Reunion with Wolf Eyes

 

Wolf Eyes and Anthony Braxton

Zebulon Cafe, Los Angeles

4th October 2023

The notorious original meeting of B. with (former?) noise terrorists Wolf Eyes took place, of course, at the Victoriaville #22 Festival in 2005, and chances are that anyone who is reading this already knows the story of how it came about - but just in case: B. caught the experimental band's show at a festival in Sweden in 2004, and was so excited by their music that he bought all their CDs from the merch table, joking afterwards that he had been feverishly planning to move to Sweden so that he could play with them (not realising at first that they were American). When the band was booked to play at Victoriaville the following year, on the day between B's duo with Fred Frith and the working sextet's GTM performance, it seemed inevitable that the maestro would end up sitting in with the group. John Olson described the meeting as "a perfect match"; B. himself said "they felt like family immediately. The communication was immediate."* As we all know, this ended up being released on CD. 

Fast-forward eighteen years...

The "rematch" features a slimmed-down Wolf Eyes, now just a duo with longtime member Olson** partnering founder Nate Young. The concert comprised two sets: one of almost fifty minutes, and a much shorter one in which two brief pieces were played. [Thanks to McClintic Sphere for sending me the links to these clips.] In an ideal world we would only need to consider the music; unfortunately, that wasn't the main takeaway from watching these videos. For those of us who had been wondering if age would ever really start to catch up with the evergreen Mr B., the answer is found right here. We need to deal with this before we go any further.

The good news is that I'm not sure what happened is quite as bad as I probably just made it sound. B. begins the first set standing up, although a chair has been provided for him in case it's needed; within the first ten minutes, it becomes clear that he is struggling a bit. In full flow, he begins stumbling backwards towards his chair, and as the backs of his legs locate it, he sits down hard and immediately stops playing. (This occurs at 09.45 in the first video.) He makes an instant attempt to stand up again, but doesn't manage it; a second attempt is successful, and he takes a couple of steps forwards as he begins to play once more - with all of his usual fluency and power: Olson and Young are completely absorbed in their own work, and if either of them has noticed what just took place, they give no sign of it. When B's knees begin to give way again, he staggers backwards in search of the chair, finds only the front edge of it, and at 10.30 he commits his weight to the unbalanced chair, overturning it and falling to the ground in the process. There are shocked gasps from the audience, and Young and Olson stop playing and help B. back to his feet, righting the chair and settling him on it before returning to their places as if nothing has happened; after a few seconds to compose himself, B. begins playing again, rather tentatively at first, but by 11.25 he is in full control again. Some altissimo squeaks precede a short demonstration of his "harsh breathing" technique, one of his trademarks for years now, and this elicits a broad smile and rhythmic nods from Young. From this point on, it is almost as if nothing untoward has happened.

B. continues to play seated for the rest of the concert, which is evidently not his preferred way to do things, but the flesh is weak... or at least weakening. From the chair, he proceeds to give a perfectly good account of himself and although he lays out for several minutes late in the set, this does not appear to be forced on him. He plays with all his customary authority and control and does not seem to be overly discomfited by his fall - and to be clear, it's not precisely a fall that we've just witnessed, more that he sits on the wrong part of the chair, which then cannot hold him. But it's not nice to see, and I was quite glad that McC had already warned me about this. What is clear, and undeniable, is that much as B. wishes to play standing up, his legs - I presume it's really his knees - can't cope with this for more than a few minutes. This happens to us all eventually, assuming we live long enough; with all the musicians of the "free era" who have already departed from this plane, it's quite a wonder that B., Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill are all not just still among us, but still active and creative, but age will catch up with everyone and as much as I have dreaded having to address this issue in these pages, it was inevitable that I would have to do so at some point.

At the end of the first set, the applause is loud and enthusiastic, and B. rises cautiously to his feet to take a bow, and punch the air a couple of times; there is a quick consultation between the players, and Young announces that "Anthony wants to chill, then come back and play...". And this is indeed what transpires, although as outlined above, the second set is more like a double-encore really. The maestro wisely remains seated for this, but once again, he takes the applause standing up and repeats both the careful bow and the clenched-fist salute. Life in the old dog yet. As the three players make their way slowly from the stage, B. does like an old man: the brain - and lungs, and fingers - still functions as well as ever, but the appendicular skeleton is starting to feel all those long years. 

At the risk of delivering an anticlimax, then, there is relatively little to say about the actual music: not that there is anything wrong with it, it's more that it is just what one would expect to result from this sort of meeting. The maestro sticks to alto sax throughout; Young plays electronics exclusively, with just some occasional vocals (especially in the second set); Olson uses electronic processing as well, but mainly plays a small horn or pipe followed by a three-piece metal frame with a mouthpiece attached, apparently of his own devising. The ambience in the long main piece is mournful and ominous rather than harsh and confrontational (hence my wondering in the first line above if the group is now to be considered "former" noise terrorists, after all this time), and it need come as no surprise at all that B. feels at home within such a soundscape, which is really not that different from some of the more experimental DCWM pieces. At least some of the electronic processing appears to consist in sampling the aerophones in real time and playing them back in modified form, or at least that's how I heard it. The first short number in the second set is a little more aggressive in tone, with not just a regular electronic pulse but a sort of siren effect as well. None of this puts B. out in the slightest... but then, if he actually listened to his CD purchases back in 2004 and afterwards, he will have been fully prepared for all this and more ;-)

For the time being, at least, the live performances continue - it may be that eventually our man will be restricted to composing and will no longer want to play live at all, but let's be thankful that we aren't there yet. A few days after this performance, B. gave a solo concert, also in LA - I have been pointed towards some (short) clips from this, too, but haven't seen them yet. Another post will be in order, in due course...

* This event has its own fairly detailed Wikipedia page these days. (I had remembered the background and context to the meeting - but the direct quotes were new to me.)

** John Olson in particular is a hugely prolific noise musician, basically an American analogue to Masami (Merzbow) Akita. He also runs the American Tapes label - which, again, is ludicrously prolific in its output. Much of its catalogue was both strictly limited-edition, and regarded as highly collectible: I know that at one point our very own Avto G. used to find himself bidding for these items on eBay against Henry Rollins, a dedicated collector of such stuff who was (apparently) convinced that Olson's label and its output were the "new thing" of our time and would command high prices in years to come...