The Other Shore

Don't let the Zen references fool you — this is not music for meditation. On the contrary, these nine improvisations by guitarist G.E. Stinson, electric violinist Jeff Gauthier, and percussionist Alex Cline are consistently challenging and sometimes downright abrasive. What saves the music from inaccessibility is a combination of three things: First, Gauthier and Stinson tend to work in washes, generally employing effects that minimize attack and create big, floating nimbuses of sound. Second, Cline tends to use percussion as a textural (rather than a rhythmic) tool. Third, each member of the trio consciously works to subsume his individual contributions into the ensemble sound; this means that each player is constantly adding new ideas, but no one pushes to the front or plays any "look at me" licks. Only Gauthier tends to stand out, by virtue of the tone of his instrument — on "Asunder" and "Driving to Iceland," for instance, he weaves his keening violin through clouds of heavily treated guitar and pointillistic percussion. There are some whimsical moments, such as the jaunty and clattery "Froggy's Midnight Cabaret" (which sounds kind of like a homage to Fred Frith). But, paradoxically (remember those Zen references?), the album's climax is the glacially slow "Nothing to Teach," which ends the program with ten minutes of very little sound — a minimal violin part that sounds like something out of an Arvo Part composition, a suspended wash of guitar, an occasional gong. It's a strange, slightly eerie, but ultimately deeply moving piece, a fitting end to a stunning album.