jetforcex said:
Tracklist?!?! This bad boy still isn't on CDBaby yet. Would that "growling monster" by any chance be "Helios"?
Thanks for the impressions!
Soliloquy tracklist:
1. Helios
2. Excuse Me, Mr. Manring
3. Solipsism
4. I Left America
5. Greetings, Earthlings!
6. Makes Perfect Sense to Me
7. The Light Which Puts out Our Eyes
8. A Morning Star (for Matt and Al)
9. Selene (live)
10. Dabuda's Memory
11. When We Were Asleep in the Earth
12. The Orffyreus Wheel
13. Insomnia Lessons
14. Come with Me, My Love
It's a very long CD!
Here are just some nascent impressions. Since there's no nomenclature to the different techniques that Michael does, I have trouble explaining different things.
The growling monster track is number 6. It turns into this squirming pointillistic piece. Interesting!
"I Left America" and "Come With Me, My Love" are the tear jerkers--really beautiful. The latter weaves lower and upper melodies, dove-tailing them, until your expectations of typical Manring-style solo bass melodicism is pretty smashed. You don't know what to follow, so you let down your analytical guard and listen without trying to interpret technique. In fact, despite the technical virtuosity, the album very much stands on its own as wonderful music. I've always thought that of Manring. He's one of the only players who, instead of wrestling the bass to create music, seem to divine the music from somewhere else and let it grace the fretboard.
"Helios" is a jaw-dropper--a percussive show-stopper. Very rhythmic. Manring is playing extra high notes against his pickups now, adding them into the fray of notes. Almost like snare rimshots or saxophone peeps.
"Excuse Me, Mr. Manring" is a little like "Monkey Businessman" in that it alternates between funky rhythms and melodic choruses. It's one of my favorites on the disk...very dynamic.
"Greetings, Earthlings" is a song that is propelled largely by the Manring-tapping style, but it gets really, really weird in the middle. It ends very diatonic and beautiful with lush harmonic chords, but the final chord is atonal and shocking.
When I first heard "Dabuda's Memory" I wasn't that affected, but now on repeated listenings, I'm really moved by it. The main rhythm reminds me of Hedges, it's really...I don't know...mystical ...sounding. It's mainly done through tapping. But it's so complex. It's sort of arranged in the way Bach would arrange a piece. I don't know why, but I make that connection.
"When We Were Asleep in the Earth" is a short piece where Michael beats on his bass and the strings sympathetically ring out. The transducers in his Hyperbass pick up the rhythm. It's...well...earthy. It reminds me of something kicking in hibernation. Maybe a baby's heartbeat and kicking in the womb.
"The Orffyreus Wheel" feels mysterious. Lots of tapping, but it slows down and is dynamic, too. This is one of my favorite pieces. There's a part where he Ebow's a melody while using the available fingers left to strum out a rhythm. It sounds amazing. This is a piece that I'll be studying for a long time. There is a lot of shifting tonality, keys are blurred, not as primitive as Wagner, but more subtle like Mahler. This is as fine a bass piece as you'll likely encounter.
"Insomnia Lessons" is a fretted piece done in standard tuning (I think). I love the contrast between the fretless and fretted pieces. This one has some crazy lower rhythms with complex chords strummed above; I don't know how he manages to do this with so little real estate available. Great song.
