An Inescapable Siren Within Earshot Distance Therein and Other Whereabouts

This Moe! Staiano's Moe!kestra! album brings together two extended pieces for unusual orchestras that will appeal to fans of Lawrence "Butch" Morres or even Rhys Chatham or Glenn Branca, as the massed band sound is worked in minimalist ways that produce an overpowering effect. "Piece No. 7" is subtitled "An Inescapable Siren Within Earshot Distance Therein and Other Whereabouts," and is scored for strings (four violins and two contrabasses), percussion (seven players), six E-stringed guitars, u-bolts (eight players), wine glasses (nine players) and sirens (three). The first two-thirds of the half-hour work are extremely quiet and highly textural, with clusters of held sounds hovering uncertainly, occasionally giving a taste of what is to come. In the last third, unisons rise and fall like gigantic waves or even siren wails — and of course the latter image is the right one, as becomes obvious when the sirens join the chorus for the last couple of minutes. Apocalyptic and incredibly powerful, the piece succeeds with few means and a lot of decibels. "Piece No. 7" was recorded live in June 2003. It is bassist Matthew Sperry's last recording (he was killed by a car while riding his bike to work two days later). "Piece No. 5" for large orchestra dates back to November 1998. Here the orchestra is somewhat more conventional: thirty-three players in all, with strings, winds and brass sections, seven electric guitars, a theremin (Robert Silverman) and conductor Moe Staiano credited on "dropped objects." This one feels both less and more composed than "Piece No. 7": less in that for the first half of its 20 minutes, the music sounds more freely conducted — one can easily picture the musicians following hand signals regulating groupings and dynamics — but also more in that, in the second half, everybody launch on cue into a fast-paced written-down motif that counts more notes than all of "Piece No. 7" (at least, it feels like it). "Piece No. 5" is therefore more entertaining, yet less striking than the massed sounds of the title work, and it leaves the listener hanging on an unsatisfying fade-out. ~ François Couture, Rovi