All Music Guide
Michigan's Northwoods Improvisers have, for over a decade, provided the underground with some of the most satisfying, confounding, and tonally inventive music on the scene, though they are seldom acknowledged for it. Star Garden was recorded over 1998 and '99 as a trio by Mike Gilmore on guitar, Mike Johnson on bass, and Nick Ashton on drums and percussion. John Plough and Kirk Lucas aided them on Indian percussion in various places. Also important here is that everything on Star Garden was recorded live to tape with no overdubbing. There were no alternate takes. Overall, the sound in Star Garden is reserved, yet mysterious. From the outset on "Raga Ramakali," which reveals the influence of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, we can hear the Improvisers move toward large modal scales as a way of unfolding intricate melodies amid the droning guitars and percussion. Everything moves along a linear path, dipping and rising, just enough to make the drones seem necessary to build this scalar unive...rse upon. Also remarkable are the predominantly percussion jams like "Clay River," where dumbeks, log drums, cow bell, and African wood flutes swirl slowly and hypnotically into a whole of startling beauty, distilling everything into a moment where time opens itself to the listener and the dark, yet resonant heart of the music becomes the sole element that moves it. And while this can be said of most of the material found on this album, it all comes to a stellar, if quiet, conclusion at the end of the recording on the title track, dedicated to the late Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. Here the improvisers use shakuhachi, zither, cheng, tamburas, kit drums, and hand percussion to create a microtonal universe of crystalline order and placement. Tones are sounded on the zither and lie there, open and jagged until from the heart of silence, they are replied to by other instruments, sometimes one at a time, sometimes in groups. This is a gradually unfolding symphony of durational improvisation, where phrases, ideas, and movement all reflect the timelessness of silence. Silence itself is rearranged according to space and sonance and integration, and the listener falls into a gentle, yet sweeping abyss of texture, nuance, and atmospheric delight. This may be the finest offering yet from a band that has yet to disappoint. - Thom Jurek, All Music Guide Read more Less
