new winter mornings,
a treasure of golden amplification, rich string resonance, and playing
that is powerful without wearing out its welcome; my hope is only that
this debut signals more to come from what is surely an impressive
stockpile of recordings.
samples:
