Robert Morris (1931-) is a multi-discipline artist who has had a long career, rife with periods of high-prolificacy in the areas of performance art, minimalist sculpture, “process art,” and others. In the 1960s, after creating art using mostly geometrics and hard industrial surfaces, he began to investigate soft industrial material that was flexible and resisted being formed into defined shapes. One such installation on which Morris uses this technique and material is “Untitled” (1967-68), which consists of 254 pieces of grey felt lumped on the ground. “Untitled” is not only noteworthy as an example of his shift in style and material at the time, but because the pieces of felt fall where they will each time it is displayed, the installation is different every time. The role of chance is in contrast to his intentional, harder-edged minimalist sculptures.
In music, this is tougher to achieve. Live, there is no shortage of bands who improvise and open their music to the mercy of spur-of-the-moment reactions or random effects, so much so that many of the acts Tiny Mix Tapes covers regularly are freeform chancers first, songwriters second. On recordings, it is almost impossible to get this dice-roll result with each listen. The album that keeps on giving is rare, but artists have tricks at the ready to change things up every time you play it, either by layering to the point of obsession or placing intermittent and unconventional sounds among silence, using a full complement of instruments and objects to bury sound.
If an aural equivalent to Morris’ “Untitled” ever emerges, it will likely come from a band such as Sky City, a group that includes frequent collaborators Tom Carter (Charalambides) and Robert Horton, along with percussive and vocal manipulators Lisa and Lee Ann Cameron. The four songs on Sky City are long pieces of concrète with the opener, “Are You the Solar Ark or Not,” being the most obtuse, with its sharp clashes of metal percussion among rubber bands, static and fuzz, electronic messes, and fascinating tools such as the el barometer, vitaminder, sinewaves, and the electric thumb.
“The Sky is Crying” is less confrontational. Mixing some of Carter’s trusty ebow guitar with long stretches of squealing and woozy feedback, it makes for a nice bluesy feast. Inadvertently, it builds into a rather compelling mantra -- nothing that will wind you with excitement, but it is hypnotic nonetheless. The track ends with Lee Ann Cameron exorcising some serious vocal demons that had me turning away from my burrito to get a more focused listen. Besides a handful of female vocal improvisers (Yoko, Julie Driscoll/Tippetts, Mary Margaret O’Hara), I am at a complete loss when it comes to this kind of thing, and although many would find this caterwauling offensive (including me, most of the time), it works nicely, especially on “The Sky Is Crying,” as does the jet stream of noise during the last minute.
Completely devoid of form and structure, Sky City works as background music, but is not exactly arresting, serving more as an interesting curio and little else. Sound collectors will enjoy the acoustic and electronic gewgaws thrown in among the extended sections of creepy and pulsating mood (“It’s After the End of the World,” with its crying souls) and spacey soundtrack (“A Visit to Sky City,” which sounds like the marching band of the dead). And who knows, for those who relish a challenge and have enough dedication and time on their hands, they may discover the first fully functional happenstance record in the world. A different listen every time.
More about: Sky City (Tom Carter, Robert Horton, Lisa & Lee Ann Cameron)
