Play Backs

by Brian OlewnickIn the mid-'90s, Derek Bailey mentioned that he had gotten into the habit of practicing guitar while listening to a pirate drum'n'bass radio station. Soon thereafter, John Zorn induced him to record a series of improvisations against a drum'n'bass backdrop, resulting in the Guitar, Drum 'n' Bass recording on Avant. Perhaps due to the thinness of the backing tracks, that album suffered somewhat from a shallowness of sound. By offering a wide and imaginative array of collaborators, producer Sasha Frere-Jones has also cast Bailey against prerecorded sounds largely from the drum'n'bass genre, but with richer results. One often gets the impression that it really doesn't matter to Bailey if his sonic partners, live or on tape, aren't particularly able. If not, he seems to simply use the sounds as "white noise" against which to improvise in his customarily unique and incisive way. So if a given drum'n'bass track is routine, or if ex-Captain Beefheart drummer John French's work is a bit stolid, no matter -- it's sound material to work with. All the better, then, when the collaborator gives Bailey some real meat to work with as is the case here with Darryl Moore, Burmese percussionist Ko Thein Htay, and Frere-Jones himself. Interestingly, the two standout tracks are the ones that break this mold. "J.O. Complete," by plunderphonics master John Oswald, overlays numerous samples of Bailey into a shimmering tapestry, so effective that Bailey declined to enhance it further. The final cut, a small masterpiece, features somber, bluesy guitar drones by Jim O'Rourke and Loren Mazzacane Connors over which Bailey delivers a wonderfully droll verbal account of his lifelong fascination with the name "George." Priceless.