One more gent that deserves some spouting off before the year’s end. Our dude hails from New York but has priorly gotten down with Nordics on a Rune Grammofon outing last year. As eccentric as Opsvik & Jennings might be, it’s no surprise now it was Rich also shaking that tree. Quite a nice axis of jazz/folk/laptop lunatics right there.
I gather Rich is just another living by the saying “It never happened”, and as much as I can appreciate that kind of postmodern philosophy, I’m glad it did, whether he is in denial or not. Turret Mil… cute, quirky & gentil, say what you will.
Starting quietly, the album smolders over two tracks until igniting suddenly on the appropriately entitled ‘Ignite a Noise’, jazz trumpet and skittish electronic rhythms colliding in stuttering happiness.
Although the music is strange and experimental, it never becomes harsh or discordant, maintaining an inner harmony and a fragile surrealism, vibrant yet controlled.
Definitely a grower, Up the Turret Mil is an album that can surprise every time it is heard, the lightness of touch just one of its many wonders…»
Cookshop
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Its not cool to say so, but sometimes I just fail to understand things.
For instance the release by Rich Johnson, which I spun twice in a row and then still didn’t understand it. Johnson is a trumpet player, who also touches the acoustic guitar, piano, laptop and mixes it with glitch, sampling, musique concrete. His inspiration comes from Bob Dylan, Don Cherry, Low, Kenneth Galburo, Fugazi and Jimmy Giuffre.
What gives me a hard time, is what to think of this? The eleven pieces are a mixed bag of goodies. There are gentle glitches, there are heavy guitars and computer distortions (in the title piece), there are traces of improvisation. That’s all clear. What I don’t seem to get right is this: do I like this? Is it good? Or is the variety of the material in its way? I don’t know.
With some of these pieces, like the title piece, I think its all too plain and simple, but then its not bad either.
Then I play it again, listen more closely and think: yeah, no, this is great.
Nicely atmospheric, put together in a nice way, good moves, nice pieces. I read in the press text that ‘this is a grower’ and I think, you’re damn right, this album is a grower.
An odd bunch of pieces, more like a compilation, but then one in which all the pieces seem to fit in neatly. A grower indeed. (FdW)
modisti.com