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Maitreya Jumbo Recordings CD-R £7.99 In the late 1990s Mr Dorgon aka Gordon Knauer, produced a puzzling series of self-released CDs that were packaged with a bunch of deliberate mis-information and ultra-crude hand-made art and that featured Dorgon himself on alto sax and sometime collaborators William Parker on bass and Laura Cromwell on drums. In the intervening years he pretty much fell off the map but the aesthetic that he helped birth back then only seems to have grown in strength, with a whole bunch of underground players now regularly combining freely improvised form with rough hand-made and home-burned aesthetics and a prodigious shot of post-punk energy. A few years ago Dorgon released an insane turntable set alongside DJ $ Shot and a collection of "intuitive and counter-intuitive musical scores" bound in a handmade zine and while they functioned as evidence that he was at least alive and thinking, the music lacked some of the garage-spirit and brut feel of his earlier sides. Maitreya, then, spearheads a virtual Dorgon revival that includes a host of new releases on his label that span solo electronics, Tibetan Ur-drone and a collaboration with Greg Kelley of Nmperign, all of which take full advantage of the CD-R format, one that seems perfectly suited to the overall rough-hewn arc of his trail. In many ways Maitreya feels like a return to the source, with Dorgon back playing saxophone, even as it sees him incorporating electronics and overdubbed woodwind. The first track, "Rekakt", is described as being scored "for woodwind ensemble" and consists of a seething backdrop of high owl tones and crackling, modally-inflected drones that feels like David Tudor's "Rainforest" recording given a paint-peeling blow-torch. Riding a crest of overtones, Dorgon takes some delay-damaged saxophone solos, huffing huge chunks of lung into hallucinatory reports that sound like Peter Brötzmann breaking rank from a psychedelically-fortified Globe Unity Orchestra. The second track, "Simultaneous" is scored for electronics and feels like a mirror-image of "Rekakt" with the same juddering, deep-field sound given a frisson of high voltage and the combination of free jazz praxis and defiantly modern extrapolation makes for another, extremely potent slice of illuminated personal process. Welcome back. |
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1111 Jumbo Recordings CD £8.99 It was the beautiful, melancholy saxophone style that defined the bulk of Dorgon's playing on 9, his first duo set with bassist William Parker, that first raised so many eyebrows and here he brings it on again for the sad parade of "Hardcore (Brooklyn)". It's a chuffing, slow-burning study in the midnight tone of Lester Young and Freedom Frank Lowe and beautifully showcases duo partner Sam Ulano's ultra primitive Shaggs inspired drum style. Elsewhere Dorgon lights out into previously undocumented territory with pieces for string quartet and lone cello. "Study #2", performed by Rufus Capadocia on cello, packs all the aggression of Dumitrescu at his most possessed alongside a satisfyingly metallic sense of bombast. The "String Quartet" piece, again not actually featuring Dorgon himself, throbs and subsides like the MacLise-led Velvets, as cello and bass work ominous circles around each other. However it's the epic closer, "For Ja", that's the real meat; a honey-thick investigation into deep trance and drone with Dorgon delicately teasing rich arching harmonics from tamburas. It's this intuitive human depth - equally focussed over a multitude of forms - that marks him out as one to pin your hopes on. Like nothing else this side of Moondog. Packaged in corrugated card cover with original art and insert. |
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Erection + Wreckage Jumbo Recordings CD £8.99 Solo free jazz mangle from Dorgon, who plays saxophone, thumb piano, clarinet and congas and is occasionally joined by his shadow, DJ $ Shot. |
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Smell The Glove Jumbo Recordings CD-R £7.99 Beautifully packaged sampler of various Dorgon-related projects, with blats from Mr Dorgon himself (clarinet solo and harmonica solo), DJ $ Shot and Anti-Catholic Same-Sex Marriage (duo of Dorgon on sax and clarinet and Rob Price on theremin). |
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Bumbaklaat Jumbo Recordings CD-R £7.99 Harsh electronics and long zones of woozy analog sickness, Borbeto-style tone-huffing, delayed/disembodied vocals and heavy drone impact from Mr Dorgon. Nice PMRC-baiting sleeve too. |
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Rrose Selavy Jumbo Recordings CD-R £7.99 Wild, heavy Tibetan ritual with head-crunching power pipes, goat chant and black, cultic atmospherics that sounds closest to a Satanic Ghost freely extrapolating on Cro-Magnon's "Caledonia". Totally unlike anything else from Dorgon's lips. Amazing. |
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s/t Jumbo Recordings CD £8.99 Big-band punk Arkestra moves, with Dorgon on saxophone and clarinet, Laura Cromwell on drums, Curtis Hasselbring on guitar and trombone, Ted Reichman on accordion and Matt Moran on Vibes. |
