■▄▄▄▄▄▄▄██▄ ▀███████▀▀ >Quality Since 1997< ■ ▀ ▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▌█████▓█▌▀█ ▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▄█▄▄ ■ █████▓█ ▌█ ▄▄▄█▀▀▀▀█▄█▀ ▄ ▀▀▀█▄█▀ ▄ ▀▀▀▀█▄▄▄█▀▀▀▀▀█▄▄▄ ▄ █▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▌███████ ▐█ █▌ ▄▄██▄▄▄▄▄█████▄▄▄ ▄██████▄▄▄ ▀ ▄███▄ ▄ █▄▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█▄▀ ▄██████▄█████▓█ ▐█ █▐ ▌█▓█████▌ █████▓██▄▀█████▓███▄▐███▄█ █▄▄▄▄█████▄▄▄▐███▓███▌▌█████▓█ ▐█ █▀█ ███████ ▓▌████▓███ ▌█████▓███ ▀███▀▐████▌ ███▓▓██▄▌█▓▓██▌▓ █████▓█ █▀ ■ █ █▓█████ ▓ ████▓▓██▓ █████▓▓██▐▄▄▄▄▄■▓███ ▓▌███▓███▐█████ ▓ █████▓█ █ ▄█ █▓█████ ▓▐█████▓██ ▐██████▓██ ███▀ ▄████ ▓ ███▓▓██ █████ ▓ ███████ █ ■ █▌ ███████ ▐█████████ ██████████ ███▌██▓███ ▓▐████▓██ █████▐▓ █████▓█ █ ▄▀ █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▌▀▀▀▀▀▀██▀▐▀▀▀▀▀▀▀██▀▐▄███ ██████ ████████▐██████▄▐███████▐▀▀█ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█▄▄▄█▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▌▄███▓█ ▌ ▐ ▌▀▀▀▀▀███▐▄▄▄▐▀▀▀ ■▀▌▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ █▄▄▄ █▀▀ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█████▄▄▄▌▄▄▄▄▄▄████ ██▓▓██ ▀████▄▄ ▀▀ ■▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄████▄▄▄ ▐▄████▄▄▄ ▀█ ▀▐██████▀ ▀▀█████▓▓▄ █████▌▀██▐▀██████▄ █▀▌▀████▄▄▌█████▀▌▀███▓▓▓█ ▌▀███▓███▄ ███▓███▐ ▓ ▌███████ ████▌ ███▄▄▄ ▌▄▄▄▄█▐▓ ██████ ▀██▓█ ▓ ▌████▓██ ▐███▓▓██ ▄▐███████▐ ■▀▀▀▀▀▀▌▄██▓██ ▓ ████▓██ ████▀▀ ▐████▓██▌██▓█ ▓ ███████ ▄██████▀ ▄ █▄ ▀▀▀████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▀█████ ▓ ▀█████▀▐ ▄▄▄▄▄█▀████▓██ ██▓█ ■▄███▀▀▀▀ ▌▐ ▌▀█ ▄█▀▀▀▌ ▀███████▄ █▓██ ▓▌▄▄▄▄▄▄▌█████▀ ▌ ████▓██ ██▓█▄ ▓ ▄▄▄████ ▓▄██████▄ ▀▌▄█████▀■▓ ▌███▓▓██ █▓██▐ ██████▄ ▓███ ▓ ███████ █████▐ █▓█████▐ ▌████▓██ ██▓████▐ ▓▐███▓███▐▄█████▐▄████▓██ ████▐▓▓▐████▓██▐███████▄ ▀▀████▄▄██████▀ ▄▐▀▀█████▄▄████▀▀▀ ▄▄▄ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▌▄█████▄▄█████▀▀▀ ▄ ▀ ▄▄▄▄▄█▀▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█ ▀▀█▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▀▀ ▀█▀▀ nmls^BAFH ▀ ■ ■ D-i-G-i-T-A-L-L-Y U-N-i-T-E-D ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Descending To End │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──┐ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──┘ │ ││ │ Artist........ Briggan Krauss ││ │ Title......... Descending To End ││ │ Label......... Knitting Factory Works ││ │ Cat. Nr....... 251 ││ │ Year.......... 1999 ││ │ Genre......... Avantgarde ││ │ Street Date... ││ │ Release Date.. 31/12/2004 ││ │ Size.......... 57,0 MB ││ │ Tracks........ 09 ││ │ Length........ 46:54 min ││ │ Source........ CDDA ││ │ Encoder....... LAME ││ │ Quality....... VBRKBps / 44.1Khz / Joint-Stereo ││ │ ││ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──────-· ││ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ││ │ R E L E A S E C O M M E N T S │┐ ││ └─────────────────────────────────┘└─────────────────────────────│──┐ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│───┘ │ ││ │ MiNDSCAPE wants to bring to you some funky experimental ││ │ AvantGarde music to your living room. Thats right, this is ││ │ Briggan Kraus bringing to you the weirdest Experimental Jazz ││ │ that belongs to CyberSpace Hacker Movie. Enjoy and Thanks ││ │ for supporting the MiNDSCAPE JAZZ Cause. ││ │ ││ │ ││ │ Briggan Krauss ││ │ Descending to End ││ │ [Knitting Factory] ││ │ Rating: 7.5 ││ │ ││ │ "Steve Austin. Astronaut. A man barely alive." ││ │ ││ │ "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We ││ │ have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. ││ │ Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. ││ │ Better... stronger... faster." ││ │ ││ │ Blame television. Forty-five minutes of some of the most ││ │ complex, challenging music I've heard in a while, and I ││ │ still can't get the opening sequence of "The Six Million ││ │ Dollar Man" out of my head. It's caught in a feedback loop ││ │ now, punctuated only by the digital slinky sound effect that ││ │ accompanied every instance of Col. Austin's extraordinary ││ │ bionics. Well that, and Briggan Krauss surfacing ││ │ enigmatically. ││ │ ││ │ Descending to End is bionic jazz. Nine alto saxophone pieces ││ │ composed and performed by New York-by-way-of-Seattle ││ │ saxophonist Briggan Krauss in an empty room at the Knitting ││ │ Factory, laid out on the cold steel slab of a studio ││ │ operating table, fitted with robot eyes and limbs, and ││ │ sealed in some grotesque plastic that one would never know ││ │ was not human skin. Krauss' music is one red tracksuit away ││ │ from a lawsuit. ││ │ ││ │ Well, that's not quite true. Just because I'm doomed to ││ │ refract everything through the grainy prism of syndicated ││ │ television doesn't automatically mean litigation pending. In ││ │ fact, Krauss' bionic jazz actually emerges without precedent ││ │ as one of the few convincing electro-organic hybrids to ││ │ emerge from fringe jazz in recent years. The line between ││ │ experimental and canned is a fine one: one knob a ││ │ quarter-degree in the wrong direction and the human element ││ │ is lost, irretrievably. Krauss commands attention precisely ││ │ because the humanity of Descending to End is kept anxiously ││ │ in jeopardy. ││ │ ││ │ "Last Gasp Extinction of the World" crosses cryptic David ││ │ Grubbs-style plucking with the maximal turntablism ││ │ associated with composers like Christian Marclay. Machines ││ │ hum listlessly from every corner of the stereo spectrum. ││ │ Krauss' heavily treated sax ribbons through this little ││ │ Armageddon with skittering intensity, alternately muttering ││ │ and waxing digitally huge in the cacophony. ││ │ ││ │ "Frontal" is solo sax so overburdened by effects that it ││ │ becomes indistinguishable from a similarly encumbered guitar ││ │ solo; the track would sit comfortably just about anywhere on ││ │ Sonny Sharrock's Guitar without anyone ever noticing the ││ │ switch. The few moments that yield to these avant-heroics ││ │ play something like Kevin Costner's ham-fisted epics: a ││ │ billion dollars of digitally mastered dire apocalyptic chaos ││ │ just to make rooting for Costner plausible. These kind of ││ │ antics are disappointingly traditionalist even as they pose ││ │ as futurism; the upshot is: you'll appreciate the superhuman ││ │ clarion of the classic alto sax solo once you've heard it ││ │ overcome the nightmarish din of reverberating electronics. ││ │ It becomes condescending. Fundamentally, we already know the ││ │ Good Guys from the Bad Guys. ││ │ ││ │ These moments, though, are few and far between. "Lean Loud ││ │ and Lovely," for instance, screams like a premature burial. ││ │ You can hear Krauss clawing at the coffin; his saxophone is ││ │ so unnervingly human in its wail that it almost approaches ││ │ articulated language. What would it say amidst all the ││ │ whooshing effects and pounding cymbals that have entombed ││ │ it? "I'm still alive down here," perhaps. That's creepy. ││ │ ││ │ The grotesque insect dread of "Dust the Desolate" is cut by ││ │ dentist-drill squeal. This track sounds so much like my ││ │ nightmares it's uncanny: equal parts delirium tremens, ││ │ dental checkup and insane asylum. I swear, if this is jazz, ││ │ it is jazz infested with maggots. The sound on headphones ││ │ triggers hallucinations. Seriously sick hallucinations. Even ││ │ if the rest of the disc were simply avant-dreck (which it's ││ │ not), this track would warrant purchase. Clocking in at ││ │ almost ten minutes, "Dust the Desolate" makes you forget ││ │ there was ever such a thing as jazz, or woodwinds, or life ││ │ on this planet. ││ │ ││ │ And Krauss never looks back. The nostalgia for traditional ││ │ jazz was incinerated somewhere along the way, and we've ││ │ forgotten to mourn. The final "Flu Coasting" reintegrates ││ │ the turntable, featuring half-backward vocals that sound ││ │ like all those satanic messages I never actually found on my ││ │ metal LPs. Something like electro-sitar plucks an eerily ││ │ simple melody as if straining toward an inner calm. This ││ │ isn't music to drive to; this is what the last five minutes ││ │ of your life sound like. ││ │ ││ │ As is requisite in all my NYC apologetics, a warning: you ││ │ must accept Descending to End for what it is: difficult, ││ │ often horrifying music. Not for parties. Not for traffic ││ │ jams. Not for sex. For headphones, hallucinogens and utter ││ │ darkness. Once you get past Lee Majors, you're gone. ││ │ ││ │ -Brent S. Sirota ││ │ ││ │ If you like this release go out and buy it. ││ │ ││ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│──────-· ││ ┌─────────────────────┐ ││ │ T R A C K L i S T │┐ ││ └─────────────────────┘└─────────────────────────────────────────│──┐ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│───┘ │ ││ │ [01] Last Gasp Extraction of the World 06:39 ││ │ [02] Frontal 03:27 ││ │ [03] Lean Loud and Lovely 05:57 ││ │ [04] Parietal 02:00 ││ │ [05] Dust the Desolate 09:40 ││ │ [06] Temporal 02:47 ││ │ [07] Encumbrance Essence 08:43 ││ │ [08] Occipital 01:57 ││ │ [09] Flu Coasting 05:44 ││ │ ││ │ Total Playtime : 46:54 min ││ │ ││ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│─────-· ││──┐ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│───┘ │ ││ │ ││ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│─────-·