CHRIS CORSANO - The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]) [lp]

Drummer Chris Corsano is a tireless collaborator. Among the 150 or so albums
that he's contributed to over the past 25 years, only six have been credited to
Chris alone, which makes the existence of The Key (Became The Important Thing
[& Then Just Faded Away]) a rare instance of Chris going deep on his own vision.
Indeed, this album finds him involved in every aspect of the process, from making
the string-drums that the music is based upon, to playing all parts of the music,
mixing them, and doing the cover art, too! Frankly, we're surprised Chris didn't

self-release it as well-but we're also psyched that he didn't. This is a spe-
cial album, bringing his encompassing focus on free improvisation and noise into

a granular fusion with acoustic experiments and ideations of hard rock riffing and
the post-punk sound.
In Chris Corsano's collaborations over time with Paul Flaherty,
Joe McPhee, Dredd Foole, Michael Flower, Paul Dunmall, Bill Orcutt,
Nate Wooley, Mette Rasmussen, C. Spencer Yeh, Ben Chasny & Sir
Richard Bishop (as individuals, and together as Rangda), Bill Nace, Wally
Shoup, Evan Parker and dozens of other players, it's clear the vibe may get
intense/heavy/OUT. Accessing this place, in itself, is an incredible calling-but
on The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]), the intensity
radiates entirely from inside Chris's process, in conversation with himself. And
that's something that hit a bit different once he was done making it.
The pieces here were largely built out of Chris's string drum playing,
utilizing a setup he's created involving a silicone string, stretched across a snare
drum with a bridge. When the string is hit, it resonates the drum-a conception
similar to that of the banjo, but with more of a bass tone. Several songs focus on
Chris playing a bass string drum with a full kit, while the basic parts of two other

pieces ("I Don't Have Missions," "The Full-Measure Wash Down") implied possibili-
ties for full band arrangements which Chris was compelled to respond to himself.

This isn't the first time he's made overdubbed music, Corsano-on-Corsano style

-jump in the Bandcamp time machine to hear the Corsano "Band"s 2010 re-
lease, High and Dry-but it did have the effect of feeling unusually personal.

The process of exploration and discovery uniquely informed and shaped

the music, implying not just sounds and passages, but structures of songs them-
selves. In addition to the several synapse-clearing full-band arrangements, Chris's

solo drumkit performances with the bass string drum take flight, the shape of their

movement based on interaction with its marvelous acoustics. Further, Chris's gui-
tar playing on "I Don't Have Missions," a semi-unconscious attempt to Frankenstein

together the influences of several of his six-string collaborators, locates a new
awesome space in his music facilitated through and furthering the sounds found
playing the string drum.
All the results on the tape, when listened back, found a higher order,
transcending sequences of experimentation and technique, becoming much more
than the sum of an internal conversation, standing together as a set of insistently
compelling pieces of a whole. And so they became The Key (Became the Important
Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]). They unlocked something in Chris Corsano
-and us too. Now it's your turn...

Vinyl release of Chris Corsano - The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]) [lp]. Released through DRAG CITY and available on LP.