Aranos is a unique musician, a classically-trained cellist andmulti-instrumentalist whose resume is not filled with the usual chambermusic ensembles, modern composition or minimalist drone work that onemight expect. Instead, he has become noteworthy based on a series ofuncategorizable collaborations with Nurse With Wound that sidestep allof the usual implications of avant-classical composition. Aranos'peculiar style is based in the Eastern European gypsy songs, trad-folkand rock music of his childhood in Czechoslovakia. From hiscollaborations with Steven Stapleton, he absorbed the techniques ofdislocated psychedelia and surrealistic composition. Those techniqueswere in full display with the Irish jigs, skewed gypsy fiddles andcracked experimentation of his first two albums for his own Pieroslabel. For this album, Aranos collaborates with El Monte, the nom deguerre of Nick Mott of Volcano The Bear. Allied Cooking But Not As You Know It!is a collection of eleven improvised tracks, utilizing an array ofinstruments including the usual strings, shakahuchi, trumpet,saxophone, gongs and an array of homemade instruments. In a techniqueworthy of Eno's Oblique Strategies, each improvisation is based uponmeditation on a nonsensical imperative — "Think Like Warm IntestinalBeing!" or "Think Like Madly Projected Fleshcups!" Their collaborationresults in a series of low key tracks, meandering around a series ofsubtle conversations that scrupulously avoid musicality entirely.Several tracks create the abstract mental imagery of dark jungles anddamp marshes, with the slowly rubbed cello strings creating an creepingatmosphere of dread. At other times, the music is decidedly morehyperactive, Aranos jumping over his strings like a frog in a fryingpan. On "Think Like Veering Toads and Rude Proons!" an odd speakerglitch creates a brief piece of minimalist electronica worthy of theRaster-Noton label. Apparently, this was all recorded and mixed in thespan of a week that El Monte spent in Ireland with Aranos.Unfortunately, this really shows, as the whole affair seems to sufferfrom a severe dearth of well-executed musical ideas, attempting tocompensate for this lack with an overdose of creepy atmospherics,exclamation points and surreal gobbledygook. samples:
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