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Rhys Chatham, "Pythagorean Dream"
To his everlasting credit, Rhys Chatham has remained a restlessly evolving and adventurous composer well into his 60s, as well as quite an endearing perverse and unpredictable one.  Case in point: roughly a decade after composing his monumental A Crimson Grail for 400 guitars, Chatham is now is now experimenting with ways to perform his harmonically complex compositions all by himself in real-time.  Also, he has picked up the flute again (his original instrument, which was summarily abandoned for electric guitars after Chatham first experienced the Ramones).  As if that were not enough divergence from the norm, Chatham also employs a special Pythagorean/just-intonation tuning system for his guitar.  Despite all of those innovations, Pythagorean Dream is first and foremost an impressive performance rather than a bold new artistic statement.  I suppose that makes it a fairly minor release within Chatham’s oft-influential and frequently large-scale oeuvre, but it is still surprisingly effective for a one-man guitar/trumpet/flute tour de force and certainly sounds like absolutely no one else.
To say that the first half of Pythagorean Dream opens with a trumpet solo would be very deceptive and misleading, but that is indeed exactly how it starts.  The twist is that Chatham does not play a single clear note, opting to instead to create a sputtering, breath-like sound not unlike a deflating balloon.  The guitar playing that soon follows is similarly eccentric and wrong-footing, as Chatham fingerpicks unfamiliar arpeggios and layers them using feedback loops of differing lengths.  While his prickly and pointillist fingerpickings are offset by an occasional strum or deep pedal tone, the increasingly complex and overlapping fingerpicked motifs are the real meat of the piece, resembling nothing less than a harmonic swarm (a destination quite far from its stated Fahey inspirations).  While the overall aesthetic is undeniably very much Chatham's own, it will probably seem a bit familiar to anyone who has been following his work at all closely.  Aside from the tremolo-picked low-end that is a favorite recurring Chatham theme, the whole fingerpicked section sounds extremely similar to some sections of his recent Charlemagne Palestine collaboration.  In fact, it is either a variation of that exact same piece or Rhys has been very much fixated on a exploring and perfecting that one idea for a while.  That said, I like it and I also quite like the comparatively brief interlude of shifting EBow harmonies that appears around the first part’s midpoint.  Sadly, that EBow segment does not stick around long enough, which highlights a fundamental flaw with the piece: Chatham's rigorous adherence to the purity of his process prevents him from fully capitalizing on the piece's strengths.  Those shifting EBow tones would have complemented the thorny arpeggios nicely and likely yielded a compelling cloud of overtones, but Chatham is just one man and he can only do one thing at a time.
At first glance, the second half of the piece does not seem to have much in common at all with what preceded it, though it opens with the first half's fading guitars.  Once they fully dissipate, however, the piece evolves into a warm and gently undulating bed of flute drones.  In a broader sense, however, the two halves of Pythagorean Dream are very much explorations of similar terrain: the way layers of loops can bleed together to yield a rich web of self-perpetuating harmonies, overtones, and oscillations.  Gradually, however, Chatham’s flute starts to emerge from its haze with a series of increasingly wild trills and flutters.  On one level, it sounds like a particularly languorous strain of free-jazz, but the overarching idea remains the same as ever: flurries and clusters of notes blurring together.  It does not stick around long enough to get very complex, lamentably, as the flutes gradually fade away to be replaced by the return of jangling and dissonant fingerpicked theme as it all winds to a close.
As an album, Pythagorean Dream is a mixed success, as it is not so much flawed as it is greatly limited by its process.  It is unquestionably a fine and inventive performance though, as Chatham successfully pulled off quite a juggling act with his three instruments.  That is not quite the same as a great composition, however, as Dream's flow and trajectory suffer a bit from its "one-man band" premise.  While the piece admittedly follows a logical course and comes full circle, there is never a sense that is ever building into something more substantial.  That said, Chatham remains a distinctive and inventive voice despite his radical downsizing and shift in direction.  Not many composers remain this vital four decades into their career.  Chatham also did quite an impressive job of showing what just one person can do if they put enough thought into their set-up, as parts of Dream certainly sound like the work of a small guitar orchestra.  This is probably not the first Rhys Chatham album that I would recommend to someone curious about his work, but it is definitely a welcome return that shows that Chatham is still tirelessly forging his own unique path (even if that path has detoured a bit to find some fresh ground to break).
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