AMM
(MATCHLESS)
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One of the original musical democracies, AMM embraced indeterminacy and sonic noncoherence, vigorously asserting an egalitarian relationship between players. Breaking from the jazz tradition in which key AMM members percussionist Eddie Prevost and saxophonist Lou Gare cut their teeth, AMM undermined traditional hierarchical roles, most notably the one that assumes the rhythm section is a slave to the soloist. (Interestingly, they reassume those roles in the just reissued mid-80s duets disc called To Hear and Back Again, which is, as far as I can tell, an AMM release in name only.) Unlike other free ensembles of the time, such as the similarly London-based Spontaneous Music Ensemble, whose otherworldly 1968 debut, Karyobin, has finally been reissued, AMM had little interest in explicitly dialogue-based or interactive improvising, opting instead for the gradual assembling of discrete sound elements into a giant patchwork quilt of sound. In the end their music has something in common with ambient, but it’s a sinister and often abrasive static sound design, and one that’s far more interesting than others crafted by Eno’s children.
What is most remarkable about these two discs (both of which add material to the original LPs) is the subtle but forceful way that the new members change the basic feel of the music. Tilbury has the most difficult job, accommodating a fixed-pitch instrument to AMM’s largely tone-color, texture, and energy-oriented music. On The Inexhaustible Document he approaches from the rear, quietly introducing ambivalent, moltenly slow arpeggios, not unlike Morton Feldman. Tilbury seizes the tones that the others impart in passing, catching them in a spidery web of dissonant and sometimes consonant piano harmonies. Saram, on the other hand, plays out front, contrasting lines to the sheets and layers of sound with which Prevost and Rowe blanket the proceedings.
