Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[JES]

He’s good but he isn’t Jamaaladeen Tacuma good as far as truly original playing on electric bass…. does this make any sense towards what i’m questioning myself about?

Don't know him, can you recommend some records? Looks like he's got a lot on bandcamp -- it sounds interesting.

Mononeon

Ditto--can you recommend something?

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

@JES
For the invitation to MTL it would be a freakin blast to go up and hang, all in

Most of the Tacuma I’ve heard was with Ornette, I forget the albums names.
For his solo stuff Live in Koln is absolutely nuts.

Mono, sorry can’t recommend.
Monster player but nothing he did solo “clicked” with me. sorta gimmick pfunk stuff I don’t like.
Even with that being said I have a HUGE amount of respect for Mono for being true to his “thing”. I have zero bad things to say about him. Plus he seems like an authentic nice guy to boot.

 

[lucas303]

Ditto--can you recommend something?

I'm no Mononeon expert, and I don't sit around listening to his stuff all the time, but I dig his overall philosophy and I can totally get into something like this:

 

[lucas303]

I'm not even sure this can be called sampling, but I guess I'm doing a bit of that with this...

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

@JES
Thanks for the tribute

keep that music going my friend, like Dilla said “Workinonit”

 

[JES]

Thanks @lucas303 and @ugly.

I checked out Mononeon this morning, and my opinion so far is close to @ugly's. I haven't heard anything that does anything for me musically, but he is obviously brilliant on a couple levels and someone I am very glad exists.

Tacuma is next.

My big discovery last night was Eloh. I have taken to listening to droning stuff while I go to sleep. Really digging it.

 

[Starthief]

New release



Drone/dark ambient imrpov with Eurorack, Miezo, software.

 

[lucas303]

Thanks @lucas303 and @ugly.

I checked out Mononeon this morning, and my opinion so far is close to @ugly's. I haven't heard anything that does anything for me musically, but he is obviously brilliant on a couple levels and someone I am very glad exists.

Tacuma is next.

My big discovery last night was Eloh. I have taken to listening to droning stuff while I go to sleep. Really digging it.

I find this annoying:

"Incorporating tones well below the range of human hearing Eleh is as much of a physical experience as it is an audible one."

Okay, so if there are tones "well below the range of human hearing" we're talking below 20 Hz, and virtually no one other than the REALLY serious home theater people have systems capable of playing back those tones at any meaningful volume (and even the home theater nerds more often use specialized things installed to physically vibrate the person's seat in a dedicated home theater space for frequencies that low). I have a pretty decent stereo (certainly well above the level of what the majority of the population has), and I'm not putting out much--if any--meaningful volume below 20 Hz. So how in the world is anyone getting a "physical experience" from these magical "tones well below the range of human hearing"?? I'm calling BS, and it immediately puts me off to this artist.

Obviously this isn't a knock against you, @JES

 

[Bob_Ross]

View attachment 4862463

is that the Arp 2600 copy?

I was going to ask whether that's the Korg, or the Behringer ...but either way, I'm curious how you like it? I'm an old 2600 fan from way back in the day, did a ton of work on a 2600 (and a 2500) during my undergrad days, and have seriously considered getting one of these new clones just to satisfy that jones.

 

[Bob_Ross]

re: Jamaaladeen Tacuma, I would suggest -- I almost said "recommend" but I realize I have some equivocation about that word here -- Dancing In Your Head and Of Human Feelings for an intro to his work with Ornette Coleman, and also Showstopper and Renaissance Man for an intro to his solo albums.

My equivocation comes from the fact that while I recognize the uniqueness and strength of Tacuma's vision, as well as the sheer facility of his playing/technique, there are a number of aspects of his recorded output that I find come up short; specifically, tone, time, and compositional breadth. His artistic vision is a fascinating and provocative ideal, but I feel like the execution doesn't always match the aspiration.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Saw the Mononeon vid about his new bass and he mentions being influenced by John Cage, Stockhausen and Milton Babbitt.
Are there any recordings of him playing in that “vein” cuz I dont hear it personally.

Wow. I haven't listened to very much Mononeon at all, but if I'd seen that quote I would have investigated a lot closer! Certainly nothing I've heard by him suggests any of those composers...and everything I have heard by him suggests that he's either A) only referring to their works in a grossly over-arching "surface texture" sense -- i.e., the 10,000-foot-view -- or B) that he's just shamelessly name-dropping

Not that there's anything wrong with that

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

26950459[/URL], member: 234523"]re: Jamaaladeen Tacuma, I would suggest -- I almost said "recommend" but I realize I have some equivocation about that word here -- Dancing In Your Head and Of Human Feelings for an intro to his work with Ornette Coleman, and also Showstopper and Renaissance Man for an intro to his solo albums.

My equivocation comes from the fact that while I recognize the uniqueness and strength of Tacuma's vision, as well as the sheer facility of his playing/technique, there are a number of aspects of his recorded output that I find come up short; specifically, tone, time, and compositional breadth. His artistic vision is a fascinating and provocative ideal, but I feel like the execution doesn't always match the aspiration.

exactly my thoughts on Jamaaladeen, #1 reason i have great respect but yet i practically never listen to his solo works.
Also the overall esthetic is , how do we say this, ah yes cheesy as $&*’jhf

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

26950473[/URL], member: 234523"]Wow. I haven't listened to very much Mononeon at all, but if I'd seen that quote I would have investigated a lot closer! Certainly nothing I've heard by him suggests any of those composers...and everything I have heard by him suggests that he's either A) only referring to their works in a grossly over-arching "surface texture" sense -- i.e., the 10,000-foot-view -- or B) that he's just shamelessly name-dropping

Not that there's anything wrong with that

dont get you hopes up, you wont hear Cage in Mono’s playing thats for sure.
that’s not a bad thing
but if i where to name drop some people, why not some that are known to a broader audience than de 12 people than listen to Milton B every week.


with all that said, again I say major props to Mono, he’s definitely a breath a fresh air with an undeniable talent

@Bob_Ross
maybe check out his microtonal stuff with David Fuze on guitar, definitly an interesting listen

 

[hieronymous]

re: Jamaaladeen Tacuma, I would suggest -- I almost said "recommend" but I realize I have some equivocation about that word here -- Dancing In Your Head and Of Human Feelings for an intro to his work with Ornette Coleman, and also Showstopper and Renaissance Man for an intro to his solo albums.

My equivocation comes from the fact that while I recognize the uniqueness and strength of Tacuma's vision, as well as the sheer facility of his playing/technique, there are a number of aspects of his recorded output that I find come up short; specifically, tone, time, and compositional breadth. His artistic vision is a fascinating and provocative ideal, but I feel like the execution doesn't always match the aspiration.

My favorite Jamaaladeen Tacuma performance is Mirakle, with Derek Bailey and Calvin Weston. It's hard to find online though!

 

[steubig]

lots of things to unpack here.

that ring mod guy . . . "noise," eh, lost me right there.

mononeon, my take: i like him better than a lot of the young hotshots one sees around. his manifesto is kinda cool and i agree with a lot of it. apparently a cool guy (i think @emjazz knew him at berklee?). a lot of chops with more open ears than a lot of folks. name-dropping cage, et al. sometimes is more about people that have made you change your thinking rather than people whose work you're incorporating—and if some kids investigate that stuff because he said it, the better for it. (think of zappa and varese and all the kids who got turned on to edgar—and a least mononeon isn't lifting wholesale section of other people's work). afaik, he's a young guy, so it'll be interesting to see where he goes from where he is. there are plenty of people who started out interesting and then became caricatures of themselves.

jamaaladeen: saw him back in the 80s fronting his own band and didn't like it at all. personally, i thought there wasn't much there—a lot of three-note chromatic patterns moving up and down the neck. meh. saw him three (?) years ago and was impressed. he definitely kicked ass—very strong, played ideas, not just patterns. he was a sideman and didn't have to be the frontman. talked to him, among other things, about a guy we'd both played with. seemed like a very cool guy. i'm jealous of his fashion sense and ability to pull it off.

 

[steubig]

I was going to ask whether that's the Korg, or the Behringer ...but either way, I'm curious how you like it? I'm an old 2600 fan from way back in the day, did a ton of work on a 2600 (and a 2500) during my undergrad days, and have seriously considered getting one of these new clones just to satisfy that jones.

looked like the behringer logo to me

 

[steubig]

. I'm hoping to bring them to my university sometime. If it works out, I will let you know and you can come on over and hang out too. Also, that is an Arp copy, but I don't know which one.

I've had a bit of f***er of a couple weeks. So I gave in to my impulses and ordered an Implexus after all the FM experimentation, which arrived today. The idea behind the synth is something a "west coast" but with a good filter, and that's what it is. It's really well built. Like really well built. And mostly very well designed except for a couple odd choices, like balanced outputs that are not shielded from phantom power (so you can't plug it into any mixer with global phantom power and need to use TRS to TS cables in most situations), and no modulatable FM index. But...the sound. It can do really nice mono synth stuff, but all the harmonics generation and wavefolding and FMing and audio rate LFOs allowed for some rather intense sounds.

This isn't composed or even really improvised with any proper intension or lack of intention, it's just a few clips from me trying to make it freak out on the drone setting with no sequencer or CV input (though I did plug one of the oscillators into the filter modulation input just to enjoy the audio rate modulation of cutoff). I'll get back to my wannabe Cortini stuff soon enough. Consider this my tribute to @ugly.

sounds cool. i looked it up after your first mention. those do seem to be odd design choices.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

lots of things to unpack here.

that ring mod guy . . . "noise," eh, lost me right there.

mononeon, my take: i like him better than a lot of the young hotshots one sees around. his manifesto is kinda cool and i agree with a lot of it. apparently a cool guy (i think @emjazz knew him at berklee?). a lot of chops with more open ears than a lot of folks. name-dropping cage, et al. sometimes is more about people that have made you change your thinking rather than people whose work you're incorporating—and if some kids investigate that stuff because he said it, the better for it. (think of zappa and varese and all the kids who got turned on the edgar—and a least mononeon isn't lifting wholesale section of other people's work). afaik, he's a young guy, so it'll be interesting to see where he goes from where he is. there are plenty of people who started out interesting and hen became caricatures of themselves.

jamaaladeen: saw him back in the 80s fronting his own band and didn't like it at all. personally, i thought there wasn't much there—a lot of three-note chromatic patterns moving up and down the neck. meh. saw him three (?) years ago and was impressed. he definitely kicked ass—very strong, played ideas, not just patterns. he was a sideman and didn't have to be the frontman. talked to him, among other things, about a guy we'd both played with. seemed like a very cool guy. i'm jealous of his fashion sense and ability to pull it off.

Re: influences
Agreed, lots of records/artists made me reconsider what music actually was and floored me.
But you definitely can’t hear them incorporated in my playing.

 

[steubig]

My equivocation comes from the fact that while I recognize the uniqueness and strength of Tacuma's vision, as well as the sheer facility of his playing/technique, there are a number of aspects of his recorded output that I find come up short; specifically, tone, time, and compositional breadth. His artistic vision is a fascinating and provocative ideal, but I feel like the execution doesn't always match the aspiration.

i’m interested in this quote.

you highlight his “facility,” but say his time and execution are lacking. to me that gets directly to facility.

(disclosure: i was not impressed by his technical abilities back in the day.)

 

[bassbrad]

I was going to ask whether that's the Korg, or the Behringer ...but either way, I'm curious how you like it? I'm an old 2600 fan from way back in the day, did a ton of work on a 2600 (and a 2500) during my undergrad days, and have seriously considered getting one of these new clones just to satisfy that jones.

& @ugly_bassplayer
It is the Behringer 2600 and it feels very solid and well built. The sliders, jacks and switches all have a proper feel to them and the LEDs look great. I have used Arp 2600 in the past as well as owned an ARP Odyssey for decades but this will be our own to explore, luckily my wife is also interested in electronic music.