The Circle
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One Response to “JamSessionsTwo”

1. 2nd June 2008 at 4:19 pm
   Matthew Olczak Says:

   What is most obvious from these recordings and the first is the strength and emotional power of the grooves being produced. I say grooves but i mean riff/line/groove –– the amassed, shared idea that is pushed through your group playing. In these recordings you have pulled out some truly potent examples which I look forward to hearing grow into finished compositions.

   When playing your first track here, the piano starts and a voice asks for some “…simple washes…” on top. The next sound that is heard is an accidental snare before the drummer builds in some perfect cymbal washes.
   What got me excited at the sound of the snare was the idea that the drummer was going to play the washes, not on the gentle cymbal, but on the attacking snare. I’m not saying you should do this but i mention it merely to make a point:

   There is something i don’t like about ‘jams’. I had a friend who got uncomfortable with me using the word and i didn’t know why at first because i never separated it from the concept of ‘improvisation’.
   A jam can be a great moment: You turn up with an idea you have had and you get to hear it turn into reality; it is translated and expanded through the other members and can become something much more than it began as.
   What should be feared about jams is the pull towards mediocrity and replication, as an individual and a group: A musician begins playing a written part with the idea that the others join in. The second musician hears the first part and their own role jumps into their head –– this is what they will play. The trouble I have always had with this is that the first idea that springs into your head is the idea of what ‘would fit’ ––meaning really; ‘the norm’.

   I am saying this to encourage critical development as i really like where it is now standing and want to push the exciting elements further as you take them on.
   What i am trying to explain is how a musician wishing to make ‘contemporary’ music or relevant music, must question their instincts when jamming.
   The strongest example for me is a couple of chords i always used to play (and caught myself doing again last week) every time i heard any form of funky bassline played. My brain clicked into a mode and knew that this would fit. –– it does. but it makes me a boring musician.

   I would describe Radiohead as a good example of a band that deals well with this writing process. In many ways they are a simple guitar based rock band. if you break down the individual parts you will see that they are, alone, nothing to blow the mind. What they do so well is composing how they intercept, counterpoint and overlay. It is hard to imagine how the guitarist thought of that picking after hearing that synth; why did the drummer then choose such an odd beat; and why did thom start that vocal line ignoring the phrasing of the riff. It creates something surprising and gripping out of great imagination.

   The only parts that i would criticise in your music are not any bad decisions or ‘errors’ but only where there are times when a decision can be made again, and it is important to keep that open to make again. To write a second part, that contradicts, or pulls away, or sits below, or tints its colour.
   I guess that is what is great about recording your jams and being able to listen to them back. You can then use it as a multi stage compositional tool

   I like the drama and strength of 4. (your pedals seem like they are turned up way too far yet somehow still in control in these tracks. great)

   I like it when track 8 builds into this distortion that seems to flood every frequency before dropping to a broken version of the original riff.

   I like the fast delicate interweaved rhythms of 12.

   I like the sad push of 17.

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