Reviews
Still Single, published on Dusted Magazine.
Jørgen Teller and the Empty Stares – Live Arrogant LP
Free rock-oriented guitar wandering with a rhythm section who showed up for jazz (Soren Gørm’s upright bass is a dead giveaway) but are made to play it straight. Kinda hard to tell where this one was going at first, but any doubts are dispelled in the first five minutes or so. There’s a good bit of interesting musicianship at play, and guitarist Teller and company certainly don’t shy from guttural heaviness where it is needed most. Primal, pounding drum tribe matches well with the enormity of acoustic/pickup string bass, and Teller’s wild, lacerating barbed-wire guitar halos evoke “Death Valley ‘69” with Caspar Brotzmann instead of Lydia Lunch. Four songs that lurch uneasily between jazzbo meditation with spindly noise guitar, and pounding crime beat noir-bop with expressive noise slash guitar (think the “sack of oranges” speech in “The Grifters” is apropos of the dread and premeditated violence at play in this sound). The deeper you go into this one, the more impressed you’ll be – this trio definitely has the chops that most workaday guitar destruction combos are unable to issue forth, and the formal background of non-rock music only makes the pummeling you’ll receive bruise you up even harder. Silkscreened sleeve with few credits. (http://mastermindrec.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
Terminal-boredom
Jorgen Teller & the Empty Stairs s/t LP
A whole lotta sprawling improv guitar and psych-jazz jizz on this, all recorded live. Sometimes it gets a good pounder rolling on but often it looses me in its confused meanderings. Believe you me…this is a jazz record. The second side esp. will let ya know. Skronk-n-wonk of a less focused or unscripted Chatham? The Gordons getting lost in a haze, stumbling about and losing their pop hooks. All that and the vocal mic don’t work….Chris Corsano goes a-pounding, teaming up with Mingus and Thurston more. Who the hell truly knows, but it is squawking like a goose in heat. A trio of Denmark scene vets/room clearers who probably are a blast live from what I can tell. As the pieces continue thru uncertain travels, they hit an almost Branca/Sightings abrasive stride…only to collapse in sonic shards of dust n debris. When it cooks it cooks. I just have a hard time getting past simmer. There’s quite an attack for those brave enuff to stick it out til the ends of the tracks. Better be open minded and not looking for some power pop poofsterism, I reckon.(RSF)
Spirit of Orr
JØRGEN TELLER AND THE EMPTY STAIRS::Live Arrogant
The very first LP to be issued featuring this long-running band of COPENHAGEN's deep pocket. JØRGEN TELLER has been not-so-quietly disseminating his energetic and passionate approach to sound & movement for nearly 30 years in COPENHAGEN, PARIS, and wherever he finds himself. Much of his work is found only in the dance and experimental dance communities where he works closely with dancers and choreographers. When he gets to playing his homemade EL BASTARD "guitar" it is mainly with the trio he assembled with the brilliant and powerful SOREN GØRM (double bass) also an under-known electronic and sound explorer in his own right, and (compared to the other two) young upstart drummer TOBIAS KIRSTEIN (LIGHTS PEOPLE). This LP is music taken from a live recording in AARHUS DENMARK in 2007. Limited to 300 copies.