Prezens - David Torn (2007)

Ideated from: A playlist I uncovered from couple years ago entitled “Weird Shit from albumoftheyear.org scraping”. I do love to go deep-diving into genres and lists of stuff I’ve never heard of on there.

David Torn is a bit of a mad scientist who plays guitar for a day job. He’s plenty good at playing standard free-ish jazz guitar (as well as featuring for 80s art-rocker David Sylvian, 21st century Bowie, and lots more), but he really excels at screwing up his sound with various distortions, loops, and electronic effects.

This session is with members of fellow travellers, the excellently named Tim Berne’s Science Friction Band, providing sax, drums, and various keyboards.

Tracks I Liked

Ak - the opener is worth the price of admission all by itself. a glorious skronky free-for-all with tons of variation and lots of atmosphere

Bulbs - The electronic delays really help build the tension here, but everyone plays really well behind it. The lengthy Pitchfork writeup compares it to King Crimson, saying it’s “the sound of the 21st century schizoid man taking his meds” which is a great line even if it doesn’t really tell you anything.

Them Buried Standing - would sound like your typical downtempo / trip hop piece except for the buzzing effects and harmonic oddness in places. A great laid back track

Miss Place, The Mist - a vaguely middle-eastern sounding tune with lots of melotron and weird layering