Ryan Jewell - Radio: Vol. 2

[Notice Recordings]

Brian Olewnick:

"A common complaint I've had over the years, especially, as it happens, with percussionists, is their reluctance to concentrate on one area or aspect of their instrument for extended periods. Jewell has no problems in this regard. Often a "regular" drummer as nearly as I can discern (I believe I've only previously encountered his work in a collaborative context), on this cassette release he engages in two lengthy explorations of "limited" territory with fine results. I'm not precisely sure what elements were used here but it seems to be some mix of electronics and percussion, or at least percussion-sourced recordings. On the first track, "O-O" (recorded in 2010), the world is one of acid sizzles and a rough, rubbed sound that occasionally grows into quasi-vocal moans that remind me very much of the nocturnal, unconscious murmurings of Robert Ashley in his "Automatic Writing" and is similarly disturbing. It's not that shifts of focus don't occur; they do, but feel absolutely appropriate, like moving smoothly to an adjacent, related space, here one where the rubbing becomes more vivid and stone-like, achieving a fine, near-chaotic state, ending with a couple minutes of soft, brushy sound and a punctuative clunk. The second side of the cassette, "OO" (2009), sounds more purely percussive to me and is even more concentrated, Jewell producing, through rubbing both smooth and rough, wonderful nests of sounds existing somewhere between tones and rapid rhythms, rising periodically to a frightening wail. He spends the entire cut right in almost the same spot, not generating anything new or spectacular but, better, letting the richness of what he's initially discovered sink in. That's something I greatly appreciate, wish it happened more often.

Excellent work, highly recommended."

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2014/10/ry ... o-vol.html

(Tape is still available.)

[Notice Recordings]

Vital Weekly:

"Ryan Jewell is from Columbus, Ohio (a bit further south from Chicago, if I recall well) and is mainly a percussion player. He has had previous releases reviewed in Vital weekly before, under which is his solo record 'Eschew Obfuscation; Espouse Elucidation' (Vital Weekly 763), besides stuff he did with others, such as Mike Khoury (Vital Weekly 731) and The Rejuvenation Trio (Vital Weekly 770). His style is quite interesting. While I was first playing this I didn't realize Jewell was actually a percussionist (the previous releases are from some time ago, so I may be excused for not immediately realizing this), but I was thinking along the lines of musique concrete, tape collage and electronics. After some time I realized it seemed all to be more about the use of acoustic objects being played, rubbed against each other and then I realized the historical component of his work. I started to hear this again and listened afresh. The recordings are a bit older, from 2009 and 2010, and both for radio programs (hence the title). Jewell plays some highly intense pieces of music, with that vague notion of things being rhythmical, but a lot of it could easily count for something noisy or drone like. There is some highly intense soundscaping going on in this release, with a high strong dynamic level. Excellent and extreme music: that's how we like these best. (FdW)"

Few copies of this left.