The Most Of Now

by Nikola Kodjabashia ReR USA, Denver, CO, 2007 CD, ReR NK2, $15.95 US Distributor’s website: http://www.rerusa.com

Bug Guitar Computer

by Steve MacLean ReR USA, Denver, CO, 2007 CD, ReR SM3, $15.95 US Distributor’s website: http://www.rerusa.com

Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University, Michigan

mosher@svsu.edu



These two very likeable CDs both provided memorable automobile listening experiences in the Midwestern summer.

The Most of Now is an hour-long work, built upon variations upon a melodic theme. Kodjabashia composed, arranged, edited and produced it over the past ten years, and recorded it at Zlust Studios, Skopje, Macedonia. His musical collaborators are Balkan musicians on traditional cabaret-combo instrumentation of piano, drums, violin and strings, duble bass and clarinet. There is guitar on only two of the sixteen tracks, but virtual instrument samples on four of them.

One is reminded of the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" from the 1968 version of "The Thomas Crown Affair." The CD is cinematic in conception, like an early James Bond movie set in the Balkans; the final track is even called "Tango de Bond". The different styles of music it contains suggest different scenes of as movie, from the jazzy drumming behind a spirited chase, to liturgically-influenced track as the hero scouts out a church.

Rolling over country roads and through city streets in the ripeness of late summer, this very urbane and urbane composition felt in tune with the melancholy of the changing season and promise of autumn to come. The coolness of the music reflected the cool temperature of the night air. In the tri-fold in side the CD Kodjabashia writes that the piece is "a chronicle, a metaphorical navigation between trees, memories and faces as they replace one another in a car window".

Popping Steve MacLean's Frog Bug Guitar Computer into the CD player created a different musico-automotive experience. Suddenly the suburban streets (on the way to my dentist!) were teeming ponds, full of little creatures singing in the cattails while McLean sat in a boat nonchalantly strumming or plunking away inventively.

The CD grows out of field recording on Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Integral to it are the contributions of California frogs croaking and chirping in late May, and exuberantly noisy insects recorded on Long Island in late August. The third sound-producing element is MacLean's on-site solo acoustic guitar playing, improvising in response to both environments and their animal populations. He didn’t add edits or overdubs, though admits manipulation of timing and pitch elements in the CDs detailed notes on his process. MacLean's collaboration with nature made for peaceful listening in the car on my return drive. Appropriately, the final track on the album is even called "The Long Road Home."