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Personnel: David Torn (guitar, sampler); David Torn ; Craig Taborn (Fender Rhodes piano, Hammond b-3 organ, Mellotron); Matt Chamberlain, Tom Rainey (drums, drum); Tim Berne (alto saxophone).
Audio Mixer: David Torn .
Recording information: Clubhouse Studios, Rhinebeck, NY (03/2005).
Photographer: Robert "RX Lord" Lewis.
Prezens is the first recording guitarist and producer David Torn has recorded under his own name for ECM Records in the 21 years since his Cloud About Mercury was issued. His sonic explorations have always been at least as much an interest to him as his playing. As a result he has stretched to the limits of what the guitar can, or even perhaps should, do in realms where it sounded like he was playing anything but his chosen instrument. Most recently, Torn has performed in Tim Berne's Science Friction and Hard Cell ensembles and played with Drew Gress and Dave Douglas. Torn enlists Berne and the other members of his Science Friction band: keyboard wizard Craig Taborn and drummer Tom Rainey, minus guitarist Marc Ducret. The end result, while wildly adventurous and full of astonishing improvisations, is also full of some of Torn's most "inside" playing. The opener "AK" begins with a Frippertronics phrase hypnotically asserted by use of a digital delay before giving way to a mutational Delta blues riff, repeated endlessly before opening up to a kind of muted question mark phrase. Rainey's cymbals enter along with an extended line by Berne while Taborn digs into the B-3 with the guitar riff playing under the mix as a guide; the band takes off, exploring the edges of the open chord, never leaving its rhythmic pulse behind for long. Taborn's soloing is deep in the pocket, reminiscent of John Patton, and Berne begins to play all around the blues, his sense of time perfect. Rainey shuffles around them all, stuttering cymbals and snares. When Torn comes back in with the riff, it's a sick distorted mess worthy of a solid heavy metal intro and he layers a screaming minimal solo on top of that. Whoa! The brief "Rest and Unrest" with its spoken word vocal walks the line between Ali Farka Touré's guitar sound and Torn's own mitigated soundscape world once more echoing the blues.
Mutant synth lines and layered and stretched voices become a rhythmic interlude. "Structural Foundations of Prezens" begins with Berne blowing soft and low with a pulsing electronic sound behind him as Torn enters on both electric and acoustic guitars, manipulated of course to accent the atmospheric "ballad" until all hell breaks loose at just under seven minutes. Here Rainey's triple-timed drumming is sampled back as loops playing breaks and Torn and Berne interplaying with one another take the track into uncharted territory. Nothing is what it initially seems here. Each track begins as one thing and ends as quite another. Improvisation is at a premium, though all of it comes out of established heads: blues and other folk forms initiate proceedings and Torn deals out as much atmosphere as he does leadership in the directions he wants to go, which is why most of these cuts (all but four, actually) have co-writing credits. Check out "Sink" and "Neck Deep in the Harrow" for prime examples. The open spaces of "Even More Other" present music as an "other" to sonic manipulation, yet it all comes out structured somehow, tempered into a cohesive whole thanks to Rainey's big tom tom work. The slide acoustic guitar Torn uses on "Miss, Place, The Mist..." is Eastern in mode and both Rainey and Taborn treat it as such with distorted loops, sampled strings, and overdubbed slide lines as Berne enters and winds it all around at the nadir. The set concludes with "Transmit Regardless," which is a kind of anthem for this band in the sense that while Torn is listed as the leader, and there is no doubt about his mark as a creative director, this group plays like a band throughout, no matter how abstract and strange things get. Rock, jazz, electronica, formal soundThe Wire (p.67) - "Passages Torn likes are loped, stuttered and layered....Bravo to Torn for getting his hands dirty." Down Beat (p.62) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Some pieces are gloriously robotic, the most colorful drum-'n'-bass tracks ever recorded. Others are contagiously claustrophobic -- pressurized beats and jittery rhythms attacking from all sides."
Ak Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
9:19
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Rest & Unrest Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
3:44
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Structural Functions of Prezens Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
10:56
4
Bulbs Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
6:18
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Them Buried Standing Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
2:43
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Sink Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
7:14
7
Neck-Deep In the Harrow... Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
12:32
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Ever More Other Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
4:12
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Ring For Endless Travel Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
2:23
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10
Miss Place, the Mist... Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
5:45
$1.29
11
Transmit Regardless Craig Taborn, David Torn, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Tom Rainey Craig Taborn Tim Berne David Torn
7:20
Prezens Music Review
Customer Prezens Reviews
Average Rating: (5 out of 5 stars)
Not for the Weak-Kneed David Torn and his band of merry improvisors have produced the most exciting album since "The Power to Believe". This is psychadelic, acid, progressive, avant garde, head-messing, dissonant, arhythmic mind-soup. If you thought you had reached the outer limit of the listening experience, then you've a way to go my friend. Get it and attempt to understand it. Welcome to the new. Submitted by Ramlee (Japan) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo
OH Yeah!! The guitarist and producer David Torn do a great job here..How to put the Hard cell Team ( Tim Berne Tom Rainey and Greg Taborn on your partition???and he know how to use every talent with he's imagination..That' space groove sometimes and come very hard groove after...and what a sound. Try it..i swear it'good. Submitted by peter_jazz_sonic (Montréal, QC, CAN) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo
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