Gregory Uhlmann: Extra Stars
Gregory Uhlmann’s membership in the instrumental collective SML puts him close to two members of Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet: bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson, which could go a long way toward explaining why the L.A.-via-Chicago guitarist often garners comparisons to the Tortoise and Chicago Underground Quartet legend. Parker actually teaching Uhlmann, at one point, according to an interview Uhlmann gave the Raven Sings the Blues blog probably doesn’t hurt, either. But aside from a fondness for elliptical phrasing — both musicians view the beat as a locked door and see notes as tools to jimmy it open — Uhlmann’s sound has never much resembled Parker’s. Parker favors close, precise detail work, while Uhlmann prefers wide, airbrushed strokes. On his latest solo album, Uhlmann puts even more distance between himself and Parker, and between him sound and the groove-heavy vibes of SML.
The faux-awkward opener “Pocket Snail” lays out Extra Stars‘ idiosyncratic approach. It begins with a galumphing bass line on the synth, with a timbre and tone that would be called circuslike if the tempo weren’t so lububrious. But it also has a weird daintiness, like a cartoon elephant that’s just seen a mouse. Uhlmann then lays down some reverb-heavy, aching and echoing guitar lines, which at first mimic the bass line, but soon expand, filling up the song with smeared sunset hues. The stodgy rhythm and yearning melody proceed in counterpoint before locking into a stately, slightly deranged, waltz. It’s unnerving to hear things that don’t and probably shouldn’t belong together achieve harmony, but it’s also deeply satisfying on some weird level.
The elements of “Lucia” fit together from the start, with a Uhlmann playing a syncopated pizzicato pattern against the gentle, repeated plink of a small bell. Long, wavering synth tones outline the initial melody, which guest Alabaster DePlume greatly enhances with some yolky, gorgeously wobbly sax work. Wordless vocals and recorder trills add extra texture, but the impression of watching a newborn colt learn how to walk never entirely leaves. Later tracks grow more complex, but an air of freshness, an atmosphere of gentle overload and innocent euphoria, pervades everything. Extra Stars has a winsome naïveté that verges on twee but never falls into it. This music may be self-consciously delicate, but it’s not putting up a front; it has an earnestness that’s entirely on the level, while retaining an interior reserve that gives it a sense of mystery.
Sometimes, Uhlmann just goes with the flow, as on “Days,” the longest track on the record at a little over seven minutes. Over a lullaby cadence, Uhlmann plays his guitar as if it were a string of shells hung up on a porch, swaying and ruffling in the tropical wind. “Days” has a spellbound, aqueous quality, with Optigan-like organ and twinkling piano spirals decorating Uhlmann’s recurrent chords. If Extra Stars at first evokes the shock of being, “Days” marks a sort of stunned acceptance of time’s slow whorl. The song’s warm intimacy suggests nostalgia, but a sense of dissonant déjà vu hovers around the edges; an undeniable domesticity is counterbalanced by a strange displacement. There’s a suspicion of a storm brewing, out there in the long distance, perhaps too distant to be tracked, but recognized on some psychic and/or cellular level.
Fellow SML players show up on the record’s back half, for several shorter tracks that resemble sketches and experiments. Butterss and Johnson guest on “Bristlecone,” but don’t bring the band’s trademark reverberant zones– instead they join Uhlmann in walking on eggshells, creating a series of synth, bass and processed alto sax that move in tandem in a careful, cultlike processional. Jeremiah Chiu co-produces the electronics-forward “Dottie” and “Worms Eye,” giving the latter a clockwork burble (and more copious underwater vibes) and the former a snappy shimmer, bolstered by Uhlmann’s percussive, melodic two-note figure — it sounds like a vocal -free Young Marble Giants with a much better home studio. Chiu also plays synth on “Voice Exchange,” which chops up a vocal sample from former Illinoise (yes, the Sufjan Stevens musical) cast member Tasha Viets-VanLear into interlocking, oddly shaped pieces. Booker Stardrum is apparently involved in “Back Scratch,” but you might have trouble discerning his percussion amid the layered piano riffs and chiming keyboard repetition that gradually coheres into a pleasant gamelan chatter.
Texturally and tonally, Extra Stars is all over the place. Uhlmann’s previous non-SML projects, with Johnson and Sam Wilkes, avant-folkie Meg Duffy and experimental guitarist Dustin Wong, differ drastically from each other, but all have a core individual sound. Extra Stars has a much wider range, its restlessness always carrying it beyond the borders of the known. Uhlmann has always elongated and bent his notes; now he’s stretching himself. But as s tracks like “Imprint,” which melds the bassy plod of “Pocket Snail” with the melodic wistfulness of “Days” attest, the warping process only makes Uhlmann’s peculiar emotional resonance more resilient.
Ray Jackson, Aquarium Drunkard