A New York Minute

Alan Licht, veteran of many bands and scenes, here treads onto experimental collage and looping ground. Pieces assembled from tapes rest easily aside pieces militantly proclaimed “no overdubs”. Seemingly one-idea tracks take on multiple levels on closer inspection. Patience is rewarded on both of the second CD’s half-hour-plus tracks.

CD 1
1. A collage (more assembled than cut-up) of minute-long radio weather reports from a NY station in January 2001; one funny detail is how the reports feature teletype machine sounds in the background when it’s highly probable that no teletypes are used; maybe my mind is just imagining this, which in itself would be remarkable; another interesting thing is that the reports are of basically the same info (though slowly mutating) but presented differently – a spoken take on pieces that appear to repeat but in actuality, gradually mutate; a bit of subway station ambiance is suffixed
2. Multitracked guitars, that through the magic of electronics, sound like melodicas or harmoniums; about halfway through, the sound changes to looped guitar figures and eventually, bass also comes in; hypnotizing
3. Crickets, loop flutes, stoopid guitar and drums loop, and to ice this sonic cake, chants of Ali’s name
4. Multitracked organ drone

CD 2
1. A half-hour of tense guitar trilling resolved by a few minutes of cathartic, melodic picking layered on top of same guitar trill; patience is the watchword
2. Starts very quietly – the Marantz CD players may elide the 3-4 minutes of low level sound away – then a slow buildup to a Fahey-esque delicately picked out melodies alongside somewhat more guttural rhythmic strums; this eventually fades and then the motif returns but with a much more nasty fuzzed bassline juxtaposed to the delicate fingerpicked melody; again, patience is the word as this piece lasts some 35+ minutes