Pan Global Riot by Paul Baran

 

In a world of increasingly shorter and shorter attention span that us, receivers and the audience, students, communicators and actors on the social stage, albums like this not only remind us of a completely different narrative that is actually working very well but also help us to understand the mosaic of  today's cross-referential reality in terms of politics and social problems and issues.

Paul Baran is the master of oblique strategies, creating moods and climaxes within a very wide range of tools he is using and his own label of music which is actually beyond labels. When you absorb and learn from your influences - using them, utilizing them to the point of crossing - then you find your own voices. Paul, not only has found this voice long ago but turned it into his own advantage into polyphony which is highly unique if not unlikely in modern world of electroacoustic music, music that defies genres and looks into narrow alleys in between the sounds.

Spoken word, new wave, sampling techniques, good old ditties and tunes, plunderphonics but done with majestic tenderness and tactfulness, free jazz, even elements of no wave funk, electroacoustic experiments, multi-dimensional counterpoints which are like dots in the diorama and so much more. It is all here.

And although a double cd set beautifully edited and published in yellow black tones that immediately catch up on you in terms of impression they are making as a sign of alertness. it is all done in such a well thought through way that it is smoothly transporting you between the stations.

The mastering and production are flexible enough to bend to the listener's ear inviting to the second and third repeat.

It is definitely one of the albums that is both rich in meanings and has a rare tenderness of an eloquent musical flaneur. Well done!

Bandcamp Link