JEPH JERMAN – Keep The Drum: Concussion Solos CD (New Forces 2021, orig. Apraxia 1990)
JEPH JERMAN – Keep The Drum: Concussion Solos CD (New Forces 2021, orig. Apraxia 1990)
By the time of its original release, Keep The Drum must have seemed rather out of place in Jerman's circles, and especially in his discography. This seems funny, as so much of what I hear in these 30-something year old recordings, I also hear in what he does today. Much more so than what he did as Hands To around the same time. That alone is enough to warrant this reissue, I think, but there's so much more to it. The title, Keep The Drum: Concussion Solos, to me, hints at something far more monotonous than what it is. The setup – trying to "rethink the traditional drumkit" using vary mundane objects – might seem limited, but the results are pretty wild. If you've heard his drumming in the band Blowhole, you'll know he isn't exactly conventional behind a traditional drumkit to begin with. And while the sounds appear mostly as they are, uneffected and unprocessed by any electric gadgets other than the medium, Jerman can't keep from messing with the recording tape itself, stretching it and cutting things up here and there, and it's all the more rich for it.
One can divide the tracks into four loose categories: the heavy, the noisy, the acoustic and the tiny. None of them stand out more than the other really, they're all great tracks. What they all have in common is that they all pop, snap, crackle, grind, sing and sting in a very effortlessly penetrating way. It's as if one's brain and eardrums are laid bare under Jerman's hands and objects.
The heavy drowsy tracks at their best, opener "Striation" and "Snares" in particular, deliver blows to your head, by means of stretching and mistrating the tape as mentioned, which has your senses lag and vibrate in slow motion. True time-stoppers. The noisy ones on the other hand are slight shockers in that they see Jerman move pretty much with both feet into early New Blockaders territory, with loud "naturally distorted" screech and Cosmo-Kramer-in-a-toolshed racket - “X2” being the loud epic. The more discreet tracks are surprisingly few, but recall Small Cruel Party just as much as present day Jerman in a baffling way – "Motor/Bone set" is the key track in this category. The acoustic category (the whole album is, but with this category I refer to the tracks where the sounds are allowed to ring and resound to their fullest) include the album's perhaps strongest moments. "Spindles", a way too brief, shimmering mesmerizer. Fascinating how it despite its less than two minute duration manage to completely suck you in. Closing track "Tandem" almost feels like a recap of what you've just been sitting through, mashed and cut up into an intense finale, yet with big gestures and plenty of room.
Given the, at least to me, short-selling title, I don't think I would have coughed up the cash for an expensive original – which I normally would for some old Hands To cassette – and we should all be grateful to New Forces for having the good taste of making such a treacherously low-key old title widely available at an affordable price, giving you no excuse not to dive in. Especially as it comes across as an important and formative recording in the discography of one of the greats. Literally crucial album.