OSMAN ARABI - INTENT
fort evil fruit 2017, edition of 60
"From Tripoli, Lebanon, currently based in Berlin, Arabi's various activities encompass harsh noise (notably his 20.SV project), black metal, industrial and free improvisation. Intent follows on from his 2014 solo electric guitar cassette for The Tapeworm, Destroying Symmetry, which Byron Coley suggested combined the 'melodic astringency' of Bill Orcutt with the 'semi-ecstatic [and] hermetic' approach of Matt Valentine. Here, each track consists of two improvised guitar parts, matched in mood but overlaid blindly without specific reference to each other. From the clash of random elements an overarching meditative synchronicity emerges. Improvised, channeled and recorded in one take on the 9th of August 2015 at Big Snuff Studio Berlin. Engineered and mixed by Lucas Behrens." - FORT EVIL FRUIT
mention BILL ORCUTT and cook up phrases like "hermetic improvised guitar" and "meditative synchronicity" and you are sure to pique my interest, but reference MATT VALENTINE and you get bumped to the top of the heap - i vaguely recall perusing DESTROYING SYMMETRY, and though INTENT seems assembled from much the same parts, ARABI took something good and made it great, as this is thee perfect reformation of his sonic assemblage, conjuring a ghost in the machine which exceeds quantification
this MV reference, you gotta go back to early 2000s MEDICINE SHOW output like MOON JOOK and THE URANIAN RAY - sublime spacetime rupture by way of folk guitar deconstruction - with one end cutting closer to avant folk guru JON COLLIN's improvisational wizardry and on the other TOM CARTER's transcendental blues destruction, quite literally, as the tracks have acoustic guitar panned to one channel and electric to the other - i rather enjoy the effect myself - it really grabs you like how COLEMAN's FREE JAZZ and COLTRANE's ASCENSION jump out at you in stereo, except INTENT inverts the function with a less is more philosophy
to be sure, this is top shelf deeply affected flickering single take improvisation, a glorious fusion of monastic meditation and appalachian lonerism, or a tripoli by way of berlin approximation thereof, that comes off kinda like CHARALAMBIDES churnin through outer limits variations on the STOOGES "l.a. blues" approaching JANDEKian reinterpretations of SLINT's SPIDERLAND - yeah, it's that good
