AMM - AMMMusic (1966) [SAA Album Club discussion thread]
 

AMM - AMMMusic (1966)

This album was recommended by Skaligojurah and he had some interesting things to say about it:

Listened to it just awhile ago to refresh my memory, and still a very good listen. It didn't give me the same effect as when I first listened to it. With the shrieking violin, and seemingly random drum solos, transistor radio spewing off random unrelated statements. It was like falling into a schizophrenic Hell.

On this listen, I got the same effect, but it was a bit more comfortable. I get the feeling this is one of those albums you NEED to listen to on good speakers/headphones cause I used to listen to it with either, or, and it's lost a bit of power.

Still though, my biggest complaint on last listen was the fact it just felt too short. Not a bad complaint at all considering. If I were to give it a star rating it'd be a 4/5. Seeing as, I consider it an amazing feat of subconscious musicianship to be able to create something with such a thick, convincing, dramatic effect with no preparation at all whatsoever. Yet, I don't think it has the lasting value to be worth 4.5 or 5 out of 5.

Mm. Much better than the other good one I heard from these guys a while back (Newfoundland). When you don't pay too much attention to it, it operates almost like a drone record, which is a nice side effect.

However, obviously, the most intriguing thing about this style of music is to devote a lot of effort to it. When I actually began to pick apart the various instruments and the manipulations being thrust upon them, I started to enjoy it a lot more. Not like my enjoyment skyrocketed, but once you understand the sources of all of these sounds and how they morph so freely, you get more out of it.

Taking a crash course on the history of the band through Wikipedia or something really doesn't hurt, and it'll help you appreciate (if not like) these sounds.

This one was already in my collection as well. It sure as hell ain't easy listening. I think this is an important genre stretching record. It may be worth pointing out that this record predates Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun by four years. I mentioned Keith Rowe on the experimental guitarists thread. Anyway, this is a brutal record. It gives the listener far less to hang on to than something like Ornette's Free Jazz. Now, on our last discussion I got in trouble for comparing Private/Public to Hole. I do think there is some, and hopefully more valid, reason to compare this record to The Magic City by Sun Ra. They both push the boundaries of free jazz and have a kind of random nature and they both came out in 1966. Without a doubt this was some of the hippest stuff of that time. AMMMusic is one of the great moments of 20th C music.

Absolute classic in my eyes. I actually made a thread about this band a while back but, alas, it garnered no replies. Glad to see this, I discovered them during my explorations into the murkier depths of Krautrock (They're English, I know), in particular Limbus 4 (with whom Amm share a similiar musical approach I think), and was blown away upon my first listen of AMMMusic.. I suppose the reasons I love this album so much are the egoless and non-idiomatic manner with which the group plays quite standard instrumentation - and the ways they meld this with altogether stranger audio manipulations. To me it's free improvisation sounding its most threatening, if you can survive the album's duration you best be prepared with a dust pan and brush - because your brain will be all over the shop come the end.

That's a great point. Ego can be a beautiful and powerful aspect in music but I've always had great respect for musicians who can get beyond it. One of my treasures on vinyl is all about that: Sun Ra meets John Cage.

I was actually massively disappointed with Sun Ra meets John Cage. It sounded too much like they were taking turns, and I felt Cage's contribution was kind of weak.

They're very patiently taking turns.

Cage's solo spots ruined the whole thing, in my eyes. I mean, I practically splooged myself just on hearing that there was a John Cage meets Sun Ra as they were both two of my heroes at the time(and still are).

Sun Ra was amazing. Then again, give the man a keyboard, and he always is. But that's all we got, Sun Ra's raw keyboard solos intermixed with Cage's, frankly terrible, acupella spoken word pieces.

I was hoping Cage would have brought the fullest of his creative mind, and got the transistor radios in, and brought some game pieces, or something. Putting the focal point in Sun Ra's adeptness to improvisation to John Cage's uncanny compositional inventiveness. Instead, I got them doing two completely different things, only one of those two things I liked, but not amazingly.

Seriously, listening to the whole thing broke my heart, and completely slaughtered, and raped, the child inside me.

I guess I'll give up trying to sell it to you. lol