The guitar quintet Family Tapes aims to make what it calls “anti-wanking” music — music, the terminology suggests, that takes the guitar as something other than a tool for showmanship, for heavy riffing, for complex leads, for vocalizing-like melodies, for all the things that make the guitar synonymous with ego and strong-willed self-expression, rather than with subtlety and atmosphere.
The result is something that’s both less and more than the sum of its parts.
Less, because to hear “The Happy Days (4/13)” (MP3) and “Blown” (MP3), two recent pieces, is to hear music that seemingly doesn’t require five people to realize it.
More, because the more you listen, the more you hear just how much is taking place.
“Happy Days” is pizzicato-meets-pixelated: little scrapes of tingling sound that mix together like some heady, multi-faceted mobile, ever on the move. “Blown” is all the more subtle. According to a brief description, it is simply the band improvising by “blowing on the [guitar] strings with amps turned up very loud.” The result is spectacular, just a billowing mass of resonance. A common term in writing about chamber music is “ensemble,” which is shorthand for the measure of a given group’s internal sympathy and cohesion. “Blown” is, in that sense, the very aura of the group’s ensemble.
[audio:http://www.subdist.com/familytapes/mp3s/ft_happydays4.mp3|titles=”The Happy Days (4/13)”|artists=Family Tapes]
[audio:http://www.subdist.com/familytapes/mp3s/blown.mp3|titles=”Blown”|artists=Family Tapes]
The files were first posted earlier this month on the blog of Family Tapes member Mark Morse: morsanek.blogspot.com. The other members of Family Tapes are Alfredo Genovesi, Jeroen Kimman, Jasper Stadhouders, and Raphael Vanoli. More info at subdist.com/familytapes.
