Search - Joe, & John Snyder Mcphee :: Pieces Of Light (1974)

Pieces of Light indeed ...

Troy Collins | Lancaster, PA United States | 03/29/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Iconic multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's earliest solo recordings were documented by fellow artist Craig Johnson on his CJR label. Having long been out of print, these records were licensed by Atavistic as part of their Unheard Music Series a few years ago. Beginning with 1969's "Underground Railroad," 1970's "Nation Time" and 1971's "Trinity," 1974's "Pieces of Light" concludes the reissue program and sheds light on the seminal recordings of one of today's finest living artists. With a career spent under the radar, McPhee is beloved in the underground community, but virtually unknown in the mainstream press. Atavistic's UMS is one more effort to help alleviate this situation.



"Pieces of Light" is unique among McPhee's original recordings for the CJR label as it is the only studio recording and technically a collaborative affair rather than a true solo effort. ARP synthesizer player John Snyder shares billing for the album and its collectively improvised compositions. Although theoretically an equal contributor, the bulk of this session is dominated by McPhee and his arsenal of horns. Sparse, yet impassioned, with moments of delicate clarity and intense veracity, "Pieces of Light" is an appropriate title for the sounds contained within.



Even with five songs the album plays more like a suite than a set of individual tunes. McPhee's multiphonic tenor solo opens the album with "Prologue/Twelve," a seven-minute cadenza of melodic ingenuity and textural abandon. McPhee's tenor drifts from meandering, breathy trills and multiphonic glisses to stuttered blasts of visceral release. The final two minutes of the piece feature Snyder's ARP unaccompanied, in sci-fi mode, all blips, beeps, and drones. Hand percussion and muted, melancholy trumpet glide over a bed of futuristic loops and high-end frequencies from the ARP on "Shadow Sculptures."



Taking conceptual cues from the film, "Les Heros Sont Fatigues," a 1955 French crime drama set during the second world war, features fervent, declamatory, screaming tenor sax bolstered by rumbling, crashing synth. Snyder conjures explosions and grinding steel while McPhee testifies in an unworldly fashion. "Red Giant" is a brief respite with a short jaunt to the East, McPhee's delicate, Asiatic flute navigating a web of koto-like slides and glisses from Stevens' metallic-tinged synth.



It is on "Windows in Dreams/Colors in Crystal" that the duo pulls out all the stops. At 23 minutes and filling the majority of the original record's second side, it is the album's epic centerpiece. McPhee employs all his instruments here, from muted cornet to soulful tenor sax. Snyder's ARP pitch-bends in deferment, squeals in revolt, and rumbles in accordance. Considering the sidelong duration, there are a few dead spots, but there are numerous highlights as well. McPhee's funkily militaristic tandem trumpet and pocket cornet fanfare (a la Rahsaan Roland Kirk) blends nicely with Snyder's oscillating ARP lines. Elsewhere McPhee's burly tenor can be heard calling up Ayler-esque spirits while Snyder churns out gradually unfolding sound waves on his analog synth.



"Pieces of Light" actually predates Anthony Braxton and Richard Teitelbaum's similar, but more widely known "Time Zones" album by two years. A historical and conceptual contemporary with this well-regarded record, McPhee and Snyder have an intriguing set now readily available thanks to Atavistic's Unheard Music Series."