TV POW – TV POW PRESENTS MICHAEL HARTMAN TODD A. CARTER BRENT GUTZEIT AS TV POW (CD by Southport)
TELEVISION POWER ELECTRIC 3 – ARGIIINDAR (CD by Arteleku)
Now this is really something, subtle laptop pranksters TV Pow are back after some time away with a new album for Chicago jazz label Southport. And it’s based mostly around the piano. A real one. For most of these tracks that means some unexpected prettiness, like a soft-focus AMM, interspersed with some delicate instrumentation. They each play the piano on different tracks, and the other ones are mainly credited for computer, but there’s nothing much digital to be found here. It’s all pretty serious quiet improv stuff. Things get started only on the last track, “Sweating Just Sitting Here“, on which there are no computers at all. Nor that ever-present piano that was so present in the first four tracks. The natural drones & scenes created by organs, bells, shakers and some other traditional instruments sounds like fellow Chicagoans/friends Town & Country recording for Erstwhile Records. Not a bad thing at all.
Television Power Electric is a name used for when the three TV Pow boys end up recording some stuff with other people, who are different for each recording. This time it’s Xabier Erkizia and Inigo Telletxea, two musicians from Spain where this was also recorded in Bera, october 2004. This stays much closer to home, with some typical digital short-circuit drone storytelling, even when the piano (though this time probably not the grand sort that they had in Chicago) pops up again at the end. It’s nice to hear this in connection with the Southport disc, as a sort of analog/digital differentiation of how this group approaches improv tactics. Personally, I got more excited by this disc then the piano-driven endeavor, but both show two great sides of one of the longest standing laptop ensembles. (RM)
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