Michael Robinson: Fire Monkey (Azure Miles)
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Live performance is the focus of this new guy from L A, and his music generates tremendous energy by spewing out Nancarrovian reams of notes. No one-track mind, he'll play a melodic figure and in the next moment rip through atonal arpeggios or exotic drumbeats at breakneck speed. He writes tonally and atonally at once with refreshing naivete, and is much taken with Asian timbres. Jade Streams and Ghosts are drone meditations, March Wind and Fire Monkey are whirlwinds, and the magna opera, Year of the Rooster and Mountain Temple, are his schizo counterpoint pieces that, on repeated listening, I like best of all. No telling where he's going to spin off to, but he's an original. - Kyla Gann, Village Voice (1994) |