LISA CAMERON AND CLAIRE ROUSAY “Vertices” (Personal Archives)

 

I’m so used to experimental percussion releases like this one to be abstract minimalist performances around a prepared kit where it’s struck very infrequently with suspect rhythm. Not that, of course, all drum music has to have “distinct rhythm” or anything, but let me be the first to say “Thank god” that Vertices has elements of a smashed jazz watermelon to the face. Does it have its abstract moments, it’s passages of experimentation? Well, yeah, that’s kind of what Lisa Cameron and claire rousay do – they experiment within their idiom. Does that mean I’m left high and dry on a pleasurable percussive experience? Not on your life – I’m in the splash zone.

“Taut” is a weird intro, with what sounds like a metal string stretching maybe past its prime tensility to a point where it could be struck or rubbed to such a degree that the potential energy stored up in it is instantly audible. Over almost ten minutes there’s thwacks and runs, crisp reminders that we probably just heard a drum head being stretched, not a bloody guitar string. Anyway, ever listen to jazz drum solos and not wonder where the rest of the ensemble is? Get used to it with these two – they’re like they’re own group, and they have no use for any melodic accompaniment. Plus, the drum solos sound like a full band.

Get ready also for feedback of some sort – the centerpiece of Vertices is “Invitation,” an excursion in atmosphere. It seems impossible that Cameron and rousay can coax such subtlety from such instruments, but hey, such is the case. The duo rips some more jazz drums on the closer, “Spurn.” I think I may have peed a little in my euphoric state. I did not see that reaction coming. I’m not saying it was unpleasant or anything, it was just weird that I got to such a high degree of enjoyment and then – boop – pee.

I’ll go back and edit that out later.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/1032009-Lisa-Cameron

https://clairerousay.bandcamp.com/

https://personalarchives.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

CAMERON / CARTER / HÅKER-FLATEN “Tau Ceti” C60 (Astral Spirits)

Out of this world, man.

Like seriously, and literally. Lisa Cameron, Tom Carter, and Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten know what’s out there, like they’re the visionary Fox Mulders to our incredulous and grounded Dana Scullys, “I Want to Believe” posters flapping in the breeze of the quantum anomaly they’ve somehow managed to conjure in their practice space. They’re gazing skyward to Tau Ceti after all, a star in the Cetus constellation that has similarities to our own sun. Tau Ceti the star has planets orbiting it. Some are potentially habitable.

But for what?

Yeah, yeah, ripples and energy coming from the cosmos, interacting with us in some way because we can pick up the frequencies. This whole thing’s in a slow-cooker, with SETI laboratories poring through the data. Cameron, Carter, and Håker-Flaten are messing with the frequencies, causing chaos in the readings. Maybe they’re making the frequencies. Maybe they’re not even on earth.

They’re definitely making the frequencies.

Tau Ceti takes its time feeling us out, probing our intelligence and defenses with measured and deliberate string plucks and percussion hits, until all parties are ready to determine that “We Are Not Alone.” And then “Daath (The Abyss)” erupts like a methane geyser on Enceladus or a solar flare, rippling out into the vastness of space and trailing color and light. And “Traveling Spaceways” just tries to one-up it, but it’s a psych blowout too, ripping a hole in the fabric of space-time.

Tau Ceti, here we come! … Or it’s coming to us. Either way, strap in, Mulders and Scullys (and everyone else).

https://astralspirits.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

CAMERON, DOCKERY, & HIPÓLITO “Organ” C34 (Self Sabotage Records)

Tired of performing under the former monicker “Two Gals, a Guy, & a Piezo Plays”*, Lisa Cameron (percussion), R. Lee Dockery (double bass), & Daniel Hipólito (tapes) explore the myriad meanings of the homonym, “organ”, improvising a varied array of noisy, ambient soundscapes that could easily be interpreted as flesh-made-sound, five disparate representations of what our ceaselessly toiling inner-mechanisms might sound like throughout the day. I’d chalk such chemistry up to the camaraderie between the trio, as there are ZERO out of place tones to be heard; only elements that not only add to one another but amplify each other, ten-fold. This is some serious professional drone-improv craftsmanship that won’t get old any time soon.

https://selfsabotagerecords.bandcamp.com/album/organ

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*I kid, I kid. This is just a one-off/send-off between good pals is all.