Ovo spada u kategoriju najbizarnijih i najluđih albuma ikada snimljenih. Jedini instrument je Gayleovo tijelo - ok, jasno je za njegov glas, ali otkud sve ostalo, bogtepitaj - orkestar sačinjen od prdeža, češanja, trljanja, šmrcanja, hrkanja, grgoljenja, zijevanja, šmrkanja, uzdisanja... Free jazz u mediju tjelesnih funkcija i izlučevina.
I naslovi pjesama su otkačeni.
Ulomci se mogu čuti ovdje:
| Track | Duration | Listeners | ||||
| 1 |  |
sleep rain | 3:45 | 6 | ||
| 2 | |
say hello to my little cowpaddy | 3:58 | 6 | ||
| 3 | |
esa peko peko pah | 3:59 | 6 | ||
| 4 | |
feral basil pesto | 6:18 | 5 | ||
| 5 | |
stone shoes | 4:09 | 6 | ||
| 6 | |
merkin identity crisis | 4:58 | 4 | ||
| 7 | |
agnes unknown | 3:54 | 7 | ||
| 8 | |
falling off brain like i told myselves | 3:19 | 4 | ||
| 9 | |
hadaka denkyu very much | 4:36 | 4 | ||
| 10 | |
howdy elephant tree | 4:22 | 6 | ||
| 11 | |
The Queensboro Bridge Song (Feelin' Slumpy) | 6:58 | 3 | ||
| 12 | |
bicurious marsupials underneath the panels for the walls of purgatory | 2:07 | 2 | ||
| 13 | |
the indexicality of my middle finger | 3:04 | 4 | ||
| 14 | |
naked brunch | 3:31 | 4 | ||
| 15 | |
pajama turtles | 5:45 | 5 |
The rock musician, who normally plays guitar in the style of Eugene Chadbourne/Derek Bailey/Paul Arámbula, goes bizarre on this album that’s entirely composed of voice and body sounds.
The 2011 CD begins with "Sleep Rain," which sounds like if Phil Minton was to overdub himself, and is followed by "Say Hello to My Little Cowpaddy" that features mouth pops, underwater sounds (did he contact mic his tummy while digesting?) and groans of pain. Meanwhile, "Feral Basil Pesto" sounds just like Jaap Blonk but really silly.
That's not all. "Merkin Identity Crisis" showcases armpit farts over a vocal drone overlay; "Agnes Unknown" employs multiple tracks of throat crackles (and, at one point, things that sound like late-night croaking frogs); "Falling Off Brain Like I Told Myselves" showcases on-helim schizo vocal tracks and may also include a cameo by The Muppets; and vocals that sound like a 78 rpm record being played backwards at 33 1/3 rpm on "Howdy Elephant Tree."
Stockpiled with looped gargling and overdubbed armpit farts, Gayle’s album could make some dig out their copy of Mike Patton’s Adult Themes for Voice while annoyed listeners might want to hurt themselves after hearing any of these numbers.- Steve Jansen
Mastering an instrument as it is your own body is an almost sacred quest that is either reserved for yogi, gnostic pursuers of the left hand path or any other esotheric outsiders. Philip Gayle built his entire album on the multilayering of the sounds produced by his body. What caught my attention first is the lack of senseless repetition or cheap minimalism of sonorism which is a cardinal sin of many productions connected with free improv or beyond. Instead Gayle produces a hecttic ritual of hisses, hums, rattles, squeaks and the whole onomatopeic encyclopedia of sound put into one concrete symphony of individualism and certain amount of intimacy. Sometimes implemented with sounds of guitar unexpectedly breaks the clichee of crunchy abstract experiment and goes into folksy randomness with excellent sense of humour. An excellent journey into the (literally) guts of the sound no one should miss really...-
If I were grading recent submissions on a curve for weirdness, Philip Gayle’s “Babanço Total” would set the top of my curve. This is a record that immediately demanded my attention and cut its way to the front of a long review queue with its uncompromising and sometimes uncomfortable soundworld, gently described as a “one-time exploration of the voice and body soundscape” in its press release.
The first track, “sleep rain,” got me
thinking that I was listening to an album of layered avant-garde vocals,
in the spirit of albums like Mike Patton’s “Adult Themes for Voice” or
Maja Ratkje’s “Voice,” or Jaap Blonk’s work. Overall, that is indeed a
good starting point for “Babanço Total,”
and I suspect that if you like those records, you’ll want to track down
a copy of this album. Most tracks are built of many, many layers of
overdubbed voices producing an impressive variety of textures and
rhythms. But by the third track, “esa peko peko pah,” I was considering
how “body soundscape” presumably refers to sounds originating from more
than voices, which is articulated slightly more explicitly in the
album’s subtitle on the back cover: “Improvised bodily functions, etc.”
Gentler readers, how to say it?—you might hear some eructation, emesis, lower-body peristaltic themes and variations. I don’t want to make too much of it, as “sounds from the bathroom” are a small percentage of the overall recording, but there are 3 or 4 tracks on which burp-ish, fart-ish, or puke-ish sounds may come to your attention. If you’re inclined to be irritated or upset by that sort of thing, there’s your fair warning. I can deal with it in the context of this music, though I must admit that my less mature side is quite amused by a mental image of this album being partially recorded at SugarHill Studios in Houston, the self-proclaimed “Abbey Road of the South.” I’ll bet these were surprising sessions for the engineers there!
Philip Gayle’s previous solo efforts have concentrated on layers of mostly stringed instruments overdubbed in what amounts to a kind of free-improv solitaire, focusing on textural and timbral aspects of sound design. I went back to his 2005 “The Mommy Row” album in search of context for “Babanço Total.” It’s a great record that alternates between sections of long-tone, mostly bowed drones punctuated with Asian-sounding percussion, and fast skittering acoustic strings playing lines that remind me of early Eugene Chadbourne. Some tracks like “Cow People” use a lot of liquid pouring/bubbling sounds that form a great timbral bridge between the two records. Both records are dense with overdubs, which remain fairly independent from one another rhythmically, proving that free improvisation can happen via overdubs instead of ensembles.
That’s not to say this music is created quickly or carelessly: in the case of “Babanço Total,” recording started in 2000 and wasn’t completed until 2008. The tracks flow freely within themselves, but there is a clear sense of prior deliberation toward framing out the boundaries and approaches unique to each piece. And postproduction plays a role in many pieces, like the tremolo-like rhythmic voice clusters undulating beneath most of “feral basil pesto,” with quick fade-up articulations before each iteration, or sped-up speech patterns comprising much of “falling off brain like i told myselves,” which pleasantly remind me of Renaldo & the Loaf. Even the potentially juvenile burping sounds tend to be used in unexpectedly “mature” ways, like those in “naked brunch” that essentially become long drones oscillating beneath scrapes, breaths, and almost horn-like quick sounds whose origin I can’t quite identify. “agnes unknown” uses long belchy sounds, too, but they’re more foreground than background on that track. Especially effective for me was the album’s closer, “pajama turtles,” which features long quasi-microtonal chorale overdubs on shifting vowel sounds, all supporting a frenetic sped-up sounding solo munchkin freakout. I really liked “feral basil pesto,” too, which for me evokes some kind of Muppets-meet-zombies aural opera.
The packaging for this disc deserves a mention, too: Houston artist and musician John Cramer’s work is featured in color on the front cover, and four more panels of his drawings are found inside. All depict creatures made of heads fused together in various ways, an eerily perfect visual analogue to the music found inside.
As mentioned earlier, this record is a one-time exploration for Gayle, whose plans for the immediate future are focusing on a guitar-based record. He also plays guitar and mandolin for more conventional acts, including a recent tour on guitar with singer/songwriter Ember Schrag. But he certainly brings a set of interesting ideas to the table with “Babanço Total,” and considering how few weirdovocal albums are released, let’s hope he returns to the form as time and inspiration allow. —Scott Scholz
What is the extent to which the human vocal process can be manipulated? How about the rest of our body? If you've heard beatbox masters like Vakhtang then you know, but for the most part in weirder music, the human voice has not really been exploited by itself. You can find early work by Hanatarash where voice was used for comedic effect, and even earlier in my home country, Futurists were trying to experiment with vocal sounds in order to create new forms. But, no one has really been successful, other than the beatboxers. They, however, are simply trying to manipulate various parts of the throat and mouth to sound like mechanical drums and DJ equipment. The idea is not to create new sounds as we find in this particular release. Utilizing voice for weirdness, or let us say 'noise', has been attempted by numerous artists. Guitarist Philip Gayle decided to make an attempt at vocal manipulation, and Babanço Total is the result. Unfortunately, it doesn't always result in something substantial.
The one excellent aspect of Babanço Total is the artwork, because it completely depicts what this album sounds like. It reminds one of the gibbering mouther from Dungeons and Dragons, and this is exactly what it would sound like if such a creature were more than a fantasy. Babanço Total is a 15-track attempt at utilizing the human body in inventive, chaotic means with little discernible patterning and very few mechanical means to do it (like effects). The opening track, "Sleep Rain", is a collection of weird hums and gargles, which is followed by "Say Hello to My Little Cowpaddy", which uses watery cheek pops, mumbles, and various tongue fluctuations. Mister Gayle, by this point in the listen, has done a good job manipulating his mouth to create sounds, and if you hear it through stereo speakers the experience is both unsettling and alluring. I was not provided with any sort of press release, but a quick search online reveals that the human body in most of its totality was used to create Babanço Total. Therefore, some of the sounds you will hear probably come from orifices and others result from slaps, presses, and strikes to various areas with lots of skin or fat, and probably mixed with spit and body fluids. You could take the moaning out of a porno and make a similar release.
That, however, sounds a lot more interesting than Babanço Total. Imagine a microwaved pastry that is cold when you get to the middle. At this point in the album, Philip has pretty much gone through every possible bodily emanation and vocal manipulation he could throw together. By the time you get to the final track, number fifteen "Pajama Turtles", it has gone much further than necessary. Though it features a variety of clever sounds, often hilarious combinations and numerous layers of bodily manipulations, Babanço Total starts to wear out its welcome and the time has come for it to head back home where it came from. If you jump from track four to track eleven, for example, they're practically the same thing. So, thus, one big problem is later tracks sound so similar to earlier ones that the diversity of sound is immediately shattered and true realization of the actual effectiveness of this approach is reached. That is, it's not very. The question then exits your mouth as human beings have always intended: "Did this really need to be almost 70 minutes long?" Philip Gayle seems to be an incredibly experienced musician, but Babanço Total is merely a brief experiment, even though it took over eight years to complete (?), and unless you like to have something "weird" to scare neighbors in the next flat, there really is not a reason to give this more than a cursory listen. It has a lot of interesting moments, but after one go-through you've had enough, and to even pick at it again for this review was a bit annoying. I wish Mister Gayle the best, but sticking to traditional instruments is the path he needs to remain on. Babanço Total is too much novelty, not enough substance. - Alyssa (http://www.deafsparrow.com)
(Chain D.L.K.) Until the day I heard this record, I considered myself quite far out in the musical world. But that was then - Now I know I have a long way to go, if I want to see just the horizon of where musical projects can bring you. On this record, Philip Gayle has put together compositions in the same overdubbing way as on his guitar based records, slicing up sounds and merging them together to form interesting combinations of new structures and textures. But one thing differs a lot from his past records: The guitars and string instruments are replaced by body sounds, gibberish speech, burps, snoring, sneezing and sounds on the fringe of what you can recall as vocals. All from his own body. Gayle has recorded body sounds for eight years, from 2000 till 2008, and put them together in both interesting and challenging ways, leaving most of the material in it's original form without processing, or any doubt about how the sounds are made or where they come from. Because the concrete sounds are so familiar to us as listeners, this record is a bit more challenging than other pieces of concrete music. It makes it harder to listen to the songs in a pure musical way, since your'e always reminded of the origin of the sound. That challenge is also why I like this record, it's a perfect test in so called acousmatic listening: Trying to listen to the acoustic parameters of the sound itself, and reject the associations we get to the source. I think John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer would appreciate this record, as it both challenge and extend their thoughts on what can be considered as musical elements or not. I'm not sure if Gayle think of this record as an attempt to widen the conception of what we can call musical sounds or not, but I needed to concentrate to hear the sounds itself, and not the sources. (A good example of that is the song merkin identity crisis, where the question appears: Is he jogging now, or is that the sound of an intercourse?). When it comes to the musical content, the record has a wide range of compositions and sound material, from deep growling drones and static darth vader breathing to chaotic, high pitched ''donald duck'' performances and heavily panned gibberish cacophonies. You don't feel anything is repeated unnecessary, or just placed there without a reason, it's just the content itself that makes everything, eh.. something else. This record is by far the weirdest record I've ever heard, and I'm glad to see that musical boundaries still can be moved, challenged and even broken, in a postmodern time we tend to think that nothing can surprise us anymore. This is pure madness, in it's most creative and inventive way. But I should still warn you - it is far, far out. - Eirik Havnes
(Babysue) We've reviewed all sorts and types of bands and artists over the years and yet...we've never heard anything quite like Babanco Total. To quote directly from the press release, "The entire album is made up of voice and body sounds all mixed together in the same type of overdubbing style as [Gayle's] instrumental albums." So the first thing we have to admit here is that...we're not quite sure how listenable this one is. But despite that, it sure is interesting. This is by no means a traditional noise as music type release created using synthesizers and digital effects. Philip records and layers body sounds in such a way that it is both peculiar and sometimes slightly distressing. We've always been somewhat depressed by the human body itself...so hearing all of these sounds presented in an audio collage is rather disturbing at times. This is one we will definitely keep...mainly to play for friends to see their reactions. This is easily one of the weirdest albums we've heard...ever. Is this garbage? Or is this art? You decide, dear listener. We're only the messengers this time... - lmnop
(The Pulse) Certainly one of the most unusual and flat-out insane albums of recent memory, Philip Gayle’s “Babanço Total” was created entirely from sounds that originated from his body—and it’s not an album for the squeamish. No noise is too awkward for Gayle, from gurgles and burps to blowing raspberries to the sound of swishing saliva around his mouth. It varies from being hilarious to causing discomfort, and it’s a bit like eavesdropping on someone working his way through some severe gastrointestinal issues. Gayle uses his voice frequently on the album, but it’s dramatically altered so that it has no semblance of normality. At times, he seems to be imitating Donald Duck, and on “Feral Basil Pesto,” he primarily uses nonsense vocal sounds, although a few distinguishable words actually slip through. “Stone Shoes” features exaggerated kissy-type noises, while “Falling Off Brain Like I Told Myselves” is a cacophony of sped-up voices, played in reverse—an appropriately disorienting track that seems to manifest the multiple personality disorder suggested by the title. For “Howdy Elephant Tree,” Gayle vocalizes with a vaguely Southern accent and is perhaps imitating the patterns of someone with mental deficiencies, for an extra dose of wrongness. This kind of body-focused sound creation is not unprecedented, and perhaps a sibling track is the 1970 piece “Our Song” by Ron Geesin and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, created for a documentary about anatomy. While “Our Song” was a concentrated burst, “Babanço Total” explores its unconventional sound-making for over an hour, making it difficult listening for all but the most hardy listeners. Although Gayle is clearly flaunting his eccentricities, the album isn’t just a pile of random sounds. There is some method to the song constructions and even harmonizing in places where one might not expect. I’m glad this album exists, although I may not be compelled to listen to it frequently, being completely bonkers, utterly awkward and unabashedly ridiculous. - Ernie Paik
(Monk Mink Pink Punk)A friend and talented guitarist, once from Houston, now based in New York City, Philip Gayle lays down his guitars and other stringed instruments for a very strange record of all vocal sounds. “Improvised bodily functions, etc.” claims the CD, these gurgles, gibberish, smacks, smucks, abstract crooning and all manner of other mouth sounds are processed and layered into whimsical pieces with equally whimsical titles. “esa peko peko pah.” “feral basil pesto.” “merkin identity crisis.” “Pajama Turtles” sounds like a Gegorian chant choir backing an Ewok freakout. The processing of sounds seems limited to leave most of the natural and unmistakable complexities of the voice. Gayle brings as much variety to his vocals as he has done in the past on his guitars. - Josh Ronsen
(Improvijazzation Nation) If improvised mayhem is what you’re after – Phillip has got it – in SPADES! Voice snippets embedded with various overdubs (on all 15 tracks) make for a truly novel/unique experience, especially on pieces like the opener, “sleep rain”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any sound samples on the net, so you’ll want to visit the LABEL page to get more information. I will say that the listener must be interested in experimental music, or they won’t find this attractive… in other words, if you’re expecting “straight ahead” jazz or blues, you won’t find it here. Another very attractive sonic adventure was the closer, “pajama turtles”… funny cartoon-like voices layered over a chorale make for a very deep 5:44 tune. I give Phillip a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED on this outing, with an “EQ” (energy quotient) rating of 4.96. - Rotcod Zzaj
Gentler readers, how to say it?—you might hear some eructation, emesis, lower-body peristaltic themes and variations. I don’t want to make too much of it, as “sounds from the bathroom” are a small percentage of the overall recording, but there are 3 or 4 tracks on which burp-ish, fart-ish, or puke-ish sounds may come to your attention. If you’re inclined to be irritated or upset by that sort of thing, there’s your fair warning. I can deal with it in the context of this music, though I must admit that my less mature side is quite amused by a mental image of this album being partially recorded at SugarHill Studios in Houston, the self-proclaimed “Abbey Road of the South.” I’ll bet these were surprising sessions for the engineers there!
Philip Gayle’s previous solo efforts have concentrated on layers of mostly stringed instruments overdubbed in what amounts to a kind of free-improv solitaire, focusing on textural and timbral aspects of sound design. I went back to his 2005 “The Mommy Row” album in search of context for “Babanço Total.” It’s a great record that alternates between sections of long-tone, mostly bowed drones punctuated with Asian-sounding percussion, and fast skittering acoustic strings playing lines that remind me of early Eugene Chadbourne. Some tracks like “Cow People” use a lot of liquid pouring/bubbling sounds that form a great timbral bridge between the two records. Both records are dense with overdubs, which remain fairly independent from one another rhythmically, proving that free improvisation can happen via overdubs instead of ensembles.
That’s not to say this music is created quickly or carelessly: in the case of “Babanço Total,” recording started in 2000 and wasn’t completed until 2008. The tracks flow freely within themselves, but there is a clear sense of prior deliberation toward framing out the boundaries and approaches unique to each piece. And postproduction plays a role in many pieces, like the tremolo-like rhythmic voice clusters undulating beneath most of “feral basil pesto,” with quick fade-up articulations before each iteration, or sped-up speech patterns comprising much of “falling off brain like i told myselves,” which pleasantly remind me of Renaldo & the Loaf. Even the potentially juvenile burping sounds tend to be used in unexpectedly “mature” ways, like those in “naked brunch” that essentially become long drones oscillating beneath scrapes, breaths, and almost horn-like quick sounds whose origin I can’t quite identify. “agnes unknown” uses long belchy sounds, too, but they’re more foreground than background on that track. Especially effective for me was the album’s closer, “pajama turtles,” which features long quasi-microtonal chorale overdubs on shifting vowel sounds, all supporting a frenetic sped-up sounding solo munchkin freakout. I really liked “feral basil pesto,” too, which for me evokes some kind of Muppets-meet-zombies aural opera.
The packaging for this disc deserves a mention, too: Houston artist and musician John Cramer’s work is featured in color on the front cover, and four more panels of his drawings are found inside. All depict creatures made of heads fused together in various ways, an eerily perfect visual analogue to the music found inside.
As mentioned earlier, this record is a one-time exploration for Gayle, whose plans for the immediate future are focusing on a guitar-based record. He also plays guitar and mandolin for more conventional acts, including a recent tour on guitar with singer/songwriter Ember Schrag. But he certainly brings a set of interesting ideas to the table with “Babanço Total,” and considering how few weirdovocal albums are released, let’s hope he returns to the form as time and inspiration allow. —Scott Scholz
What is the extent to which the human vocal process can be manipulated? How about the rest of our body? If you've heard beatbox masters like Vakhtang then you know, but for the most part in weirder music, the human voice has not really been exploited by itself. You can find early work by Hanatarash where voice was used for comedic effect, and even earlier in my home country, Futurists were trying to experiment with vocal sounds in order to create new forms. But, no one has really been successful, other than the beatboxers. They, however, are simply trying to manipulate various parts of the throat and mouth to sound like mechanical drums and DJ equipment. The idea is not to create new sounds as we find in this particular release. Utilizing voice for weirdness, or let us say 'noise', has been attempted by numerous artists. Guitarist Philip Gayle decided to make an attempt at vocal manipulation, and Babanço Total is the result. Unfortunately, it doesn't always result in something substantial.
The one excellent aspect of Babanço Total is the artwork, because it completely depicts what this album sounds like. It reminds one of the gibbering mouther from Dungeons and Dragons, and this is exactly what it would sound like if such a creature were more than a fantasy. Babanço Total is a 15-track attempt at utilizing the human body in inventive, chaotic means with little discernible patterning and very few mechanical means to do it (like effects). The opening track, "Sleep Rain", is a collection of weird hums and gargles, which is followed by "Say Hello to My Little Cowpaddy", which uses watery cheek pops, mumbles, and various tongue fluctuations. Mister Gayle, by this point in the listen, has done a good job manipulating his mouth to create sounds, and if you hear it through stereo speakers the experience is both unsettling and alluring. I was not provided with any sort of press release, but a quick search online reveals that the human body in most of its totality was used to create Babanço Total. Therefore, some of the sounds you will hear probably come from orifices and others result from slaps, presses, and strikes to various areas with lots of skin or fat, and probably mixed with spit and body fluids. You could take the moaning out of a porno and make a similar release.
That, however, sounds a lot more interesting than Babanço Total. Imagine a microwaved pastry that is cold when you get to the middle. At this point in the album, Philip has pretty much gone through every possible bodily emanation and vocal manipulation he could throw together. By the time you get to the final track, number fifteen "Pajama Turtles", it has gone much further than necessary. Though it features a variety of clever sounds, often hilarious combinations and numerous layers of bodily manipulations, Babanço Total starts to wear out its welcome and the time has come for it to head back home where it came from. If you jump from track four to track eleven, for example, they're practically the same thing. So, thus, one big problem is later tracks sound so similar to earlier ones that the diversity of sound is immediately shattered and true realization of the actual effectiveness of this approach is reached. That is, it's not very. The question then exits your mouth as human beings have always intended: "Did this really need to be almost 70 minutes long?" Philip Gayle seems to be an incredibly experienced musician, but Babanço Total is merely a brief experiment, even though it took over eight years to complete (?), and unless you like to have something "weird" to scare neighbors in the next flat, there really is not a reason to give this more than a cursory listen. It has a lot of interesting moments, but after one go-through you've had enough, and to even pick at it again for this review was a bit annoying. I wish Mister Gayle the best, but sticking to traditional instruments is the path he needs to remain on. Babanço Total is too much novelty, not enough substance. - Alyssa (http://www.deafsparrow.com)
(Chain D.L.K.) Until the day I heard this record, I considered myself quite far out in the musical world. But that was then - Now I know I have a long way to go, if I want to see just the horizon of where musical projects can bring you. On this record, Philip Gayle has put together compositions in the same overdubbing way as on his guitar based records, slicing up sounds and merging them together to form interesting combinations of new structures and textures. But one thing differs a lot from his past records: The guitars and string instruments are replaced by body sounds, gibberish speech, burps, snoring, sneezing and sounds on the fringe of what you can recall as vocals. All from his own body. Gayle has recorded body sounds for eight years, from 2000 till 2008, and put them together in both interesting and challenging ways, leaving most of the material in it's original form without processing, or any doubt about how the sounds are made or where they come from. Because the concrete sounds are so familiar to us as listeners, this record is a bit more challenging than other pieces of concrete music. It makes it harder to listen to the songs in a pure musical way, since your'e always reminded of the origin of the sound. That challenge is also why I like this record, it's a perfect test in so called acousmatic listening: Trying to listen to the acoustic parameters of the sound itself, and reject the associations we get to the source. I think John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer would appreciate this record, as it both challenge and extend their thoughts on what can be considered as musical elements or not. I'm not sure if Gayle think of this record as an attempt to widen the conception of what we can call musical sounds or not, but I needed to concentrate to hear the sounds itself, and not the sources. (A good example of that is the song merkin identity crisis, where the question appears: Is he jogging now, or is that the sound of an intercourse?). When it comes to the musical content, the record has a wide range of compositions and sound material, from deep growling drones and static darth vader breathing to chaotic, high pitched ''donald duck'' performances and heavily panned gibberish cacophonies. You don't feel anything is repeated unnecessary, or just placed there without a reason, it's just the content itself that makes everything, eh.. something else. This record is by far the weirdest record I've ever heard, and I'm glad to see that musical boundaries still can be moved, challenged and even broken, in a postmodern time we tend to think that nothing can surprise us anymore. This is pure madness, in it's most creative and inventive way. But I should still warn you - it is far, far out. - Eirik Havnes
(Babysue) We've reviewed all sorts and types of bands and artists over the years and yet...we've never heard anything quite like Babanco Total. To quote directly from the press release, "The entire album is made up of voice and body sounds all mixed together in the same type of overdubbing style as [Gayle's] instrumental albums." So the first thing we have to admit here is that...we're not quite sure how listenable this one is. But despite that, it sure is interesting. This is by no means a traditional noise as music type release created using synthesizers and digital effects. Philip records and layers body sounds in such a way that it is both peculiar and sometimes slightly distressing. We've always been somewhat depressed by the human body itself...so hearing all of these sounds presented in an audio collage is rather disturbing at times. This is one we will definitely keep...mainly to play for friends to see their reactions. This is easily one of the weirdest albums we've heard...ever. Is this garbage? Or is this art? You decide, dear listener. We're only the messengers this time... - lmnop
(The Pulse) Certainly one of the most unusual and flat-out insane albums of recent memory, Philip Gayle’s “Babanço Total” was created entirely from sounds that originated from his body—and it’s not an album for the squeamish. No noise is too awkward for Gayle, from gurgles and burps to blowing raspberries to the sound of swishing saliva around his mouth. It varies from being hilarious to causing discomfort, and it’s a bit like eavesdropping on someone working his way through some severe gastrointestinal issues. Gayle uses his voice frequently on the album, but it’s dramatically altered so that it has no semblance of normality. At times, he seems to be imitating Donald Duck, and on “Feral Basil Pesto,” he primarily uses nonsense vocal sounds, although a few distinguishable words actually slip through. “Stone Shoes” features exaggerated kissy-type noises, while “Falling Off Brain Like I Told Myselves” is a cacophony of sped-up voices, played in reverse—an appropriately disorienting track that seems to manifest the multiple personality disorder suggested by the title. For “Howdy Elephant Tree,” Gayle vocalizes with a vaguely Southern accent and is perhaps imitating the patterns of someone with mental deficiencies, for an extra dose of wrongness. This kind of body-focused sound creation is not unprecedented, and perhaps a sibling track is the 1970 piece “Our Song” by Ron Geesin and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, created for a documentary about anatomy. While “Our Song” was a concentrated burst, “Babanço Total” explores its unconventional sound-making for over an hour, making it difficult listening for all but the most hardy listeners. Although Gayle is clearly flaunting his eccentricities, the album isn’t just a pile of random sounds. There is some method to the song constructions and even harmonizing in places where one might not expect. I’m glad this album exists, although I may not be compelled to listen to it frequently, being completely bonkers, utterly awkward and unabashedly ridiculous. - Ernie Paik
(Monk Mink Pink Punk)A friend and talented guitarist, once from Houston, now based in New York City, Philip Gayle lays down his guitars and other stringed instruments for a very strange record of all vocal sounds. “Improvised bodily functions, etc.” claims the CD, these gurgles, gibberish, smacks, smucks, abstract crooning and all manner of other mouth sounds are processed and layered into whimsical pieces with equally whimsical titles. “esa peko peko pah.” “feral basil pesto.” “merkin identity crisis.” “Pajama Turtles” sounds like a Gegorian chant choir backing an Ewok freakout. The processing of sounds seems limited to leave most of the natural and unmistakable complexities of the voice. Gayle brings as much variety to his vocals as he has done in the past on his guitars. - Josh Ronsen
(Improvijazzation Nation) If improvised mayhem is what you’re after – Phillip has got it – in SPADES! Voice snippets embedded with various overdubs (on all 15 tracks) make for a truly novel/unique experience, especially on pieces like the opener, “sleep rain”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any sound samples on the net, so you’ll want to visit the LABEL page to get more information. I will say that the listener must be interested in experimental music, or they won’t find this attractive… in other words, if you’re expecting “straight ahead” jazz or blues, you won’t find it here. Another very attractive sonic adventure was the closer, “pajama turtles”… funny cartoon-like voices layered over a chorale make for a very deep 5:44 tune. I give Phillip a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED on this outing, with an “EQ” (energy quotient) rating of 4.96. - Rotcod Zzaj
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar