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Portraits
In theory, I should love this project, as it contains members of most of my favorite Bay Area bands (Myrmyr, Barn Owl, Tarentel, etc.).  The reality, however, is a bit complicated: distinctiveness, personality, and ego were all surrendered for the greater glory of these very pure and minimal drones.  This album has some impressive moments, but the participants and their individual talents are almost entirely irrelevant.
Amusingly, Portraits' minimalist bent extends even to their song titles, as each of the three pieces here is identified in the most basic, prosaic way possible.  The 20-minute opening piece, "D," is exactly that: a prolonged one-note drone-a-thon.  It's certainly very dense and shimmers and buzzes along quite amiably, but it doesn't offer much more than that, aside from the occasional passing dissonant overtone.  I can appreciate that everyone involved is fascinated with how a bunch of instruments all playing the same note can yield a subtle haze of unexpected oscillations and harmonies, but I don't have the patience or superhuman focus to enjoy that alone as a mere listener.  It'd be a nice jumping off point into something more, yet that doesn't happen here: it is merely a gently swaying thrum that goes on for a very, very long time.
That feat of extreme one-dimensionality is exasperatingly repeated with "Sa," which is essentially the entire ensemble chanting that syllable over a bed of droning strings.  Again, Portraits stick largely to just one note.  I don't understand quite why this piece needed to exist, as it explores exactly the same theme as "D," but does so with less depth and micro-tonal activity.  On the bright side, it is much shorter than its predecessor (under five minutes), so perhaps the band realized that they had entered an indulgent stylistic cul de sac.
Unexpectedly, however, the final piece ("Gong") is quite wonderful.  As expected, it consists solely of gongs, but they are used to supremely ominous and visceral effect: a very deep and tense rumbling is maintained for the entire duration as harsh waves of metallic shimmer ebb and flow across the top of it.  Curiously, it follows exactly the same template as Portraits' other two pieces–in fact, it might even be the simplest of the three.  Despite that, it is hugely successful simply because of the immensity and resonance of the sounds being created.  This is the only piece where I actually felt the oscillations and close harmonies being generated rather than simply hearing them.  That makes a huge difference.  Raw, wall-shaking power is a very useful tool for making cerebral, abstract music seem meaningful and exciting.
I suppose that 12-minutes of heavy, gong-based brilliance is arguably enough to justify this album's existence, but I found this to be a mostly disappointing and puzzling effort.  Much of what Portraits do here has been done to death already and they don't put much of a unique spin on it at all (if anything, they deliberately set out to avoid doing so).  Also, "D" and "Sa" both sound like they could have been bashed out in an afternoon without anyone ever having played together before.  Additionally, I found Barn Owl's involvement in the project to be somewhat bewildering, as they have already done something similar but much, much better with their Infinite Strings Ensemble collaboration–surely they must have realized that something was lacking here.  Striving for transcendental purity in your music is an admirable cause, but the end result should be a bit more compelling than this if it is going to be released.Although gong aficionados certainly have great reason to rejoice, Portraits is ultimately much more notable for who was involved than what they accomplished.
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