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- Kevin Drumm/Jason Lescalleet - Busman's Holiday (lossless)
Kevin Drumm/Jason Lescalleet - Busman's Holiday (lossless)
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Erstwhile 078
"This album is a meditation on the inner mental environments that one encounters and endures during times of work-related travel. The music contained herein should be well suited for headphone distraction in airports, bus stations, train stations, subway terminals, and in the confines of the seats related to these methods of mass transportation." (Kevin Drumm / Jason Lescalleet)
For CD format, go to this page.
Erstwhile 078
"This album is a meditation on the inner mental environments that one encounters and endures during times of work-related travel. The music contained herein should be well suited for headphone distraction in airports, bus stations, train stations, subway terminals, and in the confines of the seats related to these methods of mass transportation." (Kevin Drumm / Jason Lescalleet)
For CD format, go to this page.
TRACK LIST
1. The Hunt (8:08) 2. Powerless (7:27) 3. The Wait (11:11) 4. The Push (9:34) 5. Belligerence (7:27) 6. Honest Toil (8:08) (released November 2, 2015) CREDITS
Busman's Holiday was recorded, edited and mixed by Kevin Drumm and Jason Lescalleet at Dynamic Voltage in Chicago, IL and Glistening Labs in Berwick, ME from February 19 - October 3, 2015 mastered by Jason Lescalleet at Glistening Labs This album is a meditation on the inner mental environments that one encounters and endures during times of work-related travel. The music contained herein should be well suited for headphone distraction in airports, bus stations, train stations, subway terminals, and in the confines of the seats related to these methods of mass transportation. |
REVIEWS
Bill Meyer, Dusted The term “abstract” is often applied to the sort of music that Kevin Drumm and Jason Lescalleet make. And while it’s fair to acknowledge that it is challenging stuff, free of melody and hooks, the duo take pains to dispel such a notion right up front. The title suggests the inescapability of work, and the liner notes declare: “This album is a meditation on the inner mental environments that one encounters and endures during times of work-related travel.” The first sounds you hear are the echoing footsteps of Walker, the character played by Lee Marvin in the movie Point Blank. All Walker wanted was what was coming to him, neither more nor a penny less. The point could not be more concrete — this is a work about work. Of course, its intentional deployment of non-instrumental and appropriated sounds like footsteps and movie music mark this work as another variety of concrete — musique concrete. Either way, we’re dealing with the hard stuff, and there are points on Busman’s Holiday where Drumm and Lescalleet swing with their sounds as brutally as Walker did with his hands. The high frequencies they unleash in Walker’s wake on “The Hunt” could put a body down, and the roars that follow roar like a field full of WW II bomber engines, low and throaty and dyssynchronous. But that’s where they hook you, too, because the blare is as involving as it is assaultive. Rather than erect a drab sonic monolith, Drumm and Lescalleet make their sounds coil and flex like billows of black toxic cloud. But let’s not get distracted here. How functional is this stuff? After all, the aforementioned notes go on to claim, “The music contained herein should be well suited for headphone distraction in airports, bus stations, train stations, subway terminals, and in the confines of the seats related to these methods of mass transportation.” Crank the ceaselessly varied grind of “Powerless” and you will feel zapped, listless, ready to be lulled into the long, quiet fade of “The Wait.” If you need validation or soothing, Lescalleet and Drumm have your back; you could even say that they’re working for you. But they’re not going to leave you drifting. Whatever you think about it, at the end of the trip, you still have to work, and the jackhammer-and-drill sonorities embedded in “Honest Toil” acknowledge that whatever the length of your commute, it’s still just a prologue to the job you have to do. Simon Chandler, Tiny Mix tapes Much like the infinite Abyss that came before it, Busman’s Holiday makes a mockery of its listener. With at least as much brutality, it defies us to find a semblance of meaning in its blinding cataracts of noise, to find any remnant or trace of the very things — identity, self, narrative, community, validation — that we usually go to music to find. Rather than pander to our expectations, it drowns us in their refutation, in an unrelenting gush of digital terrorism and ambient nihilism that doesn’t simply disabuse us of former illusions, but exposes the abuse they’ve rendered to us by embodying their inverted, mirror image. In fact, “listener” is a term Busman’s Holiday might not indulge or recognize. More focused and streamlined than the monumental Abyss, the album nonetheless witnesses a Kevin Drumm and Jason Lescalleet who’ve almost perfectly synergized the art of subjecting their audience to their sound, rather than allowing their sound to be subjected to their audience. Massive, unyielding tirades like “The Hunt” seem expressly designed to frustrate integration into a human scheme of things, what with their tireless streams of radiator buzzing that go on and on, hardly ever amenable to concepts of form, structure, harmony, and melody, not to mention time and space. But in eschewing quaint notions of time and space, such immutable and violent drones as “Powerless” also eschew quaint notions of human freedom and autonomy. The disquieting constancy of its organs refuse the “listener” the kind of articulations, progressions, and modulations we ordinarily want from our music. In so doing, they refuse us the delusional confirmation that pop music so profitably gifts the world, the naive impression that, because the choruses and crescendos of our favorite songs follow our wishes and expectations, we are somehow in control of them. Well, in “The Wait” and “Belligerence,” there is no control, only the horrible conviction of impotence and incomprehension. Their streams of heavy air, incidental echoes, and ominous churning deprive us of any definite marker or cue that would give us a foothold in their suspended bottomless pits, that would enable us to improvise, not just a particular sense of our own direction and movement, but the reassurance that such things as direction and movement exist in life. Yet more than withdrawing the role music often plays in reassuring us about such things, they and their total abandon undermine the idea that music reassures us about anything at all. In their turbulent static, there’s only the volatile yet unwavering sound of electrical disturbance, the rootless din of everything being swept away at once, including the idea that music is an escape that grants our hopes and dreams vital relief. Instead, in ridiculing the popular myth that music is a holiday for our tired ears, the formless turmoil of Busman’s Holiday reiterates the disturbing possibility that it signifies nothing whatsoever, that it has become some kind of nightmarish Derridean supplement, effacing the very life it’s meant to signify. Joshua Minsoo Kim, Tone Glow Busman's Holiday opens with audio taken from an iconic scene in John Boorman's Point Blank. Walker, played by Lee Marvin, has just been betrayed and left for dead by his accomplice Reese and his wife Lynne. Having survived the incident, he makes his way to Los Angeles with the intention of getting revenge. As the scene plays out, Walker's footsteps reverberate loudly, juxtaposing the calmness of Lynne's morning routine. Interestingly, these footsteps continue and become non-diegetic sound for images of Walker himself. It's effective as a means to build tension but also as a way to establish the unwavering one-track mind that defines Walker throughout the film. As a result, there seems no better way to start off Busman's Holiday. This record definitely sounds like the collaborative work of Kevin Drumm and Jason Lescalleet but it's even more uniform in style and mood than The Abyss. It's a bit surprising considering the variety of sounds that both Drumm and Lescalleet have explored within the past year, let alone their entire careers, but these six tracks are far more potent for it. The result is a cohesive and ultimately better album, and Busman's Holiday ends up being an incredibly strong statement for both of these highly accomplished artists. When the footsteps and film soundtrack that introduce the album cease, "The Hunt" explodes into electrifying noise. The reason this piece feels so powerful is the perceptible movement of these sounds in the mix. In albums like Purge, Sheer Hellish Miasma, and The Pilgrim, passages of harsh noise feel domineering because of their huge monolithic presence. Numerous components may contribute to an overall structure but the main effect is less a frenetic assault on the senses (as with the second track on Land of Lurches) and more an all-encompassing wall of sound that completely envelops the listener. From its moment of impact, "The Hunt" does very much the same thing. The general shape of its screeches and howls keeps the listener trapped inside but what makes the track particularly oppressive is its refusal to stay motionless. These buzzing drones move around the listener at a moderately slow pace, circling them like prey, and it adds greatly to the piece's ominous ambiance. There are approximately ten seconds of silence before "The Hunt" ends and "Powerless" begins. Those ten seconds act as a chance to catch one's breath, and when the piece starts with a loud tone, one may assume that it'll rupture into something as equally raucous as the last track. But what starts shrill soon crumbles through fuzzy noise and into a static drone. The album's liner notes state that the record is "a meditation on the inner mental environments that one encounters and endures during times of work-related travel." I've consequently listened to this album numerous times while driving to work and "Powerless" has felt particularly effective in accomplishing that feeling. Through my car stereo, the smears of high-pitched tones overhead are the primary sounds that catch my ear. Aside from adding textural interest, they act to stimulate and direct my attention towards the stillness of the drone and the repetitive mechanical rhythms heard underneath. In turn, this makes me aware of the blankness of my thoughts during these periods of travel. It's something that presumably occurs as a way to distract myself from the banality of such an everyday event as well as the equally familiar workday that's to follow. Before long. the song gradually builds into something comfortably noisy and it slowly ushers me back into that empty state of mind. "The Wait" bears a similar structure to "Powerless"—it first descends into a dark pit before clawing its way back out. It's the longest track on Busman's Holiday but its length feels justified as it allows the listener to feel the physicality of its rattling machines. Here, the clatter is at the forefront while the subtly shifting drones are in the service of accentuating its deep reverberations. This relationship is key as it magnifies how eerie these noises actually are. It's comparable to "Asking for the Initial Thing" from the eighth edition of This Is What I Do but more dynamic, nuanced, and dramatic. As a result, when the piece ends with a more prominent drone, it feels like a natural extension of the mood evoked by what came beforehand. This eventually leads into "The Push", a track whose title presumably refers to the perceived stasis of the cacophony here. The piece consists of three large blocks of noise, the first of which is the longest and highest-pitched. This section also evolves the most elegantly; it's difficult to pinpoint the exact development of these noises unless one hears the beginning and end of this passage right after one another. The following sections are just as noisy but their individual components are "livelier" and less homogeneous. The sequencing here is important and it, along with other factors—the general sounds used in each part of the song, the decision to have complete silence before the final passage, the relative lengths of these three sections—all contribute to the effectiveness of the piece as a whole. "Belligerence" comes next and it's most interesting for its spontaneity. While not exactly high-energy, there's a fierce unpredictability to how this piece progresses and it grants the song some intensity. Near the beginning of the track, a high frequency tone appears unopposed and it pierces the ear. Considering the sound palette of the previous tracks and the general density of their structures, it feels particularly refreshing at this point in the album. This tone pops up frequently throughout the song, juxtaposing roaring electronics at one point and low rumbles at others. At around the six minute mark, a buzzing noise starts to pan back and forth across both channels before abruptly halting. A burst of cloudy noise emerges, as if snapping all the previous sounds into place. The surrounding fog dissipates and the track soon ends. Busman's Holiday concludes with what's perhaps its most surprising track. Both Drumm and Lescalleet have made incredibly "pretty" pieces before, both individually (Imperial Distortion, Shut In, Archaic Architecture) and together ("The Abyss"), but it's accomplished here in a way that's far more affecting. "Honest Toil" consists of a high-pitched tone, a shifting drone, and the sounds of various objects and machinery. It's all incredibly delicate and all these specific sounds—light tapping, miniature squeaks, the flipping of switches—are carefully organized as to sustain the track's child-like essence. These small sounds brings to mind moments in Keith Rowe and Graham Lambkin's Making A, though with a much sweeter tone (alternatively, a less saccharine Four Forms). One such example is an incredibly delightful moment at 2:54, when a tiny beep and ticking sound play harmoniously. Even when the rattling gets a bit noisy, the sustained sound of the other instruments help to maintain the piece's calming mood. A looping melody eventually appears and closes out the album on a nostalgic note. It may be too romantic for some but it feels appropriate both as a musical contrast to the previous tracks and as a final statement regarding the album's theme. Work is tiring and overwhelming but in the warmth of this final track comes encouragement from Drumm and Lescalleet to persevere. |