the Idle Suite — Up Two Sticks Road

The Idle Suite are a New Zealand "supergroup" including members from Sferic Experiment, MarineVille, the Stumps, Dress, Sandoz Lab Technicians, King Loser, Cloudboy, Bad Statistics and Cloudboy. In reality, this recording sounds like a series of jam sessions between like-minded individuals. It's loose limbed improv music consisting of two drummers, guitars, bass and keyboards. There are some moments of intensity on these tracks, particularly on the last track, the epic twenty-three minute Forcefield, where the guitars feed back and the bass wanders. Mostly though, this music, though intermittently interesting, isn't sharp enough to keep interest.

Improv music can be a very risky proposition. The players have to know each other well, and have to ability to listen to each other, and anticipate changes in direction. Since there is no formal narrative, improv relies on dramatic tension and release to come across as natural and unforced. Another aspect is that it requires a certain amount of restraint to avoid showing off, instead of blending with fellow improvisors. Up Two Sticks Road does a fairly good job in regard to the latter, as the artists come across as sympathetic to one another, and rarely sound like they are battling each other. The disc fails to fully engage though, because the Idle Suite don't sound like a collective that knows each other well enough musically to make engaging improv work. It's not a complete disaster, there are most certainly some nice things that can be said about these pieces; The reverb and effect laden guitars work off of each other well, and the overdriven keyboards have a nice kick at times.

These jams owe some credit to a wide range of precursors (whether the influence is subconscious or not); the use of silence reminds a bit of AMM, while the more intense parts are more rock oriented, kind of like an obtuse Sonic Youth. There's also a scratchy, ramshackle feel to much of this music, marking it as a New Zealand recording, which of course makes sense. It sounds like these guys had a lot of fun hanging out, recording this album (probably in a smoke filled room, if you catch my drift). Unfortunately though, the lack of focus makes this more of a curiosity than something you're likely to want to listen to over and over.