Brise-Glace
When In Vanitas...
(hear it)

Brise-Glace is, I guess, the other Jim O'Rourke project from the 90s. Gastr Del Sol is the band that, in my mind at least, really affected people and continues to influence. Brise-Glace is less mainstream, you could say. Where Gastr Del Sol might have a few minutes of strange synthy noises and clackety clarinets being tapped on their keys, Brise-Glace has several minutes of mixed forms of noise - white noise, hum, crackles, filtered white noise, stuttering white noise - interrupted finally by a bluesman recorded from a radio-speaker. Also, no words - GDS has words, necessary for wide acceptance.

The interlacing of mainstream and fringe sounds is an ongoing interest of mine. I remember once when I walked home from high school. I was listening to Nine Inch Nails, the Downward Spiral. I was seriously into that kind of thing back then, Joy Division, Bauhaus, NIN, but I specifically recall imagining a type of music, one song like Nine Inch Nails, the next They Might Be Giants, the next Celine Dion. My friend Tim Morgan and I used to talk about how truly difficult music would be Cher busting out with a free-jazz/noise ensemble in the middle of her set at the Kohl Center in Madison, where we lived then. [12 sep 08 even more difficult, I suspect, would be Mats Gustaffson sweetly singing a Cher song in between tongue-spattering sax noises]

Brise-Glace just sounds awesome. I wonder if this is the only collaboration between Jim O'Rourke, producer, recording engineer, mixer, and Steve Albini, engineer.

bb, 28 Jan 08

[12 sep 08 I can't believe I had it spelled "When in Venitas..." all this time.]