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Scudgeon

by Sleet

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1.
Scudgeon Prologue 01:35
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2.
Aggregation 05:20
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3.
Scudgeon 08:50
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4.
Dopodiscudgeon 12:41
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5.
Scudgeon Girls 07:46
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about

A meditation on the meaning of Scudgeon, from the originators of the form.

Scudgeon Prologue

Bass and drums throw down a groove, guitar peeks in like a bright satellite, bass goes staccato, the guitar smears grains of notes over it, and it all goes well until the end.

Aggregation

Guitar and bass start by producing a frenzy of fluttering notes, which they execute for an impressive amount of time. Things become more like story time and an insistence asserts itself, and then is dissolved into guitar shatters. You’re about halfway through when everything becomes quite alarming. It backs off just before it gets deathly and gallops into a muffled funk, splattered by guitar. It gets pretty epic, in a string scratching way, and then mounts the hill and sighs.

Scudgeon

Starts full force slamming bass, a rock hard beat, and a lonely horn wailing in the back. Some oblique guitar comes in and out. Way behind this, piano is slammed, in poor fairgrounds tuning. It starts a-shambling after the lugubrious bass and echo-flavored guitar go on a while. It gets hard after five minutes, then pulls back into a guitar explosion. Bass and bass-string guitar do an interplay of similar licks, then the guitar goes to outer space, while the bass lays in the gutter low, until it's just bossin' around the beat. Towards the seven minute mark things get a bit aggressive, until the bass climbs back down, and the drums lead us back into the intellectual dignity of chaos.
The ending is a miraculous moment.

Dopodiscudgeon

Horns sigh in plaintive heights, a skip in the recording, and the piano climbs, the horn follows at a distance, some electronic viola comes in, the ensemble relax into the comforting dignity of chaos, until the piano starts a pedantic little stomp. Pop music turns sour, keys unwind, horns and violas howl, tiny taps instruct the piano in time. The piano steps up, the drums rally, then it all goes wild with sonority. Piano and drums grope for sanity, clouds of soprano keys jingle, a rumble bubbles up, drums tumble after, and the piano goes early sixties horror movie atonal. Other players chime in, the big ring rings, a MacOS plink rings out, and repetition tempers a dissonant resolve, causing a pile on of playing everywhere, while the piano flirts with annoyance. Hell, you’re past ten minutes into this thing, and you kind of want to see where it’s going. Meanwhile the music becomes quite concrete, adhered by the constant rattle of the drums. Hundreds of musical comedy show themes hint in and out of existence, and then Tom seals the show.

Scudgeon Girls

Deliberate graveyard drums and roadside piano rise up over the mineral dust of the far west, then amp up into some kind of adventure. The chords remain funereal, then single notes plod around all twelve tones, burst by urgent harmonies matching the beat, inspiring some drums, fracturing into light chords. Then, on a typical Sleet dime, drums and piano shift strings. The bass swings into things, and the piano drops back to chords, and at five minutes it gets very descriptive, sketching a kind of military adventure in a wasteland of unbearable heat. The piano gets frantic, which calls for an intervention by the drums, joined by the bass, as the piano continues its frenzies, popping to a bass slam stop, chords ring over the funk, drums insist on supremacy in galloping churns with the piano.

credits

released September 16, 2016

Thom Sleet: drums & horn
William Morris: guitar
Tony Patti: drums & piano
Other people may be on this recording; no notes were kept.

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