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Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

#6,481
steubig said:
things like b phillips mountainscapes, that circle record, arc, conference of the birds are all pretty high energy. same with that even parker stuff. the reich and adams stuff doesn’t feel super reverby to me from memory.
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They could have recorded Conference of the Birds with a patato and would still be an all time classic.

Braxton and Rivers on the same album......yes please!
 
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#6,482
Bob_Ross said:
re: ECM

On more than one occasion I've heard musicians who are on ECM releases say that the actual performances on those tracks are incendiary and in-your-face...but that Manfred Eicher's whole aesthetic compels him to "tame" them in the mixing stage. Some of his Make This Mix Polite technique comes down to just levels management and timbre control, and some of it comes from, you guessed it, bathing everything in that luscious haze of reverb.

It's an intriguing idea. Personally it doesn't bother me; I like a lot of ECM stuff as is. But I can also imagine listening to the raw/dry tracks of things like Art Ensemble's Urban Bushmen or Frisell's Rambler and having my face ripped off. (In a good way.)

I think my favorite ECM artist might be Terje Rypdal. But I'll give pretty much anything with Jon Christensen on drums a listen.
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I love ECM, it turned me on to a lot of musicians I would have never heard, before, including Terje Rypdal. Then again, I love washy, reverby stuff, so that's probably why I like the label so much.

I wonder if this is a more recent thing, though. There ain't nothing tame at all about David Torn's Cloud About Mercury album (with Levin, Bruford, and Isham) - that album has some serious balls in parts, and those first Pat Metheny Group albums were nice and clear,as was Bright Size Life. Granted, there's nothing gritty about PMG, but I've always liked the clarity of those first two albums of theirs on ECM, the ones with Mark Egan on bass, who still gives me a musical woody when I hear his playing on those two, as I love that gooey creamy fretless tone that people either seem to love or hate. I just can't believe he was getting those sounds out of a P bass.
 
#6,483
lordradish said:
I love ECM, it turned me on to a lot of musicians I would have never heard, before, including Terje Rypdal. Then again, I love washy, reverby stuff, so that's probably why I like the label so much.

I wonder if this is a more recent thing, though. There ain't nothing tame at all about David Torn's Cloud About Mercury album (with Levin, Bruford, and Isham) - that album has some serious balls in parts, and those first Pat Metheny Group albums were nice and clear,as was Bright Size Life. Granted, there's nothing gritty about PMG, but I've always liked the clarity of those first two albums of theirs on ECM, the ones with Mark Egan on bass, who still gives me a musical woody when I hear his playing on those two, as I love that gooey creamy fretless tone that people either seem to love or hate. I just can't believe he was getting those sounds out of a P bass.
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so a (eh, not so) brief pmg/mark egan story.

i was on the road and we rolled into boston. we started tuesday, so this maybe sunday?
probably 1977 or so?

anywho, metheny is playing jazz workshop, which was the smaller (iirc) of two clubs next to each other. the pmg group was doing their first tour, i had already heard bright size life.

so we go chat them up. (they sounded great, btw; not sorta wimpy like i felt they got later.)

egan is playing a fretless p with a j pickup in the rear. i’m talking to him about it. mark. “yeah, this jaco guy put it together for me.” me: “yeah, i know who he is.” okay, i think that’s funny.

later, metheny turns to us and says, “hey, you should go see this band that’s playing before muddy waters next door (paul’s mall). they’re called the dixie dregs and they’re amazing.”

they were. steve morse did a duo with ron m where he played his guitar/360 systems (i think) setup that was mind-boggling. like guitar orchestra stuff. really inspiring.

years later i ran into andy west at one of those bass player ljve things. i told him i had seen this gig. he said something like, “i’m glad someone was there cause i was afraid i dreamed it.”
 
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#6,486
monsterthompson said:
Had something going with a patch on the Medusa. I tried recording it to share, but finding things to “adjust.” The result was that it all fell apart. :(
Never quite got the magic back. Such is patching. Back at it tomorrow.
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I get musical ideas when I'm in the shower. By the time I towel off, get dressed, and get to the music gear often it's gone, like how you forget a vivid dream after waking up to brush your teeth.
 
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#6,487
Very underrated album in the ecm catalog, also one of my favs.

Holland,(steve) Coleman, Dejohnette.

Triplicate.jpg
 
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