A few days ago we took a look at percussionist Paul Kikuchi and composer-performer Jesse Olson in their rather striking Open Graves CD. Today we look at another project that has a different sound, but is no less intriguing. This time out we have the group known as Tide Tables and their EP Lost Birdsongs (Prefecture). We get ten tracks of interest by a group that includes Paul Kikuchi and Alexander Vittum, who in addition to playing percussion and electronics on this date also pen the compositions. Tide Tables are a seven-man unit that includes two more percussionists (Crane and Weng), reeds and trumpet from Daniel Carter, the trombone of Brian Drye and Matt Goeke on cello.
This is music that is somewhere between a sort of ethnic music for some un-named planet, contemporary classical and avant jazz. Those stylistic pieces fit so well together that one may be justified in thinking of this as part of some new amalgam, one good example of the sort of newly syncretized hybrids that we've looked at recently on these pages and those of my sister sites.
Percussive grooves that don't travel down the obvious paths, with freely articulated solo moments overtop, atmospheric spaces of calm and interesting sound color, these are what Tide Tables offer your ears; this the way they are in the moment of creation today.
They defy easy description but they do bestow on the listener a good deal of fascination and pleasure for the time spent listening. Twenty-plus minutes of something very different and very pleasing. It is time well spent.
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