Original Silence — The Second Original Silence

Having been very much taken by the debut album of this jazz, noise improv collective and putting it in my best of 07 list I  was very excited when this came tumbling through my letter box

The collective features as before the following: Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth),Terrie Ex (The Ex), Jim O`Rourke( Sonic Youth, etc) Mats Gustafsson (The Thing), Paal Nilssen-Love (The Thing, Atomic) and Massimo Pupillo (Zu). This time around it’s split into four live jams/ improvs instead of the two on their first album & that in it’s self might suggest there’s more variation here. Sadly on the whole this is not the case with this often feeling very one dimensional and bass, guitar and peddle effect heavy. This feels more like a  Sonic Youth and The Ex collaboration-with none of the melding of each players sonic identity as the first album did. There’s sadly has little of Mats Gustafsson acidic sax honks Present and when they are presnt it just feels flat and powerless. This type of stuff that should beat you around, have bite to it and feeling dangerous and searing- but  for the most part it just feels predictable and at worse tiresome.

Sadly The Secondly Originally silence album focusers in on the worse, over indulgent and show offish side of improv music with little or no entertainment value on display here. It may have been great to play but playing it back is tiresome, boring and ultimately very annoying.