Alex Zhang Hungtai – Young Gods Run Free LP

Description

For 46 minutes,Alex Zhang Hungtaipunctures the perception of linearity, working like a conductor, encouraging percussive flurries to trip and fall over each other, sometimes tempered by contact mic feedback to help skewer the chronology. He’s assisted by three additional percussionists —Wet Hair‘sRyan GarbesandShawn Reed, andLeonard King– whileSignal Decay‘sNick Yeck-Staufferplays trumpet, with each extra voice blurred into the middle distance, curling like pipe smoke into convulsive whorls. The piece is frankly astonishing in its grasp of the maelstrom. Initially tentative, searching, with higher register hits like moths butting lone lightbulbs in an abandoned apartment block, the distant, plangent peal of twin brass wafts between rooms to impart a distinctly floating, OOBE-like feel for space. The brass recedes while the drums’ low end thickens and roils like a gamelan tempest, blurring impressions of knackered buildings or the temple rituals of ancient epochs, with sounds wafting in from other rooms to mess with the stereo field like ghosts of worshippers doing their thing. Remarkably, it conjures a fever dream miasma of ricocheting, thunderous polymetric clatter and proprioceptive fuckery without ever losing its head. Hungtai’s canny use of contact mic feedback drone and cymbal saw gives the whole thing a sense of gauzy delirium that unites the grouches like mildewed grout and cobwebs, coarsely gelling the elements in a way that resonates withPauline Oliverosand co’sDeep Listeningband acousmagique as much asBasil Kirchin‘s keelingWorld Within Worldclassic, the ghosts ofSun Ra‘sNuclear War, the possessed atmosphere of the cabin whereHarley GaberrecordedWind Rises in the North, and no doubtHarry Bertoia‘s massive metallic sculptures, agitated at midnight. Humid, menacing, and wraithlike, the album’s sense of keening chronics belies a visionary hand at the tiller, here tightened byRashad Becker‘s mastering, which faithfully brings to light, and shadow, the depth of perception and wild but concentrated energies at play, sealing in place a truly staggering session for adventurous ears, cineastes and Lynchian acolytes alike. The LP is pressed on transparent orange vinyl. Hungtai is a saxophonist-composer and actor renowned for his work asDirty BeachesandLove Theme, appearing inDavid Lynch‘sTwin Peaks: The Return, and more recently scoring the award-winningGodland.