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    Digital Dark Age
    Destroy All Anti-Heroes By David Ensminger Although the Anarchitex have roamed the post-punk musical landscape of Houston for nearly three decades, the band's cantankerous barrage of noise remains far under the radar. Hopefully their newest and most chiseled release, Digital Dark Age, will finally crown them alongside other local veterans like The Hates and Mydolls as both survivors and sonic entrepreneurs, albeit with a more caustic underbelly than both. Part of their raw genius sprouts from Anarchitex's messy and motley history. At various times, band members have been involved in projects far and wide, including Naked Amerika, Really Red, the Pain Teens and Happy Fingers Institute. These bands made their marks at venues like the Island and Axiom in the 1980s, Commerce St. Warehouse and Catal Huyuk in the 1990s, and Rudyard's and The Mink these past few years. 'The creativity of the early Houston scene had a profound influence,' emphasizes singer John Reen Davis. 'Hanging around Ronnie Bond's [of Really Red] store Real Records taught me a lot. We started out as a keyboard-driven experimental band. Now, we're a power trio with [a] vocalist. 'Yes, we've changed, but the changes have been the result of artistic restlessness rather than any attempt to 'keep up' with the music world,' vows Davis. 'We've never tried to sound like other bands. We've never even tried to sound like the Anarchitex. We find it best to operate without a plan.' While their brethren have receded into the dustbin of history, the Anarchitex have proven that resilience and fortitude, maintained in the name of rebel art without pause, can keep a band prolific, poetic and pithy. 'We remain steadfast by writing songs with eternal themes, like U.S. imperial hegemony,' intones guitarist and singer Torry Mercer. 'Songs about how shitty the government [is] seem to remain timeless.' Digital Dark Age aims for the jugular of the modern information society, with it's entropy, pratfalls and false freedoms. Attacking at slanted angles with scissory irony, Anarchitex's wit is endless, emboldened by Davis's kitchen-sink realism and Dada style, which mingle in ravaging wordplay. 'Button on a Lapel' is a kind of anti-nostalgia ('I'm too old to skateboard / I'm too old to care') leveled off by urban haiku, seen from the point of view of a bus rider surrounded by blue-haired women and old men with Vaseline eyes. Meanwhile, the buzzing dark thunder of 'Blank Wall' feels like a meld of Midwest noise bands like Tar, the post-hardcore of Monorchid and Circus Lupus, and the rosters of 1980s labels like Rough Trade. The song lacerates religion, martyrdom, war and a future made possible by '99 percent of the people who do little more than take up space.' It is both a warning and a creed. 'CaCa Convention' is a succinct diatribe against political machinations and capitalism - an easy target, perhaps - while Midnight Oil rhythmic rumbles and lyrical sentiments pervade 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime?' The images of trampled working-class heroes and ruined Yankee Doodle innocence invoke the sizzling and sweeping books of Howard Zinn and John Dos Passos. 'Big Grey Boat' aims more internationally, cataloging the invasions of Grenada, Nicaragua and Lebanon. In such accounts, laissez-faire capitalism and war machinery go unchecked. History becomes an atrocity exhibition. Yet, the band packs some humor, even when dealing with heavy-duty topics. 'Growing up in a segregated Southern city where the police chief was head of the state KKK, rendered Nazi scientists started NASA and the space/arms race/Cold War, and oil-company tycoons plotted world domination using the CIA to destroy nascent Third World democracies, actually had no bearing on our sonic disturbances whatsoever,' admits Mercer with a sly smile. 'Falling asleep to the constant whir of window-unit air conditioners, however, was profoundly influential to our sound.' 'I Had a Science Fiction Childhood' is as demented as an early Ramones song: Mutants, electrodes and double-matinee monster movies crowd the narrative. It unveils the paranoid side of bubblegum punk, though the pop-culture detritus is broken, fragmented and chopped up by the stuttered tour de force. Lastly, tunes like 'We Are More Intelligent,' not unlike the mid-paced growl of iconic Big Boys at their early peak (but sans off-kilter funk), offer plenty of attitude and bile, howls and aggression, too. It spits in the face of public good-spiritedness, but with mock vitriol. Such slogans bite hard. The Anarchitex do not indulge in a rock and roll minstrel show, offer a redux sound of 1982, or forge a simple radical-politics looking glass. But they do revisit classic punk subjects with a vengeance. I might be crazy, listeners can hear them say between the lines of songs, but I am an unapologetic product of the world that hegemony makes and maintains. I am a babe in the blackened iHeart of the New World. And why is the Digital Age so dark in their point of view? 'The term 'Digital Dark Age' alludes to the impermanence of everything in a digital format,' says Mercer, 'If there is a future, folks there may never know anything about the times we live in now because some nitwit in the basement forgot to back up the files last night.' Former enfant terrible Johnny Lydon might be no more than a suntanned facsimile of his former self, but these pasty men have not suffered the same mind-numbing fate. Though casual listeners may mistake the album for a series of bitter and demented harangues, or as a breeding ground for helter-skelter explosivity, a taut tunefulness exists in the defoliated landscape of the Anarchitex's songs, where paroxysm and prose go hand in hand. Anger is still their inexhaustible energy. They wield it like a baton against the blunders of the world, with precision. 'It's our revenge on everybody who ever made fun of us,' Davis reveals. 'Like the prom scene in Carrie.' Houston Press Wednesday, Apr 20 2011.
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    Tony Tobin Plays Scarlatti Mozart & Brahms
    Domenico Scarlatti wrote over 600 keyboard sonatas. Many styles and moods are represented in such a vast repertoire. The three on this recording represent a range of emotions, from the bright E-Major (L.430) with it's momentum building triplets, to the pensive g-minor (L.128) which transports the listener to another world, and finally the virtuosic and well-known d-minor (L. 422). A trip through the Lukmanier Pass in Switzerland and on to the Valle Verzasca inspired me to program these Sonatas as I felt the history and soul of a bygone Italian era in the stone bridges, churches, and rugged alpine landscapes. Mozart's Piano Sonata in c-minor K. 457, composed in Vienna in 1784, was published in 1785 with the Fantasy in c-minor K. 475. Both are dramatic works and among the only minor key solo works Mozart wrote for piano, including the popular a-minor Sonata K. 310. Mozart carefully selected the keys of his pieces and c-minor is considered especially expressive. Strong contrasts of emotion and dynamics in the CPE Bach style of 'Sturm und Drang' characterize both the Sonata and Fantasy. They are among my favorite works to perform in recital due to the depth of emotion possible. Brahms' Intermezzi Opus 117 were written in 1892, the year Brahms lost a close friend and his sister Elise. Brahms said the third, in c#-minor was 'the lullaby of all my grief.' All three works are pensive and introspective and suggest elements of the cycle of life. The first Intermezzo, in Eb-Major Andante moderato, alludes to sleep and youth with a line from a famous Scottish lullaby quoted on the first page: 'Balou, my boy, lie still and sleep, it grieves me sore to hear thee weep.' The mood is calm although the middle section alludes to underlying tension. The second Intermezzo, in b-flat-minor Andante non troppo e con molta espressione, features a rather sad and lilting melody that suggest a struggle with life, with the memories of the past, or with the knowledge that life will end and cross over to another realm. The last section explodes with the struggle and restatements of the them until the tragedy and weight of b-flat-minor emerges with a slowly rising arpeggiation that reveal the tonic, fifth and then the minor 3rd to suggest defeat and sadness. The 3rd Intermezzo, in c#-minor Andante con Moto, starts with a glimmer of hope with the motion of the opening 8th notes and the rising, striving melodic line. The second section evolves with a sighing repeated motive that adds tension to the motion. Sections repeated themselves highlight the instability and uncertainty until a cryptic transition, with fermata pauses, chromatically leads the melody back to a re-harmonized opening theme. Repetition seems to signal defeat as the piece ends with one last theme restatement and an affirmation of the c#-sharp minor tonic with spare chord voicings. Life is not an easy proposition and death may not always provide the dead or the survivors with the peace they hope for. This Opus 117 set is among Brahms' most personal solo piano works.
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    When Music Sounds
    The UUlations is a female a capella group that performs a variety of music, including ballads, classical, folk, devotional works and jazz. Director Jennifer Kobayashi and member Diane Taraz have created many arrangements for the group, which performs at such community venues as Red Cross blood drives, galleries, and senior centers. The name UUlations alludes to the words celebration and elation while expressing the group's connection to the Unitarian Universalist Church. All the members attend First Parish UU of Arlington, Massachusetts, and the UUlations originally formed to participate in church activities. The name also references ululation, which is an undulating cry of celebration or lament performed usually by women in Arabic and African cultures. The UUlations are Meg Candilore, Lorraine Cooley, Laurie Francis, Carolyn Hodges, Dorothy May, Wendy Page, Carol Seitz, Diane Taraz, and director Jennifer Kobayashi. The CD was recorded at Saint Anne Chapel at the Bethany House of Prayer in Arlington, an amazing space of stone and wood built in the 1920s.
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    Incantations & Inspirations
    Duo D'Amore's two-fold aim is based on this aesthetic: To seek the modern in the old and the old in the modern. They achieve this both through fresh interpretations of standard repertoire, as well as representing the modern-ness of Baroque instruments in specially-commissioned works. Their performances of Baroque and contemporary repertories have been applauded wherever they have toured. The name Duo D'Amore alludes to the unique and haunting lyricism of the oboe d'amore complimented with the harpsichord's dazzling tones. A harmonious marriage of opposites. Oboist Geoffrey Burgess and harpischordist Elaine Funaro, each widely recognized as outstanding in their field, have been performing together since 2002. In addition to appearances in the Carolinas and New England, they have toured together in Australia and given workshops and educational programs around the US. They have recorded for the Australian Broadcasting Commission and their first commercial CD of new music will be released later this year. Their recital at the 2005 Boston Early Music Festival has was acclaimed by the critis and stimulated much interest from audience as well as composers drawn to the particular style of cross-over fostered by Duo D'Amore. Duo D'Amore's innovative programs are built around the extensive 18th-century music for oboe and harpsichord. The group uses historical instruments to best capture the authentic character of this music, and with the same instruments explores new soundscapes that have opened up in 20th- and 21st-century compositions, many of which have been inspired by the ensemble's performances. One of the most radical events in twentieth-century music history was the rebirth of the so-called 'authentic' instruments. In a sense these have become the most modern and innovative forms now in use. The 1950s and 60s saw the rediscovery of the 'baroque' oboe and the pinnacle of the harpsichord revival. This period also saw the rise of the avant garde with it's redefinition of boundary between 'music' and 'noise'. Likewise the Early Music movement exploded the horizons of the mainstream music tradition by reviving historical sonirities.
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