BABEL fragments
The word “fracture” in the title of Anti-Social Music’s 2010 innova release, Fracture: The Music of Pat Muchmore, was more than a mere descriptor of the music it contained — it was an overarching ethos about how the music was constructed. Now, Muchmore has shifted his focus from the fracturing to the fallout with BABEL fragments.
While there are still moments of active breaking, BABEL fragments mostly concerns itself with enigmatic, evocative musical shards that gesture toward a broken world beyond the destruction. It’s concerned with the apparent impossibility of true communication, with the frailty of language, with the frantic search for personal connection as a bulwark against disintegration. As John Jeremiah Sullivan said of the pre-Hispanic petroglyphs of America, “It’s dangerous to read something when you can’t really read it. And we can’t. Try to see it. That’s hard enough.”
The album features violinist Jean Cook (of ASM and Beauty Pill), violinist Hubert Chen (of ASM and the New York Repertory Orchestra) and saxophonist/clarinetist Ken Thomson (of Bang on a Can All-Stars, Asphalt Orchestra, Slow/Fast and gutbucket). The second piece features coloratura soprano Kamala Sankaram (of ASM, Bombay Rickey, the Wooster Group and the Tri-Centric Orchestra). Recorded and mixed at the rock- and heavy-metal-focused studio Spaceman Sound, BABEL fragments was produced by Tom Tierney (of Tidal Arms, Julie Christmas and Suncruiser), who has recorded, mixed and/or mastered for artists and bands like Netherlands, Candiria and Kid Millions.
