Brazelton/Naphtali

What is it like to be a bat?

TZADIK TZ 7707

Kitty Brazelton, voice, computer soundtracks, electric bass, sampler; Dafna Naphtali, voice, live audio processing, max/msp, electric guitar; Paul Geluso, filtering, voice

What a title. The mind floats, eerily. The answer arises: the thud of leather on English willow; the golden glow of linseed oil on a trusty blade. But tarry, a bit, could they have meant a placental mammal of the order Chiroptera? Hardly, those little furry ears would be unable to withstand some of the sonic output.

This music is a breaker of bonds, boundaries and anything else placed too close to the speakers. Originality is writ large, however, and one could grow to find this stuff quite fascinating. Of course, yours truly is 60 years old (no ponytail, I swear) and thus has limited time to do a makeover on life. Behind all of the current consumption (stop looking, this was the cause) we hear some rather hypnotic grooves. The messages are about relationships. Comparisons are odious, but all I can mention is Anderson, Underground, Pink Wossname, quirky, "message" music - and we much preferred the bits where a whole lot of thrashing was going on. The two ladies may wish to check out Jay Clayton, although something tells me that these two performers may well know of Clayton as a very valuable source of inspiration. My personal wish would be for this personal, progressive music to become the norm, thus banishing banality on the music scene. Then right at the end the ladies go out on a soaring vocal. Like I said, I wish there was more of this stuff about to give music, progressive, pop, rock or otherwise, a much needed kick. There is some excellent stuff here. Go for it if you still wear black by preference.

by Lawrence Brazier