My wife used to play clarinet in marching band back in high school. Her
school marched in the Rose Bowl Parade! I thought that was pretty cool – that’s
a big deal for marching bands.
She has not, to my knowledge, done mescaline.
Christian Michael Filardo, he of experimentalist and electronic
tendencies, eschews electronics fully and embraces experimentation through
endurance on Evidence, his first
release for Heavy Mess. Indeed, over two untitled tracks that stretch eighteen
minutes in total, Filardo plays nothing but clarinet and records under the
influence of a “mescaline compound.” There are no overdubs, no electronic
embellishments, and the set is fully improvised. Insert shocked emoji face from
my iPhone library here.
Sure, you could say that you know exactly what something like that
sounds like, and I’d have to force my opinion upon you because you’re dead
wrong. To say that these two pieces are not fully batshit (or complete
horseshit) is a testament to the level of control Filardo exhibits here,
regardless of his state of mind. At times stretching notes like night on the
French countryside, at others filleting the keys like Benny Goodman, Filardo is
never less than mesmerizing, and if I weren’t a narcotics teetotaler, I’d join
him in one of his mescaline cocktails to see if it’s any different on the other
side. It doesn’t matter, in the end, because I’m dead straight (save for a bit
of white wine), and I’m enjoying the heck out of one man playing clarinet on
hallucinogens. Go figure.
--Ryan Masteller
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